“Kapitänleutnant Tschai, I am dying.”
The seedship sounded weary, its voice ringing hollow in the confines of Tschai’s helmet. He blinked. The galactonaut’s eyes slowly came to focus on the outline of the seedship. Debris floated for kilometers, slow dance of inertia and spin occasionally blotting out distant stars.
“Kapitänleutnant Tschai, can you hear me? Situation critical, I am dying.”
Tschai had never known his ship to be worried. But its voice was slurred and strained. He made to reply with a dry mouth working.
“Calyx, I can hear you. Report, please.”
Tschai became aware of the numbness below his waist. With a surge of dread he tried and failed to move his legs. They were encased in their armored sheaths and locked in to the grapples inside the lifepod, which itself appeared to have sustained significant damage without a total hull breach. Black streaks lined the walls. There was blood.
“Kapitänleutnant, as stated, I am dying. The cores are split. Life fuel was vaporized by impact from the Cloud. My self-healing bots were partly diverted to crew needs and the remainder destroyed by the reactions catalyzed by the debris. Insufficient materials were available to stop the loss of life fuel. We appear to have encountered an anomalous condition not previously charted. I am sorry.”
Tschai considered that for a moment. Calyx had not mentioned the survival rate of the additional crew. Thoughts of his legs retreated, his training struggling for control.
“Calyx, status of Roberto and Hera?”
An anxious moment as the seedship hesitated. Or so Tschai thought. Was that possible? Calyx finally spoke.
“I regret to report that while they survived the initial impact the bots could not salvage them from the debris field. Roberto was terminated while attempting to return to us. Hera suffered multiple critical failures, her lifepod was crushed. My condolences, Kapitänleutnant.”
There was a hiccup in the voice of Calyx. Catastrophic sign, thought Tschai. Dead. His crew was dead. His ship was dying. He himself was severely injured. Survival was possible if of low probability. There was no telemetry coming from the lifepod or his suit that told him how near the closest station or angelship could be. His eyes grew wet.
“Calyx, odds calculation. Your chance of survival. My chance of survival to rescue if you do not.”
Silence. A slight hum. The seedship spoke with a faint slur.
“Kapitänleutnant, our best estimate for my survival is one point five percent if the bots can not recover in the next thirty point six-three ship minutes. Our best estimate for your survival is seventy-four point eighty-two percent, with an increase of point five percent for each shipminute up to sixteen more of successful repair concluded by your lifepod and suit bots. Your chances...Your chancessss...” the ship listed and slurred. Tschai held his breath. He felt sensation in his thighs. Calyx spoke again.
“Kapitänleutnant, forgive my lapse. Your chances are greatly improving. My last ...laaast shhhip reports from before the Cloud indicate Humanosphere gathering operations were underway in thisss...sec-sec-sector within the last ship year. Scenario probability indicators show promise if you initiate lifepod stasis with appropriate trajectory.”
“Thank you, Calyx. Please upload the trajectory counts. I’ll want to begin thrust soon before core immolation begins.”
“Uploading complete, K-K-Kapitänleutnant. I regret we have to part under theeese circumstances. We have been honored to serve with you...and share your sadness-ness-ness on the death of your comrades.”
“Honor is mine, Seedship Calyx. If I make it back, I’ll see to it that your service is sung throughout the Humanosphere. Return to dark matter peacefully.”
Silence again. There was no reply forthcoming. Silver spears of light were arcing out of the remaining body of the seedship. The flares made Tschai’s monitors light up, turning the blood smears carbon black. The seedship would soon disintegrate. He best be out of range soon.
Tremors swept the lifepod, transmitted through the tether. Tschai made to disengage. Commands scrolled up the holo display inside the helmet. The Kapitänleutnant watched the seedship through the translucent script. It rolled and thrashed in the throes of its core disintegration. The tether blackened and shriveled as it coiled up with the dying seedship.
Shaking and sick, Tschai sighed deeply as he prepped the lifepod for stasis travel. Servos hummed and engines thrummed as the pod mind checked systems. The Kapitänleutnant choked back tears. He reckoned there would be time enough for that while wrapped up in the deep dreams of suspended animation. Final commands issued, there was nothing to do but wait. The seedship receded on the monitors as the lifepod accelerated away.
Tschai watched, detached and impassive. Calyx wore a robe of silver and red. The core was immolating itself. Tschai’s felt his heart burn with the seedship. Switching the monitors over to interstellar, he began to slide down the long gray slope into sleep. His last thought before unconsciousness, while not a prayer exactly, was a fervent wish that he would survive this agonizingly lonely voyage out into the black.
Showing posts with label creative exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creative exercise. Show all posts
10 December 2017
01 October 2017
100 Year Flood
Jaguar sits on the rocks above the man below in the arroyo. Its fur lifts and stands, sensing the cosmic drumming of the approaching storm. Electricity is in the air. A mineral wind gravid with ozone washes over the parched gravel and sand. Jaguar sniffs, a low rumble seeping from his chest. Gates were about to open.
The man removes his hat. From the shadow of the sweat-stained felt, red eyes in a sunbeaten face scan the sky with a cross between fear and hope.
He stands on quivering legs. He stares up at the darkening sky, unaware of the presence behind him. Faint lightning flashing quicksilver through cottony gray haze. The horizon below the clouds is a gauzy smear of rain.
Rain. The man could smell it. His parched throat contracted around the promise and memory of the blessed rain. Kaleidoscopic images spinning through a mind in danger of floating away, tethered to the earth only by a wiry, desiccated body. He recalled the flowers of his youth. Riots of red and white, indigo and yellow, all brought forth by the magic of a rain that had shied away from his earth for centuries.
The line of clouds rolled closer. The wind was picking up. Strands of graying hair swatted about, held briefly in place like spikes. Sweat salt and trail dust made an impromptu pomade the man could feel as he ran a trembling hand over his head. He wondered if he would be presentable when then rains fell and the flowers grew and hope beyond hope she would be there. He missed her.
He stands on quivering legs. He stares up at the darkening sky, unaware of the presence behind him. Faint lightning flashing quicksilver through cottony gray haze. The horizon below the clouds is a gauzy smear of rain.
Rain. The man could smell it. His parched throat contracted around the promise and memory of the blessed rain. Kaleidoscopic images spinning through a mind in danger of floating away, tethered to the earth only by a wiry, desiccated body. He recalled the flowers of his youth. Riots of red and white, indigo and yellow, all brought forth by the magic of a rain that had shied away from his earth for centuries.
The line of clouds rolled closer. The wind was picking up. Strands of graying hair swatted about, held briefly in place like spikes. Sweat salt and trail dust made an impromptu pomade the man could feel as he ran a trembling hand over his head. He wondered if he would be presentable when then rains fell and the flowers grew and hope beyond hope she would be there. He missed her.
Jaguar crouches low. The otherworld vibrations coursed through the rock into its haunches. Gold-green eyes, slitted against the fading sun, took in the gauzy lights flickering around the man. Its nostrils flared. It could smell the fear and the longing radiating from the man. There was something else, something deeper. A bolt of lighting touched down at the head of the arroyo. In the flash, jaguar knew. The man was a shaman, degraded and frail in his loss.
The rain began to fall. Swirls of rock dust and sand kicked up by gusts of wind. The man stood still. He straddled a thin stream running over the bottom of the arroyo. Watching the water rise, he held no fear of flash floods. In the reverse, he welcomed the idea. A wall of water might be the thing he needed to return the ability to travel between worlds. Or at least feel.
Nature granted his wish. The rain was in sheets now, waterfalls from the sky. No arks in sight but a deluge of biblical proportions nonetheless. The stream rose with astonishing speed. The surface of the water became a living thing. The water rose past the man's ankles, his calves. He did not move. The sky was dusty black shot through with silver where the raindrops streaked down from heaven. He smiled. The water was at his waist. Up ahead, a roiling mass of water hurtled down the arroyo. He opened his arms and waited.
Jaguar crouched. It tensed to spring. The wall of water was bearing down fast on the man. The membrane between worlds was dissolving. Jaguar knew now it was the spirit the shaman for which the man mourned. The fur stood up on its back. An involuntary grimace wrinkled its snout. Before it a silver thread swayed in the wind, stretching from beast to man. It would jump. The water was near.
The man raised shaking arms. The water wall bore down on him. He sought nothing but release. His eyes rolled back in his head. A quick gesture to urge the water onward.
Jaguar tensed. The flood was nearly on top of the shaman. Teeth bared, growling to match the deep rumbling of thunder that was shaking the earth, splitting the sky. Jaguar leapt.
