Short Story: Lucem Ex Tenebras

I was sitting at my desk arranging the desktop icons into the semblance of a middle finger when the chat window popped up. 

 

“Tony, are you there?”

 

I finished giving myself the finger and began to type: “Sorry, but this isn’t Tony.” and I was about to press enter when I read:

 

“I’m drowning in a sea of shit Tony, except I’m the sea. I could really use someone to talk to.”

 

It occurred to me that Tony might not be available to talk to whoever this person was. That is precisely what had happened to me, the day before, except her name was Michelle, and she’d gotten sick of how often I needed her help.

 

Besides there appeared to be no one else at any of their desks, anywhere on this floor.

 

I wrote: “Okay. What’s wrong?”

 

They said: “IT’S fucking stupid. I’m being stupid.”

 

“Whatever IT is, If IT bothers you, then it bothers you. And that’s okay.”

 

They didn’t type anything for awhile. 

 

Then they wrote: “On the subway someone’s phone went off. The ringtone was Don’t Stop Believing by journey and I wanted to cry because of it, but I didn’t want anyone to see so I picked up this newspaper and there was this stupid picture of a soldier upside down and he looked like an idiot so I started laughing but I was crying at the same time and then I realized I was holding the newspaper upside down and that everyone would know why I’d done it.”

 

I waited.

 

Typed “lol” then deleted it. 

 

They wrote “See, it’s fucking stupid.”

 

I typed “Why did the song make you cry?”

 

They wrote it all out. How their face had been scratched by the windshield of their car whilst they listened to what used to be their favorite song. How they had lost who they were and that reminded me qof how I’d lost Danielle, and how simple things that shouldn’t be, did. Like waking up. And breakfast,

 

Except Danielle was definitely still alive and waiting for me at home with the next episode of Game Of Thrones.

 

Later they wrote “Thank you I fucking needed that” so I thought it was time to type: “My name isn’t actually Tony you know. Though I am in tech support…” which is when I woke up from the dream, into an empty bed, on top of a duvet too large for one person because Danielle was still dead and I’d forgotten again. 

 

It took me sometime to get dressed and go to my real desk, out in the real world. It was somewhere around noon when I realized that I’d left my latest prescription at home. My supervisor let me go, told me to stay home, and I knew he meant well but why couldn’t he understand that I would come back the moment I took my pills and that the last thing I needed was to be at home. That auditing the accounts of a popcorn company was bliss in comparison. 

 

The pills didn’t seem to do anything except make day time TV somewhat more bearable. The romance, between an ancient concubine and some kind of half-man, half-bird creature was particularly enthralling, especially since I do not speak cantonese and so made up the words in my head. My stomach growled so I put some instant dimsum in the microwave and pressed some buttons. At some distance from the couch the microwave started beeping. I figured that now that it was cooked, that it would keep, for several hours if necessary. Later the washing machine started making noises. I remained on the sofa, listening with half-shut eyes to the nonsensical patter of another Chinese soap. 

 

Of course my phone had to go off right next to my head. An unknown number. I prepared to be polite. If it was all I going to do today, I was going to be polite to his poor, underpaid telemarketer.

 

“Hello.” I said, in my polite voice.

 

She said: “Hi there! I’m calling from tech support! Why so glum chum?”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“What’s on you mind man! I heard you’re kind of down.”

 

“From who? Who is this?”

 

“Well, I got this memo, said you’re kind of down. Got it from the sysadmin. He assigned me to you I think. I’m not sure. But who cares, whatever, you sound like ass, you really do and for what it’s worth you shouldn’t bottle it all up. Let’s see here…Danielle…lovely name that. Come on man, tell me about her. I’m listening. You can tell me whatever you like.

 

I tried a few Well’s, some But’s and it’s just’s- she waited for me to finish one of my sentences but I failed to. I only breathed slower, and harder, till I was gasping.

 

She said “Danielle would want you to treat yourself well, I mean, that’s love right?”

 

“That’s…what the fuck…” And it just spilled out of me. In a babbling mess. I confessed about how I’d finally found someone that made me feel everything I’d ever dreamed of, right when I’d given up all hope, right when I was at my most overweight and tired, and then out of nowhere, just like that she’s gone and all the pills in the goddamn world weren’t enough. I told her how I hadn’t really been happy to begin with. How Danielle just accepted me and that was the definition of love.

 

The tech support lady said: “Self-acceptance counts too.”

 

And after that I poured the rest out. And after that I tried to thank her. “That was so much better than these pink pills I take.”

 

It turns out we took the same pills.

 

She had been swearing a lot. I asked: “Have you…ever been in a car accident?”

 

She said Yes.

 

“And do you have a friend, a good friend named Tony?”

 

She said What the fuck.

 

The line began to crackle. I remembered then, being transferred to tech support, the empty office, and a middle finger made out of desktop icons and: “LOOK, IF YOU’RE AT THE OFFICE TONIGHT, MEET ME AT THE PHOTOCOPY MACHINE!”

 

She managed to ask: “The pink one?”

 

“YES THE BRIGHT PINK ONE!!!!!” and the line went dead and I woke up opposite the TV and I made a mental, then a written note to bring all this up with my psychiatrist. Then I did my washing, ate the dimsum, and went back to work.

 

I was so excited that getting to sleep took ages.

 

It felt like I was about to go somewhere new. Meet someone new. It felt like my first date with Danielle and the debate I had about what flowers to buy. So I still thought I was awake even when I found myself at the bottom of a lift shaft, with only a ladder and the distant sounds whirring office machinery. I climbed and counted the floors, perpetually afraid I had lost track, that I was going to miss mine. It made me want to start all over again but my arms were tired and what if I wouldn’t be able to go back up? 

 

The silhouette of a head peeked out, far above me. “About time! I couldn’t find a single freakin’ photocopy machine anywhere. Its like the end of the world up in here.” 

 

At that point it became easier to climb, until I stood on the other side of the shaft from her, the gap in between too large to jump. “Jump it!” she said. 

 

“I’ll fall.” I replied.

