1/11/11
Machine
The machine finally worked! Simon was as astonished as anyone to discover that the fixes he had attempted over and over had finally worked and for the second time in history, man would be able to travel to the moon.
Fitting the gaskets had been no real trouble, or at least, less trouble than he had expected. The real issue, as he had hoped against hope it would not be, was the cavorite. Dark stuff, but powerful. Three different governments were after him now, but soon none of that would matter. He would be safely away and where he was going, no one could follow.
It wasn’t that cavorite was even that rare – Her Majesty and the colonials both had air forces powered by the strange matter; it was that it was so dangerous to handle. Once unleashed it was almost impossible to restrain again. But he had found awe-inspiring new uses for it, and as most inventions are, a new way to control it, was devised out of necessity – no, desperation.
Until now, no one had ever used it for anything except its incredible lift capabilities. After all, dear God! – the stuff was immune to gravity! But everyone assumed that was the extent of its powers. No one dreamed… well, he had. And those dreams were about to come to their fruition. If he had read the machine correctly. If he had constructed it flawlessly. If a million other little things hadn’t gone wrong.
But he knew this time he would succeed – he was an engineer, after all, and knew when a machine was properly constructed. Twelve years in planning and another two to actually build it had given him plenty of time to factor in the details. Now all that was left was to enter the machine and throw the final switch. He had spent the last few hours checking and double-checking, and now, finally, it was time. Making sure his vacuum-sealed helmet was firmly in place, he opened the door to the machine and a Tyrannosaurus Rex stared back at him… oh dear Gods! He had traveled back in time!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Fiction Story #10 ("Glass")
1/10/11
Glass
It had been more than 35 years since he had seen her face the last time, but he recognized her instantly. A lifetime of living without her had crystallized her in his mind, and on more occasions than he cared to admit, even her memory had him smile.
They had been lovers for a short, passionate time. As they said, the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and their time had been as intense as it was brief. While they were together it was brilliant. They lit up the room wherever they went. Everyone could see it. But they could also see that it was not meant to last. She needed things he could not provide – not then. He was new to the world and it was new to him. He had a wanderlust that would not let him rest anywhere for long.
When they split, it was heartbreaking. They both cried, him for the first time in years, her for the last time for years to come. They knew something good was lost to them, but just how important this moment was, they would not fully understand for years. Something inside him died that day, and though he spent the next few decades traveling the glove, seeking adventure in every corner of the world, the thing he longed for most in this world he never found.
He wandered, not even knowing he was searching. Friends and family worried that he was running from something. Always on the move, it was easy to see why they’d jump to that conclusion. For years even he didn’t know what he was looking for. Not even he knew what he was running towards…
And then one day, he came around a corner and there she was, in an evening dress, hair still done up from the night before. She was covered in glass shards from the window above. Here lay the broken remains of the woman he once loved, and in that moment he felt his heart break again like the glass surrounding her. He had investigated more than a thousand homicide cases over the last three decades, but this was the first time he had ever cried at a crime scene.
Glass
It had been more than 35 years since he had seen her face the last time, but he recognized her instantly. A lifetime of living without her had crystallized her in his mind, and on more occasions than he cared to admit, even her memory had him smile.
They had been lovers for a short, passionate time. As they said, the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and their time had been as intense as it was brief. While they were together it was brilliant. They lit up the room wherever they went. Everyone could see it. But they could also see that it was not meant to last. She needed things he could not provide – not then. He was new to the world and it was new to him. He had a wanderlust that would not let him rest anywhere for long.
When they split, it was heartbreaking. They both cried, him for the first time in years, her for the last time for years to come. They knew something good was lost to them, but just how important this moment was, they would not fully understand for years. Something inside him died that day, and though he spent the next few decades traveling the glove, seeking adventure in every corner of the world, the thing he longed for most in this world he never found.
He wandered, not even knowing he was searching. Friends and family worried that he was running from something. Always on the move, it was easy to see why they’d jump to that conclusion. For years even he didn’t know what he was looking for. Not even he knew what he was running towards…
And then one day, he came around a corner and there she was, in an evening dress, hair still done up from the night before. She was covered in glass shards from the window above. Here lay the broken remains of the woman he once loved, and in that moment he felt his heart break again like the glass surrounding her. He had investigated more than a thousand homicide cases over the last three decades, but this was the first time he had ever cried at a crime scene.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Fiction Story #9 ("Camera")
1/9/11
Film
She had watched the whole world through the lens of a camera. Always recording, documenting, taking photographs as a way to remember things. Important events, birthdays, parties, even at nice dinners, she’d break out the camera.
As a little girl, she found her grandfather’s Polaroid in the attic one afternoon while snooping around. It had been raining for days, and the family house still held a mystery behind every door. Or at least, it had seemed that way until she found the box with his camera in it. Something about the small metal case with its gleaming glass eye shining out at her and suddenly she didn’t see the dust or the scratches or the worn-out strap, but only its potential.
Unlike her affinity for dolls, horses, or tigers, her obsession with the camera refused to fade, but only seemed to deepen as she got older. There were always new accessories to buy and new equipment to buy. A new process to learn or a new technique to study – it seemed to have no end, and she couldn’t be happier. She loved the essence of its simplicity: a box, film, a lens. Exposing the dark film to light for only a fraction of a second, capturing that singular moment of time – but not only taking the photograph, but the process of shedding light on something that had lived in darkness its whole life.
Years later, she would look back in wonder at the photos she had taken and weep. Preserved so perfectly, the images never changed. Though the world kept turning, and the unstoppable march of seasons trudged on, she knew what Rockefeller Plaza looked like in the winter of 2072.
Even now that the buildings were destroyed, the surrounding water long since poisoned, she had her photos. The world could take everything, and even though she knew she would have no children to pass on these dreams, a hope stayed in her mind that one day someone would find her hiding in here. That they might find her and the treasures she kept – a lifetime laid out in a series of chemical processes on paper – and that they would remember.
Film
She had watched the whole world through the lens of a camera. Always recording, documenting, taking photographs as a way to remember things. Important events, birthdays, parties, even at nice dinners, she’d break out the camera.
As a little girl, she found her grandfather’s Polaroid in the attic one afternoon while snooping around. It had been raining for days, and the family house still held a mystery behind every door. Or at least, it had seemed that way until she found the box with his camera in it. Something about the small metal case with its gleaming glass eye shining out at her and suddenly she didn’t see the dust or the scratches or the worn-out strap, but only its potential.
Unlike her affinity for dolls, horses, or tigers, her obsession with the camera refused to fade, but only seemed to deepen as she got older. There were always new accessories to buy and new equipment to buy. A new process to learn or a new technique to study – it seemed to have no end, and she couldn’t be happier. She loved the essence of its simplicity: a box, film, a lens. Exposing the dark film to light for only a fraction of a second, capturing that singular moment of time – but not only taking the photograph, but the process of shedding light on something that had lived in darkness its whole life.
Years later, she would look back in wonder at the photos she had taken and weep. Preserved so perfectly, the images never changed. Though the world kept turning, and the unstoppable march of seasons trudged on, she knew what Rockefeller Plaza looked like in the winter of 2072.