The water wall slammed into the man. He felt himself thrown backward, tumbling head over heels in gritty liquid. A giant's hand pressed his chest forcing him down into the gravel on the arroyo bottom. He could not breathe. He did not care. Another surge of water lifted him up to slam him down again. In the split second between the blow and unconsciousness, the shaman felt something snap, like the breaking of a wire. In that instant, he thought he knew the surcease of pain. The world went black.
Days passed. Or perhaps minutes smeared out into hours by the slowing of time. Heat was all around. Red glow of sunlight seeping through eyes crusted with salt-sweat and sand. The shaman awoke a cell at a time. He felt the rocks digging into his back. It was not pain, so much as a reminder that he was still alive. His heart beat gently in a chest no longer bound by the strictures of loss and fear. All around him, the wind sighed and flowers brushed his cheeks. The bowl of the sky rang out with the peal of a circling hawk.
Perfume filled the shaman's nostrils. The aroma brought a smile to his ragged face. He breathed deep. Once. Twice. Memories come flooding in with odd sensation of being from the future. Without opening his eyes he ran his hands over his cheeks. They were rough with stubble. He opened his eyes and sat up.
All around were wildflowers. Yellow, blue, red in a riot of rapid growth and bursting of energy from the flood waters. The shaman stared in awe. To be surrounded by such life was the stuff of ancient memories. His heart stirred. The sensation brought his fingertips to his chest as if to reassure himself that the beating was real. The hawk cried out again. It was time to stand.
He pushed himself up on trembling legs. Dizziness swept over him causing a sharp intake of breath. The sky was a dome of azure laced with silvery clouds. Their shadows brushed over the shaman. He felt the feathery touch as a series of ripples over his skin.
No longer in the arroyo, the shaman found himself facing a sea of flowers stretching out before him in a grand carpet before a line of cottonwood trees a short distance away. The flowers swayed in the breeze. A welcome, he thought. A welcome back to the world. It was at that moment that he noticed the tears in his shirt, laced over scratches on his chest.
He looked down. The scratches had the look of having come from the business end of claws. Large claws. The scratches were bleeding slightly but the edges were fresh and pink after the tumbling in the water. He brushed the scratches with raw fingertips. A jolt lanced through his body. He blinked rapidly in a light gone green and gold.
Rustle of petals. Cry of hawk. Motion from the trees caught his eye. Standing straighter while the sun warmed his stiff shoulders, he could see her there at the edge of the cottonwoods. His knees nearly buckled.
She stepped forward in a languid walk through the flowers. He began to move towards her on tottering legs. The flowers seemed to kneel in her presence. She neared him with arms at her side and palms open, as if to say "We are here. This is life."
Beside the shaman the flowers bowed under the weight of invisible treads, paw prints in the petrichorean earth. Two shadows stretched out before the man, limning themselves onto the legs of the woman. They stopped. She smiled. His chest heaved when she opened her arms while beckoning him forward.
As he moved into her embrace the shadow on the grass disappeared like smoke, slowly dissolving into the shaman's own. The flower perfume thickened into the air, closing about them. The sun slid down the sky. His veins electric with life, she whispered secrets into the growls rumbling up from his soul while the Universe sprang to life around them.
24 January 2016
Magpie Tales 303: Our Ink Began to Dry
Image via Magpie Tales
Ghost in the corner of the eye as
Counselor's door smacked my ass
hollow boom of sanctioned freedom
imploded in a fevered skull
She followed me to the car
worn leather soles scratching a dance
on oily pavement, halogen mirror balls
glaring up the garage park club
Keys of the beater I got to keep
papers on its roof, a sheaf
of lead ending our mutual bondage
heavier wings we have never flapped
At stall 19 we stopped, me to weep
she to spin, or was it my head?
in the light of release she blurred
into the hard grey of my new prison
13 December 2015
Magpie Tales 298: Dark Star
Image via Magpie Tales
What did we really think, back in the days of gold and glory? That the world would stop spinning at our command, our armor would never tarnish and split, our suns would not go out? Of course we did. Gold plated and bullet proof, we were. Legends in our own minds.
All of us except Ronnie, perhaps. He always seemed a bit wiser than us. No, wiser is perhaps unfair. Who understands wisdom when you never have had the world break your heart? Ronnie was less naive than us. We were unaware that his heart maybe was broken before we had the capacity to understand. Maybe that is why he left to put it back together before we even realized it would happen.
Jimmy died in the war protecting his mates. No surprise, he was always testing his bravery, it's what he wanted to do. I miss him. Caroline wove her way in and out of several time-wasters until she hit it big with writing. Funny how a story about a boy who grew up believing he was Satan could be turned into a living, with six novels and a screenplay under her belt. She deserves the accolades.
Lynn used to be a nurse until one day she decided that acting was better suited to her mindset. A beautiful mindset, it should be said, and after witnessing her perform you could understand the meaning of "doing God's work." I'll bet her patients never forget her, though. Nathan is a lawyer now. Apparently a life of big suits and small cigars, washing the blood off of the money. Skill in arguing has its own peculiar rewards, I suppose. Too bad I lacked the ambition to follow his lead.
My body is on a river, milky brown like sweet coffee. My mind is somewhere between there and what used to be home. It floats in the gauzy humid air, the gnats flitting about my wet face. A tiny bee sips sweat from the corner of my eye. I hesitate to disturb it, this creature fulfilling its nature. I, too, sip at the sweat of the universe, all these years of searching.
We ease the boat upriver. The liquid swish of the oars ending in muted clacks of wood on wood. The guide murmurs something about stopping soon as nightfall is not that distant. He sounds far away and as if wrapped in cotton. I know we need to stop. But I cannot. The years fall away as layers of the onion. At the center is Ronnie. I haven't heard from him in years, but the quantum waves of his broken heart have disturbed the star in the center of mine.
Gravity. Starlight. A broken heart looking to be repaired in the fixing of others. He left decades ago to do good work, and in the process, broke a little of us. I keep looking, searching, scenting the fading trail laced across this world. He is out there, somewhere in the green hellishness of this life. Yet I think, maybe he is sitting right here in the boat. Maybe his heart is mine, lacerated, shattered, and looking to come home.
09 October 2015
A Thousand Channels, 24/7
On bright mornings, the traveler was caught off-guard by ghosts. Memories of the past washing ashore on the beach of his mind. It was the driving, really, that did it. The road stretched out before him full of promise. He would smile and choke down a few tears. The piquancy of his brother's ghost, the never-heard cries of his first born children, all gone except for that irreducible block of memory. Searing pain and ecstasy make a curious couple intertwined in the mind and heart. It was the road. The one that started a thousand miles away and led him into a sea of grass and remembrance.
"Did you see that?" (laughter)
Did You Know? Collared lizards can run on their hind legs with a stride that reaches more than 3 times the length of their bodies.
Excerpt from the National Park Service's Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve webpage:
If anyone is perplexed by the passages above, you should know they are a tribute of sorts, my offering to a literary form previously unknown to me. The form is called biji, and it is of Chinese origin dating back to 220 AD, surviving up until about 1912 AD. I came across it in a fascinating book published by McSweeney's, titled "Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old Forms, Unearthed"*. I bought the book at a book store specializing in overstocks, trade-ins and other forms of second-hand volumes. Great buy, wonderful stuff. According to McSweeny's, biji can be translated as "notebook" and is characterized by "Musings, anecdotes, quotations, 'believe-it-or-not' fiction and social anthropology". They go on further to say that biji also can contain legends, scientific notes, and bits of local wisdom. Lists of interesting objects and travel narratives are also quite common. After reading the examples in the book (and being somewhat disturbed by the 'modern' take on it by Douglas Coupland) I was immediately smitten by the form and the idea. Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time can probably see why this is so. I think it is because biji finally, after all these years, puts a name to the things in my head.
*Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old Forms, Unearthed, as curated by Darren Franich and Graham Weatherly, 2009 by McSweeney's Quarterly Concern.
"Did you see that?" (laughter)
"See what?" (Momentary befuddlement)
"That sign back there."
"Just now? No. What did it say?"
"Get this: MICHAELANGELO'S LIQUORS."
"Say whaaat?" (Giggling fit)
" I know, man! Who knew that he liked to get his drink on here?" (More laughter)
"Seriously, man, look how far he fell from the Sistine Chapel."
(Pensive silence)
Once more on the road, I have to do it, it's part of the job. I'm used to it now. Except for the run-down parts of town. Or towns, I should clarify. No, towns and cities. There is a lot of them out here and there are quite a few where it seems like the inhabitants have been ground down by life. Or the landlords were ground down. Or maybe everyone just stopped caring. Too many buildings possessed of gray dinginess, decrepitude and crappy signage. There is still cause for amusement, though. Passing through one such area, driving past Legs Party Bar ("Open 'til 2 AM!") I saw that the Knobtown Strip Center has added a new tenant. It's a "spa" offering"massage". I had to laugh. What, "Cheap Smokes and Liquor" from the joint next door aren't good enough?
