Greetings and salutations, friends and fellow frequenters of Melodramatic! I apologise for stiffing you all on an entry last night, but by the time I started seriously considering writing, it was, oh, only about 6:00 ante meridieum. (A guy's gotta sleep sometime, right?)

Rest assured that I shall make up for it tomorrow, with yet another stirring exposition or commentary on this mad, mad, mad, mad world we live in. For now, allow me to live up to the quote for the day (loosely, as I am not quite composing verses, although one could call my prose "musical" if they were so inclined) and share with you the fledgling beginning to a story I wrote recently entitled "De Profundis" (Latin: "from the depths"). It more than likely shall go nowhere, just like every other partial Chapter One I have penned, but may be of interest to you.) Call me mad if you will; I shan't disagree, nor shall anyone who truly knows me. Enjoy, and, until tomorrow, adieu!

The sunset is breathtaking in Miasma, mostly because the ether is so hideously polluted that its foetid, choking stench makes even those seemingly protected by gas masks reel, but also, albeit secondly, because the rays of Lux (the local burning ball of gas) play off the smog (hanging above the city like flatulence) beautifully, treating anyone able to see through the familiar burning sensation to a show of ignis fatuus worthy of Earth's Aurora Borealis.

The malodorous metropolis, renowned throughout the galaxy for its full array of industrial factories (dutifully dumping deadly chemicals into soupy, blackened rivers, and spewing oily smoke and carcinogens [kid-tested, mother-approved!] into the murky atmosphere), has also laid uncontested claim to the title of Worst Vacation Spot (awarded annually by the wildly popular ranking teleprogramme Hierarchy) three hundred ninety-six years straight.

Remington Graves gazes up at the monolithic edifice of Vinculum, the city's central transportation hub, taking in the begrimed monstrosity from cubic base to cylindrical apex, and groans. The massive facility, its peak scraping the troposphere, supports the vast network of superways (which, as the antipodal counterparts of primitive subways, are suspended in midair and propelled by powerful antigravity drives) that wend through the sullied skies, and also acts as the primary starport for the entire planetary system, welcoming and seeing off countless thousands of starships from various and sundry points in the universe every hour. Vinculum is the epitome of obscenity, the most vile and odious in all of Miasma, infamous as the acme of abhorrence and the physical manifestation of all that is foul. Its unrivaled squalor bestows upon the structure and surrounding area an odor unique even within Miasma: that of burning offal and innumerable other unspeakably noisome substances, with delicate overtones of sulfur; the smell pervades the most impermeable of garments and is said to never wash away.

And Remington Graves cleans its restrooms.

[Listening to: Drunken Lullabies (Flogging Molly); Free All Angels (Ash).]

p.s. In the brief time that elapsed between the writing and the posting of this entry, I was able to purchase two new CDs: The Guest, by Phantom Planet; and Source Tags & Codes, by ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead. I shall be listening to them posthaste. Adieu!

[Exit Orpheum.]