Peter (he probably has a last name, but I don’t know what it is and it doesn’t much matter) is the protaganist of my short stories “The Wages of Decay” and “Harmony.” He is a resident of a world both like and unlike ours. In this place, industry has run wild. His world is a dreary and endless place of dirty cities, rusted metal and empty wasteland. It’s peoples hearts and minds are for the most part a reflection of this. Dull and tired, decaying and dirty.
Peter however is unusual in that he is curious. He wonders always where things end up, where the castoffs of his world, human, animal and machine alike go to.
In “The Wages of Decay” he discovers one of the answers to that question when he finds strange creatures living beneath his tenement, creatures born of human and animal remains fused with industrial castoffs.
Afterward, he became curious about these creatures, he wondered if there might be more. He desired to understand how these beings, humanity and the machines all relate to each other. And so he set off on a journey of discovery, some of which is chronicled in “Harmony,” where he encounters a young man of similar experiences but different intent.
Peter is easygoing and tends to smile a lot–even in situations some might find inappropriate. He comes across as dull, maybe even a little slow, but he is in fact very observant and contemplative. Although he has killed, he prefers not to and longs for a harmonious world where all things live together peacefully and tolerantly.
I am also contemplating turning Peter’s journey into a novel.