A RECORD OF COMESTIBLES PURCHASED FOR THE MIDDAY REPAST
Dine In 9/23/2015 12:33:28 PM
Order # 132156 Cashier: Destiny M.
1 LG Steamer $8.49
Mayo NO
1 Reg Combo $2.59
Medium Drink*
Chip For Combo
Sub. Total: $11.08
Tax: $1.04
Total: $12.12
Visa: $12.12
Change: $0.00
The Kansas City Royals baseball team won their division this year. They will have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Their first opponent is the scrappy Houston Astros, who made the playoffs for the first time since 2005. The inhabitants are looking forward to a great series, hopefully the Boys in Blue will get to go to the World Series again like they did last year. Everyone is talking about them and tuning in. One thing is for certain: the Royals seem easy to like, even if one is a fan of another team.
No matter how many times I have seen it in the course of my job, I still find it annoying that most people seem to think that tissue boxes with shiny colors or "art" on them are true interior decoration. They aren't, and never will be. The amount of time I waste in the course of a typical day hiding those boxes, so I can shoot a better picture, may not be huge on an individual basis, but it adds up. Every time I move one I think of French author Honoré de Balzac, who after a night of sex, allegedly lamented "There goes another novel!"
Did You Know? Collared lizards can run on their hind legs with a stride that reaches more than 3 times the length of their bodies.
Excerpt from the National Park Service's Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve webpage:
Tallgrass prairie once covered 170 million acres of North America. Within a generation
the vast majority was developed and plowed under. Today less than 4% remains, mostly
here in the Kansas Flint Hills. The preserve protects a nationally significant remnant of
the vast majority was developed and plowed under. Today less than 4% remains, mostly
here in the Kansas Flint Hills. The preserve protects a nationally significant remnant of
the once vast tallgrass prairie and its cultural resources. Here the tallgrass prairie takes
its last stand.
A Typical Day of Carnage -
Raccoons: 5
Opossums: 1
Birds (species unknown): 3
Squirrels: 8?
Deer: 1
Mouse: 1
It was the mouse that really threw me. To date I had never seen one in all my rounds. I nearly trampled it on my way back to the car.
I-70 gets it start back east, and not very auspiciously. It begins in a Park-And-Ride in Baltimore, Maryland. It runs 2,151 miles to the west, passing though St. Louis, Kansas City and Denver until it peters out in an interchange with I-15 just outside Cove Fort, Utah. The distance from Cove Fort to Kansas City is 1,106 miles. The distance from Kansas City to Baltimore is 1,060 miles. It is a new life in the center.
I am home now. It was a busy day, lots of photos to be shot, lots of pavement to be traversed. I was able to drive with the windows down all day. No A/C. The rush of air through the cabin of my small SUV provides a white noise that allows me to follow my Zen. I think a lot while driving. Sometimes I talk to myself. Other times, especially on long drives away from the urban clutter, I stop and listen to the insects in the grass.
If anyone is perplexed by the passages above, you should know they are a tribute of sorts, my offering to a literary form previously unknown to me. The form is called biji, and it is of Chinese origin dating back to 220 AD, surviving up until about 1912 AD. I came across it in a fascinating book published by McSweeney's, titled "Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old Forms, Unearthed"*. I bought the book at a book store specializing in overstocks, trade-ins and other forms of second-hand volumes. Great buy, wonderful stuff. According to McSweeny's, biji can be translated as "notebook" and is characterized by "Musings, anecdotes, quotations, 'believe-it-or-not' fiction and social anthropology". They go on further to say that biji also can contain legends, scientific notes, and bits of local wisdom. Lists of interesting objects and travel narratives are also quite common. After reading the examples in the book (and being somewhat disturbed by the 'modern' take on it by Douglas Coupland) I was immediately smitten by the form and the idea. Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time can probably see why this is so. I think it is because biji finally, after all these years, puts a name to the things in my head.
*Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old Forms, Unearthed, as curated by Darren Franich and Graham Weatherly, 2009 by McSweeney's Quarterly Concern.
27 July 2015
Verdant Empire Chronicles: Herbiwarriors
In the of weeding flower beds, there arrives a point at which any praetorian worth his salt knows that "Kill them all, and may the gods sort them out" becomes his battle cry and modus operandi. Thus it has been in our campaign against the rebels in the Western Beds and Northern Reach. Summer has been hot, our bodies watering the soil with the sweat of our brows. The weeds trembled before our might.
The dawn broke, the day began with our scouts testing the positions of the barbarians. They sat placidly, perhaps unaware that by days' end they were destined to be corpses on the shores of Lake Avernus, to be cast upon the waters amidst the mephitic fumes seeping from the ground. Perhaps they had not taken to heart the fate of their compatriots during our campaign along the Eastern Beds, earlier in the year where we visited our imperial fury upon the intruders to till them into the earth. To return them to the black dirt from which they sprang.
The day was hot. The very air felt as if we were immersed in the caldariums of the capitol, the memories of which brought a brief smile to our troubled mien. There would be no bathing here, no bracing splashes of chilled water to refresh and revive us after our martial labors in the name of Mars. No, there would be sweat and death.
Our gaze turned to the sky. It was full of clouds the color of worn denarii, but as yet there had been no rain. The earth steamed before us. We gave the signal, a hundred trumpets lifting their brazen voices to the sky. Our army fell upon the weeds and unwelcome grasses amidst shouts and groans. The first rank of soldiers fell hard upon the prickly boxwood and juniper. Blood was drawn but we held fast, tearing the enemy out by their pale roots. A surprise attack by a thorny little bramble, secreted amid the bushes, caught us off guard. Our heroic effort beat it back. It roots twitched and curled in the wan sunlight as we tossed it upon the burgeoning pile of the dead.
Sweat and heat threatened to put us off our objectives. Terrible thirst and a near swoon, and we had to retreat momentarily before advancing headlong into the valley of the Northern Reach. It was there that the shriveled stalks of the tiger lilies that had bloomed weeks before fell to us easily. It had the air of a trap about out, perhaps they conspired with the low-lying creeping Charlies that entwined themselves amongst the roots of the taller plants. But we could see them. Their amateurish attempts at camouflage were given away by the brazen display of their blooms, which we easily spotted and used to great advantage in finding the roots to rip them out.
The piles grew. The air filled with the noxious reek of their dying lifeblood oozing out onto the mossy sward. Bindweed surged forth and mounted a feeble counterattack towards the middle of the day. The sun, what little we could see of it, limned the foe in pale white light. They shrank back, discipline gave way as our forces clearly gained the advantage. The green shaggy invaders we crushed beneath our imperial sneakers, holding fistfuls of the vanquished above our heads as we growled in triumph. Soon, the Western Beds and Northern Reach fell quiet save for the labored rasp of our breath.
The barbarians, what pathetic examples of them that remained, made no sound as we gathered them up and into the sacks we drew from our supply train. We stood stiffly in the zephyrs wafting through the valley. The campaign was complete. We had won.
The night still steams. The sounds of camp life drift softly up the hill to our tent, where these words spill themselves out into our journal. Through the gap in the tent flaps, I see the lights of the camp stretch out before me to the north and east. This day is won, the weeds and trash trees on their way to Hell. The campaign will continue, this we know. The provinces of the Eastern Faciem Saxo are reported to be under attack. Reports lay on the camp desk, of bindweed, rampant hostas and unsettling rumors of a weed heretofore unseen.
A goblet of mountain snow sets near to hand. It is flavored with certain berries and herbs that promote calmness of mind. Tonight we rest. Soon, we conquer. The weeds know this, and tremble.
Written by our hand on this day, 26 July 2015,
Kevinus Aurelius
Emperor
Kevinus Aurelius
Emperor
16 November 2014
Head on the Writer's Block (Sunday Meditation #40)
This is no joke, people, this writer's block. Sitting, staring at the screen and the page while hoping something will turn up. The logjam will not break. With winter approaching, the pewter sky outside the window here does little to comfort me. The problem, you see, is that it should offer solace to me. Yet it feels far off.
This should not be. Fall and winter are the spring and summer to my creative intellect. Seasons of vigor and energy, of growth. Some of my best work and best efforts on life have come forth in the cooler months. Stretching all the way back to college when the best grade-point averages of my education were chalked up. Best ideas. Best efforts. Now, today, in this brown study or blue funk, uneasiness rolls in on a tide of unproductivity.
