Bootleg VHS: Solar Extrusions

Bootleg VHS tapes of people Becoming circulate on the grey market; not exactly illegal, not controlled in the same way that information about making new combat dolls is, but generally understood to be illicit.

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⸢Solar Extrusions⸥ Selected.

This last tape is singed, speckled with shinysmooth patches where its plastic has begun to melt. There's no label, just a few scraps of lingering paper, disconnected letters stripped of all context.

It still slides smoothly into the VHS player, old tube TV flickering to life—

It's so bright, too bright for your dim viewing room: a cascade of burning static dancing out to hungrily claw at your eyes. It takes long moments to blink the lingering distortions from your eyes, long moments where you can't quite understand what's happening before you.

And then you do.

Who starts off a tape by filming the sun? Really. All of these tapes have been somewhat amateur, closed circuit surveillance and poorly spliced footage, but this is a new low.

Still …

As your eyes adjust and the scene shifts to too-saturated colors, you can't help but let yourself be drawn in.

There's a bright sunny field, a hillside sloping down towards a sandy beach and a distant sea; soft grass and happy shouts. A picnic blanket and a basket.

The camera shudders as a voice insinuates itself into the scene. “Put the camera down, babe! You'll miss the moment for the documentation.”

“Yeah, sure,” the reply comes, crackling and tired. “Just give me a moment to find the tripod …”

The first voice laughs.

For a moment the camera rests on the grass, focus shifting wildly as blades shift in the sea's breeze and an iridescent beetle scurries away, and then it settles into a higher view. The picnic blanket isn't perfectly framed, a bit off center, too much of the sloping field and the sea beyond in the frame; the sun's out of sight, but you can see its questing rays exploring the camera's lens.

As the camera shifts the first speaker comes into frame, sits down and stretches out. Her floral sundress flutters in the breeze and her curly hair puddles behind her in a pool of patterned static. You can't help but let your attention drift down to the curve of her waist, to her wide hips and long legs—she shakes off her shoes, almost a response to your gaze.

There's nothing wrong with looking, of course; if you really felt bad about this voyeuristic false-intimacy you wouldn't be watching, wouldn't have hunted down this tape and the others resting on the shelf just to your side. But the other tapes weren't like this, just closed circuit footage, not …

The other person comes into frame, awkwardly sits down; their dark clothing is such a poor fit for the bright colors all around, a long dress and long sleeves and wide-brimmed hat. Red droplets sparkle on their ears and around their throat, a burst of crimson around their lips—the only colors their body bears.

They're so out of place that it's almost funny, sitting uneasily in their own skin; but their friend kisses them on the cheek and curls up against them and they relax, and after a while they pull a spread of food out of the picnic basket and start to eat, chatting about their lives and the world and nothing of consequences—

You can fast forward now.

There's nothing in this part that you need to know.

Maybe it's better not to know.

You're not like all those other people who hunt down these tapes, right? Jerking off over the knowledge of what's about to happen. Pretending you know the people whose lives are about to explode into glorious chaos.

Right?

Just press the button, hold it down for … oh, that's long enough. There you go. Keep on watching.

They're making out now, sprawled out on the picnic blanket, their surroundings forgotten; a few empty cans of beer helps to explain that. The goth's on the bottom, her friend pinning her down; thighs between legs, tongues in mouths, panting little gasps—much more interesting than hearing about Cherry over in accounting or the latest gossip about who Apricot is dating this week; much better than listening to talks about squishy messy things like gender and feelings.

Much more your sort of thing.

Off in the distance, just at the edge of the frame, the sun swells into frame, a vast eye peering in from the horizon. Its brightness washes out the rest of the scene as the camera struggles to adapt; you can practically feel its sensor struggling to make sense of the sun's burning bulk, the wisps of light coiling away from it like smoky snakes fleeing the furnace that gave birth to them, shedding their skin in a mass of irregular polygons as they go—

It looks a great deal like bad cgi.

The two of them don't notice, too wrapped up in each other; the heat rising around them is nothing compared to the heat in their bodies, the need filling them as they press against each other—

The grass singing around them doesn't look at all like bad cgi. Nor do the half-visible figures running in the background, all but hidden behind the light that now fills almost the entire frame—all you can make out for sure is the picnic blanket and the two figures writhing atop it, wrapped in strands of light, their clothing slowly scorching away, backs burning with light—rolling over each other, trading places, the picnic blanket below them impossibly solid amidst the flames of whatever has reached out to touch them—

There's smoke curling out of the door of your VHS player, wards scorching beneath the pressure of the thing inside the tape. Fan it away from the screen; grab a knife and feed another gush of blood into the hungry sigils. Everything's fine.

Back on the screen the fire is fading, drawing inwards. The bloated sun no longer lurks at the horizon; the field's grass has burnt out. There's a dusty, overcast tinge to the whole scene, a false twilight—

The two figures finally part, the one on top (was that the goth, or the one in the sundress? It's impossible to tell) rolling off to lie beside their lover.

They both look different. Too similar, too perfect, like a doll laying next to a mirror; all the things which made them distinct burnt away.

After a time one of them stands up and stretches their arms, their legs, their new wings smoothly slipping out from their back to spread as wide as the frame—

They scream and fall over, every limb flailing wildly; a wing catches the camera and sends it flying.

The recording keeps on going for just long enough to see it hit the ground.

-—

You rewind a few times, watch the most important parts again—just like you've taken to doing with the other tapes in your tiny collection. A pad of graph paper and a scratchy ballpoint pen sit unused next to you: there's just nothing worth recording on this one. No clues about …

It hurts to think the rest of that, so you don't.

You just carefully tuck everything away and drink yourself to sleep. Maybe the next tape will tell you more.