I can see the finish line.

Right now, Like a Dog in Space is 62 pages long, which means it's officially the longest thing I've ever written, and I only have a finite number of scenes left to write. I had an epiphany this morning about how to bring it full circle and I'm really excited to get there.

Back when I was blogging on Livejournal (No link - it's full of emo shit), I'd occasionally post excerpts of things I was working on, or had worked on and put aside, and today I'd like to do something like that with a rough few first pages of Like a Dog in Space that I worked on over the summer on my way home from Blank YPF. I wrote about six pages, which included a frame story I ditched along with the earliest versions of the sisters centurion, although their names were Ingenuity, Perseverance, and Honesty then. Ingenuity made it furthest into the current draft but her name got changed to Possibility pretty quickly when I realized it was a clunker. Ivan's basically the same, though some of his temporality and goals got altered when I started working on it for real.

So then, for the rest of the post, enjoy the things I scrapped!

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(Crickets chirp through the thick air of a summer night. BEN and ANNIE lie in their pajamas on a beach blanket in a yard somewhere in the United States.)

BEN

Do you hear that?

ANNIE

Hear what?

BEN

That’s the sound of the universe dying.

ANNIE

Are you sure? I just hear crickets.

BEN

You know what I did at school?

ANNIE

Learned to use big words and act like you’re smarter than me?

BEN

No. I looked through a fancy telescope and I saw all the way out to the edge of the universe and do you know what I saw?

ANNIE

I don’t know… God?

BEN

No. I saw that the universe is dying. I saw light from stars so far away that it’s taken twelve billion years for their light to reach our eyes. It takes so long for their light to reach us that the stars aren’t even there any more by the time we see them. So what I saw, Annie, what I was looking at was a dead star. I was watching it die.

ANNIE
I liked you better when you didn’t talk like this, Ben.

BEN

Look up. One by one the stars are dying. The universe is going cold.

ANNIE
This is depressing.

BEN

Do you see it? The whole sky flickering out into oblivion—

(It gets slightly darker.)

ANNIE

It’s just getting cloudy. It’s supposed to rain after midnight.

BEN

And I walk through the streets every day, watching all of the people walk past, worrying about this-and-that-and-this-and-that, tied to their phones, and I wonder-

ANNIE

You’re being really weird, Ben.

BEN

Does anyone know the stars are dying?

(Annie looks at him for a moment, then rises to her feet.)

Where are you going?

ANNIE

Inside. Did you stop taking your pills?

BEN
They block the scientific process, little sister.

ANNIE

I’m telling Mom.

(She exits. Ben surveys the darkening sky.)

BEN

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. We’ve got front row seats to the farewell performance. Ladies and gentlemen, this is how the universe dies.

(He rises, picks up the blanket, and drapes it around his shoulders like a cape. The crickets chirp. In the distance, cars whiz down an interstate. And beneath it all, the tinkling sound of falling stars. Annie re-enters.)

ANNIE

Mom says to come inside and take your pills.

BEN
She does?

ANNIE
She also says that you’re twenty-three years old and she shouldn’t have to remind you to take them.

BEN
Tell her I’ll be in in a minute.

ANNIE

She said now.

BEN

I’m a big boy. I won’t get lost between here and the front door.

ANNIE

(Sigh.)

Ben.

BEN

(Bigger sigh.)

Annie.

ANNIE

…What am I going to tell Mom?

BEN

Just like I said, that I’ll be there in a minute.

ANNIE

And if you’re not?

BEN
Then she can come get me. Stop letting her make you do her dirty work.

(He nudges her away.)

Go on.

ANNIE
I’d better not get in trouble for this.

(She exits. Ben looks to the sky.)

BEN

I’m on to you. They might not know the light is fading, but I do. I will peer into your inky blackness and see nothing, seek the fires of creation and find only cinders, journey to that wall of brightness at the edge of the universe and find that the fires all burnt out a long time ago-

(The tinkling of falling stars grows louder, drowning out all other noise. A spot of light appears on Ben’s face. His speech gains a frenzied quality.)

Reality is an illusion and perception is a lie, the stars spin and then burn out-

(The light grows brighter.)

The constellations glow for a single moment and then blink out, like chain of Christmas lights gone bad-

(Brighter still.)

We burn, we are consumed, time marches on in the cold dark!

(A flash, and then sudden darkness. Through the dark, female voices sing a sweet three-part harmony.)

INGENUITY, HONESTY, AND PERSEVERANCE

Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mocking bird. And if that mocking bird don’t sing, mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring don’t shine…

(The voices are drowned out by the sound of falling stars. Lights up on INGENUITY, HONESTY, and PERSEVERANCE, kneeling. They all wear simple white dresses, the styles varying to be appropriate to their relative ages.

IVAN IVANOVITCH lies in front of them, his head in Ingenuity’s lap. He is barefoot and wears a shabby jumpsuit. One arm is decorated with a soviet sickle and hammer, the other with an illegible patch that gives the general impression of having to do with outer space. Around his forehead, he wears a paper headband emblazoned with the word “MAKET.”

In his arms, he holds a plush dog. If it were a real dog, it would weigh about thirteen pounds. The noise recedes after a moment.)

IVAN IVANOVITCH

I never had a mother.

HONESTY

Well, to be fair, neither did we.

IVAN IVANOVITCH

But you seem so… motherly.

INGENUITY

Hardly. You just don’t expect very much from a mother.

IVAN IVANOVITCH

How would I know what a mother is supposed to be like?

PERSEVERANCE

We had another sister, Necessity. She was the maternal one.

IVAN IVANOVITCH

What happened to her?

(The three women whisper to each other briefly.)

HONESTY

She died.

PERSEVERANCE

Nobody told you about this place?

IVAN IVANOVITCH

No… what should they have told me?

PERSEVERANCE

This is a graveyard for ideas. It’s a place where thoughts, notions, and dreams go to die. Things get junked, but ideas come here to waste away.

IVAN IVANOVITCH

So what are we doing here?

HONESTY

My sisters and I – we are Ingenuity, Honesty, and Perseverance. Along with Necessity, we were the spirit of the 20^th century. But, you see, now it’s the 21^st century. We’re no longer needed.

INGENUITY

We’ve been replaced by Excess, Desire, Single-mindedness, and Worry.

PERSEVERANCE

They’re not as catchy names, are they?

IVAN IVANOVITCH

No, they’re not.

PERSEVERANCE
What’s your dog’s name?

IVAN IVANOVITCH

Chernushka. She’s my co-pilot.

PERSEVERANCE
The dog is your co-pilot?

IVAN IVANOVITCH

We’re cosmonauts. We crash-landed here.

HONESTY

Oh. Oh! I’m so sorry.

IVAN IVANOVITCH

What for?

HONESTY

You didn’t crash-land here. You were forgotten, outmoded, lost to time and history.

INGENUITY
Tell us your name – we’ll repeat it and remember it. Remembering each others names makes the fading slower.

IVAN IVANOVITCH

Ivan Ivanovitch.

(The women join hands.)

INGENUITY, HONESTY, AND PERSEVERANCE

Ivan Ivanovitch. Ivan Ivanovitch. Ivan Ivanovitch. We will not forget you. Ivan Ivanovitch.

IVAN IVANOVITCH

What do I do now?

PERSEVERANCE

You go. You explore. You find other travelers, other obsolete ideas, and you tell them who you are, and you tell them who you’ve met. If we keep each others names in our minds, the fading slows down.