It is no lack of inspiration. Rather, no lack of source material. Current events and personal life offer no shortage of material to discuss, meditate upon, react to or use to generate a thousand and one stories. The problem appears to be one of application. All of those things to be considered cram themselves up against the forefront of my mind, a mob of unruly ideas trapping me in a riot of information. The riot is exhausting.
Something holds me in place. Fear or apathy, either could be a reasonable explanation. I do not know yet, because I am either too scared or too tired to investigate. Quite a paradox, to be frightened of that which I desire, and enervated by the mountain range between me and my creative selves.
This should not be. Fall and winter are the spring and summer to my creative intellect. Seasons of vigor and energy, of growth. Some of my best work and best efforts on life have come forth in the cooler months. Stretching all the way back to college when the best grade-point averages of my education were chalked up. Best ideas. Best efforts. Now, today, in this brown study or blue funk, uneasiness rolls in on a tide of unproductivity.
It is no lack of inspiration. Rather, no lack of source material. Current events and personal life offer no shortage of material to discuss, meditate upon, react to or use to generate a thousand and one stories. The problem appears to be one of application. All of those things to be considered cram themselves up against the forefront of my mind, a mob of unruly ideas trapping me in a riot of information. The riot is exhausting.
Something holds me in place. Fear or apathy, either could be a reasonable explanation. I do not know yet, because I am either too scared or too tired to investigate. Quite a paradox, to be frightened of that which I desire, and enervated by the mountain range between me and my creative selves.
16 July 2014
Every Day I Am Schrödinger's Cat
Red eyes flickering
Fever state of life or death,
Which will I awake?
07 October 2013
Along the Ice Front
Ranger had been told that life on the Sangre Fría de Cristo range was brutal, cold and short. So far, he had witnessed brutality aplenty and the cold never left his bones. But he was still alive, after all these years. A small miracle in light of the graves he had dug.
"Two out of three is bad," he muttered into the icy wind. It never seemed to quit. By the standards of Nuevo A Coruña, a cold, blustery slice of hell itself, the wind was rather slack. He checked the thermal settings on his enviro-suit. The idiot lights glowed a faint green, but the color engendered mistrust. His feet and hands were starting to go numb, despite the suit insisting that the heat was normal.
Ranger doubted it. In the two days since the fall the suit had been performing erratically. One minute he would suddenly be roasting, the next it felt like the sweat was freezing in seconds on his burned skin. His meager repair kit had stabilized it somewhat, but the parts were running out. There were no replacements.
He craned his neck forward to sip from the hydration tube poking up from the suit collar. The water, laced with electrolytes and a mild stimulant, seemed to his tongue to taste faintly of piss. It always made him uneasy. He knew the suit recycled everything so efficiently that he must be imagining things. Good thing the stimulants were chemically rigged to not increase urine output, Ranger recalled. No way could he handle the thought of having to change out the filters more than he did now.
Not that it mattered much. The scout ship was near complete ruin. The team, dead, except for Ranger and the Alférez. The rest scattered somewhere in the rocks and ice, swallowed up by chasms and the bellies of the things in the chasms. Ranger checked himself again. He was alive, but the Alférez, only nominally so.
The body moved and muttered but its eyes were now frozen orbs of a nacreous blue-white. Ranger could see them through the slightly cracked lenses of the suit binoculars. See them, that is, when he could bring himself to look. The Alférez had fallen down the scree, shouting gibberish and swatting at something no one else could see
Ranger sighed. He rubbed his hands hard on his thighs in an effort to bring some warmth back into his fingers. He was years away from home and the thought of it made his heart ache so sharply he tasted iron on his tongue. Years. He had been gone for years, searching for minerals and life forms the Directorate had deemed important. Yet he had never found the thing to quiet the loneliness in his core.
Glancing up at the sky, he saw that the sun was about to set. In his reverie he had failed to account for the lateness of the day. He was exposed there on the butte overlooking the plain below. He forced himself to stand, gathering up his survey gear. The gear was filling up, Ranger noted with a pang, but he held little hope he would survive long enough to get it safely into the Datanet.
The slug thrower leaned against a lichen-coated boulder. Ranger hesitated, knowing he was nearly out of ammunition. The weight would slow him down, burning up precious calories, but without it he was truly defenseless. He looked out into the blue twilight congealing down below the mountain range. There were shadows stirring down there, shadows that could swallow him in the blink of an eye if he let them. he picked up the gun.
Ranger sighed, strapping on his gear before setting off up the rough trail that led to the only shelter he could find in the wasteland. At a small rise, he turned to get one last glance at the Alférez. The gun was raised in a half-salute, then he froze. Something was hunched over the body of his friend. It appeared to be eating.
Ranger swallowed hard. He turned and ran, calories be damned. The cave was not far away. It would keep him alive until tomorrow, at least. Tomorrow after sunrise he would awake, cold and alone, but for the last time. Tomorrow Ranger was going to find his way home.
"Two out of three is bad," he muttered into the icy wind. It never seemed to quit. By the standards of Nuevo A Coruña, a cold, blustery slice of hell itself, the wind was rather slack. He checked the thermal settings on his enviro-suit. The idiot lights glowed a faint green, but the color engendered mistrust. His feet and hands were starting to go numb, despite the suit insisting that the heat was normal.
Ranger doubted it. In the two days since the fall the suit had been performing erratically. One minute he would suddenly be roasting, the next it felt like the sweat was freezing in seconds on his burned skin. His meager repair kit had stabilized it somewhat, but the parts were running out. There were no replacements.
He craned his neck forward to sip from the hydration tube poking up from the suit collar. The water, laced with electrolytes and a mild stimulant, seemed to his tongue to taste faintly of piss. It always made him uneasy. He knew the suit recycled everything so efficiently that he must be imagining things. Good thing the stimulants were chemically rigged to not increase urine output, Ranger recalled. No way could he handle the thought of having to change out the filters more than he did now.
Not that it mattered much. The scout ship was near complete ruin. The team, dead, except for Ranger and the Alférez. The rest scattered somewhere in the rocks and ice, swallowed up by chasms and the bellies of the things in the chasms. Ranger checked himself again. He was alive, but the Alférez, only nominally so.
The body moved and muttered but its eyes were now frozen orbs of a nacreous blue-white. Ranger could see them through the slightly cracked lenses of the suit binoculars. See them, that is, when he could bring himself to look. The Alférez had fallen down the scree, shouting gibberish and swatting at something no one else could see
Ranger sighed. He rubbed his hands hard on his thighs in an effort to bring some warmth back into his fingers. He was years away from home and the thought of it made his heart ache so sharply he tasted iron on his tongue. Years. He had been gone for years, searching for minerals and life forms the Directorate had deemed important. Yet he had never found the thing to quiet the loneliness in his core.
Glancing up at the sky, he saw that the sun was about to set. In his reverie he had failed to account for the lateness of the day. He was exposed there on the butte overlooking the plain below. He forced himself to stand, gathering up his survey gear. The gear was filling up, Ranger noted with a pang, but he held little hope he would survive long enough to get it safely into the Datanet.
The slug thrower leaned against a lichen-coated boulder. Ranger hesitated, knowing he was nearly out of ammunition. The weight would slow him down, burning up precious calories, but without it he was truly defenseless. He looked out into the blue twilight congealing down below the mountain range. There were shadows stirring down there, shadows that could swallow him in the blink of an eye if he let them. he picked up the gun.
Ranger sighed, strapping on his gear before setting off up the rough trail that led to the only shelter he could find in the wasteland. At a small rise, he turned to get one last glance at the Alférez. The gun was raised in a half-salute, then he froze. Something was hunched over the body of his friend. It appeared to be eating.
Ranger swallowed hard. He turned and ran, calories be damned. The cave was not far away. It would keep him alive until tomorrow, at least. Tomorrow after sunrise he would awake, cold and alone, but for the last time. Tomorrow Ranger was going to find his way home.
27 September 2013
Letting Them Slip
Of the things that get my goat these days, the conflict between art and duty is at the top of the list. I kvetch often when I cannot seem to find, or to make, the time to attend to the acts of creation that I claim I need to sustain myself. It would seem to be inconsistent with my goals. It makes me wonder when I truly am going to pull a carpe diem and satisfy my intention.
My peace of mind depends on it, don't you think? And if peace of mind is that important it would seem imperative to follow those notions and impulses that feed it. I had the chance today. Make that two chances. I failed to act on both, and now I am disappointed.
The chances were nothing earth-shattering. There was no flash of insight leading to the cure for cancer or ending world poverty. No, these chances were more humble, intrinsic to me and me alone. Well, unless you consider that the chances had potential for me to gather something to share with the extrinsic world.
