It’s Raining (first published on Orange Monster)
‘Mummy it’s raining’
‘Raining outside’
‘Raining on the window’
‘Raining on the roof’
‘Raining on the cars’
‘Raining on the trees’
‘Raining on the grass’
‘Raining on the puddles’
‘Raining on the birds!’
‘Raining on the cat’
‘Raining on… Daddy!?’
‘Raining on Mummy!’
‘Raining on me!’
‘Raining on all three!
I thought I would share some of the places and things that inspire me.
To start with I thought I’d mention the publication National Geographic, they produce a website, several imprints and have various twitter accounts including a photo a day. What I like to do is buy a copy when I am going on a long journey, I read it from cover to cover often becoming inspired to write just from the articles. Sometimes when I am not feeling flush with money I go to the library and spend a day ready their latest release, then I start writing from the articles and images and sometimes just the titles of the articles is enough – though mainly it is the images and photographs combined with the writing.
Often the story produced will have little to do with the actual article the picture is connected too, though poems are often little dialogues on the over laying theme of what is written already. I do what I term response writing – as in I read the article or look at the picture and then without giving my brain time to think or tell me nah this story isn’t going to work – I just start writing. Sometimes it is part of a story I am already working on or one I have forgotten about and other times it is obviously the start of something longer – but mostly I get short stories and poems.
They also produce documentaries which I love to watch gathering little snippets for my larger novel writings and also books full of the lovely images I find so useful.
I have also found that charity shops will normally throw away mags that are donated but if you say you are looking for something specific they can be quiet helpful. I hope this proves useful to you.
The Torc Cannon
The Punks mock leather trousers creacked their irridescant pink surface rinkeled and smugged with exhust from her out modded Luniaire 6 the bike of the heavens. She swerved again as the torc connon beared down on her, its surface a mirrored sheen rippling her reflection.
The wind sliced at her – she wasn’t supposed to go this fast without a face sheild but she’d bearly had time to grab the goggles and they were balanced pocerasly due to being rammed on hastily, with one hand – over a mohark of vibrant magenta. She swore as another blast missed but the bow wave hit her anyway making the bike ver of course.
She was heading to the Industs! Industry gone mad – factories and shanty town combined, deralicked and dangerous. Ferrial kids and cannibals, the whole complex was inside a steel cave with old ducting and vents hanging down from the vast roof. It made the shopping malls of the 20th century look like onebedroom bedsits and she was about to collide with it!
There was no time to do anything, her heart hurt, she ducked and she was inside! She’d manoveured inside the Indust! Specks with glowing pallid faces looked up at her – she hooted in triumph – thunder, a roar shaking the steel roof over her head, the world trembeled.
The Punk saw the Torc Cannon rentching its way after her, debris hot and twisted was showering down, the Punk dare not think of those glowing faces. Time slowed, some scense honned in time told her to reach up, with a forced that dislocated a shoulder she grabbed a pipe rough and cold and swung herslef around in an acrobatic move even she could not belive. The blast scorched her bike seat making the synthetic sticky. It adhered to her as she hit the seat but there was no time to worry about her threads – a wall loomed large in her vishion. goggles lost in to the Indust floor below. She jerked the bike and dived, grit stung abraiding her face, she was releived she’d taken her chain off the force on the noise ring alone made her fear what exactly she was going to have left of her nose.
She exited through a window curving herself and the bike to the side – they made it though she gashed her leg, no time to think on that. She headed up on the bike, eyes watering, the world seised to exist, she could see nothing, she was riding on her instincts along. She looped round, the strain on her hips and arms as she clung to the bike upside down made her ache, fire shot through her dislocated shoulder but this adreniline muted it to an annoying buzz.
She jumped onto the torc cannon landing hard, the air pushed from her lungs, her bike with its cracked lumonius paint spiralled out of control, she had to hope they’d think she was still on it or that she’d fallen off with blood lose. Of course the armamont of the cannon should have been wired to fry her. It wasn’t – she mentally cursed herself for not thinking of it and then slowely edged alone the smooth surface. Her gloves gave good traction – they needed to for the sky bikes and she’d paid enough for them. Her boots left black smers on the shiny surface as she inched along.
