Nine Inch Nails Film Festival

This is my own submission for the film festival that I did in 2008. I don't know what's going on with the festival but I am currently working on another experimental video as a submission or simply to share on Youtube. 

A Dream

- = Me           > = A godly fathomless creature

- Who are you?

> You have forgotten who you are and we have come to take you out of your world. You have succumbed into this world long enough, you are lost now.

- I don't understand

> Of course you don't. Even this form of communication is yours, a complicated language to put all that must be said in words.

- Are you God?

> No. You invented god.

- What do you mean that I created all this? I am only a human being!

> That is where you are lost. Your world is beautiful but its beauty has lured you, you made it with such details that you believe they are real.

- Then who am I?

> You are one of us. We are the universe. We create worlds out of our image. Our thoughts can be made solid. You see that wood and stone? You imagined it therefore it is. No other creature like us has created the things you have.

- But what about history and time?

> Inexistent

- Do you have your own world then?

> Yes

- And it's nothing like this?

> No. all our worlds are different. Mine has no atmospheres such as this. It does not consist of shapes or gravity. This can be complicated for you to understand.

- If I am like you how did it come about that I have all the aspects of a human being?

> You wanted it to happen but it cannot be. When you realize who you are you will no longer have the attachment of a human body.

- Then if not this then what is our purpose?

> To create worlds and have one day create the real world by the great one.

- So there is a God?

> In your terms yes but for us it's hardly a god. In your understanding we end up being God.

- So why come in my dreams?

> You believe in all this so much that you would have thought you died and it would take longer to bring you back.

- What about ghosts, apparitions, insanity? Everything else in this world?

> We have been trying to reach you through other ways and the only way we found was through your dreaming.

- To me Earth has been here for millions of years but how long have I been here?

> Time does not exist for we are everlasting. It can be a millisecond to make billions of years or billions of years to create a millisecond. 

- So when I depart from here will all this be destroyed?

> How can something be destroyed when it does not exist?

- Is there good or evil in our existence?

> No. there is no necessity.

- What is the point of a world without feeling or end?

> You say that because you are overwhelmed with emotion. That was the sole purpose of this world but each world has a different purpose. 

- What about pain, despair, war?

> You needed something to look forward to. All this is also hope, prosperity, change. It’s a balance of things. Good comes from evil and evil comes from good.

- What if I am just mad and I don't know? Is there such a thing as madness?

> No. The people you consider to be mad or insane are the ones you've told the truth. What you call sane are the ones who you've blinded. 

- Why do you bother with me? Why don't you ask me anything?

> I know everything. Just as I know how this conversation began I know exactly how it will end. Everything you create comes from our existence we just expand it; only here there are no condemnations.

- How do I know that this isn't the real world?

> You don't.

Note: I had this dream when I was sixteen. When I awoke I quickly wrote down what I remembered and this was the result. 

A Quote

"They say men are smarter because they use their head and women weaker because they're run by emotions, but it is only when men use their emotions that they go down in history and women who put aside their feelings are remembered forever."

The Red Sun

Sometimes the sun comes through red

piercing through the cracks and holes

It's brightness seems as poetry

phrasing our wretched cruelty

red as in fury

warm in it's enduring.

Slowly diminishing below as our sanity through a hole

Silence is music during these evenings

there is no whisper of breath

rays are the sound

and it is the sun that consumes me

the one that sings to me

When it is yellow it burns me

but when it becomes red

it punctures through me

mixes with my blood and it drains fully

thickening in me thoroughly

The sun can be vile

or it is me that becomes entire

When others are possessed by the moon and the stars

the sun came to me and took me above

During the day it tries to take me away

I am blind as if entwined

this power comes through the cracks

and it seems my sanity is on a ledge

but the sun keeps me and it seems to save me

still, this insanity can easily enslave me.

(written on a newspaper, on a hotel bathroom)


As one love dies 
one is born, 
Romance of the century
endured. 
Weeping as beautiful 
as laughter. 
Last breath
just as the seed inhales life. 
Time, 
untold secrets. 
An atmosphere of past revolving,
ever evolving. 

The "I Am" Poem

Pretty Object

I was the most beautiful woman not five minutes ago. Some attention, praise, even a dirty compliment was always enough but now he scurried down on the floor picking up his clothes. The eyes that had once distinguished me with desire and admiration glanced at me with seeming disgust. What qualities I had possessed vanished and turned into this creature that used beauty for gain. I could do nothing but keep my indifference to his growing animosity. I knew what he was thinking. His raised eyebrow, the way he buttoned his shirt in that same somber look that had enveloped his face like a dark shadow, it all spelled it out for me clearer than words. If I looked up to meet his eyes again he would strike me. They tend to think they have that right. I took the mint chocolate from the pillow, pretending to do anything but watch him. I didn’t have to see him to know that his disgust had turned to malice. And somehow I couldn't think of any other group of women that have been looked down on with such contempt. Men wanted to forget us as soon as possible but I chose to remember. I memorized them all to the smallest unpleasant detail.