 

She extended her hands and it occurred to me that if I ran really, really fast, then maybe I’d outrun gravity. So I did, and I was only a foot away from her when gravity caught up to grab me by my ankles, “OH HELL NO!” She yelled, then her hands clasping mine, pulling me up till we stood, face to scarred face. She kissed me and I didn’t ask why, or feel guilty at all despite the fact that she looked nothing like Danielle.

 

“I checked out the company directory, none of it makes any fucking sense, but I’ll tell you what- the sysadmin’s office is on the top floor. Come on, we’ll take the stairs.”

 

So we ran hand in hand up an interminable fire escape. Eventually we emerged into a white marbled lobby. At the end of it, large and imposing, were a set of double doors. One black, the other white, with a drop of the other color in each. Holding hands we shouldered both open together.

 

Inside the sysadmin dropped the dimsum he’d been eating. Then he tripped over a bundle of wires covered with what looked like unwashed clothes. He stuttered: “Who the…what the…you guys aren’t supposed to BE here! At the same time! Oh jeez, you’re even holdin’ hands.”

 

I gently disconnected from her.

 

The sysadmin sighed and circled us, humming and hawwing to himself. I said: “Excuse me, we would very much like to know how…”

 

“Shhhh.” He gently pressed one finger to his lips. “Shhhhhhhitttttt I see it now. Wow. You guys. The pills you both take. They messed with the system! Fucking PEOPLE!” His hands flew up, beseeching a red neon sign above him, composed of Chinese characters I did not understand. “Always messing around with the mind, like idiot children. Damn pills got side effects. Ought to put that on the label.”

 

“Look sir, is she real?”

 

She turned on me: “SAY WHAT? Fuck you, are YOU real?”

 

“YOU’RE BOTH FRICKIN REAL!” he said. “Look. Here’s the thing. There has been a teensy little screw up. You aren’t ever suppsoed to be together in the same place and time. The same place-time. That isn’t how it works,”

 

“How what works?” One of us said.

 

“The…buddy program. For broken people- not unlike yourselves. What happens is when one person is really low, like, down in the sewers low, then another person, quite like them, but- and this is crucial- not feeling the same way at that exact moment in time, contacts you, and you have a bit of a talk, to alleviate the symptoms of existence. Now you are both, if I may say so, HIGHLY QUALIFIED buddys in your own right. Seriously top notch traumas you’ve both sustained. But the algorithm’s screwed up, there shouldn’t be a recurring relationship. Not like this. There shouldn’t be anything tying you to together. Except for the goddamn pills your quack of a psychiatrist gave both of you. Same pills, same connection, and now you’re freakin HOLDING HANDS!”

 

He sighed again, said: “There is only one thing left to do now. Gotta reset the system.”

 

“Reset?”

 

“Yeah, turn it on and off. Works most of the time.”

 

“And then what, we just…”

 

“Wake up, and all of this is forgotten, and later on you help someone different instead.”

 

I asked him: “But wait, you mean, we go to the same doctor? We could see each other…outside of…work?” 

 

She asked him: “Hey dickhead, what if we don’t want to forget, did you ever consider that?”

 

The sysadmin paused, hands hovering over the console he had been typing at. “Sorry. Really am. But if I don’t do this you guys might end up perfectly happy, and then so much for balancing out the others. And you’ll know all about the backoffice. And you’ll start some frickin cult and invariably in a century or two it’ll all get fucked.”

 

I held her hand again. “What does it mean?” I asked.

 

I was pointing at the neon sign, which had changed from Chinese to latin. “Lucem ex tenebras; from darkness, light.” The sysadmin massaged the top of his forehead. “Even if I reset the system it won’t be over for you guys. You’re on your way up. The darkness, without it you wouldn’t understand each other. You wouldn’t care. Not as hard. Not as much. And for what it’s worth there are a lot of you guys out there, trust me.” He gestured to the stack of servers: “You’ll find someone else. Or you won’t. I don’t know. It’ll be like a dream- you’ll forget the details but you’ll remember the point.” He squatted and reached into a space between two servers.

 

She turned to me, her smile melding with the scar that traveled from her jaw to her forehead. “I’ll remember you.” She said.

 

And then he flipped the switch.

 

I woke up late on top of a duvet too large for one person. I was pretty sure I’d dreamt of Danielle. What little I had slipped out of my grasp, leaving only a few word that made no sense.

 

So I googled Lucem Ex Tenebras and went back to work.

The Swimmer Part 3

Time to make up for the break Here is part 3 of The Swimmer. 

Link to part 1 and part 2.

This takes place in The Children of the Pantheon’s world. The first story, which is not directly connected to this, is Between Two Cities

The Swimmer (Part 3)

Jon floundered in mid-air, screaming. He tipped his feet forward, hunting for the ground with his toes. He scratched the soft soil with the tips of his toenails before rising farther. Like a swimmer slowly surfacing. He flung out his limbs. The trunk of the tree was a good two feet out of reach. He watched it sink. Jon rose belly down, felt the skin on his back being tugged upwards, the hairs on his spine tearing as if a God had grasped him with countless tiny fingers to pull him upwards, towards judgement. Jon stuttered “By…THE….hallowed names…thine kingdom come….WILL….Oh Gods…OH GODS!”  He climbed higher, mumbling a prayer, spittle raining out of his mouth. His sacrilegious writing stick and whittling stone eight feet below now.

A low branch bent against the small of his back. Jon felt it, uncomprehending, he thought the pressure on him was some kind of punishment. The wood began to crack and Jon finally threw his hands around his back, failing to grab hold of the branch. It bent farther upwards. He grazed his knuckles against it. The branch snapped and he continued to rise. As it fell he grabbed hold of it, waved it pointlessly.  Jon tried to turn his head, couldn’t enough to see if there were any more branches in reach.  He’d memorized the number of crenelations on the tower, the number of trees across the horizon, the shapes of the distant mountains but he’d not once tried to sketch the tree under which he took shade.  Jon had no idea how many branches he had left, passed another branch on the right, moaned “Noooo…” when it was out of reach. He was blinded by a flurry of leaves. Instinctively he brushed at his face. When the leaves finally stopped scratching at his cheeks it was too late. He had just about passed the peak of the tree. One final branch remained. His fingers clawed at empty air.