The Torc Cannon suddenly dipped, she slid a good legnth – being brought to a stop by a head on collision with the service hatch. Metallic blood filled her mouth – she wasn’t sure but her noise seemed to be broken too. Minor injuries she could cope. Jingerly she reached into her acid pink bomber and pulled out her laser pen. Gritting her teeth she vaporised the bolts remembering to move her head just as the hatch was wripped off by the wind.
She slivered into the hatch head first. Alarms should be blearing to say they had a hull breach. Without the wind the inside was erry quiet, her ears ached from the cold and her injuries where mounting but hey FUCK EM. She’d been through too much to let this stop her.
Wiping the blood and grit from her face as she jogged along, the flame boots now devoid of most of their lurid pink glitter she raced towards the mid section where her instincts told her the control room would be – having the most sheilding from both the blasts and vechiles exhurst. The first grey clad jack was around her fifth coner – he didn’t see the laser that vaporised his neck and part of the too shiny bulk head behind him. The reflections made it somehow pretty, a contusion of flowering blood, the Punk felt sick.
She raced on.
She was almost to Control when the blasts behind her started, leaving scorch marks marring the metal. She rolled and run crouched. She skidded to a hualt in Control and ramming her lazer pen into the controls closed the emergancey sill doors – Fools! She’d designed the locking mechanism they should have changed them.
She glanced up at those left in the room, of course they where all foot soldiers and civs, but still they had to have a high clearance to have been sent after her like that.
She held the laser pen like the weapon it was, ‘Where’s the Ocelot?’ she asked quietly. The soldiers looked blankly at each other. And then she saw it, sitting on the commanders desk – being used as a paper wieght – milky onyx. A little cat statue and she would have gone through ten times the pain to get it.
The door behind her rattled – they were attempting to ram it. She edged to the cat and careful not to take her eyes off of the soldiers put in on of her many pockets. Its mass was bulky and hard thumping her ribs.
She lasered the controls. The Cannon lerched. The soldiers skidded, The Punk didn’t they would attack her now, she knew. She flatterned the first past, by sinking her boot into the sternum. A sickening crunch.
The laser pen vaporised anothers eyes , the smell was acrid and seared the back of her throat.
The third however was obviosuly special branch, a gorotte went round her neck and tightened before she’d even seen the movement. A desperate tussel and the soldier went sprawling hitting her head on the consol. The metallic smell of blood filled the air along with the charred flesh. The door was begining to dent but they were descending fast – the Punk ran to the commanders seat and pulled the bright orange webbing around her. There was no screen though and there was enough loose equipment in the room that she’d be lucky not to end up shickabobbed.
She screamed on impact.
….
The darkness was pungent, a stickyness, made her fingers slippery as she attempted to undo the webbing. Once free she clicked the optic in her her piercings, white light spilled from her – giving away her position. The ocelot was pressing against her – it had at least bruised her ribs during the impact – blood lose was starting to be a problem.
There didn’t appear to be any surviors – she grabbed the first aid kits – the rucksack under Control with field supplies and after abit of rummaging and the help of her RFID scanner she found the laser pen. She had to cut her way out the air getting thicker with fried electronics.
She stumbled – she needed shelter and quick – if the Cannon blew then she needed to be underground. She scanned the area – the rocks told her all she needed to know – she had live here with the gypsies she had outlawed – in caves. She stumbled foreward into the darkness.
The girl shivered and turned in her sleep, sweat pricked the skin of her pale forehead, she mummbled and turned as if on fire as if in fever. The dream was back huanting her, one of those real dreams that tugged at her waking mind from the recesses where she hide it.
The dream involved fire, a large fire of flicking flames and a circle of faces, dark hair and tanned skin, a ring of faces learing at her. The fire was large and licked at the wood. The pyre was for her, becuase of the voices in her head, becuase of what she had done. From hero to witch in the blink of an eye. The heat pounded into her head – the throb of pain pulsing within.