This one would've had to be one of the most unattractive with skinny harry legs, excess skin, and a face only a mother could love. He adjusted the wedding ring in his finger. I pictured the wife that had to put up with him; perhaps someone he even disgusted over. But at this moment neither of them was repulsive. It was me who always ended up being the sinful degenerate. He failed to realize that perhaps it was me that was considerate in being with him at all. I had the tendency of agreeing to an offer from those whom I called the “disturbed”. The ones that often became violent to relieve their consciousness. The girls and I always made eye contact when they approached us. After a few years in this business we could know everything from a face. They feared them so they ignored but I smiled invitingly and the rest as surely followed. It was always a bit distressing but I’d make double the profit. The difficult part was not the intimacy but the minute after when the atmosphere so suddenly filled with sour awkwardness. I smelled his musky cologne on me; an acrid scent that went well with him. Now that he finished dressing I was left hoping he reached for his wallet next. He circled the bed starring at me like an animal to its prey. I kept my head down like he wanted me to. Because I had been silent and obedient he would not beat me but he had within himself an ill will he meant to release, so I prepared myself. He shoved his hand in his pocket and took out a handful of dollar bills. I would have rejoiced if I wouldn't have been expectant to unpleasantness. He threw the money over me like throwing rations to a dog. He bent his face close to mine, his eyes pierced right through me and suddenly I wanted it to be over. I heard him work his mouth and to my disgust I knew at once what he meant to do. He spit in my face and my eyes immediately blinked away the saliva that had landed inside of them. He opened the door and looked back at me once more. I remained seated, slowly wiping away the spit with my hands. He chuckled and slammed the door behind him.

You cannot ask why we do this. Though some may give a personal complex answer, as a whole it still remains a question unanswered. The only thing that can be said is that someone has to do it. Though we are creatures of the night we have to live to bear the existence of the day where the light shines on us as the scum, the used, and neglected. We exist in hushed voices excluded from society. We are merchants; the difference in our sell is that our body is the object at auction. It’s not a justification just another way of life, and some of us loose that lust for life and become empty shells that live merely to exist. But we have thoughts and we have feelings and somehow we learn to coexist with the rest of the world.

After washing my face and adjusting myself I sat in the bed. I finished my regular quantity of clients for the night and the room was paid for, so I sat down and picked the remote control from the dresser. “Pretty Woman” was on channel five. I gave a little laugh thinking of the awful irony. I thought about the pretty lies they implanted on the film. From my experience rich men were always the worse. They didn't care of the values or talents we possessed, if any. In fact, they looked down at them; they didn't want to see us as women but as objects of pleasure. But when she kissed him on the lips I couldn't help but heave a long wistful sigh. From the night’s exertions I became drowsy and soon fell asleep.

I awoke from a thump that wasn’t coming from the television. Immediately I realized the TV had been turned off as were the lights. A flash showered the obscure room with red light coming in from the window; I knew it was from the hotel sign blinking outside. I slowly sat up and began to make out the outline of a man approaching me. Every flashing light created an affect that made him seem to hover towards me. The cheap cologne enveloped my nose and I recognized the white button shirt. One red look from his eyes and I knew he was there to murder me. He stood over me, when the red light shone again it sparkled on the shinny object in his right hand. I did not scream and did not run because my precious redeemer had finally come. He watched me looking back at him expressionless. Perhaps he thought I was in shock or under the influence of a drug. I wanted to smile but I was motionless and expectant as before. The first stab brought a jolt of pain that covered my entire body but as the rest proceeded the pain was no more. Everything was hushed to silence as I laid there dying watching him retreat silently in the same hovering effect. I felt my lips smile and soon drifted into the unreturned form of unconsciousness. Even before my death I knew there would be no one to mourn my passing. Society would read the papers and in their minds and in their hearts believe I got what I deserved. If there was a service only the caretaker would be there asking himself why no one showed for the pretty woman.

Author's Note:
This was my submission for the 11th Annual Short Short Story competition for The Writer's Digest. I' currently writing another for the 12th Annual.

The Perfect Drug

I stumble, and reach for something to hold on to. Something. Anything. I do not want to fall, and I snatch at the drapes. The drapes tear. Oh, I am on hands and knees now.

I will not make a sound. If I fall, the servants will hear, and if they heard it would be so bothersome, they would double their whispers and sidelong glances, and it is so distasteful to deal with them at all. No, I am not driven by fear...merely expediency. So much of a bother to make

excuses.

Sometimes the absinthe comes strongly -- I can hardly sit still, I can hardly stand straight, and in the meantime ghosts and apparitions swirl from the windows, and conspire to throw me to the floor.

I willed myself to embrace the floor and negotiated with my rebelling limbs to lie prone on the cold tiles. I found myself nearly atop my bear rug, a gift from a long-gone adventuring friend. I saw the furred ear, the blanched beady eyes. Fur meant warmth, so I rolled towards it, settled and fell asleep.