The Rock, The Shard, The Root. Jon dove. He flipped his legs upwards, head downwards, arms stroking the air. He kicked at the air, imagining water. For a moment he seemed to go lower, perhaps, perhaps not; it did not matter, he had successfully aligned himself feet up in the air, head down, closing the gap between him and the branch. He grabbed hold of it. Continued to rise, held onto the thick branch like a rope. It felt secure, as long as the Gods did not pull him any harder. Jon closed his eyes and started to pull himself down, hand over hand. He pretended he was climbing upwards. Three pulls and was nearly at the trunk. That was when he dropped.

His eyes shot open in that sickening moment. The branch between his hands tore a long graze down his palms, his his inner forearms. He grabbed hold and kicked at empty air, the sky and ground reasserting themselves. He mumbled “I’m so sorry.” towards the Gods who tossed him up and down as they pleased. They must have been watching, it did not matter that they were not overhead. They must have watched him scratching in the dirt for the last month, waiting with mounting apprehension for the moment to punish him. Jon dared to measure how far he was from the ground. A short fall if he prepared himself, but to risk it? He could try climbing down, had never climbed, not since Kulk did. No one climbed since Kulk did.

Jon let go.

Landed on his ankle sideways.

He stumbled, cursed: “Nononono…” Sat down on the ground and rubbed at his foot, pushing into his shin as if to squeeze the pain right out of it. He lay back. Underneath the changing, red-tinged sky the clouds blurred and broke as he allowed himself to sob. Then came the ragged breathing and the thundering panic in his chest. He got up and limped towards the river. He left the stick where it lay.

The swim back was the hardest he’d ever done. With one aching, twisted foot, he kicked, propelled not by the spark he’d felt only a few hours before, but by sheer unbridled desperation. He made it into the tunnel and almost opened his mouth to the water when the image of little Kulk’s empty sockets invaded that scrambling darkness. On the otherside Jon found The Shards in the river bed and scattered them with one careless, slapping hand. Finally he shoved off the bottom and emerged upwards. It was an effort just to tread water. He pulled himself along the wall till he reached a bank, dared not to look towards the fountain and past it to the others, back to the city and those plump childrens who slept in soft beds who had his friends whipped and his skin burned just because, just because of what- the Gods maybe. As if by not looking they would not be there. He noticed then that he had not cleaned his palms. The soil remained printed upon them. He looked and saw past the fountain. Two tiny islands of flesh floated on the water, impervious and oblivious.

Jon washed his hands thoroughly, eviscerating the dirt underneath his finger nails. Spotless, he limped back along the bank. When he was close enough to the others he slopped back into the water. The children finished playing. Their whoops and chortles faded into the late afternoon whilst Jon watched from the shore. When they had gone inside Marat came and demanded Jon change and follow, that there was work to be done by men and they needed boys to carry their tools. Jon lagged behind and Marat noticed immediately.

There were still two hours of sunlight left.

Jon did not scream until the seventh lash. With his hands tied above his head and the laughs of the children behind, Jon gritted his teeth against the stake he was tied to. His bound fingers scraped against the wood, tracing the same abominable pattern, over and over and over again, shuddering during a lash. He rubbed his thumb- one invisible, pointless act of defiance; he rubbed his thumb into the stake. It kept him from screaming. He had to focus. Each time the whip fell he’d sweep his thumb the way he swept that stick to make that sacrilegious, glowing rune. If the Gods were watching let them, they could not do to him anything worse than what men had. The final lash was held back my Marat, just long enough for Jon to loosen, for his mucles to relax. That suprise was the cruelest and drew a scream. Marat’s satisfaction could be heard then in his repetitive warning to the waiting slaves behind Jon.

He left Jon there till dusk. The slashes on his twelve-year old back wept. The red sun dispelled the drops of river water that clung to his exposed skin. Jon continued to trace that symbol invisibly in the air with his wiggling fingers, even after he could no longer feel them. He traced that symbol till it was as well known to him as the number of crenellations on that crumbling wall.

That night he slept on his stomach.

The next day he was assigned to the nave. Work fit for cripples, the sick, and women. Work that was out of the sun. When he walked into the temple the first thing he was told, by a crone behind a table at the far end was: “Gah, it’s too bright out there. Close the door slave.” He did and in that silence could only hear the sound of scratching, scratching, coming from the feather that danced above real paper. The priestess may or may not have smiled at Jon, but Jon did smile back. He limped forward till he was able to fix his eye on the purple liquid within the crystal by her side. She followed his gaze.

“It’s ink boy.”

Jon discarded his smile immediately, looking anywhere but at the ink bottle and the pile of paper beside it, focusing particularly on the old crone and her feeble movements. “It’s for writing boy. Symbols. Holy runes. Do you have any idea what I am talking about?”

“No.”

“Well. Let me teach you how to make my blasted tea then.”

Jon listened intently to the priestesses intricate instructions. He had never focused so hard on something then he had on making that tea. He summoned all he had learnt about being a scraping, pathetic, obsequious servant, watched her closely to anticipate the sundry needs she requested of him. When during the evening she said: “You will be here at dawn.” Jon had to hold back tears.

That night he slept on his stomach, tracing the symbol on the straw till he fell asleep.

SciFi story: Judas

I play and run role playing games. One of those games is Eclipse Phase. It’s a sci-fi setting. About 100 years or so in the future when we have just about begun to colonise the solar system. It’s transhumanism. It’s about the singularity. It’s great. 

Tomorrow I will be writing part 3 of The Swimmer but currently it is 3 am so this is all I wrote today for my 1k. It is the first party of my characters backstory. 

 

Judas

 

“This is Captain George C. Westmoreland of the USS Constellation, you have three-hundred seconds left to transmit your real ID, Manifesto, telemetry and actuate automated docking procedures or you will be fired upon. This is your final warning.”