Even now that the buildings were destroyed, the surrounding water long since poisoned, she had her photos. The world could take everything, and even though she knew she would have no children to pass on these dreams, a hope stayed in her mind that one day someone would find her hiding in here. That they might find her and the treasures she kept – a lifetime laid out in a series of chemical processes on paper – and that they would remember.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Fiction Story #8 ("Ghosts")
1/8/11
Ghosts
It’s not killing that is difficult – actually killing a man (the act) is not a tricky thing. We’re so fragile. The human body can be 99% healthy and while and still die. A twist here, a break there, and it’s over. No, killing is not difficult; it’s living with the consequences that is so damn hard.
The ghosts had been building up for a while, presumably, so when they started showing up he couldn’t say he was really surprised. The ethereal figures were silent, just staring at him, looking as they did in the moment of their death. Some with half a face, others burned horribly, shrapnel embedded in their skin. A few looked perfectly whole, only the poison in their veins betraying their outwardly healthy appearance.
He had no idea there had been so many. He remembered the first few, of course. Nobody forgets their first. But now there were faces he barely recognized… children, women, and grown men alongside the elderly and a few that were barely crawling.
He saw them mostly in the morning, when he was just waking, or in the evenings as he was drifting off to sleep. They seemed to have an affinity for the dreamlands. The land they could never again enter and longed to rest in.
Sometimes he caught a glimpse of them in the mirror, shaving, or brushing his teeth. They stayed mostly in the dark (though a few of the more recent ones grew bold and appeared in the day light).
And then one day he woke up and couldn’t feel his legs. It felt just like all those tantric yogis claimed that an out-of-body experience was supposed to feel. Drifting upwards toward the ceiling, he looked down to see his own body lying on the bed, shocked into silence by the form of the young, thin man standing over his lifeless corpse. And in the morning light, he elbowed his way through the other forms, to stand behind the young man who had ended his suffering, wanting to thank him, but he never stood still.
Ghosts
It’s not killing that is difficult – actually killing a man (the act) is not a tricky thing. We’re so fragile. The human body can be 99% healthy and while and still die. A twist here, a break there, and it’s over. No, killing is not difficult; it’s living with the consequences that is so damn hard.
The ghosts had been building up for a while, presumably, so when they started showing up he couldn’t say he was really surprised. The ethereal figures were silent, just staring at him, looking as they did in the moment of their death. Some with half a face, others burned horribly, shrapnel embedded in their skin. A few looked perfectly whole, only the poison in their veins betraying their outwardly healthy appearance.
He had no idea there had been so many. He remembered the first few, of course. Nobody forgets their first. But now there were faces he barely recognized… children, women, and grown men alongside the elderly and a few that were barely crawling.
He saw them mostly in the morning, when he was just waking, or in the evenings as he was drifting off to sleep. They seemed to have an affinity for the dreamlands. The land they could never again enter and longed to rest in.
Sometimes he caught a glimpse of them in the mirror, shaving, or brushing his teeth. They stayed mostly in the dark (though a few of the more recent ones grew bold and appeared in the day light).
And then one day he woke up and couldn’t feel his legs. It felt just like all those tantric yogis claimed that an out-of-body experience was supposed to feel. Drifting upwards toward the ceiling, he looked down to see his own body lying on the bed, shocked into silence by the form of the young, thin man standing over his lifeless corpse. And in the morning light, he elbowed his way through the other forms, to stand behind the young man who had ended his suffering, wanting to thank him, but he never stood still.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Fiction Story #7 ("Patience")
1/7/11
Patience
So the story begins and I’m already behind – seems that’s to be the story of my life. Is this a self-fulfilling prophecy where I think I’m behind and end up acting as if I’m behind so I start falling behind? Or is this some sort of “The Secret” bullshit where I get what I wish for so I better be careful or my subconscious will actualize itself?
More likely it’s just in my head. And yet, I can’t quite shake the feeling that I should be doing something… else. As if I’m not quite fulfilling my potential – to take a Grade School approach.
It’s like an itch in the back of my mind that I can’t quite reach. Sitting here at my cubicle, time-stamping forms and double-checking receipts so that the Regional Manager can save seventeen cents a shipment – or maybe it’s something more primal than that. Something in my ancestry left over from the Neanderthal that screams THIS IS NOT HOW I WAS SUPPOSED TO LIVE OUT MY DAYS. Here on display. In captivity. No cage except this pathetic paycheck. My 401K. Be thankful to have a job. Commuting my bus so I can afford this glorified concrete box in New York City. A million animals all on display for the other animals.
Some people say they didn’t know what they were doing when confronted with the horrors and consequences of what they did. Not me. I knew exactly what I had in mind. It’s kind of hard to buy a submachine gun when you just want it for “home protection”. No five day waiting period when you buy it for cash from the drug dealer that sells poison out of the alleyway behind your building. No fooling yourself, either.
I never said I didn’t know what I was doing. Never claimed ignorance as an excuse. The only thing I could never comprehend was NOT why I did it, why I shot everyone in my whole fucking office, but why I waited so long.
Patience
So the story begins and I’m already behind – seems that’s to be the story of my life. Is this a self-fulfilling prophecy where I think I’m behind and end up acting as if I’m behind so I start falling behind? Or is this some sort of “The Secret” bullshit where I get what I wish for so I better be careful or my subconscious will actualize itself?
More likely it’s just in my head. And yet, I can’t quite shake the feeling that I should be doing something… else. As if I’m not quite fulfilling my potential – to take a Grade School approach.
It’s like an itch in the back of my mind that I can’t quite reach. Sitting here at my cubicle, time-stamping forms and double-checking receipts so that the Regional Manager can save seventeen cents a shipment – or maybe it’s something more primal than that. Something in my ancestry left over from the Neanderthal that screams THIS IS NOT HOW I WAS SUPPOSED TO LIVE OUT MY DAYS. Here on display. In captivity. No cage except this pathetic paycheck. My 401K. Be thankful to have a job. Commuting my bus so I can afford this glorified concrete box in New York City. A million animals all on display for the other animals.
Some people say they didn’t know what they were doing when confronted with the horrors and consequences of what they did. Not me. I knew exactly what I had in mind. It’s kind of hard to buy a submachine gun when you just want it for “home protection”. No five day waiting period when you buy it for cash from the drug dealer that sells poison out of the alleyway behind your building. No fooling yourself, either.
I never said I didn’t know what I was doing. Never claimed ignorance as an excuse. The only thing I could never comprehend was NOT why I did it, why I shot everyone in my whole fucking office, but why I waited so long.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Fiction Story #6 ("The Great War")
1/6/11
The Great War
I fired three rounds of .30-06 steel-jacketed lead straight into his face.
Not that my aim was all that good. I was a damn-sight better footballer than ever I was a soldier. To be honest, I was scared as hell and about ready to wet my pants. He was running straight at me, the German was, yelling at the top of his lungs (something in German I assumed he intended to be insulting and/or demoralizing) and I just whirled around, raised my rifle and squeezed. He was the equivalent to a corporal, I’d learn later, which raised my status tremendously, me being a mere private at the time. Killing superior officers was greatly smiled upon as a morale booster.
That the bullets hit him at all was a bloody miracle, but getting three in his face was a sheer act of God. I’d brag to my mates later that I took an extra second to aim and fire, but it wasn’t true. I almost didn’t fire at all. I tell you as sure as I’m standing here; I was almost as surprised as that bloody Hun. If he had had a face left, I’m quite sure the look on it would have been priceless.
