In the Attic

Today, I went into the attic to look for someone else’s inspiration.

Yesterday, a sales rep from our pest service (not the guy that actually sprays, who’d arrived minutes earlier, but the guy that sells, who happens to look just like the guy that sprays) inspected our attic for critters.  The purpose of his visit, he said, “See if there’s anything we’re missing.”

“Ok, sure,” I said, suddenly concerned that raccoons had quietly set up shop, living it up in our attic without us knowing.

The next five minutes of fear went unrealized.  “Your house looks great,” the sales rep said, “But I might suggest more insulation, save you some money, it’s specially treated with insecticide.”

I went up looking for one particular book in a box of books.  I don’t like having my books in boxes in the attic, but my bookshelves are overflowing.  I reluctantly boxed about fifty or eighty a couple years ago and remembered one of the boxed genres, science-fiction, really old sci-fi I hadn’t read in thirty years.  I was looking for a story by Harlan Ellison, Shatterday.

I’ve been paying attention to blogs lately – their themes, format, and content and one in particular, Neil Gaiman’s, a British science fiction and fantasy novelist, wrote in his blog about Harlan Ellison and a story, Shatterday, that inspired and convinced him he could write for a living.

I thought maybe years ago I’d read the story.  (And I wondered, how could I have read this and not been inspired too?)  No Shatterday, but I found a collection of Harlan Ellison short stories called Alone Against Tomorrow.  The introduction, written by Ellison in 1970, states the theme unifying the collection: alienation.

Ellison writes, “The explanation for racial strife, random violence, mass madness, the rape of our planet.  Man feels cut off.  He feels denied.  He feels alone.  He is alienated.”  Ellison quotes Oscar Wilde: “To reject one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development.  To deny one’s own experience is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life.  It is no less than a denial of the Soul.”

In Aerosmith’s song, Toys in the Attic, Steven Tyler seems to sing about alienation:

Leaving the things that are real behind

Leaving the things that you love from mind

All of the things that you learned from fears

Nothing is left for the years

Voices scream

Nothing’s seen

Real’s a dream

The first story in Ellison’s collection, Alone Against Tomorrow is titled, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

Maybe a blog is like a scream.