It should have ended there, it almost had, but it hadn’t and after her feet had healed, after the monks had helped her and hidden her, after the whole death had been churned over and whiped from the publics eye she had walked out of there. Walked away from another chapter of her life.
She had crossed the channel and time had passed.
She awoke to a dusty stable floor, in itchy woollen clothing, corse and scratchy.
She awoke on linen sheets, in a room smelling of new paint and ozone.
Memories fused together – lifetimes passed the Punk was awake.
She blinked and looked at the clock, 5 in the morning, she turned and drifted into sleep once more.
Love Eternal
I wither inside everytime I see the bueaty that was him – its there is a thousand faces – ever generation he is there – in personality, in body motion, in face and yet none are him.
I look, befriend and cherish each I find but none are a perminate salve to the wound he left – those centries ago in desert heat. But time for such as he is so short, so quick I find them and they fade as remain the same. I do age but not like them. So fast you can almost see it happening and yet I can not forget him nor do I learn always picking up the next one and holding him close for a handful of years.
I love each – none of them are ever exact and each serse my heart and kills me a bit more until one day maybe I will be unable to love. Oh they love me but often when the apparent age gap is too wide they leave, no children yet for them, they need the saccour of fathering a child, to know they have made themselves as immortal as any human can get. I can not give them this and so they leave saying sweet things and longing to be youth personified once more – this is what they think I am.
But I am old, I feel it within me and I dispise what I am and yet I would not change it for death and I can die – that threat is always there, always lurking and squirming in my mind.
I have seen this culture grown, seen its seeds planted Millenia past and watched the distortions of religon and the change of lexicon. I know many things and I think I am basically human – maybe more so than those who are so genetically pure and to make me rentch – they can not know their origin – bred for specifics, to be slaves to the race they thought they were and as I saw the bodies piled high I could not but think of human origin and those of the Arian Elves of the Hatred of impurity that lead to annilation and almost the destruction of the world. Of the gene codes stripped naked and devoid of varience that lead to the death knell of a species already steeped in blood as they washed away their genetic cousins in war.
They bred humans – slave stock to ease the toil of the gods, Adam and Eve where there in vats and the rest flowed from those broken primates the Arian held prisoner.
I myself? I life longer than those Elfen hordes and have loved one of them with my own accord but the Arian champians seek purity still and whiped out my home, my loving family of a kind most humans would run screaming from. Their dark eyes designed to see under water like the seal and sealion, hands, feet webs and grey speckeled porpoise skin. These were my family, bred in a lab half them half human – random collection of genes – I look human, but I am a part of them and I am something else too. They sort out other ways of survivial and so they sort to stretch the lifetime of their dwindling race – I live a magnitude longer than them, as they live a magnitude longer than the humans. I age but so slowely.
So unbearably slowely and all that I love I see crumble before me and I ache with it.
Alaric sighed deeply, the pain from his crown barely noticable in his current state of mind, blood matted his black shoulder length hair. He had awoken from a dream of her again. A dream of the wonderous beauty; he felt too bereft to cry. Blood trickles were his only tears these days.
‘My lord?’ a small lovely voice said, fearful of interluding on his deep thoughts. He turned his grey-blue eyes on the the girl who had entered the throne room so silently.
‘Arith, you should not be here,’ he said, gently raising from the hard turquoise chair. The stone always felt as if it was leaching the pain from him somehow. The girl could not see and he feared she would stumble. What was he to do with her?
‘But my Lord I smell.. blood? I was worried.’ She stood there clasping her own hands as if she feared a reprisal for her compassion.
He stepped closer to her and hesitated before laying his hand on her. She was sixteen, and he had rescued her not less than a month ago. She started at his warm fingers, he cursed himself for scaring her.
‘You’re hurt!’ She gasped and reached her fingers to the blood.
‘Arith, I wear the crown of remorse today, as I do every feast day.’ he felt her trembling and led her to an elegant rose wood chair; he had not let them cover it in gold, much to the stewards’ horror. ‘You are cold!’ she had turned bone white, the crystal cloth round her eyes seemed to shine in contrast. Her red hair still barely covered her scalp. He would vow revenge for her but for now he would content himself with covering her in the thick purple brocade that made his cloak.
