Transrealism in Action: Mirror-Aliens
Thanks to Jennifer Saylor for emailing in to tell me that the plant depicted yesterday was a red-hot poker plant , (Latin name kniphofia uvaria).
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[Painting by Paul Mavrides, Victors, about 36" by 24", acrylic on black velvet.]
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Here's an example of transrealism in action. A note from my journals, followed by a scene from my novel in progress. The world is SF.
=====Journal Note, Creatures in a Mirror, November 16, 2004.=====
At the SF international air terminal, about to fly to Milano to give a talk, I’m waiting for them to print my ticket, staring absently at this clear space behind the ticket counter, assuming it’s a mirror, and then I realize it’s open air, and that I’m staring into the far distance, this terminal is huge.
And then I get the idea of looking into a real mirror and seeing beings in the distance that aren’t there in your real world. The alien cockroach mathematicians.
=====Draft scene for my novel Mathematicians In Love, January 27, 2005.=====
I looked in the mirror on the wall above my dresser — grinning with an open mouth, hungry for the next rush. In the mirror’s recesses, I saw the image of my open window and the reflected tiny view of Haste Street with the eternal Berkeley freaks truckin’ on down the line. I noticed a couple of characters with heads like the buds on a fractal Mandelbrot set. Heads with waving antennae, bodies with smooth glistening backs and an extra set of arms. My visitors! Half-human cockroaches walking on two legs.
I turned towards the window, oddly calm, rocking my guitar, fire-hosing feedback from my amp. I couldn’t see the cockroach-men outside in the plain light of day, no. They were only visible in the mirror’s dark glass. Fine.
I went back to my mirror and watched the visitors scurry across the mirror-street, climb the mirror-wall of mirror-Rochdale, wriggle in through my mirror-window and stand in my mirror-room. I could hear them twittering behind my mirror’s glass. I peered in at them, oddly unafraid, still playing my guitar.