The only other human on God’s green earth who knew what a bullshit story that was, was Paul. After all, we were the only buggers from the 22nd Infantry left alive. But bless his soul, he never once said a word that contradicted my account. He just smiled whenever I told that bloody story – and whenever anybody asked him to verify it, he just said, “It sounds better when Castor tells it.”
Paul’s my best mate, and not just ‘cause we walked out of Hell together. I don’t make a lot of friends, regardless of the situation, and my current occupation didn’t allow for much practice of social amenities. But from day one, Paul and me were like peas in a pod.
We had met in March of ’16 when we had both volunteered and signed up with our local pals’ battalion. I’d been living near Glasgow for all 16 years o’ my life, full of piss and vinegar and completely convinced of the righteousness of “our” war. Paul had lived up north in Edinburgh, only recently moving to my local neighborhood. We kicked the football around a couple of times, and had seen each other around, but never really palled around much. Even if we had been chums our whole lives, I don’t think we’d have really known each other till after we lived through that day in France.
I’ll never forget the first time I met him formally. He pulled his Webley Mark 1 revolver (that I would later learn had been passed down from his father’s use in the Anglo-Boer War), pointed it right at me and pulled the trigger. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that he was firing at the Turk running up behind me, and I was pretty shaken for a minute. But once I grasped the situation (and ranted hysterically for several minutes) I was cool as a cucumber. So that’s how we met, he saved my life and I called him a sodding daft bastard.
We chummed together quite a lot after that, raising the kind of cain that best mates tend to do, and got away with much more in the Army than we ever could have out of it. Never got in to anything too serious, and Paul was always good for talkin’ our way out of the thickest of it just as fast as we could get into it. We went too far once, and though we didn’t know it at the time, our punishment was to be our salvation. Funny how life works, innit? Damned if I can figure it.
Y’see, decent food was scarce most days and damn if the officers ever seemed to lack for quality nourishment, so being the decent blokes we are, we naturally assumed they wouldn’t mind sharing.
There was hell to pay, but they couldn’t make us toss up and give it back, and for Christ’s sake there was a war on. Paul tried to explain very carefully to the officers that he could dump it out for them in a pile of shite, but he’d want his own food back. They didn’t laugh at all – and I couldn’t stop. Well, they couldn’t bloody well just kick us out, though we suggested that, too. So they did the next best thing. They transferred us from the quiet post of Verdun to the raging battle that was the Somme. Spineless officers did us a bloody favor and they didn’t even know it. Trouble was, neither did we at the time, and we bitched up a shit storm when we heard our destination. The word had come down through ranks that General Haig had something big planned for the Somme and there wasn’t a place on Earth I didn’t want to be farther from.
It was our first day in the trenches at the Somme, just north of Paris, and over the artillery shells and Captain Pereé’s bloody whistle and the other screaming boys I hear Paul yelling in my ear, “It’s times like this wot I wish I was back home — having me nuts run through a meat grinder!” Then he laughed that madman laugh of his and I couldn’t help but smile. Fuck the Huns, fuck the Good Lord, and fuck Captain Pereé for good measure – and over the bags we went, and waded into Hell.
The Somme River was to be our “big push” and Sir Douglas Haig, the High and Mighty King Shit and General of the Holy British Empire’s Forces had declared that “not a rat will have survived” when we were through. Well, just for the record, fuck ‘im in his cozy chair while I lost good mates to dysentery. But that General Haig was a right good bastard in one respect, and true to his word, dropped a million and a half shells on the good Kaiser’s Huns and quite literally bombed the shite out of them. Stories tell of ‘earing the bombardment clear across the bloody English Channel. We all figured that the bloody Huns were good and buggered.
So, just after dawn on the first of July, 1916, me, Paul and about 100,000 other volunteers from pals’ battalions and British Army Corps advanced ceremoniously across No Man’s Land. All the while playing those bloody pipes and a couple fuckers even brought their bloody footballs. About 30 seconds later we learned what a horrible mistake had been made and exactly who was left to pay the price for that error.
I only found out after that we lost almost fourteen thousand men in the first 10 minutes. After that, apparently, it was too difficult to estimate.
How can I describe what it felt like to dive for cover under the steel rain of artillery shells and machine gun bullets? As far as I knew, my whole platoon was lost, and the rest of my company wasn’t far behind. I heard Sergeant Thompson screaming for us to fall back. A right good Tommy that one, but there wasn’t anywhere to fall back to. The trenches were a good fifty yards of open fields behind us. Then I heard this wet THWACK behind me and as I turned, I was sprayed by what used to be on the inside of Sergeant Thompson’s veins.
The German concertina wire that was supposed to have been demolished by our brilliant artillery fire was still in place and hardly scratched – entire units tore themselves apart or were cut in ‘alf by machine-gun fire while they tried to extricate themselves from that bloody razor-wire. Some bloke, I think it was Emerson, or maybe it just sounded like him, finally got on the radio and screamed at the Bastards-In-Charge how badly we were being slaughtered, and they, in due course, let loose with more artillery. Right on target, but that was a waste, see, ‘cause more than one out of every three of them shells was a bloody dud. By noon we’d lost almost 20,000 men to the Big Sleep and 40,000 more were maimed, crippled, blinded, paralyzed and thoroughly buggered.
The officers and non-coms screamed for us to fall back and ordered us to ignore the wounded. “Save yourselves!” they cried. Paul was right, bloody wankers, every one. Paul and I walked away with what the hospital officially termed “minor lacerations and bruises.”
I don’t know how to begin to explain it. I mean, we were there, knee deep in gore and muck and what’s left of our mates, bullets whizzing by and artillery shells crashing every couple of seconds, but we just fired back. It wasn’t loud as you might suspect, but almost quiet, even with the shells going off. Not slow, but quiet, as we’d been nearly deafened by the explosions. We kept firing and firing and reloading and firing. We quickly lost track of “official kills” and that sort of nonsense that we always figured would be so important. Paul shot in my direction more than a few times, and I know for fact that I came within an inch of shooting him a half-dozen times, but every time the bullet cut through a German soldier instead of me or him.
There’s a Private Owen in Bravo Platoon wrote a poem that’s been circulating through the lower enlisted ranks and I haven’t been able to think about anything else for two days. Paul read it and told him he was a pretty good soldier for a poet. We were marching in formation three days ago to some damn place or another, and I kept thinking of my Grammar School days in Latin class. How all I had wanted was to be away from that little town, and realizing that right now I’d give just about anything to be back there and away from here. Which reminds me of another phrase from my childhood: Careful what you wish for, Castor ol’ boy…
The platoon was standing at dusk over the bodies of the recently dead, our mates, and presumably some of theirs, having recovered what equipment was salvageable, and the phrase Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori keeps repeating in my head. As I remembered, it meant that it was good and proper to die for one’s country. I guess those Romans had a funny sense of patriotism, as Paul and I decided it’d be better to live for your country. Sod what we know of politics, I suppose. Soldiers aren’t politicians and vice versa. Paul knew the saying and I just mumbled to him and myself “Dulce et decorum est…” He nodded and knew it as our code.
Anyway, this Private Owen overhears us and when he asks, I explain the meaning. He asks if he can use it in a poem. “I didn’t make it up, mate,” I tell him.
That wanker just looked me right in the eye and says, “I just figured you were the closest thing to authority out ‘ere…” That cracked Paul up ‘cause usually he’s the only one who’ll take the piss out of me. We all had a laugh at that, and for a few seconds we almost forgot where we were. Anyways, here it is.
