Characters

Those of us who use glyphs often become desensitized by the endless possibilities in their organization within a specific text. Stories are, after all, made of of parts (as Aristotle observed, there is a beginning, a middle and an end to every story) and those parts made up of paragraphs, the paragraphs are made up of sentences, the sentences of phrases, the phrases of words, and words of letters. It is all symbolic, and the only way communication occurs is through a shared understanding of the meaning of those symbols.

So today's challenge: What if I typed 1000 characters instead of 1000 words each day? What would that look like? If taken literally, it would look something like this:

s2jf4v4m5s5pj6se2js72r2834254g63tb58n5
eo6rit7w8bjmselkrmbsdlkfgner124bjtsldfvskr
tj9se8ns5va3ekb5kt;dm6zm8amq5o4w3irjd45
m6chf7h8rn9ass4rtbu56jh7ui2op8lj3gsaqw4
ex5x6cv7b8nk8ldf4mdfntbafsdkfkgmrmfsdkvaw
jabbyj45674uks2jf4v4m5s5pj6se2js72r283
4254g63tb58n5eo6rit7w8bjmselkrmbsdlkfg
ner124bjtsldfvskrtj9se8ns5va3ekb5kt;dm6zm8
amq5o4w3irjd45m6chf7h8rn9ass4rtbu56jh7ui2
op8lj3gsaqw4ex5x6cv7b8nk8ldf4mdfntbafs
dkfkgmrmfsdkvawjabbyj45674uks2jf4v4m5s5pj6s
e2js72r2834254g63tb58n5eo6rit7w8bjmselkrmbsdlkfgn
er124bjtsldfvskrtj9se8ns5va3ekb5kt;dm6zm8amq5o4w3irjd45
m6chf7h8rn9ass4rtbu56jh7ui2op8lj3gsaqw4e
x5x6cv7b8nk8ldf4mdfntbafsdkfkgmrmfsdkvawjabbyj45674
uks2jf4v4m5s5pj6se2js72r2834254g63tb58n5eo6
rit7w8bjmselkrmbsdlkfgner124bjtsldfvskrtj9se8ns5v
a3ekb5kt;dm6zm8amq5o4w3irjd45m6chf7h8rn9ass4r
tbu56jh7ui2op8lj3gsaqw4ex5x6cv7b8nk8ldf4mdfntbafs
dkfkgmrmfsdkvawjabbyj45674uks2jf4v4m5s5pj6se2js72r28
34254g63tb58n5eo6rit7w8bjmselkrmbsdlkfgner124bjtsldu
vskrtj9se8ns5va3ekb5kt;dm6zm8amq5o4w3irjd45m6ch
f7h8rn9ass4rtbu56jh7ui2op8l42

You may look at the above section and think, what a lazy post by a lazy writer. And you'd basically have me against the wall. But remember, this isn't a post with 1000 characters, but a post about 1000 characters. This is an example of that. We subtract the content from the form and language from the content. It's merely symbolic, but with a quantity like 1000, there will only be a few times I may demonstrate it visually.*

*As I side note, I've already tried compiling 1000 song titles, but such a post would be near impossible to complete with a thousand words. Even if each title was one word long, I wouldn't be able to include any color commentary, which, when you get right down to it, is the real point of the whole experiment.

We'll try the same experiment again, only now we'll combine the 1000 characters (as in the section above) but now we'll apply Aristotle's story aesthetic. (Spaces, it should be noted, are counted as characters, too.)

*****

He first saw the chair on the sidewalk outside his son's house one afternoon in May when he was visiting for an extended weekend. There was nothing about the chair that caught his attention, it wasn't overly large nor was it decorated with bright colors. Its sturdy wood frame seem to come from a design of simple practicality rather than any aesthetic imperative. No, the chair stood out simply for its position. On the sidewalk, facing the northern porch, lined up with the front walk of his son's Tudor at a perfect T intersection. His son had never see it before, nor had his grandkids or his daughter-in-law. Had he asked the neighbors, if he had thought to and they had the time to answer, they too would not be able to answer his simple question: where had the chair come from? Who positioned it there and why? And as quickly as the mystery formed, it also vanished, as the chair (which was there in the morning and gone before the afternoon) slipped from his memory as quickly as it entered.

*****

A super short story with 1000 characters (including spaces) that sort of contains a beginning, a middle and an end. We open with a premise, and the premise is mystery. There's investigation and intrigue and, like most mysteries we encounter in the day, the mystery fades from our sight and eventually from our cognition.

But what it lacks (if you wanted my opinion) is a certain heart. There's no emotional center, no pathos, and certianly no point to it. It's more of an anecdote. I could write more content. Have the old man encounter the chair again and again, have it disturb him, have his family and friends assure him that he's not observing the same chair, as if it is following him. The ending to that story would include, after his grandkids have their own families, he grows weary one day and looks for a chair it sit in, just to rest his tired bones. Then, the chair would be a metaphor for death. If I choose to write the story that way. I'd never fit that into 1000 character. I could possibly do it in 1000 words, and like a camera going off, it would be FLASH fiction, here and gone again.

Or, if I could, a poem limited to 1000 characters (not counting spaces this time):

*****

There are places within the city
where light shines, sections
where bulbs glow, avenues where
lamps shimmer, and dim streets
where the light goes to die.
But here, the lights have cadence. This is
the part of the city where the lights
always twinkle. Nothing manmade
causes them to blink like that.

It is not electricity making that happen,
although people always assume it is. There is
something special and different about
this part of the city, something unnatural
and powerful, and the lights here are the
only way to tell.

And there are times when this city hums with
low notes, trees audibly sigh in the breeze,
the grass cheers and the parkways moan a dirge.
There’s a chorus singing through each building, every
roadsign plays its own rhythm.

It’s not all the time.
Sometimes, it’s just noise.
But if one could listen and
listen well, they would hear the cadence.
Be it rain on window sill or
crack in the sidewalk sliding
slowly apart.

Nothing manmade causes them to dance this way.
It is neither the soul of men nor the heart of women,
although people always assume nothing else could do it.
The melody is different about this time in the city,
unnatural and powerful, and that sound is the only way to tell.
*****

Nothing that has ever happened can ever happen again. Unless is does. Then it must happen a third time. And here we have three examples of the quantity 1000.

I feel like there's something to be said about the experiment in all this, but the words escape me. The odds are probably 1000 to 1 I'll say anything to redeem the ridiculousness of this post.