‘Arith, I think you should go to the Sisters to be trained.’
‘No!’ she whimpered and clutched at him. He hugged her back for reassurance but felt his own trouble, she could not stay. He would never betray Jarna, never have anyone other than his wife, his dearly loved wife. He squeezed the child in his arms to hard at that thought and worried he had bruised her. She was so young. He deserved the crown today more than he had at any point in the last 17 years.
‘Arith, the sight can be dangerous if you do not know how to use it!’ he pleaded but knew he would not send her away. He felt a calm with her there. A sense of peace he had not known for so long. Was that why the love wraith was visiting his dreams? Why each night he dreamt of his wife rising out of liquid metal and pulling him down to her?
‘I… I can’t leave you! Please?’ it was said as no more than a whisper, an utterence so wretched he could not bring himself to argue more.
‘Arith, I do not expect you to be my Soothsayer, you can go from here to any other Kingdom, you understand that?’ She nodded. He put a finger to her mouth to stop her talking, ‘if you want the ability kept secret I could organise a place for you to go. I know you are scared of it.’ She kissed his still rough fingers gently. Alaric, King of The Nations and Emperor of the Unseen, trembled and kissed her forehead gently. ‘I will not send you away if you do not want to go.’ He backed away from her slightly.
‘It is almost time for my audience to start arriving, do you… wish to stay?’ She smiled, it was an old smile in her young face, he shook his head to dislodge the thoughts of his wife. Then he called the steward to place the rose wood chair by his throne. The Steward looked taken aback for a moment and then a lewd grinned crossed it. Alaric glared, flaring his nostrils. His beard, streaked with two lines of auburn, made it look ferocious and the Steward mumbled an apology.
Alaric was a tall broad man and the blood from the crown of remorse made him seem more regal, more formidable, especially to those lesser lords and Knight at Arms who knew of his prowess in battle. Another purple cloak was found for him and draped over his blue water silk tunic; there were gold filigree edges on everything. He had been conspiring to to get rid of it for ten years now and not once had his ploys worked. A ruby studded armband was placed upon his arm. The lines on it showed a map only a World Walker could read. The Sword of Enu was reverently handed to him, the saphire eyes glinted in the light – the sword felt the girls presence as much as he did. He sat upon the turquoise throne and felt the cold stone even through the thick leggings he wore under the tunic. He rested the sword against his knee and allowed a red ruby medalion to be placed upon him. It was a heart stone and pulsed to its own pattern; he had never worked out what it’s purpose was, but the sun emblem above his head began to glitter and hum.
It was time.
The big doors to the throne room were opened and the Lords of the Land stepped in. Twelve Lords, with him as the Thirteenth. Twelve Lords for twelve nations, nations he was the King of. They were dressed in rich strong colours but no-one dared wear the purple or blue like he did. They bowed to him and sat in the first semicircle of stone benches, which were of course, covered with gold.
Only then did the Lesser Lords appear at the door. There were 30 of these and they belonged to his own nation Oph; this was not a full council, so no other lesser lords were in attendence. They were dressed in muted versions of the Lords’ clothes, with silver filigree. They sat down after bowing and were followed by the Minor Lords, 120 men (well, actually it was 119 men, and Isabelle his sister), who were not Lords as such but the heads of industry; they tended to not be based in one nation as such as the skills their trades offered were needed all over. They tended to turn up to all meetings whether they were compulsory or not.
They were dressed in the same finery as the Minor Lords, just with embroidered borders showing the industry each represented. It took awhile for them to settle. The Deacons came next, 19 representing the various religons and sects of the Kingdom. Wizards, Soothsayers and other magiks were all welcome, if with a wariness, but seldom turned up. The Sheriffs came next along with the Knights at Arms. And last but in the Kings mind definatley not least, came the people, anybody who had a quarrel or upset or wanted to pay homage to the King. Some of them had been queing for three days, he knew. He could only see so many people, especially on a feast day.
As they were settling filling up all remaining seats – the girl started, he turned his head to her, ‘another comes’ she whispered to him. But the effect of her had been lost on the audience. He realised too late that he should have ordered another cloak for her, it was more than to be hoped that others would not jump to conclusions. She was wearing a royal cloak.
