I was going to write about something else today, but seeing as I've been slacking when it comes to watching Fringe, I was lacking of a review (I should get that up tomorrow). Since the past two days have been posts of fiction that I've written, and today is friday, I thought it'd be nice to throw out a little "Friday Fiction."

Friday Fiction was something that my old Internet colleague Klint Finley started back when he was running Technoccult. He tried to get various writers/artists to create fictional prose to post for the Technoccult blog, and although I never actually got around to putting serious time into writing something, I did start at one point - hence the title of this post having "fragments" in it.

As with everything, this story has a story of it's own - so I'll start by throwing out there the fragmented prose, and then follow up with some commentary.

*******

The last thing I remembered was the kiss of the cold hard floor - lightly touching - a vague phantom force from another body, another time. I heard a loud bang like the ruins of a great structure falling to the Earth... and woke up in a pool of blood, the underside of my chin lacerated from end to end.

Surprisingly I wasn't dazed. This had all happened before - many years ago - back in my youth. It wasn't the fall, or the wounds, that struck me, it was the vulnerability - the fact that this could happen, without warning, despite all that I have become.

*******

I'm not quite sure what this piece was meant to become. It would have been occult-oriented obviously, but I wasn't sure what direction to take it. Much of my fictional writing is done in the first person, with the protagonist being an occultist named Never. The name actually comes from an old fictional movie on FOX called White Dwarf. There was a shape-shifting character named Never, and the name kind of stuck. I liked the idea of Never as a name for a character, so that's what my universal protagonist ended up being called.

The events of this story are actually true. They happened to me, and I incorporated them into the character's history. I'm sure that many writers actually write about real things and real events, mixing them with fiction. I did pass out one day and wake up in a pool of my own blood. My alarm went off, I got up fast, stretched, yawned... and then blacked out. According to the emergency room doctor, I did everything I possibly could to put my blood pressure into the floor (no pun intended). Each of those events dropped my already low blood pressure (from sleeping) causing me to black out.

I heard the bang of me hitting the floor, despite being unconscious. I woke up on the floor. Touched the floor where it felt wet. Then touched my chin. I was bleeding, but I wasn't sure just how bad. When I checked in the mirror, I could see a deep laceration and knew I needed stitches.

After six hours in the emergency room waiting area, they finally saw me to stitch me up.

As far as the story, I'm not sure what exactly Never's black out was meant to be. I knew I wanted to show some vulnerability in the character, as he's often portrayed as an occultist prepared for just about anything. One day I may finish this short story, but for today, I'm happy to be able to share the fragment that it is, and discuss some of the thought process behind it.