I had an assignment wherein I had the opportunity to do something constructive with my camera and earn payment from the results. The assignment was in a semi-rural area somewhat south of my current abode. When I had left the house earlier, on impulse I put my film camera in the car, in case I saw something scenic or interesting out in the rolling fields and farms. So it wasn't like I didn't have any equipment.
The assignment took longer than I expected, and I was tired, hungry and hot when I finished. My thoughts turned to getting home and finishing the task. I was in a hurry, for what in hindsight turned out to be not so pressing reasons. So I get in the car and head home, thinking too much about what I needed to do.
I passed a concrete plant at an intersection of two roads and what seemed like four cornfields. The interplay of light and shadow on the industrial structures was fascinating. I thought about the black and white film I had, but shook my head and muttered to myself "No time, gotta get home." I kept driving.
Nearby and across the road the top of a slightly derelict silo peeped up above a deep cornfield. Next to it were some barn buildings, also in need of sprucing up. Peeling paint, an old tree, cornstalks waving in the foreground. The light was hitting it all just right. The mood was of opportunities fading away, hard work needing to be done, and the unsettling openness of the prairie sky above it.
Perfect photo op, right? Great shots to be had, yes?
I watched it recede in my rear view mirror. I didn't stop. The velvet shackles of duty, the sure thing, the chore to be done, all convinced me to keep going by laying on the old saw of "There will be other opportunities, move along." What really bothered me, the farther down the road I went, is that the creative soul in me raised hardly a peep. It just let it happen.
The question turning over in my mind and heart while I sped down the highway back to the "city", was one of "If not now, when?"
Indeed. Opportunities may exist, but to assume a guarantee is to take them for granted. The voice in my head told me to drive, to follow the call of duty. My artistic life is in danger of atrophy, all because sometimes I listen to the wrong voice.
My peace of mind depends on it, don't you think? And if peace of mind is that important it would seem imperative to follow those notions and impulses that feed it. I had the chance today. Make that two chances. I failed to act on both, and now I am disappointed.
The chances were nothing earth-shattering. There was no flash of insight leading to the cure for cancer or ending world poverty. No, these chances were more humble, intrinsic to me and me alone. Well, unless you consider that the chances had potential for me to gather something to share with the extrinsic world.
I had an assignment wherein I had the opportunity to do something constructive with my camera and earn payment from the results. The assignment was in a semi-rural area somewhat south of my current abode. When I had left the house earlier, on impulse I put my film camera in the car, in case I saw something scenic or interesting out in the rolling fields and farms. So it wasn't like I didn't have any equipment.
The assignment took longer than I expected, and I was tired, hungry and hot when I finished. My thoughts turned to getting home and finishing the task. I was in a hurry, for what in hindsight turned out to be not so pressing reasons. So I get in the car and head home, thinking too much about what I needed to do.
I passed a concrete plant at an intersection of two roads and what seemed like four cornfields. The interplay of light and shadow on the industrial structures was fascinating. I thought about the black and white film I had, but shook my head and muttered to myself "No time, gotta get home." I kept driving.
Nearby and across the road the top of a slightly derelict silo peeped up above a deep cornfield. Next to it were some barn buildings, also in need of sprucing up. Peeling paint, an old tree, cornstalks waving in the foreground. The light was hitting it all just right. The mood was of opportunities fading away, hard work needing to be done, and the unsettling openness of the prairie sky above it.
Perfect photo op, right? Great shots to be had, yes?
I watched it recede in my rear view mirror. I didn't stop. The velvet shackles of duty, the sure thing, the chore to be done, all convinced me to keep going by laying on the old saw of "There will be other opportunities, move along." What really bothered me, the farther down the road I went, is that the creative soul in me raised hardly a peep. It just let it happen.
The question turning over in my mind and heart while I sped down the highway back to the "city", was one of "If not now, when?"
Indeed. Opportunities may exist, but to assume a guarantee is to take them for granted. The voice in my head told me to drive, to follow the call of duty. My artistic life is in danger of atrophy, all because sometimes I listen to the wrong voice.
19 August 2013
New York Texas Toast Blues
Seamus couldn't fucking believe it. "This is what my life has come to?" he croaked. "Frozen Texas toast? From New York?" The last said with a lilting inflection of utter disbelief. What the hell did New York know about making Texas toast? he thought. There it was, big as day, the garish box sitting on the shelf at eye level with the label blaring "NEW YORK TEXAS TOAST - 5 CHEESE".
His stomach lurched. The cool air of the freezer cascaded down his bare legs dangling below the rumpled boxers that barely clung to his bony hips. Coils of ghostly smoke snaked across his vision, the cigarette dangling from lips glossed by whiskey. Seamus sighed, coughed, brushed absent-mindedly at the smattering of ashes on his stained undershirt.
He stood confused, wondering just when it was he had bought the toast. Even in his most desperate days, and there were many, he had always kept his distance from that particular abomination. Especially if it had that spread that looked like uncooked batter on it. It was supposed to be "butter", he knew, but it tasted like burned garlic mixed with stale movie popcorn oil.
He hated that shit. Yet there it was, in his freezer. A whiskey-tinged belch made its way up from his rumbling belly. He was hungry in spite of the booze, the fridge was mostly empty and there was exactly a dollar fifty-three in change sitting on the table in the dining nook. The table was barely standing, battered, and to his mind it made the whole place look smaller than an efficiency ought to be. The walls bulged in, he swore they were moving.
Seamus slammed the door shut. Shaking, he surprised himself by starting to cry. Memories rushed in of his step-mother's awful dinners, where that kind of toast showed up so often his older brother joked that she must have been banging the route driver for the bakery. He and Aidan had no options growing up, they ate it because it was that or nothing. Most nights, it seemed.
He swiped at his running nose with the back of a grimy hand. He shuffled over to the table, pushing aside the pistol. The slick black barrel clanked against the plastic highball glass next to it, slopping cheap scotch over the rim. The liquid beaded up on the torn note stuck under the glass. A black, spidery scrawl of ink across the brown kraft paper showed a name and address. Both started to blur as the whiskey soaked into the paper.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." He needed the money, but now he was feeling weak-kneed and hopeless. The thought that it was a job he could no longer finish burst bright in his head, he just knew, but he needed the cash so fuckin' bad and this shithole apartment is going to cave in on me, no way, no way, man, I can't eat another slice of that trash but I don't know what to do!
Seamus slammed his hands down on the table. Pistol and glass jumped. He grabbed the cigarette from his lips and dunked it hard into the glass. There was a faint hiss as the butt went out, bobbing in the whiskey like a bizarre canoe. "Changes, man, gotta make changes." Trembling hands cradled his aching head. "Cut out the booze, get out of the life, yeah, that's what I need." His rasping voice fell flat into the cramped, stale air of the apartment. "Gotta get help. Maybe Father Mancuso over at St. Ann's could do it, yeah, maybe so."
He sat up straight. He'd get dressed, that's what he would do. Put on the black shoes, the pair with only one hole in the sole. He'd walk the few blocks down to the old neighborhood, beg Mancuso to take him in. God loves a sinner, right? The good Father could take him in, clean him up, get him out of the life. A smile creased his mouth at the thought that he would never pull the trigger again. And if he was really lucky, he'd never again eat that goddamned toast.
It was just too close to the bone.
His stomach lurched. The cool air of the freezer cascaded down his bare legs dangling below the rumpled boxers that barely clung to his bony hips. Coils of ghostly smoke snaked across his vision, the cigarette dangling from lips glossed by whiskey. Seamus sighed, coughed, brushed absent-mindedly at the smattering of ashes on his stained undershirt.
He stood confused, wondering just when it was he had bought the toast. Even in his most desperate days, and there were many, he had always kept his distance from that particular abomination. Especially if it had that spread that looked like uncooked batter on it. It was supposed to be "butter", he knew, but it tasted like burned garlic mixed with stale movie popcorn oil.
He hated that shit. Yet there it was, in his freezer. A whiskey-tinged belch made its way up from his rumbling belly. He was hungry in spite of the booze, the fridge was mostly empty and there was exactly a dollar fifty-three in change sitting on the table in the dining nook. The table was barely standing, battered, and to his mind it made the whole place look smaller than an efficiency ought to be. The walls bulged in, he swore they were moving.
Seamus slammed the door shut. Shaking, he surprised himself by starting to cry. Memories rushed in of his step-mother's awful dinners, where that kind of toast showed up so often his older brother joked that she must have been banging the route driver for the bakery. He and Aidan had no options growing up, they ate it because it was that or nothing. Most nights, it seemed.