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime. –
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitten as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
That shite about the wagon gave me pause, ‘cause after the last of Jerry’s poison gas attacks, I helped haul three bodies into the one lorry that managed to stay on the road during the shelling. For the life o’ me, I can’t remember their names, though. Gilbert something, or maybe Gillian… Shite! Why can’t I remember their names? I see their faces sometimes in dreams, and the look on their mugs is like gasping shock mixed with the relief of not having to fight this bloody war another day.
Fuck all that. The dead know only one thing. It’s better to be alive.
Six hundred miles away, she waited by the window every day for news.
At least, that’s what I imagined. Whenever I dreamed, whenever I had even five minutes that didn’t involve shooting something or being shot at, my thoughts would return to her. I thought of little else. Catherine had been lovely even at 15, and I imagined her in my mind’s eye growing only lovelier as we lived through these horrors.
Paul and I were reassigned after the debacle at the Somme, but our accomplishments served us no real honor except among other enlisted who knew the story. Among them, we tread as gods. But I swear I would give it all up to be returned home that very day.
(To be continued...)
The Great War
I fired three rounds of .30-06 steel-jacketed lead straight into his face.
Not that my aim was all that good. I was a damn-sight better footballer than ever I was a soldier. To be honest, I was scared as hell and about ready to wet my pants. He was running straight at me, the German was, yelling at the top of his lungs (something in German I assumed he intended to be insulting and/or demoralizing) and I just whirled around, raised my rifle and squeezed. He was the equivalent to a corporal, I’d learn later, which raised my status tremendously, me being a mere private at the time. Killing superior officers was greatly smiled upon as a morale booster.
That the bullets hit him at all was a bloody miracle, but getting three in his face was a sheer act of God. I’d brag to my mates later that I took an extra second to aim and fire, but it wasn’t true. I almost didn’t fire at all. I tell you as sure as I’m standing here; I was almost as surprised as that bloody Hun. If he had had a face left, I’m quite sure the look on it would have been priceless.
The only other human on God’s green earth who knew what a bullshit story that was, was Paul. After all, we were the only buggers from the 22nd Infantry left alive. But bless his soul, he never once said a word that contradicted my account. He just smiled whenever I told that bloody story – and whenever anybody asked him to verify it, he just said, “It sounds better when Castor tells it.”
Paul’s my best mate, and not just ‘cause we walked out of Hell together. I don’t make a lot of friends, regardless of the situation, and my current occupation didn’t allow for much practice of social amenities. But from day one, Paul and me were like peas in a pod.
We had met in March of ’16 when we had both volunteered and signed up with our local pals’ battalion. I’d been living near Glasgow for all 16 years o’ my life, full of piss and vinegar and completely convinced of the righteousness of “our” war. Paul had lived up north in Edinburgh, only recently moving to my local neighborhood. We kicked the football around a couple of times, and had seen each other around, but never really palled around much. Even if we had been chums our whole lives, I don’t think we’d have really known each other till after we lived through that day in France.
I’ll never forget the first time I met him formally. He pulled his Webley Mark 1 revolver (that I would later learn had been passed down from his father’s use in the Anglo-Boer War), pointed it right at me and pulled the trigger. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that he was firing at the Turk running up behind me, and I was pretty shaken for a minute. But once I grasped the situation (and ranted hysterically for several minutes) I was cool as a cucumber. So that’s how we met, he saved my life and I called him a sodding daft bastard.
We chummed together quite a lot after that, raising the kind of cain that best mates tend to do, and got away with much more in the Army than we ever could have out of it. Never got in to anything too serious, and Paul was always good for talkin’ our way out of the thickest of it just as fast as we could get into it. We went too far once, and though we didn’t know it at the time, our punishment was to be our salvation. Funny how life works, innit? Damned if I can figure it.
Y’see, decent food was scarce most days and damn if the officers ever seemed to lack for quality nourishment, so being the decent blokes we are, we naturally assumed they wouldn’t mind sharing.
There was hell to pay, but they couldn’t make us toss up and give it back, and for Christ’s sake there was a war on. Paul tried to explain very carefully to the officers that he could dump it out for them in a pile of shite, but he’d want his own food back. They didn’t laugh at all – and I couldn’t stop. Well, they couldn’t bloody well just kick us out, though we suggested that, too. So they did the next best thing. They transferred us from the quiet post of Verdun to the raging battle that was the Somme. Spineless officers did us a bloody favor and they didn’t even know it. Trouble was, neither did we at the time, and we bitched up a shit storm when we heard our destination. The word had come down through ranks that General Haig had something big planned for the Somme and there wasn’t a place on Earth I didn’t want to be farther from.
It was our first day in the trenches at the Somme, just north of Paris, and over the artillery shells and Captain Pereé’s bloody whistle and the other screaming boys I hear Paul yelling in my ear, “It’s times like this wot I wish I was back home — having me nuts run through a meat grinder!” Then he laughed that madman laugh of his and I couldn’t help but smile. Fuck the Huns, fuck the Good Lord, and fuck Captain Pereé for good measure – and over the bags we went, and waded into Hell.
The Somme River was to be our “big push” and Sir Douglas Haig, the High and Mighty King Shit and General of the Holy British Empire’s Forces had declared that “not a rat will have survived” when we were through. Well, just for the record, fuck ‘im in his cozy chair while I lost good mates to dysentery. But that General Haig was a right good bastard in one respect, and true to his word, dropped a million and a half shells on the good Kaiser’s Huns and quite literally bombed the shite out of them. Stories tell of ‘earing the bombardment clear across the bloody English Channel. We all figured that the bloody Huns were good and buggered.
So, just after dawn on the first of July, 1916, me, Paul and about 100,000 other volunteers from pals’ battalions and British Army Corps advanced ceremoniously across No Man’s Land. All the while playing those bloody pipes and a couple fuckers even brought their bloody footballs. About 30 seconds later we learned what a horrible mistake had been made and exactly who was left to pay the price for that error.
I only found out after that we lost almost fourteen thousand men in the first 10 minutes. After that, apparently, it was too difficult to estimate.
How can I describe what it felt like to dive for cover under the steel rain of artillery shells and machine gun bullets? As far as I knew, my whole platoon was lost, and the rest of my company wasn’t far behind. I heard Sergeant Thompson screaming for us to fall back. A right good Tommy that one, but there wasn’t anywhere to fall back to. The trenches were a good fifty yards of open fields behind us. Then I heard this wet THWACK behind me and as I turned, I was sprayed by what used to be on the inside of Sergeant Thompson’s veins.
The German concertina wire that was supposed to have been demolished by our brilliant artillery fire was still in place and hardly scratched – entire units tore themselves apart or were cut in ‘alf by machine-gun fire while they tried to extricate themselves from that bloody razor-wire. Some bloke, I think it was Emerson, or maybe it just sounded like him, finally got on the radio and screamed at the Bastards-In-Charge how badly we were being slaughtered, and they, in due course, let loose with more artillery. Right on target, but that was a waste, see, ‘cause more than one out of every three of them shells was a bloody dud. By noon we’d lost almost 20,000 men to the Big Sleep and 40,000 more were maimed, crippled, blinded, paralyzed and thoroughly buggered.
The officers and non-coms screamed for us to fall back and ordered us to ignore the wounded. “Save yourselves!” they cried. Paul was right, bloody wankers, every one. Paul and I walked away with what the hospital officially termed “minor lacerations and bruises.”
