Pseudopod 455: Turbulence

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 455: Turbulence

by Scott R. Jones

“Turbulence” was first published by Innsmouth Free Press in Innsmouth Magazine #14, November 2013

Scott R. Jones is the author of When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality (a bio-ethnographical work of “gleeful nihilism”, examining Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones from a neo-Gnostic spiritual perspective); I have stories upcoming in the anthologies The Summer of Lovecraft (Chaosium), Fossil Lake 2, Flesh Like Smoke (April Moon Books), and Australia’s Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. I live in Victoria BC with my wife and two frighteningly super-intelligent spawn. He has edited an anthology for Martian Migraine Press RESONATOR: New Lovecraftian Tales From Beyond, featuring stories revolving around the Tillinghast Resonator (or technologies and processes like it). RESONATOR will be available in print and electronic formats from most major retailers and showcases the talents of Cody Goodfellow, Anya Martin, Scott Nicolay, Orrin Grey, Damir Salkovic, and Christine Morgan, among others.

Your narrator is Siobhan Gallichan, who is a voice over artist interested in paid work and is also the long time producer of The Flashing Blade Podcast.


They’re sealing the silo today and the cavern below it. One hundred fifty thousand tonnes of concrete poured down the wet, black throat of the thing. I hope it’s enough.

The facility is down to a skeleton staff now. Topside security and just enough eyes on the monitors to hit the red button if things change down there. I’m not really needed; my MSc is in Avionics Engineering, after all. I don’t even work here anymore, but I felt like paying my respects. I’m not alone in this. Declan made friends easily and there are a lot of project folks here that don’t need to be.

His official funeral was just so goddamned unsatisfying, for one thing. That eulogy! “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth….” They ran that Magee poem into the ground, which was about as tasteless as you could get, considering the circumstances. Considering his resting place.

That’s just it though, isn’t it? Declan isn’t at rest. Declan will never be at rest. I know what they told everyone. That he died testing the DreadMoth. That’s only technically true. I know he’s not dead. Ask anyone who ever sat with him down there, in the cavern. They’ll tell you.

They talked about Icarus at the funeral, too, which is all mytho-poetic and sells the American hero line, sure, but it’s a flawed comparison. Icarus fell. That kid kissed the dirt.

Declan may be half a mile underground, but he hasn’t touched down, yet.


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Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[South of No North]

I enjoyed this one. The reading was a great mix of feeling the need to report what had been covered up and the horror at what happened and the narrators guilt at being part of what caused it.
However, while I liked the ambiguity of the gender of the narrator, I felt the sex scene was unneeded. The narrator could care for the charismatic pilot as a friend and someone who trusted the narrator to, at least in part, keep him safe. Normal empathy and sense of responsibility could explain the given account and horror at the pilots fate.
And that fate...halfway between here and...infinity? And piecemeal as well. Eeeek.
I wonder, is it "made of stars"?
He is here, there and everywhere and no where...and he can see for eons.
If I think about it too much it is fun nightmare fuel...Good Job

[C.S. Walker]

*shudder* spread across realities, trapped and damned forever, burdened by the knowledge of the unimaginable monstrosity on the other side of the curtain..... but God, you really can't beat the view.

That sense of reveling, however madly, in the thing that's damned and destroyed you, because in the end at least you got to see.... that is delicious, high-test cosmic horror.

[Uncanny Valley]

One of my favorites.  There were so many tremendous ideas in this one, and a truly horrifying situation.  The narration was fantastic, as well.  The subtle inflections and unscripted 'flourishes' at times between sentences added greatly to the story for me, without being annoying.  Well done all around.

[CaroCogitatus]

Wonderfully done. Great mix of bureaucratic aloofness and the genuine horror of getting a glimpse of What The Universe Really Is. I liked the metaphor of us as moths flitting against a light that we can never understand and will probably kill us.

In the most horrible way.

Also, everything C.S. Walker said. Yes yes yes.

[spiritualtramp]

I think one of my favorite parts was the way he described the pilot's sanity cracking.