A whisper filled the room. ‘Do not close the door’ he ordered and prayed she would be right, though who could be important enough for him to wait, and then the nagging thought that purhapse it was not a plea to wait but rather a warning and he should be bolting the doors against some invader. He would get her training, he would keep her with him.
To calm himself he scanned those in the room and noted that a young acolyte with a Decon. He scowled at that, no request had been made and the boy should be sat back with the people. He was pondering on how to tackle the issue, which amounted to a large discurtesy, when the first Wizard Alaric had ever actually seen entered. He was… an old man in long flowing robes, gold and silver and copper symbols covered him. He had a long curling beard with singed patches. A conical hat with a flipped up rim made to match the robe. The King had to use all his poise not to laugh but then he saw it, a miasmer, a shimmer there, sort of orbiting the wizard.
‘Steward, get the Sage a seat,’ the King ordered. A large heavy carved seat with precious stones set in it was found and placed at the side of the semi circle of stone benches. The doors were closed and the audience began.
A group of girls laid flowers at his feet explaining they were from a dance school that had no money and that they would soon be homeless, he requested they dance that evening at the feast and that he would then decide their fate. A man with a broken nose had a complaint of brutality from a knight at arms; Alaric refered him to the Chief Sheriff, a Lady in rags tearfully told of how destitute she was he stared at her and to everyone’s amazement pulled his hand down her top, coming out with a heavy madalion that could have fed any family for years.
‘I call you fraud!’ he spoke them as a curse of sorts.
The girl stirred next to him, ‘more so my lord she is a murderess and thief.’
‘Witch!’ the woman screamed, lunging for Arith; dirty nails raked down the girls cheek before anyone could intercede.
‘Steward to the dungeon with her and get the girl out of here and to Niomi,’
‘No my Lord I must stay with you! Please?’ she was holding a cloth to her cheek – he realised with a start it was the steward’s silk kerchief.
‘Steward, bring Niomi here.’ He scanned the room, whispers were reaching a strange frequency. The woman had announced Arith a witch – that could be dangerous if it was not managed properlly. ‘I beg your patience but my soothsayer is young and not yet fully trained, and now she is injured.’ A calm settled.
A soothsayer, a blind soothsayer? They were things of legends but then so was the King wasn’t he? And what of the robe? Was he planning or had he already married her?
What about his wife? Is the girl not a bit young? and so on.
The audience continued with the normal state of order until his sister stepped forward, he nodded at her. ‘Depletion has begun.’ They locked eyes.
‘What rate?’ he asked.
‘Faster than it should be, it is unnatural.’
‘We will hold a closed council, go now and call the metallurgists, Earth Walkers and Farmers. Miners?’ A broad muscular man with pick axes worked in red thread stood.
‘Yes my Lord?’
‘Have you noticed depletion?’
Startled, the man nodded. ‘Then you to must fetch your top people and tell the Water Dosers.’ The man nodded and bowed and followed his sister out of the main chamber. He looked at the Wizard, whose eyes just seemed to glint within folds of wrinkeled flesh.
‘The boy knows,’ Arith whispered.
‘Acylyte!’ he shouted; a panic had begun to build in his rib cage. The boy with the Deacon looked up, pale and scared he stumbled out of his seat. In his hurry the boy knocked off his round skull cap of a hat, but his master ushered him onwards to the King rather than allowing him to try and retreive it. He was finely dressed for an acolyte and bowed formally to the King. Alaric tried not to grit his teeth, this was a noble born, something he himself was not, and something that many would rather he remembered.
To everyone’s suprise the Wizard stood, ‘Alus?’
The boy nodded, ‘then you have worked the Orcal’ the boy flushed the affirmative. There was a stir amongst the deacons.
‘The… the… animals do it sir,’ he stuttered.
‘Master thought I should come and tell you sir,’
‘Tell me what?’
‘That it is all changing sir, lots of things sir and you.. you are central as is your wife.’
There was an uproar from the crowd.