I don’t know how to begin to explain it. I mean, we were there, knee deep in gore and muck and what’s left of our mates, bullets whizzing by and artillery shells crashing every couple of seconds, but we just fired back. It wasn’t loud as you might suspect, but almost quiet, even with the shells going off. Not slow, but quiet, as we’d been nearly deafened by the explosions. We kept firing and firing and reloading and firing. We quickly lost track of “official kills” and that sort of nonsense that we always figured would be so important. Paul shot in my direction more than a few times, and I know for fact that I came within an inch of shooting him a half-dozen times, but every time the bullet cut through a German soldier instead of me or him.
There’s a Private Owen in Bravo Platoon wrote a poem that’s been circulating through the lower enlisted ranks and I haven’t been able to think about anything else for two days. Paul read it and told him he was a pretty good soldier for a poet. We were marching in formation three days ago to some damn place or another, and I kept thinking of my Grammar School days in Latin class. How all I had wanted was to be away from that little town, and realizing that right now I’d give just about anything to be back there and away from here. Which reminds me of another phrase from my childhood: Careful what you wish for, Castor ol’ boy…
The platoon was standing at dusk over the bodies of the recently dead, our mates, and presumably some of theirs, having recovered what equipment was salvageable, and the phrase Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori keeps repeating in my head. As I remembered, it meant that it was good and proper to die for one’s country. I guess those Romans had a funny sense of patriotism, as Paul and I decided it’d be better to live for your country. Sod what we know of politics, I suppose. Soldiers aren’t politicians and vice versa. Paul knew the saying and I just mumbled to him and myself “Dulce et decorum est…” He nodded and knew it as our code.
Anyway, this Private Owen overhears us and when he asks, I explain the meaning. He asks if he can use it in a poem. “I didn’t make it up, mate,” I tell him.
That wanker just looked me right in the eye and says, “I just figured you were the closest thing to authority out ‘ere…” That cracked Paul up ‘cause usually he’s the only one who’ll take the piss out of me. We all had a laugh at that, and for a few seconds we almost forgot where we were. Anyways, here it is.
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime. –
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitten as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
That shite about the wagon gave me pause, ‘cause after the last of Jerry’s poison gas attacks, I helped haul three bodies into the one lorry that managed to stay on the road during the shelling. For the life o’ me, I can’t remember their names, though. Gilbert something, or maybe Gillian… Shite! Why can’t I remember their names? I see their faces sometimes in dreams, and the look on their mugs is like gasping shock mixed with the relief of not having to fight this bloody war another day.
Fuck all that. The dead know only one thing. It’s better to be alive.
Six hundred miles away, she waited by the window every day for news.
At least, that’s what I imagined. Whenever I dreamed, whenever I had even five minutes that didn’t involve shooting something or being shot at, my thoughts would return to her. I thought of little else. Catherine had been lovely even at 15, and I imagined her in my mind’s eye growing only lovelier as we lived through these horrors.
Paul and I were reassigned after the debacle at the Somme, but our accomplishments served us no real honor except among other enlisted who knew the story. Among them, we tread as gods. But I swear I would give it all up to be returned home that very day.
(To be continued...)
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Fiction Story #5 ("Just A Walk In The Park")
1/5/11
Just a Walk in the Park
It seemed like years since I had died the first time. People always say “time heals all wounds,” but that Hallmark sentimentality, while certainly appropriate to a greeting card, is simply not a philosophy to build a life around. I remember that first one so clearly that sometimes I can’t think of anything else – like the clarity of a xenon bulb burning right through my eyelids. I still wake up some nights drenched in sweat, reliving that end in a detailed nightmare. The wounds have healed – but the body remembers anyway.
This one doesn’t look to be shaping up to be any better. I could be wrong. A simple error of judgment on my part – but it’s terribly hard to think coherently with the barrel of a plasma rifle in your mouth. However, as long as I’m being honest, it beats some of the other ways I’ve died.
The soldier holding the plastic grip of the rifle is nervous, sweating buckets. His right index finger is inside the trigger guard, exactly how they tell you not to do it in basic training. So he’s standing above me, the rifle in my face, ready to send a bolt of ionized, magnetically shielded plasma right through my skull – and he’s the one shaking.
Thankfully, there’s no one else here to witness this little farce or else the official cause of death on the Official Coroner’s Report might read: Embarrassment.
==
It was bad the first time. The worst combination of painful and slow. And I remember every second. To be fair, the scientists responsible, they didn’t know I was still alive. I couldn’t scream or tell them to stop or even move a muscle. A shot in the chest with a good neuro-paralysis rifle bolt will do that. So, these highly trained, medical-minded researchers dissected me and poked and prodded inside me until it wore off, which was, ironically, only a few seconds before I was actually really dead.
The first time I had it explained to me exactly who and what I was, I passed out cold. Then they explained it to me again. The second time, I had to be restrained, which, speaking modestly, was no easy task. I’m built like a fighter. Which, I suppose, made sense in an odd sort of way. It was a strange concept, to be a copy of someone else. How was that even possible? I remembered my childhood. I remembered my family. All implanted to make the process easier, they said.
The doctors had asked me to come all the way down to the seventh floor that day. Odd, since, in my entire lifetime, I had never been below the 42nd floor, nor above the 56th. So, the whole ride down I’m thinking, what an adventure this is, how great this is. Yeah, well, what the hell did I know?
I mean, I pretty much had free reign within those floors. Every worker, every technician, every engineer and every scientist knew me on sight. They all knew me by name and I knew most of them by theirs. Later, when I hacked into the mainframe computer’s databanks and learned about the way most humans lived, I started to wonder why there was no mention of living in sealed buildings for their entire lifespan. But I just figured that’s the way it was – didn’t need mentioning. Or maybe I was taught to accept it. Either way, I had an inherent curiosity that would make any cat proud.
(To be continued...)
Just a Walk in the Park
It seemed like years since I had died the first time. People always say “time heals all wounds,” but that Hallmark sentimentality, while certainly appropriate to a greeting card, is simply not a philosophy to build a life around. I remember that first one so clearly that sometimes I can’t think of anything else – like the clarity of a xenon bulb burning right through my eyelids. I still wake up some nights drenched in sweat, reliving that end in a detailed nightmare. The wounds have healed – but the body remembers anyway.
This one doesn’t look to be shaping up to be any better. I could be wrong. A simple error of judgment on my part – but it’s terribly hard to think coherently with the barrel of a plasma rifle in your mouth. However, as long as I’m being honest, it beats some of the other ways I’ve died.
The soldier holding the plastic grip of the rifle is nervous, sweating buckets. His right index finger is inside the trigger guard, exactly how they tell you not to do it in basic training. So he’s standing above me, the rifle in my face, ready to send a bolt of ionized, magnetically shielded plasma right through my skull – and he’s the one shaking.
Thankfully, there’s no one else here to witness this little farce or else the official cause of death on the Official Coroner’s Report might read: Embarrassment.
==
It was bad the first time. The worst combination of painful and slow. And I remember every second. To be fair, the scientists responsible, they didn’t know I was still alive. I couldn’t scream or tell them to stop or even move a muscle. A shot in the chest with a good neuro-paralysis rifle bolt will do that. So, these highly trained, medical-minded researchers dissected me and poked and prodded inside me until it wore off, which was, ironically, only a few seconds before I was actually really dead.