 

“Sir, Please. As we said, our ID is linked to the Neptunian mesh. We are currently requesting a translation that is compatible with your system. We are a small transport vessel carrying geological samples from Proteus to the Argonaut research station in Paris, Earth, we did not know we had violated United States…”

 

“Your place of origin is Xiphos and you have three lifeforms on board your ship, not two. You have 250 seconds left to comply or we will destroy you.” 

 

Lara’s muse said: “SOB’s just cut seventeen seconds off the clock.”

 

Koheim’s muse retorted: “What do you expect, he’s already decided to blow us to hell.”

 

Koheim shouted out: “QUIET. Both of you. Find something, some kind of beaurocratic excuse to stall them, I don’t care what.” 

 

Lara continued to float over the creche, praying. She messaged Koheim as she repeated mantras:

 

<We have to tell them Ko. There are no more options.>

 

Koheim’s hands danced over the haptic controls whilst simultaneously subvocalising commands to the Solomon’s AI. 

 

Lara messaged: <We had a good run Ko.>

 

Koheim’s slammed his fist through the haptic controls, shattering the hologram, feeling the forcefeed back buzz along his wrist. His Remade’s emotional dampeners were straining to contain the swell of conflicting impulses that threatened to break his concentration. 

 

He whispered: “Prep Judas.”

 

Lara’s enhanced hearing easily picked out Koheim’s words. She flipped herself, threading her toes into a hanging net for balance. Head towards the floor she adminstered to the hardwired controls of the cot. Judas, oblivious, continued to paw with his tiny hands at the holographic solar system that revolved above his tiny head. Comets formed each time he touched a planet, eliciting squeels. 

 

When the solar system disappeared Judas began to cry.

 

Lara picked him up carefully, hands through the zero-g-harness. She lied to the baby in whispers, “It’s going to be okay, okay, it’s going to be okay.” 

 

“This is Captain George C. Westmoreland. You have 120 seconds remaining.”

 

<He has a thing for titles doesn’t he? I’m going to need more time than that Ko. Do something.>

 

Koheim activated the ship’s weapon systems. Three long range rail guns emerged from their hidden beds, swiveled in silence and aimed at the distant cruiser. Lara reached the escape pod. She started to arrange the harness. Koheim smoothed down his black uniform, fumbled in a drawer for the discarded medal, and affixed the Order of David to his chest. He grabbed his monofilmant sword and belted on its sheathe, then arranged his face into a snarl. Koheim’s muse said: “I haven’t seen that look in awhile. Reckon you’re about to give that yank a real good scare.” Koheim narrowed his eyes and hooked his feet into the straps on the ground, forcing himself to appear standing in zero-g.

 

“Hail him. Holo.” thin spears of multicolored light painted Koheim’s stick straight body, flickered, then held.

 

The Constellation accepted. George C. Westmoreland was bald as well, his head oddly symmetrical compared to Koheim’s high, pale peak. Westmoreland’s eyes were a stark, penetrating blue that almost wavered when greeted by Koheim’s white, almost pupiless eyes, his too pale skin and pointed teeth. George Westmoreland’s face remained blank, whilst his XO’s made a disgusted expression. “American.” Koheim began. “I am Koheim, of Xiphos. I am an Ultimate. You and your crew are pondscum. We have three railguns. When they fire the damage to your ship will be superficial at best…however…we are targeting your most populated decks. A Ticonderoga class cruiser such as yours carries families, yes? How old do your offspring get before you implant cortical stacks? Even if we die we will make sure to rid the future of some of your disgusting chldren.”

 

Westmoreland’s expression did not change.

 

Koheim continued. “We also have on board a human child. I am transmitting you proof now.”

 

Westmoreland’s eyes glazed over as he stared at something only he could see. It took him a good long minute to digest the information. In that minute Lara finished prepping the pod. She floated back to Koheim, staying just around the corner and out of the frame. Westmoreland spoke: “What are your terms?” 

 

Koheim waited.

 

Lara messaged him, vocal this time, her voice strained. “Ko, no, we can’t, if they take us they’ll know what we did, they’ll dissect him, please, I know it’s hard but…”

 

<It’s just a dramatic pause Lara. I agree with you.>

 

Koheim sneered, “American. You will let us continue unharmed to our destination or we are ejecting the child in an escape pod without life support. YOU have sixty seconds till we do.”

 

Westmoreland allowed one eyebrow to rise.

 

Koheim messaged both muses. He instructed them to weaken their own security measures, specifically in regards to weapon systems and the escape pods own network. <Already done Ko. Your muse crawls at a geological scale>

 

<Stop trying to make me laugh you lunatic>

 

<Might as well go out with a smile baby.>

 

Twenty seconds later the Solomon’s railguns were subverted by the Constellation’s hackers. A few seconds after that the hackers launched the escape pod remotely, with life support still functioning. 

 

Westmoreland nodded at someone off frame. He intoned “By the homestar-act of twenty…”

 

Ko cut the feed. He turned to Lara, shoved towards her and embraced her. He disabled the emotional dampeners. “I will see you in paradise Koheim.” Koheim could not speak, he only stayed, inhaling her, tangling her hair in his hands. Lara said: “Guardian angels will watch over Judas. Be at peace.”

 

The ship’s AI sounded klaxons. 

 

Koheim wept for the first time in his life.

 

“Inshallah.” Lara said.

 

From the Constellation’s bridge Westmoreland watched The Solomon burst like a metal ball, tiny flames dancing silently across it’s shattered hull. 

 

“Let bring that child home boys. Then scan for any stacks and toast ’em.” 

 

His crew cheered. By the time The Constellation returned to Ganymede Judas had been renamed John, and Westmoreland’s executive officer, Rebecca  Clarke, was legally his mother. 

The Swimmer (part 2)

It’s like 3 AM and I’m completely shattered. So sadly this bit is short but it does continue the story. The next part tomorrow.