He swiped at his running nose with the back of a grimy hand. He shuffled over to the table, pushing aside the pistol. The slick black barrel clanked against the plastic highball glass next to it, slopping cheap scotch over the rim. The liquid beaded up on the torn note stuck under the glass. A black, spidery scrawl of ink across the brown kraft paper showed a name and address. Both started to blur as the whiskey soaked into the paper.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." He needed the money, but now he was feeling weak-kneed and hopeless. The thought that it was a job he could no longer finish burst bright in his head, he just knew, but he needed the cash so fuckin' bad and this shithole apartment is going to cave in on me, no way, no way, man, I can't eat another slice of that trash but I don't know what to do!
Seamus slammed his hands down on the table. Pistol and glass jumped. He grabbed the cigarette from his lips and dunked it hard into the glass. There was a faint hiss as the butt went out, bobbing in the whiskey like a bizarre canoe. "Changes, man, gotta make changes." Trembling hands cradled his aching head. "Cut out the booze, get out of the life, yeah, that's what I need." His rasping voice fell flat into the cramped, stale air of the apartment. "Gotta get help. Maybe Father Mancuso over at St. Ann's could do it, yeah, maybe so."
He sat up straight. He'd get dressed, that's what he would do. Put on the black shoes, the pair with only one hole in the sole. He'd walk the few blocks down to the old neighborhood, beg Mancuso to take him in. God loves a sinner, right? The good Father could take him in, clean him up, get him out of the life. A smile creased his mouth at the thought that he would never pull the trigger again. And if he was really lucky, he'd never again eat that goddamned toast.
It was just too close to the bone.
16 August 2013
Mangoes Before Heaven
Simon gasped, ragged breath a countdown to what he was sure would soon be his last. The sickly vapors wafting from his gangrenous legs combined with the fetid reek of the riverbank in an unholy miasma that near to choked him. He chuckled, tight and grim, wondering if it would be disease or animals that snuffed the candle for him.
The flies had already found their mark. They formed a gauzy haze that shuffled and coagulated repeatedly as he feebly waved them away from his torn body. He lay about halfway up the bank, as far as he had dragged himself before passing out under the onslaught of the Kalimantan sun. The track of his body was already drying up. So far, other than watching his legs swell and blacken, nothing had bothered him. Nothing big, anyway. He wondered again if the python stories the Dayak had told him were true. Big snakes held no particular terror for him, but forty feet long? Possessed of spirit magic? Christ, who thinks up such things?
He slept, for how long he could not tell. The sun appeared to have moved little when his swollen eyes fluttered open. His legs hurt, felt afire, yet his feet were numb. More flies formed a shroud around his head and shoulders. Weak swats at them only served as momentary respite. He rolled onto his side, the effort making his vision dim. There seemed to be a large, twisted log laying down by the waterline. It hadn't been there before, but the rivers here had their own way of confounding memory. Behind the log, he could see the river moving on, slow and syrupy.Water. He was so thirsty.
To his surprise, he was hungry. But what he wanted was a mango, ripe and fragrantly sweet. He had never tasted such voluptuousness before being posted to this green hell. The scent, the shape, even the taste all reminded him of a woman. He had taken to eating mangoes every chance he could get, along with a taste for the carnal delights of the prostitutes frequenting the trading post down at the river mouth.
"Mango..." he whispered hoarsely. His vision began to blur. The log on the riverbank twitched, caught on a sudden surge of current, he thought. But it began to move uphill. Simon croaked a sigh of disbelief, then passed out.
The log uncoiled further, resolving itself into the shape of a huge, mottled python. It lifted its snout, testing the heavy air with a surprisingly delicate tongue. It oozed up the bank.
He dreamed. He was back downriver, somewhere in the warren of hovels and ramshackle wharves that fingered the river where it disgorged itself into the sea. He was in a shack on pilings over the water, lying on his back in a rough, low-slung bed composed of copra and cast-off teak. His body, and the body of his companion, were sheened with sweat. A slight post-coital shudder coursed through his frame as the sloe-eyed beauty next to him breathed softly into his ear. She asked him in the pidgin English that served as their language of trade if he wanted mango.
He smiled. "Yes, yes" Simon answered excitedly. She smiled back, black pearls of her eyes drawing him in. Despite his recent exertions, he felt stirrings in his groin. This place, he thought, is swallowing me up. The woman got up, moving to a low chest that doubled as a table. There was a pair of mangoes on top, along with a small machete. He lay on his side and watched as she deftly carved the peel off the fruit. The sight excited and disturbed him.
The python had made its way up the bank, and was near to Simon's sleeping body. The snake paused. Another feathery whip of the tongue, as if assuring itself of its hunger. It looped its body closer.
She turned back to him. Lamp light gleamed on her skin. She held in her hands the halves of a mango. Juice dripped slowly down her wrists. Smiling, she approached the bed, kneeling down to him. A small, tan hand held the mango half inches from his nose. The scent near to made him swoon. Her dark beauty coiled around his heart and loins. "You want?" she asked. "Of course!" he half spoke, half groaned. He reached out to take the fruit. The woman climbed back in bed, managing to simultaneously eat her mango while spooning him.
The python hesitated when it crept close enough to touch the prostrate man. In his fevered sleep, his hand had clasped the head of the snake, caressing it. The snake paused, confused. It had never encountered such a thing in all its days of catching prey. The hand gently tugged the head of the snake down and to the man's lips. He kissed the reptile. The python responded by slowly wrapping its coils around the dying man.
Simon almost failed to notice how strong she was clutching him, he was so taken with the fruit. Lust, power, satiety, all suddenly condensed to the pale orange flesh he ate. He felt her grasp getting stronger, almost painful. But he could not bring himself to stop eating the mango. His vision begin to dim, she was saying something to him in a sibilant, sing-song voice but he could not understand her. He had a vague notion she was comforting him, saying it would be good for him to go. As her hard embrace transformed itself into a fierce pressure, his vision turned to black, and he felt his heart stop. He knew then that he would not leave Kalimantan alive. He told himself that he would not be afraid to die, though, as long as he could eat mangoes before Heaven.
The flies had already found their mark. They formed a gauzy haze that shuffled and coagulated repeatedly as he feebly waved them away from his torn body. He lay about halfway up the bank, as far as he had dragged himself before passing out under the onslaught of the Kalimantan sun. The track of his body was already drying up. So far, other than watching his legs swell and blacken, nothing had bothered him. Nothing big, anyway. He wondered again if the python stories the Dayak had told him were true. Big snakes held no particular terror for him, but forty feet long? Possessed of spirit magic? Christ, who thinks up such things?
He slept, for how long he could not tell. The sun appeared to have moved little when his swollen eyes fluttered open. His legs hurt, felt afire, yet his feet were numb. More flies formed a shroud around his head and shoulders. Weak swats at them only served as momentary respite. He rolled onto his side, the effort making his vision dim. There seemed to be a large, twisted log laying down by the waterline. It hadn't been there before, but the rivers here had their own way of confounding memory. Behind the log, he could see the river moving on, slow and syrupy.Water. He was so thirsty.
To his surprise, he was hungry. But what he wanted was a mango, ripe and fragrantly sweet. He had never tasted such voluptuousness before being posted to this green hell. The scent, the shape, even the taste all reminded him of a woman. He had taken to eating mangoes every chance he could get, along with a taste for the carnal delights of the prostitutes frequenting the trading post down at the river mouth.
"Mango..." he whispered hoarsely. His vision began to blur. The log on the riverbank twitched, caught on a sudden surge of current, he thought. But it began to move uphill. Simon croaked a sigh of disbelief, then passed out.
The log uncoiled further, resolving itself into the shape of a huge, mottled python. It lifted its snout, testing the heavy air with a surprisingly delicate tongue. It oozed up the bank.
He dreamed. He was back downriver, somewhere in the warren of hovels and ramshackle wharves that fingered the river where it disgorged itself into the sea. He was in a shack on pilings over the water, lying on his back in a rough, low-slung bed composed of copra and cast-off teak. His body, and the body of his companion, were sheened with sweat. A slight post-coital shudder coursed through his frame as the sloe-eyed beauty next to him breathed softly into his ear. She asked him in the pidgin English that served as their language of trade if he wanted mango.
He smiled. "Yes, yes" Simon answered excitedly. She smiled back, black pearls of her eyes drawing him in. Despite his recent exertions, he felt stirrings in his groin. This place, he thought, is swallowing me up. The woman got up, moving to a low chest that doubled as a table. There was a pair of mangoes on top, along with a small machete. He lay on his side and watched as she deftly carved the peel off the fruit. The sight excited and disturbed him.