[adrianh]

Superb. Just lovely.

[FeloniusMonk]

I really loved this one. It's the first story I've listened to twice in a long,long time and the second time I definitely thought the narrator 'felt' female. Can't put my finger on why but even with a male reading (and what a reading!) the character identified as female to me.
The narration was spot on; characterful, poignant and at times clearly so emotionally rung out (by fear and grief) that sardonic humor is all that is left.

That personal horror struck me while listening to the story; what Declan and those that cared about him experienced and the subversion of that ultimate joy of free flight.
Afterwards my mind started ticking over the consequences and implications of the new technology though... Sure they're sealing up and destroying this project, but will humanity really leave this alone? Free energy, unpowered flight, instant communications? Someone, somewhere is going to tinker with that again and another moth will brush another face. I hope its owner is a sound sleeper...

All around just a great episode, thank you to everyone involved!

[TimWB]

This was a great story!
Took the resonator in a new direction without dilluting its original capability.
Not sure if the protag's sexual ambiguity adds or detracts, but screw it...good story!
THE READER WAS AWESOME. USE HIM MORE!

[macfadyan]

Hiya. Siobhan here. I just want to thank you all for your kind words. It was a wonderful story to read - I absolutely loved doing this one. For the record, I am, actually, female, lol. Surprise

Again, thank you.

[ElectricPaladin]

Nice! Mythos without the slavish adoration of Cthulhu. Suitably terrible, with a bit of a pulpy "strange history" vibe. Sort of like Planetary. The subtle nod to non-straight sexuality was also well done. I liked it!

[ScottRJones]

Hello all! Scott Jones here. Thanks so much to Pseudopod, Siobhan, and the listeners. Feeling grateful and humbled here by your enjoyment of 'Turbulence'. I'm a reasonably new writer, so this kind of response goes a long way to keeping me, y'know, motivated! haha Thank you, all, again.

[Moon_Goddess]

Simply amazing this one was right up my alley I've always had an interest in what might lie between dimensions. 

[TrishEM]

Wow, this one really resonated for me. The fresh glimpse of Things We Were Not Meant to Know, and the novel and piteous way that it becomes visible; the engineer, trying to speak objectively but hesitating over tangles of pity and guilt and regret and affection; the coldness of the inhuman, compared and contrasted with the coldness of the bureaucracy...
And what C.S. Walker said.
Fantastic story, wonderful reading. Thank you, Pseudopod!

[Unblinking]

Adding to the pile here, I quite enjoyed this one.  Especially the fact that, even at the end, even as the pilot is doomed and knows he's doomed, can't help but marvel at the view.  Sure, he might be split across multiple dimensions and unable to move. possibly being eaten by monster-thing, but dammit the view.  The view!!!

The style of the narrative put me in mind of older styles of SF that I tend to like, in an HG Wells like format where everything is told by an observer of the event who the bad thing did not happen directly to but who is telling some third party the story at some later date.  I

[Fenrix]

Hello all! Scott Jones here. Thanks so much to Pseudopod, Siobhan, and the listeners. Feeling grateful and humbled here by your enjoyment of 'Turbulence'. I'm a reasonably new writer, so this kind of response goes a long way to keeping me, y'know, motivated! haha Thank you, all, again.

I think I ran into you on the last day of Necronomicon up in Providence. While I wasn't entirely sold on the concept of RESONATOR since FROM BEYOND has never been one of my favorite Lovecraft stories. However, considering the strength of your Table of Contents (including Orrin Grey!) and how much I enjoyed this story, I'm really looking forward to cracking into the collection.

Wow, this one really resonated for me.

I see what you did there.

Hiya. Siobhan here. I just want to thank you all for your kind words. It was a wonderful story to read - I absolutely loved doing this one. For the record, I am, actually, female, lol. Surprise

Great reading, and you really brought home the ambiguity that the author was aiming for. Nicely done!

[Ryan H]

Hell of a story, efficiently paced and so affecting. Each new revelation made my stomach drop. Well done!