 

The Swimmer part 2

 

He started by sketching the crenelations of the walls. He didn’t have to look up to know exactly how many there were. When he reached the wall’s collapsed section he began to outline the wooden replacement- one rectangle, streaked with diagonals to denote the woodgrain. As he slashed the last diagonal the crenelations unraveled at the same rate at which he drew them, disappearing like a tugged out thread. Jon stopped to watch his walls disappear. He blew on the soil whilst the lines disappeared, as if it were him, rather than the Gods that undid his work. Then he smoothed brown soil onto his hands, so he could wash them in the river later. He dirtied himself on purpose so that the pleasure he took at the end of the ritual would be heightened, crested with just a dab of fear; if they carefully examined his nails they might wonder how the dirt got under after swimming. 

 

Jon traced the crenelations again. He skipped the wooden addition this time, drawing the wall as it had once been, no missing teeth, he had to sweep his body around to make space for more of the wall. twenty, fifty, ninety crenelations before they began to disappear. He could see them disappearing in the corner of his eye. He continued, drawing faster than the Gods could erase, till he’d swept a circle around himself- decided it was a birds perspective, started adding the curve of the river, the island in the pool, the slab of the keep, dots for trees and the outline of a flower, carefully drawn where Lady Misha’s garden was. The wall disappeared, left the city undefended. Jon focused, had finished the careful details of the stigma when the rest was obliterated. He had a moment to observe the flower in full before the garden return to bare soil. Jon panted out of concentration. He smiled, chuckled to himself.

 

He started again.

 

A race against the Gods. A warmup. He spent the next quarter of an hour improving his speed, flexing his hands and arms. This was better than doing just simple shapes, this was so much more fun; to sketch what he saw, as quickly as he could- the trees, an imagined bird, sometimes the clouds though his neck hurt from nodding up and down and up as he tried to capture the moving sky.

 

Finally he was ready.

 

He sketched abstract symbols that looked lke nothing. A sweep here, a curve there, random lines in the middle. The only rule was that he had stop right before they began to disappear. Then he had to weight and start all over again. Once, when he was younger he could have sworn he saw, during the festival of the Warlord’s fall, a tender scribe a symbol upon a broken down fishing boat. He painted it by flinging shots of white frlom an iron-banded bucket onto the hull. He restarted several times until he got it right, and around the symbol the broken wood re-knitted together. Jon went into the hollow and found the small box. He withdrew from inside the shards of paper, the marks on them meaningless to him as he was illiterate. He placed it on the dirt and drew around it, trying out variations that seemed similar to that hold memory. He’d spent so much time going through the permutations. Had tried to remember more clearly, to sift and interrogate his memories hoping to discard the impostors.

 

As usual nothing happened. Till in his frustration Jon drew a new sign. When it finished it seemed to shine. Then Jon floated off the ground, terrified.

cont tomorrow

Fantasy story excerpt: The Swimmer (Part 1)

Also set in the same world as Between Two Cities. This takes place three generations later. Too sleepy to edit, will tomorrow.

The Swimmer

The foreman had been ill for so long that the lashes on Jon’s back hadn’t just scabbed over, they had fallen off. According to the chalk on the Jubal tree he’d grown an entire foot. He made harpoons of the sticks at the bottom of the pool, threw them at the other children under the water where they couldn’t see, watched them sink, useless. The red sun hovered almost directly overhead and it was a clear, blue day, no Gods above or anywhere above the walled off horizon. Jon moved farther away from the children with each of their splashes, a receding wave, he tried to laugh in time to the others jokes. “JON! WHERE YOU GOING?”

“I want to swim to the fountain and back, maybe thirty times. Anyone else want to come?”

The chubby scions of House Kobar shook water from their heads, frowned and made disgusting sounds. Hak turned to the others and put two fingers together, as if holding a pen, then rotated them near his cheek. The others laughed. “Have a good swim slave.” Hak called.

Jon smiled and waved back: “Thanks!” He said. Jon held his polite smile till his back was turned, let it deepen as he thrust forward. His gratitude always confused them and Jon loved to confuse them. Between strokes, each time his head emerged he examined his whipchord limbs, honed over the last year with these lengths, these exercises done purely to disguise the truth. It was worth it. Jon swam around the corner of the wall to where the fountain stood on it’s tiny island. He treaded water and imagined the moss retreating from the white marble, the figure above, long since crumbled, being rebuilt, and as Marca had claimed, water spouting from the top to pour like rain over the surrounding pool. Jon hadn’t believed him. “Can no one fix it?”

Marca had said: “Willar Wall-builder could have, but we went blind, then died, and taught no on how to.”

“That’s pretty stupid. So it’s gone then?”

“All things pass Jon. Nothing lasts but the stories we tell.”

“That’s not true Marca.” Marca who died, a week later, when he took little Sook up onto the walls and failed to catch her as she fell. Jon kept his head beneath the water that day, for as long as he could, so as to muffle Marca’s distant screams. Jon touched the edge of the island with his feet, grabbed a toeful of moss for luck, then pushed off towards the wall. The wall was patchwork at best now, potent stretches of stones with staggered parts of mish mashed wood, scaffolds and clumsily stacked rocks for where it had begun to crumble. He swam to the wall, behind which he could hear the sounds of the various water falls, where the water flowed under and through the grates and into the river. He touched the wall with his hand, treading water, feeling the rumble of the rivers flow. He closed his eyes and savored the quiet. He swam back to the fountain. From here he could just about see the heads of Teek and Pan, they lay back on their backs, hands on the mounds of their bellys, floating. If they weren’t getting splashed that menat Hak had gone home. They will go to the bank and play their strategy games for at least an hour and by then Jon could be back. He swam one more length to the fountain and back to the wall, then he dove.

He felt his way along the wall, upside down, trying not to panic, he found The Root, then lower down The Rock and finally The Shards in the sand and careful not to cut himself, angled forward, one broad stroke and then there, the grate, two hands on two bars, like in his cell, except he had shrunk, the space between the bars was wide enough, and he thrust through, clawed along the dirt tunnel, his lungs less strained this time, shoved through and then up towards the muted torch of the sun then air, and gasping, and sweetness. The river tugged him down stream. He let it.