The first time I had it explained to me exactly who and what I was, I passed out cold. Then they explained it to me again. The second time, I had to be restrained, which, speaking modestly, was no easy task. I’m built like a fighter. Which, I suppose, made sense in an odd sort of way. It was a strange concept, to be a copy of someone else. How was that even possible? I remembered my childhood. I remembered my family. All implanted to make the process easier, they said.
The doctors had asked me to come all the way down to the seventh floor that day. Odd, since, in my entire lifetime, I had never been below the 42nd floor, nor above the 56th. So, the whole ride down I’m thinking, what an adventure this is, how great this is. Yeah, well, what the hell did I know?
I mean, I pretty much had free reign within those floors. Every worker, every technician, every engineer and every scientist knew me on sight. They all knew me by name and I knew most of them by theirs. Later, when I hacked into the mainframe computer’s databanks and learned about the way most humans lived, I started to wonder why there was no mention of living in sealed buildings for their entire lifespan. But I just figured that’s the way it was – didn’t need mentioning. Or maybe I was taught to accept it. Either way, I had an inherent curiosity that would make any cat proud.
(To be continued...)
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Fiction Story #4
1/4/11
WANJING: City of Endurance
Coming off that colony ship, I felt a strange mixture of torture and release, like a sailor coming back to port, knowing that he’s safe – and at the same time, missing his lover. I mean, just about anything beats prison, and Chinese prison is worse than that, so when the Powers That Be offered to commute my sentence to time already served if I’d agree to board the colony ship for Wan Jing, I figured – hey, it’s gotta be better than here. Hell, anywhere’s better than here, right?
Yeah, well, I didn’t know.
Sitting in the cargo transport, strapped into the netting, I should’ve frakking known. The ship was ancient – even by Galactic Exploration standards. Some clown had even dug up an old analog clock with real moving hands that ticked off the seconds and minutes and hours as we rocketed through space towards that horrible little ball of dirt. It’s where the old expression “clockwise” came from.
When I asked one of the handlers what the story was with that clock, he just smiled that big, gap-toothed, I’d-love-to-punch-him-in-it grin of his and said, “That? That’s what we use for a fan!” and proceeded to laugh himself to a new color.
I walked right into that one. He had probably waited months for someone to ask him that.
And so, for days, I ate and slept and sat and stared, strapped in to the cargo webbing, along with the cattle, and cargo, and the 340 other prisoners/workers strapped down in the hi-density webbing of the cargo ship. We all got fairly comfortable after a few days—or as comfortable as you can be while living 24/7 in total view of complete strangers. Frakk it. They were all cons, too, probably, and more than a few inmates. When we needed to use the facilities, we used a little tube that protruded from below each of us from the deck at our feet. No solids in our diet, so we just needed the one tube. We all joked at first that our piss was being recycled to the guys below us as water. When the handlers extended tubes for us to drink from that extended out of the ceiling, nobody joked anymore.
Man has long had an obsession with exploring the universe. When mining operations ramped up on Luna back in ‘32, I never saw the glory (or the point) in that. It’s a rock. A lifeless, grey rock. So what?
But, Mars — now, that’s a different story. When the first ships went to colonize that mysterious red planet, everybody watched the newsfeeds for reports on their progress. We cheered in the streets when they landed safely. When the first reports came back of initial terraforming progress, it was like everybody’s team had just won the Championship all at once.
(To be continued...)
WANJING: City of Endurance
Coming off that colony ship, I felt a strange mixture of torture and release, like a sailor coming back to port, knowing that he’s safe – and at the same time, missing his lover. I mean, just about anything beats prison, and Chinese prison is worse than that, so when the Powers That Be offered to commute my sentence to time already served if I’d agree to board the colony ship for Wan Jing, I figured – hey, it’s gotta be better than here. Hell, anywhere’s better than here, right?
Yeah, well, I didn’t know.
Sitting in the cargo transport, strapped into the netting, I should’ve frakking known. The ship was ancient – even by Galactic Exploration standards. Some clown had even dug up an old analog clock with real moving hands that ticked off the seconds and minutes and hours as we rocketed through space towards that horrible little ball of dirt. It’s where the old expression “clockwise” came from.
When I asked one of the handlers what the story was with that clock, he just smiled that big, gap-toothed, I’d-love-to-punch-him-in-it grin of his and said, “That? That’s what we use for a fan!” and proceeded to laugh himself to a new color.
I walked right into that one. He had probably waited months for someone to ask him that.
And so, for days, I ate and slept and sat and stared, strapped in to the cargo webbing, along with the cattle, and cargo, and the 340 other prisoners/workers strapped down in the hi-density webbing of the cargo ship. We all got fairly comfortable after a few days—or as comfortable as you can be while living 24/7 in total view of complete strangers. Frakk it. They were all cons, too, probably, and more than a few inmates. When we needed to use the facilities, we used a little tube that protruded from below each of us from the deck at our feet. No solids in our diet, so we just needed the one tube. We all joked at first that our piss was being recycled to the guys below us as water. When the handlers extended tubes for us to drink from that extended out of the ceiling, nobody joked anymore.
Man has long had an obsession with exploring the universe. When mining operations ramped up on Luna back in ‘32, I never saw the glory (or the point) in that. It’s a rock. A lifeless, grey rock. So what?
But, Mars — now, that’s a different story. When the first ships went to colonize that mysterious red planet, everybody watched the newsfeeds for reports on their progress. We cheered in the streets when they landed safely. When the first reports came back of initial terraforming progress, it was like everybody’s team had just won the Championship all at once.
(To be continued...)
Monday, January 3, 2011
Fiction Story #3 ("When I See the Sea Once More")
1/3/11
When I See the Sea Once More
“Dad, how did you and mom meet?” I had told this story a hundred times, but never to my daughter. Never to the one person who was literally shaped by the actual events. The question comes as a bit of a non-sequitor, but is actually consistent with her randomness—and her eagerness to soak up information.
It catches me off guard mostly because it breaks the heavy silence and the oppressive, ever-present darkness, where we had been straining to listen for any sound. If I could actually see her face, it would be bright and open and her eyes would be clear. As it is, and times being what they were, my daughter’s voice sounds filtered and vaguely mechanical in the dark and it’s hard not to laugh at her youthful bluntness.
I catch my breath, and I try to tell the story and be as honest as I can.
“Well, girlie… Your mom and I met at a party, actually—through a mutual friend. We didn’t even exchange numbers the first time we met.”
Her quizzical grunt of “Huh?” reminds me that it was not just a different time, but a different age then.
“Phone numbers,” I say. “Telephones?” I sigh and shake my head. “Nevermind… She was just a friend of a friend at that point. Then a few months later we met again when that same mutual friend moved to New York City.”
“That New York?”
“Yeah, well, it was a different time. It wasn’t like it is now. You have to understand, there were a lot of things happening all at once. We didn’t know that they would all connect like that. Hindsight is 20/20 – but when you’re living through it, you don’t really see the patterns.”
I stop the story to take another listen. All quiet. Just the wind in the dark.
“This was in 2009. Right about the time the first reports started coming in. We had no idea what was going on, you see. They were calling it ‘Swine Flu’ of all things. We didn’t know. There were a lot of scary things going on. Even though we had just elected a new president, the country—and most of the world—was going through a huge economic crisis. A lot of people watched their savings vanish.”
Telling the story again, it seemed so distant, as if it had all happened to someone else. And it was a lifetime ago, after all.