The python had made its way up the bank, and was near to Simon's sleeping body. The snake paused. Another feathery whip of the tongue, as if assuring itself of its hunger. It looped its body closer.
She turned back to him. Lamp light gleamed on her skin. She held in her hands the halves of a mango. Juice dripped slowly down her wrists. Smiling, she approached the bed, kneeling down to him. A small, tan hand held the mango half inches from his nose. The scent near to made him swoon. Her dark beauty coiled around his heart and loins. "You want?" she asked. "Of course!" he half spoke, half groaned. He reached out to take the fruit. The woman climbed back in bed, managing to simultaneously eat her mango while spooning him.
The python hesitated when it crept close enough to touch the prostrate man. In his fevered sleep, his hand had clasped the head of the snake, caressing it. The snake paused, confused. It had never encountered such a thing in all its days of catching prey. The hand gently tugged the head of the snake down and to the man's lips. He kissed the reptile. The python responded by slowly wrapping its coils around the dying man.
Simon almost failed to notice how strong she was clutching him, he was so taken with the fruit. Lust, power, satiety, all suddenly condensed to the pale orange flesh he ate. He felt her grasp getting stronger, almost painful. But he could not bring himself to stop eating the mango. His vision begin to dim, she was saying something to him in a sibilant, sing-song voice but he could not understand her. He had a vague notion she was comforting him, saying it would be good for him to go. As her hard embrace transformed itself into a fierce pressure, his vision turned to black, and he felt his heart stop. He knew then that he would not leave Kalimantan alive. He told himself that he would not be afraid to die, though, as long as he could eat mangoes before Heaven.
07 June 2013
Seventh Wave
She's not coming back, Marley. You know that, don't you?
Finn's words clove the air in the manner of a rusty jail door opening on greaseless hinges. Marley's fingers tightened on the chilly granite of the window sill. For the moment he ignored the remark, keeping his back to the man who was his best friend. He stared out the window, flaking steel mullions framing the iron-green ocean a short distance away. To his red and grit-ridden eyes the rectangle of glass appeared to be a small painting come to life, with miniature gulls swooping into tiny bursts of spray. A minute or two of silence, then Marley cleared his throat to speak.
I know that, Finn. You don't need to remind me. But it is my head what knows it, not my heart.
Marley had not turned to face Finn. His words bounced off the misty glass, shattering into needles that sped across the width of the small cottage to spike Finn where he stood. The Irishman winced, took off his cap and ran a scarred hand across his head. He briefly kneaded the nape of his neck, his hand dropping slack to his side. He leaned back against the whitewashed stone of the cottage wall, and waited. Marley spoke.
The ocean gave me much, my friend. Life. Blood. Ways to make a living. But it took a lot, too. Just before she came to me, I was thinking...
Marley's voice dropped off. His mouth hung open, working slowly. Fish out of water, Finn thought.
...I was thinking, that I didn't want to die but simply not living anymore would be just fine. Days like that, a man is likely to believe in anything what makes him better. Even witches. Selkies. Them that you swear you see in the mist, those nights where sleep is a fraud and the sea is the only voice louder than the ones in your head.
She was there, Finn. I know it. She in this room, she shared my hearth, my bed. I...
Marley's throat tightened around the grief and longing welling up from the spring of his heart. Finn's eyes softened, and he made to speak, but thought of nothing he could say to fill the void in his friend. Marley's shoulders shook, his hands clawing at the sill in a death grip. Finn could see from across the room the knuckles going white. Marley's head dropped, and stains bloomed on the stone of the sill. A croaking whisper rising to a near shout skirled out from his throat, causing Finn to flinch
I know she's gone, Finn! The sea took her back, and left me here. Why, Finn? Can ya tell me that?
Marley turned to look at his friend. His eyes were wide and wet, reflecting the nacreous light seeping through the windows. Behind him, the surf walloped the rocks and sand, and Finn swore he could see waves deep in the pupils of the haggard man who swayed slightly across from him. Finn hesitated, then walked over to Marley. His steps rasped the silence, tearing it apart with a duet of sand and hobnails on the burnished planks of the floor. He put his hands gently on Marley's shoulders and slowly spun him to face the sea.
I don't know why, Marley. You said yourself the ocean gave you much, even if it did take much. Manannán has a wicked sense of humor, you'll agree. But take this to heart, friend. The sea did give her to you, and she gave you to yourself. Remember that and rejoice.
Marley turned his head, staring at Finn with watering eyes. He said nothing, only nodding, then turned his face back to stare at the waves. He thought he saw a face, but it smiled and closed it eyes, disappearing amongst the foam.
Finn's words clove the air in the manner of a rusty jail door opening on greaseless hinges. Marley's fingers tightened on the chilly granite of the window sill. For the moment he ignored the remark, keeping his back to the man who was his best friend. He stared out the window, flaking steel mullions framing the iron-green ocean a short distance away. To his red and grit-ridden eyes the rectangle of glass appeared to be a small painting come to life, with miniature gulls swooping into tiny bursts of spray. A minute or two of silence, then Marley cleared his throat to speak.
I know that, Finn. You don't need to remind me. But it is my head what knows it, not my heart.
Marley had not turned to face Finn. His words bounced off the misty glass, shattering into needles that sped across the width of the small cottage to spike Finn where he stood. The Irishman winced, took off his cap and ran a scarred hand across his head. He briefly kneaded the nape of his neck, his hand dropping slack to his side. He leaned back against the whitewashed stone of the cottage wall, and waited. Marley spoke.
The ocean gave me much, my friend. Life. Blood. Ways to make a living. But it took a lot, too. Just before she came to me, I was thinking...
Marley's voice dropped off. His mouth hung open, working slowly. Fish out of water, Finn thought.
...I was thinking, that I didn't want to die but simply not living anymore would be just fine. Days like that, a man is likely to believe in anything what makes him better. Even witches. Selkies. Them that you swear you see in the mist, those nights where sleep is a fraud and the sea is the only voice louder than the ones in your head.
She was there, Finn. I know it. She in this room, she shared my hearth, my bed. I...
Marley's throat tightened around the grief and longing welling up from the spring of his heart. Finn's eyes softened, and he made to speak, but thought of nothing he could say to fill the void in his friend. Marley's shoulders shook, his hands clawing at the sill in a death grip. Finn could see from across the room the knuckles going white. Marley's head dropped, and stains bloomed on the stone of the sill. A croaking whisper rising to a near shout skirled out from his throat, causing Finn to flinch
I know she's gone, Finn! The sea took her back, and left me here. Why, Finn? Can ya tell me that?
Marley turned to look at his friend. His eyes were wide and wet, reflecting the nacreous light seeping through the windows. Behind him, the surf walloped the rocks and sand, and Finn swore he could see waves deep in the pupils of the haggard man who swayed slightly across from him. Finn hesitated, then walked over to Marley. His steps rasped the silence, tearing it apart with a duet of sand and hobnails on the burnished planks of the floor. He put his hands gently on Marley's shoulders and slowly spun him to face the sea.
I don't know why, Marley. You said yourself the ocean gave you much, even if it did take much. Manannán has a wicked sense of humor, you'll agree. But take this to heart, friend. The sea did give her to you, and she gave you to yourself. Remember that and rejoice.
Marley turned his head, staring at Finn with watering eyes. He said nothing, only nodding, then turned his face back to stare at the waves. He thought he saw a face, but it smiled and closed it eyes, disappearing amongst the foam.
16 May 2013
Plumbing the Weird
8:45 PM. Long day, much to do, lots of low cursing. Then, more thoughts.
I had a chance to review what I wrote for yesterday's post. I have to say, it was pretty weird. I mean, weird even for me. Why that is, I cannot rightly say.
What I can say is that it is the result of a maxim. To wit, I have been exhorted more than once and by more than one source to write every day. Even if I do not feel like it or am not inspired. Write. Write. WRITE. I've also been told to not worry if it isn't any good, or maybe doesn't make sense. One doesn't even need to know what to write about. Just. Do. It.
So I did. It was difficult. I was in no mood to write, had no plans to do so, certainly had no big ideas laying around in the junkyard of my mind. I went to my computer with the intention of doing some research on some trivial thing I thought I needed, or maybe it was online bill-paying I meant to do. It could have been something important, for all I know now.
All of that is not what happened, as we clearly see. Instead of turning right, I turned left. I zigged instead of zagged. My fingers started typing of seemingly their own volition, I entered a fugue state---that is what it felt like---and about an hour later that story is what left my head and ended up on the digital page. I can describe the episode as channeling rather than writing. Upon completion, I felt drained and exalted.