Till he found himself at the bank. The familiar tree. In the hollow at it’s base he retrieved the stick he’d found, whittled with the sharp stone kept next to it. For the next few hours he drew in the soil, hoping for something to happen.

cont tomorrow.

Short Story: The Wave

The problem with doing this 1k thing is it’s a real bitch to edit it. I really ought to though. Not editing something that is potentially good is akin to wasting most of the time spent writing it. Also it is good practice, improves the skill in editing. I want to write more from Children Of The Pantheon because I got a lot of likes, which makes me so happy. But today I was feeling something and that something might be in this story.

 

The Wave

 

Jon played the Louisiana blues and once and awhile the percussion of construction drills matched the rhythm rather than interrupt it. That black man somewhere else, somewhere far away in space and time, got drowned by Jon’s neighbor’s redecorating.

 

They’d saved up for it. Made sacrifices, like holidays, potential visitations to other countries where great memories could have been formed for them, and their kids, instead of this, this permanence; entire decades maybe with a minimalist kitchen, a partition that separates that made the living room and bar seem roomier, like in that movie Heat that Julie once saw. 

 

Kara knew, it was obvious, why mum and dad hadn’t let her buy those concert tickets. She didn’t believe Mom’s insinuations about drugs and booze and boys like Jules; they trusted her or they wouldn’t have let her stay a week in Nigeria, before the killings started. She didn’t cry because she couldn’t go, no, that would be petty. She didn’t cry when the trading of shouts, between mum and her, got so loud that Dad intervened, and swung like a pendulum between the two sides, settled on making it three. She didn’t cry when he told Mum not to treat her like their step son, who was gone. She cried because she’d realized, immediately, the way she understood with stark, sudden clarity a mathematical concept, an economic lesson in school, that she’d been a fool, that if Jules really cared he’d have never asked her if she could afford it, if he really cared he’d have said to do something else, if it was going to have been a date instead of some random, late, confluence of events then it wouldn’t have mattered whether or not she could go and that truth fell across her fifteen year old heart, the first of several blows, a chiseling that would sculpt a cold, statuesque reservation that kept her from something another woman might call true love, twice in a row.

 

Sol first saw Kara on the subway, towering over the locals in her commanding heels, a small blonde head above a sea of bobbing scalps. She was a whole carriage away but he stared anyway, thankful for the distance, confident that she could not tell he was looking at her. He waited for the crowd to dissipate, to uncloak her body so he could see her in full, for her to leave maybe, to abandon him and his lofty fantasy. He missed his stop and berated himself, and at the next, where the best cinemas were, the crowd on the train dispersed like a flock of pigeons, leaving the space between them mostly empty, and her revealed, resplendent in a summer dress, her face sad. More than what he had hoped for, enough it hurt because he knew he would never talk to her. She left, dressed rarely like that, for another of her best friend’s weddings. Kara collected best friends like her step brother had collected types of crisp packets, never opened, never enjoyed. The variety and promise printed upon them the sum of it. She had crushed them, cruelly, one after another, when she found them in a moving box after the first time she left Malcolm, She crushed them just to see if she would feel anything and she didn’t, not till later when the guilt finally arrived. A tear crept down one eye, she let it, thinking that no one will see and if they do see then maybe that was okay. Sol didn’t, he was too far away. When she left the carriage Sol subtly took his fist, and smacked it in slow, point blank movements against his head. He had missed his stop, he had missed her, and by imperceptible degrees he was getting more sick.

 

Marcie was the only one at the party who knew the extent of Sol’s illness. Being married she was only allowed to care a certain amount, that past some wavering line it was inappropriate, despite how desperately afraid he could get when they went to the park, how he let him put his head on her shoulder, held his hand, how that felt warmer than the mostly cold bed. She hadn’t seen him barrel towards her like that before, spilling wine with mad abandon. He arrived and asked her how it was going, his habit, to always start with pleasentries before he conspiratorially asked who She was, pointing towards a tall woman, blonde, who slumped in a chair, head forward, posture broken, a pint of beer clasped in both hands. Marcie knew someone that knew Kara, pointed Sol towards her and reveled at the smile on his face. He went and she watched, watched Kara laugh, then texted Mike, and left. Went home and refused to let Sam sleep, kept him up all night with a desperate passion that he hadn’t seen for two years, It brought them back together, and when she cried at the end it did not matter.

 

On a beach in Indonesia Sam stood, watching his wife from a distance, measuring her against the other tanned bodies and nodding in satisfaction. He struck up a conversation with a bartender, the shadow of a net falling over them both, draping their features in cross-hatches. Eventually he got to say- that’s her, over there, in the pink bikini, and they shared a moment as he whistled and nodded appreciatively. Sam’s phone vibrated and he cursed, went up towards their sea view room to call his brother when with head down he staggered into someone behind a trolley, knocked him over, realized how old the man was and apologized profusely. Sam helped him up, brought him inside his room then noticed the cut. He cleaned it up, added a band aid to the old man’s face. The old man, his face and hands gnarled, dark and lined as treebark danced over the chess set Sam and Marcie kept on their bed. They said nothing to one another and afterwards Sam stared at the chess set and almost asked the old man for a game. The moment passed and they parted.

 

Tirto always smoked during the sunset, from the vantage point of the hotel roof. He saw the orang putih, along with his wife, could trace their tiny movements across the sand. He liked to think they were happy, invented a story about how he was a doctor, and she a nurse, that they met in a hospital when an old man died. Someone kind perhaps. He told himself the story in his head whilst the cigarette burned down, then afterwards considered lighting another. He held the cigarette between two fingers, heard the siren and did not believe. His eyes drifted towards a horizon that seemed to be speeding towards the beach. The tourists did not know what the siren meant. Too few of the locals stayed to explain. When the tsunami came it swallowed most of them. Tirto watched the entirety of it, for hours he watched. He never did not find his doctor and nurse. Prayed for them at home. Wept for them alone. The only solace he could take from that wave was that he did not lament he would die anymore. It was a better death than those short-lived others. Months later in the hospital he realized that wave had begun far off the coast, during an earthquake but also, far before the earthquake, that wave began underneath the earth, had traveled for years across the ground, underneath, had begun a billion years ago just to obliterate all those lives. Tirto counted the waves that led them to that beach to die. The wave was a story no one could tell. There was no God in that wave. That wave itself was a spirit, one of the spirits of his grandfather that Tirto never understood till now. Tirto wondered at the waves that allowed him to arrive all the way here, on this bed, and how far back in time that wave had begun. He wanted to write this all down, wanted to tell someone the story, to make it whole and spread out, all it’s constituent parts like the sand on that beach he had spent so many hours writing on. But his throat betrayed him, his hands were weak. He died draped in the tears of those who would miss him, his last words a gurgle. 