‘Enough!’ Roared the King, ‘this will go to closed council the day after tomorrow, this boy and the Wizard shall be there at my request. As for my wife..’ a dark smile made his face harsh for a moment. ‘I doubt she will be joining us, boy.’
‘But the Orcel clearly states it my.. my Lord.’
‘Boy my wife has been dead for 17 years.’ Remembrance of the love wraith chilled him.
The sky had grown dark after the initial flare that had rebuffed off of the shield that enshrouded the planet. And now they floated a lost ball in the darkness, too far out to receive warmth from their dying sun. Energy from below, from within – geothermal, had kept them going in artificially lit cities, they had floated through space though everything and now at the dawn of the tenth age they finially after so many close calls faced extinction.
Extinction of the mind as well as the body, religions had come and religions had gone in their past but never one so unbelievably parralising as this. A disease almost, the scriptures said it had come before and that it would come again. But many feared there would now be no next time, though many had left the cradle to which this dying race still adhered. Out there there where many, many who had escaped and had never heard of the new age, of order born of chaos of the blood letting and the harmony of death.
No thinking was permitted now upon the darkly glittering surface, the world had slowed, a day so long, much more than a year and yet it still turned but not for much longer.
Time had not stretched instead days had become epochs within themselves some living lives in the half light and some condemned to know only darkness.
Such a world can foster many things, this one? It fostered…. Me.
I am Antrik of the House of Light Cone, and I shall awaken the world once again show it the horizon and what is beyond. How can I be content to stay in the cradle? A cradle that is dying and festering from the rot within. I am a Remnant Human and I shall be the champion that throws us once more into the stars we see, those glinting diamonds of harsh beauty. I have looked upon the universe with eyes that cannot see my own world in its intolerable half light. The Crones offered me once to fix those eyes but I was prophesied. I was spoken of I was dreamed off, my eyes are ancient from beyond this incarnation of our long gone star. Eyes with apertures too small, and with colour receptors and here I am blind.
A cripple on a world of the condemned.
Come with me and I will show you, you who invade my head when I dream, I will show you my world, I will show you in the waking – for I feel you there, the pressure in my head and I know you are there to guide me, to help me in this finial battle. The mind quakes have come and the Earth is finally dying. All but the Remnants fled for the depths, we must leave too or perish. Help us? Help me? I am a reble in these parts sentenced to die slowly and painfully unaware of self.
Come with me?
Antrik awoke, she had lain on the fungal matt for too long and the tendrils had weaved themselves into the heavy fabric she wore. A dirty brown, though she had no name for the colours her eyes perceived. Pale transparent skin, she was luminous with wild staring eyes, too large and dark in a triangular face and yet to her own people of her own time they where small, small insipid eyes. Ghostly eyes of the past. The operation to correct them had been offered and declined. No matter she was mentally unstable.
She was condemned to death, she was a thought criminal if only in the third degree. The Regime where not unkind and she had light here, glourious bright light that hurt her eyes initially and would blind her jailor where he to look upon it. It was a blessed relief to her, never before had there been one such as her – a Remnant who was scared of the dark, who sort the light, who gloried in the thoughts of beyond.
Her thoughts went against the rest and this hurt, this hurt many and so they had cut her off locked her away. She grinned with a small thin lipped mouth still infused with warmth so alien to the Remnants. Cold, and dark their world, the cradle rotted, broken deserted and yet they clinged. But they could not silence her thoughts, she was different from the web, she could not be buffered and blocked by the alloys they used in the prison cells, and the most delicious thing? They did not realise this, they did not know, she had been talking to others. Others the council said did not exist, others that had once been of this barren rock, others who’s origin had been millenia before based upon this same spinning rock before the end and rebirth. Before the Religion had locked itself upon them and before the secular mania had hit upon the thoughts in an oscillating cycle of destruction.
Her own space to think, to grow, to be. It had been what she needed and now she was stronge, and she was calling them towards her, calling them closer to release her, to help her achieve her goals. Release the mind lock of the Council, destroy the Web and to leave this ghastly place.