And that was how I came to myself the next morning, alone in my sighing house, full of a longing for happier days now nearly forgotten. It was an inheritance meant to last me my days in comfort, but it had many years since become my cage. Life had long ago bled free of color and interest, and what a horrible freedom I was left with, cut loose from companionship, human warmth, love.

I have not left the grounds of my estate in years, maybe even a decade or more. Day after day, I see no-one besides the servants, my uncomprehending drones. Like animals they are, mindless extensions of the blank gray hills that I own, of the low hovels that spawned them. And like animals, they chatter and chatter. Their noisy ways prevent me from attaining absolute silence, the only possible achievement left to me, that my existence may perfectly mirror by physical means the state of my soul.

So it was until the day she came. One breath, and she was there in the anteroom where nothing had been, the servants scattering before her as if from some fierce predator, mottled black or ochre-striped, perhaps. But what was left standing calmly in the eye of my bondservants' rank fear was merely a girlchild, long chestnut hair contending with a boyish frock coat, and eyes set very deep. Eyes tha

t waited for some final calamity, and looked as if they were prepared to wait until the end of the world.

At first I did not know what to make of her. I saw her clear; the late morning sun had intensified its cloudy glare to some kind of head-pounding madness, and all I wanted was to draw the curtains. I did not care what might remain within the room after the curtains were drawn. So I remarked curtly to the chambermaid. I turned and walked back into the house. The servants gibbered. She followed.

I cannot remember when she first spoke, or what she first said -- when was it that I first knew she was not a changeling but a girl? I cannot remember. But her voice was as if reflected from the depths of walls, it was grey as the shade of hope left clinging in a corner, it was the bringer of wonders for which I had never dared hope.

From the first night of that first day, she was with me until every grey dawning. As nightly I took my absinthe, she put her little hand in mine. And as I sank into the warmth of slurred dreams and visions, of laments and regrets numbed by the agency of my green-eyed witch, she kept watch, and bore witness to my crimes. And she understood. And she forgave.

Her small grave voice was a shadow to my thoughts. Oh, how much it meant to me, that she understood every part of me, and as I began to pour my soul out to her she became m

y angel, my confessor, my savior. She was my constancy. She began to engulf me, and then I could not tell where she ended and I began, whether it was her arms around me at night, or my own wistful longing. And sometimes as I walked, I would look back in fear, that the soft sad footsteps that echoed mine might be just a fever dream -- that she might not be there.

I did not then and do not now know why she was given to me; I do not know what was the purpose, what was the truth, or the destination that she was meant to show me. But for her affection, her warmth, her sad grace, and the promise of something more...I followed blindly.

...

He is on a ledge now, and I am breathless. He might fall, or he might fly. Or both. I know the light hurts his eyes, though it is only moonlight; it is a full moon and a clear sky. And in his madness, he stares and stares and cannot stop. I watch from the garret window which had borne his abrupt exit not a moment before. And now he stands swaying upon the high peaked roof. Perhaps this time it will be the end of him. I know that is what he wants, though it be madness....

But a cursed fate follows him; just as the absinthe refuses to kill him, his fits and melancholia refuse to let him live. And I am breathless, because perhaps he may never come back to me and yet perhaps he will come back and I will cradle his head in my arms another night. He is not the only one who harbors secret hopes.

I hope he hasn't seen me. It upsets him to know that I am privy and prey to his madness...the near-constant imposition, once the sun has set, of a mind that can no longer quiet chaos, or loneliness, or despair. But I know he will reach out expecting my hand to steady him, again and again, tonight, and tomorrow night, and long after I am gone.

How will he fare without me? How can I go quietly away, knowing that I cannot be there to hold him steady, to hold him up? But it is not my choice to make. It is not my fate to stay by his side.

...

One. An intake of breath. Two. I can let it out. I can breathe. It has once again refused to kill me, my green mistress. My hands shake. I will not make a noise. I will not let the servants hear me, not this time, not again. I take the pain and shut it inside, so that it will not manifest in sound or action. Silence is the key...silence is the key to the kingdom of Heaven, but ah Mama, ah Papa! I cannot cross the gulf between us but I do wish so badly to see you both again. I know the absinthe is poisoning me. It matters not. She is gone, and any spark of will that had returned because of her is gone. Her little hand I shall hold no more. Her darkened eyes I shall see no more. My little ghost....

I found her at peace in her bed, in the room I gave her. It would have been hers for always. It would have been hers until we could have made it ours. But what I saw in the harsh winter sun which punctured the windows -- punctured my eyes! -- all I saw was a husk. My little angel, my little ghost! I covered her face. Her waiting eyes had finally seen some long-ago solemn vow fulfilled, and fled this bleak world.

But I am left. I, left behind! Little did I ever think that I would survive such sorrow but once, and now what misfortune to live to bear the final parting again! And nights I must struggle alone with the absinthe, and days I must wander alone. And I look behind me with a start, half-expecting a sigh, a breath, a small rustle of hair moving upon hair...and she is not there.

- Jean May Chen