 

The others, they carried on.

Fantasy story excerpt: Between two cities

Okay so it’s just about midnight. I’ve ran out of time today and I’m exhausted. I thought about giving myself a rest day for the 1k. I mean I figure it’s okay because of the Sabbath or something. It *is* reasonable to have one day off a week. But the thing is, that it would mean that I lose momentum. That I can’t say I really stuck with 1k every day for a whole week at least.

These lines of demarcation are arbitrary but so is the nature of any challenge.

I can’t continue BuddyBot today, I can barely keep my eyes open. Instead I will write something weird. It is an extract, or a short story, a piece of fiction from what is hopefully my next novel, tentatively titled. I am sleepy, it is late, so I’m writing this off the top. I apologize if it is thoroughly mediocre.

Quantity, not quality.

The children of the pantheon

Between two cities

The battle took place in the desert, between the frozen waves of two titanic sand dunes. Overhead the spheres of Ishtara and Durgor hovered, disks that had drifted from the east, as distant from the earth as the stars or the moon. The gods would be present. Both houses claimed the Gods watched from directly above their armies; one through a stirring speech from the warlord Habuto, the other a whispered wave that traveled through the exhausted lines of Kundakar’s troops. The two armies were to meet here, between the ruins of two cities, named differently by each side, profane places that had fallen from their lofty heights through defiance of the God emperor, or because of impiety, or because they had employed forbidden sigils and destroyed themselves, or a dozen other tales preserved by no writing.

As there is no writing on earth, nor shall there ever be again.

Halar passed his wineskin to Kunai, who barely managed to continue marching underneath the unforgiving red sun. He and all the others who had to march, had been marching for days, leaning upon their spears, shuffling forward as men and camels dropped beneath their feet, no one bothering to move them, so that they were trampled till they burst. The rot fillled everyone’s nostrils, mixed with the flinty smell of sand and the stink of unwashed thousands.

“Kunai, just get on my camel. It’s fine, no one will stop you. Even the captain’s are too exhausted to bother.”

“Thanks. No. I’m okay. The water was enough. We’re almost there anyway. Look- the dune.” He pointed with one sun shrunk finger towards the emerging lip of the great dune. “Get on your camel Hal. The others could do with some inspiration.”

Halar nodded. He broke off a piece of cracker, handed it to Kunai, who plopped it into his mouth and crunched slowly, chewing it like cud and mumbling between bites: “I take back ever shaying to you thash fishing is dull. Wash the lucky one all along. Never knew it would be like this. Just marching. Endless. Bloody. Marching.”

Hal affected an unconvincing chuckle. “You’ll never complain about the water again Kun. Well, at least for a whole two weeks right? More time for me to stare at the wife.”

Kunai said: “Not in the mood today Hal. Might be the last time I get to think about Dittya.”

“There we go, be morose. It makes me think of home.”

He earned a dry laugh. Hal pointed to the flanks of their column, past the banners that hung, limp, past the rows of diamond bright spear tips, past the crested helmets of the camel riding mages, to the distant stones of the cities on either side: “Look, the boundary menhirs. You can actually see them. Look, see, from north to south, they curve inwards. Symmetrical. Wonder who put them there in the first place. You know, no one has ever crossed those stones and lived. No one. I think it’s a sickness. I think once you’re inside the city boundaries you catch the plague and you’re dead.”

Kunai started chanting protective mantras to himself in dry fits. Presently he stopped. “It’s clever. The boundary stones are barely ten feet from our ranks, when we spread out. Yeah. Definitely.”

“Your ability to judge distances is just plain unnatural Kun.”

“Right. And you aren’t. Give us a show Hal. Seriously. Something to draw attention to, you know. What’s coming.”

Hal squeezed his old friend’s shoulders. He moved towards his camel, the one he’d left with someone who name he’d already forgotten. Taking the reins, he mounted his camel. He retrieved the silver horn from the leather sack that swung from his saddle. Inhaled deeply enough that a gust of sand entered his mouth, reducing him to choked caughing. A few of the veterans around him chuckled cruelly. Hal righted himself, embarrassed, then pulled out his scarf, held it in front of his face and inhaled again. He blew into the silver horn, a single, clear note.

Immediately all that were riding the camels thrust down the visors, shielding the eyes of their mounts. A few snorted and whined in suprise, but none broke, and most had been trained sufficiently to accept this, barely breaking stride as they continued to march. Hal took out the bone cylinder he kept hanging from his belt. He pulled the top of, unfurled the handles of the scroll, catching the bottom handle and securing it to his belt. He held the other in his left hand, and with his right dipped his index finger into his chalk pocket.

He made the symbol with sweeping movements, effortlessly drawing it onto the paper. He made the last stroke and angled the paper upwards. A fountain of red light burst out of the page. It traveled upwards, a red spear, and at about twenty feet burst into sparks. The sparks fell, shimmering, until what remained was an arrow, pointing forwards and upwards, towards the distant dunes. Over the thirty seconds or so that it faded, loud voices sounded, cries of recognition, then all at once a surge of energy swept through the column, shouts and cheers and a great clanging of spear tips against one another. Halar shouted to Kunai: “How about THAT?” After exactly sixty seconds since he drew it, the chalk symbol on Halar’s scrolls erased itself, from one corner to the other, the chalk blowing from the paper like sand. Halamar then took out the horn, blew twice, and the eyes of the camels were uncovered.