She had seen their dreams and had spoken to them within the confines of the darkness within, she had shown them her world and they unwittingly and purposely had shown her their’s. And there where a myriad of forms and a mish mash of homes and yet all could hear her, all had come from here. This soil had nourished their ancestors, somewhere deep within they shared something no matter how many generations and mutations of self had occurred. Her small ears felt warm and wet and as she sat a cold trickle run down each check, her fingers long and brittle felt the sticky substance and looked at a redness she knew not the word for.
Elsewhere in the complex that imprisoned her there had been a surge in the power and the shields that kept the atmosphere had wavered.
They were coming.
Janice always knew she was not like the other children she couldn’t never quiet understand the strangely erratic games they played and they would glare if she pointed out it was was just mimicry of the adults. They blamed her ill fit with her adoption or gave it the name of various syndroms but she wasn’t unhappy and some children were happy to play number games, same were even good at them.
Janice was a gangly not quiet fit for her body but she was not clumsy it was as if the wrong bits had been sewn together to make her. She was often lonely. Annabella changed that though, slight and slender and confused by the simplest thing she was almost the opposite but they were friends, real strong, true friends who didn’t care how different they were.
But an end to happiness was drawing near as secondary school loomed, Annabella’s parents where told she would have to go to a special school as she had not mastered even the basics of the the three R’s, Janice was termed gifted and they wanted her to go on to a different special school. The thought of being separated plagued the girls and they planned to run away.
Janice planned it and they packed and provisioned themselves and set off across the tarmac wastes of their local industrial estate, sure they would find somewhere to set up camp. The old building they found was dry and tired smelling, they did not see the trip lazers that alerted the security guards.
They were eating cheese and onion sandwiches when the growl of a dog broke through their happy conversation. Terror seized the girls just before the big lady with white tight curls and a blue peaked cap did. They were bundled off to an office that was all grey inside, a grey portacabin with a darker damp patch at one corner growing mushrooms quietly in the fibers of the grey carpet.
When the police arrived they didn’t just return the girls to their families, instead they processed them through the system or at least tried. Janice dipped her finger onto the ink pad and placed it upon the paper sheet, the office frowned at what he saw and made her do it again and again and then they looked at her fingers and she had no finger prints. Annabella on the other hand had strange finger prints with complex patterns which suggested a code, a tag and not one made by nature to be hers individually.
Then they separated them, putting them in different cells as they phoned through to Drs and the military and the like. A tall man with whispy white hair stretched over a head too large appeared at the station, the girls were bought to him, they had both been crying at their isolation and hugged each other in fear.
The man snatched Janice away tearing their grip from the other, he prodded and poked and shone bright lights in her eyes and then smiled, ‘this is the missing construct’ he breathed and she tried to step back.
‘And the other?’ asked the policeman.
‘She is the next model. We tried to fix things, we seemed to have taken it too far the other way, but the experiment is ruined. Termination and dissection is all that is left now.’
The policemans took a half step forward as if to protest but then fell back to his place, ‘shouldn’t their relationship being looked at?’ he stammered.
The dr shrugged, ‘chance is all it was, all that brought my two little experiments together.’ He smiled and turned to the door, ‘the secure lab-lorry will be here in the morning.’ And he was gone. The girls stood together the skin on their arms touching for the comfort of the pack and the officer had to give himself a shake, their eyes, different colours, spoke to accuse. Constructs were not humans, they were not even truly AI’s, he hadn’t realised how life like they could be. The girls were flesh and blood and nano-wires.
Annabella smiled shyly at him, he left before he broke.
Janice looked around the room they had been left in and smiled slowly, she wasn’t sure what was going on but knew the Dr wanted to kill them, but the policeman had left them together in a room of resources. ‘It’s time to start building,’ she said. Annabella smiled and reached or a screwdriver.
Well we are in – no internet or carpet or anything and in truth we are still moving stuff as well but we have the keys and I am starting to set up the library/writing area which is fun 🙂 In the long run I hope to have a studio/den in the attic – we will have to see what this year holds 🙂
Wishing everybody else a fantastic time.