I also laughed at myself. It seemed so strange, so not where my head was going when I logged in. Often this sort of thing unnerves me and creates a little anxiety. I am not the type of person who easily makes leaps into the unknown, because it is so...well, so unknown. I realize how ridiculous I appear to acknowledge such absurdity.
But there it is, this rare attempt to just write, with no plan, no inspiration, no map. I have no idea what it means, or even if it means anything. This is okay, I think. If I am to make good on my aspirations to be an author I'll have to get used to plumbing weird. I hope I can bring guests.
I had a chance to review what I wrote for yesterday's post. I have to say, it was pretty weird. I mean, weird even for me. Why that is, I cannot rightly say.
What I can say is that it is the result of a maxim. To wit, I have been exhorted more than once and by more than one source to write every day. Even if I do not feel like it or am not inspired. Write. Write. WRITE. I've also been told to not worry if it isn't any good, or maybe doesn't make sense. One doesn't even need to know what to write about. Just. Do. It.
So I did. It was difficult. I was in no mood to write, had no plans to do so, certainly had no big ideas laying around in the junkyard of my mind. I went to my computer with the intention of doing some research on some trivial thing I thought I needed, or maybe it was online bill-paying I meant to do. It could have been something important, for all I know now.
All of that is not what happened, as we clearly see. Instead of turning right, I turned left. I zigged instead of zagged. My fingers started typing of seemingly their own volition, I entered a fugue state---that is what it felt like---and about an hour later that story is what left my head and ended up on the digital page. I can describe the episode as channeling rather than writing. Upon completion, I felt drained and exalted.
I also laughed at myself. It seemed so strange, so not where my head was going when I logged in. Often this sort of thing unnerves me and creates a little anxiety. I am not the type of person who easily makes leaps into the unknown, because it is so...well, so unknown. I realize how ridiculous I appear to acknowledge such absurdity.
But there it is, this rare attempt to just write, with no plan, no inspiration, no map. I have no idea what it means, or even if it means anything. This is okay, I think. If I am to make good on my aspirations to be an author I'll have to get used to plumbing weird. I hope I can bring guests.
17 December 2012
Magpie Tales 148: Through the Front
photo by Andy Magee, via Magpie Tales
Worrying about the drive,
you play a zero-sum game
Turn your attention front and center
to gaze the rain-slick track you ride
Low radio murmur is no sin
Songs offer their own warm company
to those bursting through the front,
Wheels like pigeons wayfinding home
you play a zero-sum game
Turn your attention front and center
to gaze the rain-slick track you ride
Low radio murmur is no sin
Songs offer their own warm company
to those bursting through the front,
Wheels like pigeons wayfinding home
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very different creation from that of my first impulse. That first impulse was a story, not blank verse, and it involved elements that, in the light of recent tragic events, were too visceral and dark. I owe a debt of thanks to Tess Kincaid, whose Magpie Tale I read before I wrote my own, but after I had that first inspiration. Because of that poem, because of 'dreich', because of rain, I made something from light. Thanks be to quantam entanglements and thank you, Ms. Kincaid.
10 December 2012
Magpie Tales 147: Tara Cognita
Image from The MetaPicture via Magpie Tales
Sailed the seas of her
roaming over black rogue waves
pounding the fearful ego
A bittersweet joke
Lost on Mare timoris,
compass in the heart
Bed, a safe harbor
Her breath, waves lapping the strand
soft hips, map to home
05 December 2012
Sleeping Dogs In My Head
Crash! Clang! Bang the lids
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs
02 December 2012
If I Could Speak My Mind (Sunday Meditation #25)
9:54 PM. At my desk, on the cusp of what I hope to be a good nights' sleep. Poems and music in my head.
I returned home about forty minutes ago, tired but content, from a social event where I got schooled in what in means to surround one's self with beautiful things that make one happy. In other words, Art. All I know is that I stood there admiring some prints, and thought "That is what I want to do. Please."
On the ride home I had a mashup going on in my head, poetry of two widely divergent decades swirling around in my head. W. B. Yeats in a church, sepulchrally intoning 'The Second Coming' intertwined with the staccato baritone of Chuck D. knocking out 'Welcome to the Terrordome'...and I couldn't stop marveling over the power of shadow and light and words. I couldn't help but feel a tad helpless in the face of such talent and skill.
I thought of my cameras and notebooks waiting patiently at home. I wondered, given what is out there and the sum total of powerful art that has been created, if my aspirations to be a shaman (of sorts) are wildly misplaced. I like to think I see things, hear things, that maybe no one else does in those creative moments of mine. But I have much to learn when it comes to pursuing and creating art, of any kind, be it written or visual.
Yeats, Chuck D. and an artist whose name I didn't write down. I can see them on the road ahead of me. I've miles to go, people, miles to go on the road to who I want to be.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
~ from 'The Second Coming' by W. B. Yeats
Man I've had it up to here
Gear I wear got 'em goin' in fear
Rhetoric said
Read just a bit ago
Not quittin' though
Signed the hard rhymer
Work to keep from gettin' jerked
Changin' some ways
To way back in the better days
Raw metaphysically bold
Never followed a code
Still dropped a load
Never question what I am God knows
Cause it's comin' from the heart
~from 'Welcome to the Terrordome' by Public Enemy
I returned home about forty minutes ago, tired but content, from a social event where I got schooled in what in means to surround one's self with beautiful things that make one happy. In other words, Art. All I know is that I stood there admiring some prints, and thought "That is what I want to do. Please."
On the ride home I had a mashup going on in my head, poetry of two widely divergent decades swirling around in my head. W. B. Yeats in a church, sepulchrally intoning 'The Second Coming' intertwined with the staccato baritone of Chuck D. knocking out 'Welcome to the Terrordome'...and I couldn't stop marveling over the power of shadow and light and words. I couldn't help but feel a tad helpless in the face of such talent and skill.
I thought of my cameras and notebooks waiting patiently at home. I wondered, given what is out there and the sum total of powerful art that has been created, if my aspirations to be a shaman (of sorts) are wildly misplaced. I like to think I see things, hear things, that maybe no one else does in those creative moments of mine. But I have much to learn when it comes to pursuing and creating art, of any kind, be it written or visual.
Yeats, Chuck D. and an artist whose name I didn't write down. I can see them on the road ahead of me. I've miles to go, people, miles to go on the road to who I want to be.
22 October 2012
Magpie Tales 140: He Favors Our Undertakings (Wrong New Order)
Image via Tess at Magpie Tales
His laugh rings clear
as cold cash hits the till
hot bullets hit their targets
while our heads find the sand
Thirteen arrows drawn
Thirteen stars gone nova
Thirteen stripes flay our backs
Thirteen levels we climb
Black sun throne high in thin air
we groan and gasp, finding him:
Hollow motto, bitter tears, to know
Satan approves of our undertakings
16 October 2012
Magpie Tales 139: Broken Bread
Midnight Snack, 1984, by Curtis Wilson Cost via Magpie Tales
Gunnar set his ruck down next to the worn alloy post holding up the gate. It didn't look much different than when he had left. Gunnar shook his head, reckoning the eighty-three years local time he had been gone was a drop in the bucket for a metal that was supposed to last for centuries. The gates, though dulled by time, were in good shape. Gunnar knew his brother Hallvard was many things, and lazy was not one of them.
"Hallvard's up, I hope," the worn soldier muttered. His eyes misted briefly, picturing Hallvard at the worn petrowood table in the kitchen. More likely than not, there was a block of fragrant gammel ost and a huge loaf of brown bread laying there, chunks missing where the hungry farmer had taken what they jokingly called the "Midnight Sun" to fill his belly. Gammel ost in this case a name, remembered across the gulf of the galaxy and a home soil left behind in the dim past. Gunnar chuckled, mouth watering at the thought of the cheese he hadn't tasted in decades. The taste of home.
His stomach lurched. Decades. Hallvard was certain to be an old man now. The clinics in the city were the best tech that had survived the Passage, but Hallvard was stubborn. Gunnar imagined his brother hadn't set foot in a clinic for a bad tooth, much less than the gene tweaks that would have kept him alive and unworn all these years. Still, the light was on, and that was a good sign. The soldier shifted his weight to his better leg, leaning down to pick up the dusty ruck. A dull gleam of circuitry limned his forearm, shining through the ballistic fabric of his tunic. It reminded him of the cost he had paid to get back, and how good that cheese would taste on a slice.
Gunnar glanced at the hologram clock hovering just inside his right eye. It was a minute after midnight. He stepped forward, pushing the gate open with barely a whisper, striding down the gravel path towards home and broken bread.
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