(Locus of Control is an excerpt from Gordon Highland’s novel, MAJOR INVERSIONS)
Now is not the time for a rest. That came in the last measure.
Keep those sixteenth-note triplets ascending the page until you’ve run out of lines an octave ago, then ease them back down a few steps at a time. Up one more, down three. Up two, down four. Picture Astaire dancing quickstep down a staircase in top hat and cane. My scribbled score sheet is a work of art, but when I demo it in the computer, it sounds more like Fred’s paraplegic cousin tumbling four flights head over feet through a cymbal factory.
Barron is blasting Glass Hammer or some other ironic-named gamer-approved Spock-rock band beyond his closed door. My notes fight in discord with it, overwhelming my brain with scenes of hobbits in a bad Mannheim Steamroller cover band. Not that there are any good ones.
I’ve moved my studio into the corner of the living room to let the music breathe and attempt to open up my senses a bit. More stimulation equals more distractions. One can’t help but absorb infinite inspiration from the sweeping view of the maintenance shed outside the patio door.
Or the cobweb in the ceiling corner that I’ll pass half a season transfixed upon but not evict until it nearly overtakes me.
Or the computer monitor that slowly pulsates at its discolored edges from the magnetic speakers too close.
Or the soothing hum-scrape, hum-scrape of turbine vents outside.
Or the hypnotic second hand of Barron’s wall clock that prevents me from composing at anything other than sixty or 120 beats per minute.
Or the occasional foamy silence of the acoustical tiles that sporadically adorn the wall in front of me.
Or the cries of the neighboring Hindu boy whose mother berates him at full throat all day long but turns mute once their corporate breadwinner gets home from work.
Or those fucking lawnmowers that fade in from nowhere, passing every three minutes at first, improving lap times and volume each pass until it’s nothing but a cacophony of screaming grass blades, topped off by Javier taking his lunch break with the engine idling at $3.25 a gallon right outside my window while I’m waiting to record the coda to a symphony that is now only useful as the jingle for a landscaping company.
Am7 G B7
Greenlawn Groundskeepers
E F G F E
The best grass bagged north of the border!
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There’s a fine line between caution and paranoia, but if I remain still, maybe the zombies outside the door will just go away. Maybe if I breathed more air and less crystal, the voices would dissipate.
It’s not paranoia when they’re really out there.
Most people don’t actually aspire to psychoses, but as I said before, I’m a method composer. Stravinsky by way of Stanislavski. Although my musical skills are more in line with the revered softcore songsmith Herman Beeftink.
Mark and Alison’s characters are holed up in a movie theater, armed only with a broomstick handle and a box cutter, and in this scene the creatures are beginning to breach the lobby doors limb by limb. Having never experienced this personally, I tried to connect with their terror through meth. I’d say it’s working. My circulatory system feels like the Carolina Motor Speedway and my skin is too small to hold everything inside it and I’m sweating at sixty-seven degrees and my brain is inventing suspicions and I’ve gotten nothing done.
Say no to zombie infestation, kids. Meth is far safer. Sure, they’ll both gnaw your flesh off eventually….
I’m thinking if this whole music/journalism thing doesn’t work out, I could always hire on in the news department at the local TV station as their senior conspiracy theorist. I’ve got a stockpile of worthy teases ready to go, such as “A new disease that could kill you in your sleep. Tomorrow on The Morning Show!” or “Are your children really safe at school? Find out tonight at six!”
My long-term planning skills need work, as I’ll still be tweaking for the next two days, yet I’m supposed to change gears and write Scene 53 tomorrow. It’s the big love scene where Mark has to convince Alison he hasn’t been bitten by a flesh-eater before she’ll let him defile her in the church.
Yeah, we’ve all been there.
Gordon Highland has been directing, producing, and editing videos professionally for 15 years, has written dozens of commercially-produced scripts, and reams of ad and print copy. Major Inversions is his first novel, and he’s currently working on his second, Flashover.
Gordon lives in Overland Park, KS, where he also enjoys writing, recording, and performing music, photography, and filmmaking. Visit him at www.gordonhighland.com
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