Masi was working on her memory whilst tucked into her little coffin of a bed, the cannel rose above her and her current group would float down stream. She was trying to remember the name of the boy had befriended for the last group, she pictured him, tall and gangly and in trouble for knocking things over board. Clumsy… Clarence. She would likely not see him for many years if at all, it was kept that way so they couldn’t form alliances.
She hummed a tune, a baby coon as it was known, her mother floated in her mind – gone down the long cannel stretches on another boat. They had forcibly separated them, her mother docked food for her effort to cling. It hurt still to remember those arms around her but the memory had to be preserved.
No affiliations allowed.
This skipper though, this one had something she remembered from a boat team when she was small, the songs, fresh and alive and some new – telling of daring do and of love and hope and the spirit of the people. The Poem of the Heart Speak. They all sang songs and told stories but some people were better at it than others, some were the Poets and he was one of them. Masi fell asleep think of him and composing a baby coon to remember her mother by.
The morning was all misty chill, she pulled clothing on over her woollen bed cloths, they made her skin itch but she had out grown all the cloths her mother had found for her, they were synthetic the Skipper had told her and then performed a ballad about nylon and fleece that was not fleece and rainproof light weight macs. She had asked him about these and he smiled sadly, ‘one day maybe you will see such fabric.’ And then he lite his pipe that glowed of nothing and emitted a puff of water vapour and he retreated into himself.
Now however she was going to cheer him up with her poem, ‘you have a poem?’ He asked surprised.
She nodded shyly and he smiled big and wide at her, ‘then tonight we shall all hear it!’ And it was done like that, she was to perform her poem. She ran through and through and through it again and again as if she could forget such a thing.
Skipper told her he once had a way to share thoughts out of the head, to remember them externally and she had smiled at him, ‘my mum called it scratches on paper.’ And he had patted her on the head. She didn’t say she didn’t know what paper was.
She pre-occupied herself with moving the bags about the deck and checking that no rodents had gotten on board and were preparing to feast upon the corgo. She caught two deftly, skinned and gutted them for the cooking pot, oh they never starved on the provisions they were allowed but… they were never full either and you never knew when you’d end up in a bad group.
Skipper said that poems were to help people remember they were people, her mother said the same, bad groups were the ones were they did not light the fires and did not sing. They were becoming less but they still cropped up. The Poets were important and tonight she would be amongst them.
It was late as they docked and tied the barge to the bank, many others were there and a fire had already been laid, the sounds of song drifted through the night air. Sometimes you went weeks without seeing another barge, Masi wondered if she would still get to sing her poem.
Skipper barked orders and ordered her off the boat, he then gently took her hand into his callosed and hard one, it completely engulfed her’s and she began to be afraid.
They walked to the fire, so many people sitting around it! The last notes of the song sung hung on the air but before the next one could break into the crowd consciousness Skipper was there holding up her arm. ‘I brings a poet fresh and new, listen to the words that she choose and decide weather she shall be a bard like you or minstral like me.’
She felt their eyes blazing in on her as if they were melting her with expectant fire. Then a thought occured to her – she would never know but her mother could be out there or someone could remember it and pass it on. She pulled her shoulders back and looked up into the night sky obscured by mist and smoke and began.’
‘I made this for my mother from the things she bayed me learn.’ And though she was shaking the words poured from her lips and spoke of the longing she did not understand but had been so strong within the only person she had known from more than 6 months.
‘We learns the songs
Remembers them
To make us human again
To feel the soul
Of us all
Compute
Mind and deed
Once they say you could read
Trap the words
But spread the seeds
Thoughts within, thought without
Thoughts shared
What was the war about?
But now we trust
To our Poems
Until we are free
We shall sing
Songs and prose
Rhymes of how it goes
We remembers us
We remembers them
We remembers that we will be again.
No one clapped, she stood frozen in their silence, was it not good enough?
A cough and someone was rising from a log perch of a seat, ‘I think,’ came the gruff voice, ‘that we have a bard a new coon for the babs, I want it taught to every mother, girl sing it again.’
She ment to ask why and was it good enough but she didn’t she just recited it again and again until they all remembered it. And she herself vowed to learn tunes to teach others how to be human.