“Around that time, your grandfather, my dad, got sick, and had to go to the hospital. He was fine, the doctors said, and sent him home after a few days.”
I pause, not sure how much detail to tell. Best to have it out and be done with it, I reasoned.
“He must have picked up something from the hospital, or it must have been more serious than they thought, because a few days later he collapsed at work and never got back up again. We didn’t know how it was spread—or even what it really was, you see?
“And then the other shoe dropped—they turned on the Collider. The Large Hadron Collider was this experiment in Europe that particle physicists had designed to study molecular and quantum reactions at high speeds. Sounds very mundane, I know, but as you can see around you, the effects were… intense.”
I take another listen to the winds outside, intent on being aware of my surroundings. We couldn’t afford to be surprised again.
“A lot of people protested the LHC, both here and in France and across old Europe, saying that it was mucking about with God and the beginning of the universe and all that, and some people even believed it would cause a new ‘Big Bang’ and scribble over the universe as we knew it. The scientists had a good laugh about that and turned it on anyway. We all thought they were crazy, of course, the religious fanatics. And they were wrong, technically—it’s important to remember that. It wasn’t God that came out of that vortex, but only ourselves.
“After repelling the first ‘invasion force’ (as they were calling it then), the government started asking for volunteers. I had been in the military. I had language training. Add to that, I was still fairly fit and had a lot of the right qualifications. It was a long process, but in the end, I climbed into that little pod along with a team that covered as many of the wide variety of skills that the egg-heads thought we’d need.
“We didn’t know that we’d end up in a different place—a different universe, possibly, but not a different time. It was too much for a lot of them to handle at first, and these were some pretty stony individuals. Marines and Navy SEALs and the like. What we only came to understand later was that the government didn’t really think they could stop it at all, whatever it was. They just did whatever the United States always did and threw bodies at the problem.
“It was an ordeal—one for another night—but eventually we managed to meet with the scientists and authorities from that other dimension. Once we managed to help them understand that we weren’t their enemy and that we had lots of technology to share, the travel back and forth between our two worlds became common. As one of the original crew—we weren’t called ‘chrononauts’ till much later—I was given a pretty wide berth and allowed a fair bit of leeway when it came to travel itineraries.
“This was just supposed to be a fun getaway, sweetie, a vacation. Your mother and I never intended to stay here, of course; it was just a diversion from the insanity of that era.”
A screech outside was audible at the edge of our range of hearing. But their ears were sharper than ours. They’d be able to hear us soon, even whispering.
But this was important. I lowered my voice once again as I continued my story. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. We’re still working on a way to get back, but with the gate closed at the other end, there’s only so much we can do from here.” That was an assumption on our part. A hope, actually. We hoped the gate was only closed; that it wasn’t destroyed or utterly beyond repair or that a million other disasters hadn’t occurred. We hoped that they were working on getting us back as it wasn’t likely we’d do a damn thing other than live out the rest of our days here.
“Dad” she hisses, “I think I hear one of them. They’re getting closer.”
She’s right, of course. Her hearing is far better than mine and she’s attuned to the noises here. She didn’t have a lifetime of rock concerts and blaring car alarms and city life to deafen her ears.
Now a thundering tremor can be felt, rhythmically pounding, in time with the gargantuan legs moving forward and transporting the creature’s massive bulk across the terrain.
“Daddy?” She’s barely whispering now, knowing that any sound could give us away.
I reply in a hushed tone, “What is it?”
”Would you do it differently? If you had it to do over, I mean. Would you do anything differently?”
I think back over our time here… It had been maddening… the realization of our solitude – even losing her mother… But she asks the question and she is the answer. Her life made everything worth it. This beautiful girl with my eyes and her mother’s nose, and a smile that in another world would have sent a thousand young boys swooning… Now she stood there with white knuckles holding on to an improvised spear. I smile, but in the dark, the smile is only for me. “I wouldn’t change a thing, sweetie.”
The hush falls over us both as the large pack of pterodactyls screech past the mouth of our cave. “Not a single thing.”
END
When I See the Sea Once More
“Dad, how did you and mom meet?” I had told this story a hundred times, but never to my daughter. Never to the one person who was literally shaped by the actual events. The question comes as a bit of a non-sequitor, but is actually consistent with her randomness—and her eagerness to soak up information.
It catches me off guard mostly because it breaks the heavy silence and the oppressive, ever-present darkness, where we had been straining to listen for any sound. If I could actually see her face, it would be bright and open and her eyes would be clear. As it is, and times being what they were, my daughter’s voice sounds filtered and vaguely mechanical in the dark and it’s hard not to laugh at her youthful bluntness.
I catch my breath, and I try to tell the story and be as honest as I can.
“Well, girlie… Your mom and I met at a party, actually—through a mutual friend. We didn’t even exchange numbers the first time we met.”
Her quizzical grunt of “Huh?” reminds me that it was not just a different time, but a different age then.
“Phone numbers,” I say. “Telephones?” I sigh and shake my head. “Nevermind… She was just a friend of a friend at that point. Then a few months later we met again when that same mutual friend moved to New York City.”
“That New York?”
“Yeah, well, it was a different time. It wasn’t like it is now. You have to understand, there were a lot of things happening all at once. We didn’t know that they would all connect like that. Hindsight is 20/20 – but when you’re living through it, you don’t really see the patterns.”
I stop the story to take another listen. All quiet. Just the wind in the dark.
“This was in 2009. Right about the time the first reports started coming in. We had no idea what was going on, you see. They were calling it ‘Swine Flu’ of all things. We didn’t know. There were a lot of scary things going on. Even though we had just elected a new president, the country—and most of the world—was going through a huge economic crisis. A lot of people watched their savings vanish.”
Telling the story again, it seemed so distant, as if it had all happened to someone else. And it was a lifetime ago, after all.
“Around that time, your grandfather, my dad, got sick, and had to go to the hospital. He was fine, the doctors said, and sent him home after a few days.”
I pause, not sure how much detail to tell. Best to have it out and be done with it, I reasoned.
“He must have picked up something from the hospital, or it must have been more serious than they thought, because a few days later he collapsed at work and never got back up again. We didn’t know how it was spread—or even what it really was, you see?
“And then the other shoe dropped—they turned on the Collider. The Large Hadron Collider was this experiment in Europe that particle physicists had designed to study molecular and quantum reactions at high speeds. Sounds very mundane, I know, but as you can see around you, the effects were… intense.”
I take another listen to the winds outside, intent on being aware of my surroundings. We couldn’t afford to be surprised again.
“A lot of people protested the LHC, both here and in France and across old Europe, saying that it was mucking about with God and the beginning of the universe and all that, and some people even believed it would cause a new ‘Big Bang’ and scribble over the universe as we knew it. The scientists had a good laugh about that and turned it on anyway. We all thought they were crazy, of course, the religious fanatics. And they were wrong, technically—it’s important to remember that. It wasn’t God that came out of that vortex, but only ourselves.
“After repelling the first ‘invasion force’ (as they were calling it then), the government started asking for volunteers. I had been in the military. I had language training. Add to that, I was still fairly fit and had a lot of the right qualifications. It was a long process, but in the end, I climbed into that little pod along with a team that covered as many of the wide variety of skills that the egg-heads thought we’d need.