They reached the dunes and spread out. Spears were thrust into the sand as defenses were erected; stakes and pits were dug. Acolytes, in teams of three, took their handmade sticks and carved runes into the sand, tracing symbols that caused the sand to drop away, to create pits, whilst other sticks were taken to hastily carve the sides of the pits, and the third with the longest stick would carve a small symbol at the bottom of the pits. The net results- wells of water, that were then used to pack the sand. After exactly sixty seconds all symbols erased themselves. Some of the younger acolytes continued their training here- trying to predict exactly when sixty seconds would pass, just as their superiors knew, by instinct, when the sigils disappear.

The defenses erected, massive sheafs of stitched together pages were unfurled. They brought them together, secured them with stitching, till a vast moat of paper encircled the entire army. Thousands of men stood inside a circle of paper; an endeavor that had been prepared for for months, all under the command of Misarak the sorcerer, the only person mad enough to march to meet the Warlord Habuto, rather than wait and defend. Then they began to wait. The men were thankful. They were not tense, they were not worried. They were exhausted enough that some claimed they would prefer death to any more marching. Even this was a welcome respite.

The first they saw of the enemy was their outriders. They retreated. Then came the main force. It was three times there own. Upon a massive chariot, from which soared flames maintained by magic made permanent, an impossibility as far as anyone knew. They arrayed themselves. Their battle mages wore black, with masks surrounded by extending rays of stiff red. Misarak’s voice rang out. “PREPARE THE SHIELD. ON THREE BURSTS.” Hal put his horn to his lips with one hand, withdrew his ink wet callgraphers brush with the other. Only the best were entrusted to do this. He rehearsed the movement in his mind several times. A few minutes passed. The enemy had stopped. The star masked mages began their distant movements.

Soldiers cursed on the high dune. Halar prepared himself. Then someone, somewhere, maybe Misarak himself drew in the sand, the symbol for thunder. A loud THOOM went out across the desert, felt by everyones sand sodden feet and then as one Hal and the others blew their horns, once, twice, three times. Then seventy mages with seventy brushes began to scribble seventy symbols simultaneously. They were ten seconds into their movements when Misarak cried out: “REMEMBER THE BOMBARDMENT, DO NOT STOP, DO NOT PAUSE.” And immediately afterwards an eerie red light lit the sand as massive boulders, crimson, surrounded by flames, began to fall towards Misarak’s forces.

Seventy brushes finished their movements simultaneously.

The red boulder exploded on some invisible dome, shattering into constituent shards that rolled down the sides of the invisible dome, suggesting it’s outlines. As they fell they cooled, until as rocks they thudded into the sand around the shield, throwing up sand and debris that slid harmlessly of the shield that began at the edges of the paper. Halar counted down the seconds in his head. At exactly fifty Misarak called out: “BALLISTAS!” A great creaking of wood could be heard behind Halar. On sixty one Misarak yelled “LOOSE.” And the ballistae fired their heavy bolts, as the symbols erased themselves. Halar held his breath until the bolts were clear of the shield. Exhaled and laughed as they fell upon the ranks of the warlords men. He felt a hand clasp his shoulder. Kunai’s. “HAL! ITS WORKING! BY THE GODS ITS WORKING!”

Three more times the shield went up, down, the ballista reloading in that minute, firing- the timing was perfect, the drills had worked.

The enemy ranks were pummeled. Huge rifts broke into them, and a few on the flanks, a few dozen, broke and ran. They were cut down by their own outriders and no one else broke. After the third volley a wedge detached from the front of the army- cavalry, they ran towards the dune- bare red flags waving in the air, armor glinting silver in the heat. At their head was the warlord himself. Hal said: “Fool. Utter Fool. Misarak would never risk himself like this.”

They began to reload.

The cavalry paused after a few hundred feet.

Hal and the other prepared to draw their symbols.

The riders jumped of their camels and with their hands hastily drew in the sand- a massive symbol that contained all of them. “LOOSE!” The ballista fired another round, this time at the cavalry. In mid air the quarrels seemed to hang. They slammed into the sand, the empty sand- where the riders were, only a burst of rising sand remained, the symbol disappearing. Then all at once they were screaming, as the riders and their mounts appeared several feet in the air, in the middle of Misaraks army. Hal turned and saw a burst of flame engulf a group of soldiers. Kunai was screaming something. Then Halar was thrown to the ground, a wave of sand raining on him. A bright light flashed, so bright that even through closed eyes Hal was seeing spots. He got up and saw soldiers being cut down by the armored men. “That isn’t possible. None of this is possible.” An armored soldier approached him. Hal began to make a mark on his hand. The soldier drew a javelin and hurled it without breaking stride. It plunged into Hal’s belly. He fell backward onto one of the boulders, his feet tearing the parchment he had been drawing on. He started to pray. Holding the spear, his entrails spilling out around it as he choked on his own blood. The armored man grabbed his throat with one steel shod fist. “There are no Gods boy. There will be no God emperor.”

Hal choked “No man can sit His throne.” He spat in the soldiers face, staining his helmet with blood.

The guard raised his visor. Underneath was the face of a man, heavily scarred. All over his skin were markings, runes and sigils Hal did not understand and had never seen. The Warlord said: “I am a God.” And he crushed Halar’s throat.

When the battle ended the Gods above, perhaps satisfied, drifted away in opposite directions.

Kunai survived. He was taken prisoner by one of the steel men. He was present when the Warlord conquered each city state one by one. He was outside the golden gates when the Warlord went to confront the God Emperor. He heard the Warlord’s screams when the God Emperor smote him for his insolence and he saw his wardens burn from the inside out when The God Emperor punished them for their transgression.

He survived and told his son his story, who told his son, who told his.

There is no written history on earth, as there is no writing that survives the end of a single minute.

Thus the oldest story is that of the Warlord, who transgressed against God and was destroyed for it. All have heard it, in all it’s twisted variations. The lesson, common to all versions, is clear. Thou shalt not violate the kingdom of heaven. Magic and writing are not for mortals.