“We didn’t know that we’d end up in a different place—a different universe, possibly, but not a different time. It was too much for a lot of them to handle at first, and these were some pretty stony individuals. Marines and Navy SEALs and the like. What we only came to understand later was that the government didn’t really think they could stop it at all, whatever it was. They just did whatever the United States always did and threw bodies at the problem.
“It was an ordeal—one for another night—but eventually we managed to meet with the scientists and authorities from that other dimension. Once we managed to help them understand that we weren’t their enemy and that we had lots of technology to share, the travel back and forth between our two worlds became common. As one of the original crew—we weren’t called ‘chrononauts’ till much later—I was given a pretty wide berth and allowed a fair bit of leeway when it came to travel itineraries.
“This was just supposed to be a fun getaway, sweetie, a vacation. Your mother and I never intended to stay here, of course; it was just a diversion from the insanity of that era.”
A screech outside was audible at the edge of our range of hearing. But their ears were sharper than ours. They’d be able to hear us soon, even whispering.
But this was important. I lowered my voice once again as I continued my story. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. We’re still working on a way to get back, but with the gate closed at the other end, there’s only so much we can do from here.” That was an assumption on our part. A hope, actually. We hoped the gate was only closed; that it wasn’t destroyed or utterly beyond repair or that a million other disasters hadn’t occurred. We hoped that they were working on getting us back as it wasn’t likely we’d do a damn thing other than live out the rest of our days here.
“Dad” she hisses, “I think I hear one of them. They’re getting closer.”
She’s right, of course. Her hearing is far better than mine and she’s attuned to the noises here. She didn’t have a lifetime of rock concerts and blaring car alarms and city life to deafen her ears.
Now a thundering tremor can be felt, rhythmically pounding, in time with the gargantuan legs moving forward and transporting the creature’s massive bulk across the terrain.
“Daddy?” She’s barely whispering now, knowing that any sound could give us away.
I reply in a hushed tone, “What is it?”
”Would you do it differently? If you had it to do over, I mean. Would you do anything differently?”
I think back over our time here… It had been maddening… the realization of our solitude – even losing her mother… But she asks the question and she is the answer. Her life made everything worth it. This beautiful girl with my eyes and her mother’s nose, and a smile that in another world would have sent a thousand young boys swooning… Now she stood there with white knuckles holding on to an improvised spear. I smile, but in the dark, the smile is only for me. “I wouldn’t change a thing, sweetie.”
The hush falls over us both as the large pack of pterodactyls screech past the mouth of our cave. “Not a single thing.”
END
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Fiction Story #2 ("Former")
1/2/11
Former
The graffiti was emblazoned in illegal fluorescent white spray-paint in tall block capitals, each letter nearly 6 feet tall, sprawling across the face of the black brick building reading, “I KNOW I HAVE LOST.” That they were three stories up was not the most impressive fact. That they were there for more than a few hours shocked even the most conservative citizen. A tall man in ragged clothes caked in dirt and his own filth, merely glanced at the words and smiled an almost famous half-smile. The words were paraphrasing his own life, and like his former accomplishments, they were to be swept away and painted over by the efficiency of the state he had helped create.
Walking down the street, he was indistinguishable from the other homeless. For a man once hailed as the “Bringer of Peace,” this was not the retirement the former president of the Free States of America had in mind. Eating out of trash bins and being ignored by passers-by only added to his revulsion, knowing that only a few years ago he could have had them shot for even sneering in his direction. Now a victim of his self-crafted fascist state, Henry Daniel Cleveland slept most nights in a condemned storage unit along with ten other vagrants who had no idea they slumbered next to the closest thing the Free States of America had to ex-royalty.
The necessity of eating what someone else had thrown away made him sick to his stomach, so that most times Henry didn’t eat much. Having come from a life of privilege and wealth had made him naturally opposed to the thought of scouring garbage for sustenance, yet he had to eat. He could not let himself starve.
Not now. Not after the signs were so clear.
The end of his term had come abruptly and without his consent – almost an entire year before his scheduled departure date. His team had been well into planning his re-election when The Scandal broke. Not even his hand-picked team of high-paid lawyers could save him from the indignity he had to face when the media ran the clips 24/7 on the news. How she had smuggled in a video camera was irrelevant — technology was advancing so quickly now it could have been hidden in anything. By the time his so-called “trial” went to court, every citizen with newsfeed, or god forbid, still had a television, had seen the digitally re-touched, high-definition, quality-enhanced footage of him sodomizing his Secretary of Treasury. That she was one of the most desirable cabinet members in the history of the country was of as little importance as her former status as a Playboy bunny. All were equal under the Law. It mattered not to America that she was goading the president on, to do even more lascivious things than were shown on the tape—though most feeds showed the footage with the sound muted; not even the First Lady’s famous speech to stand by him in these trying times could keep his career afloat.
But now, for the first time in years, maybe a decade, he saw with perfect clarity exactly what he had to do. The signs had been building up for a while, and now not even he could deny they spoke to him and him alone. They all pointed to one event – he’d have to kill the current president and re-take the White House.
Former
The graffiti was emblazoned in illegal fluorescent white spray-paint in tall block capitals, each letter nearly 6 feet tall, sprawling across the face of the black brick building reading, “I KNOW I HAVE LOST.” That they were three stories up was not the most impressive fact. That they were there for more than a few hours shocked even the most conservative citizen. A tall man in ragged clothes caked in dirt and his own filth, merely glanced at the words and smiled an almost famous half-smile. The words were paraphrasing his own life, and like his former accomplishments, they were to be swept away and painted over by the efficiency of the state he had helped create.
Walking down the street, he was indistinguishable from the other homeless. For a man once hailed as the “Bringer of Peace,” this was not the retirement the former president of the Free States of America had in mind. Eating out of trash bins and being ignored by passers-by only added to his revulsion, knowing that only a few years ago he could have had them shot for even sneering in his direction. Now a victim of his self-crafted fascist state, Henry Daniel Cleveland slept most nights in a condemned storage unit along with ten other vagrants who had no idea they slumbered next to the closest thing the Free States of America had to ex-royalty.
The necessity of eating what someone else had thrown away made him sick to his stomach, so that most times Henry didn’t eat much. Having come from a life of privilege and wealth had made him naturally opposed to the thought of scouring garbage for sustenance, yet he had to eat. He could not let himself starve.
Not now. Not after the signs were so clear.
The end of his term had come abruptly and without his consent – almost an entire year before his scheduled departure date. His team had been well into planning his re-election when The Scandal broke. Not even his hand-picked team of high-paid lawyers could save him from the indignity he had to face when the media ran the clips 24/7 on the news. How she had smuggled in a video camera was irrelevant — technology was advancing so quickly now it could have been hidden in anything. By the time his so-called “trial” went to court, every citizen with newsfeed, or god forbid, still had a television, had seen the digitally re-touched, high-definition, quality-enhanced footage of him sodomizing his Secretary of Treasury. That she was one of the most desirable cabinet members in the history of the country was of as little importance as her former status as a Playboy bunny. All were equal under the Law. It mattered not to America that she was goading the president on, to do even more lascivious things than were shown on the tape—though most feeds showed the footage with the sound muted; not even the First Lady’s famous speech to stand by him in these trying times could keep his career afloat.
But now, for the first time in years, maybe a decade, he saw with perfect clarity exactly what he had to do. The signs had been building up for a while, and now not even he could deny they spoke to him and him alone. They all pointed to one event – he’d have to kill the current president and re-take the White House.
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