It's writing challenge time, brought to you by Indie Ink. New contestants: Twisted; New feedback and comments: Terrific; Not meeting deadlines: Terrible. For everything else, there's me.
Welcome to Week 16.
Week 16. My Challenger:Head Ant My Challenge: You can't remember the last 48 hours of your life and all you have in your possession are a plastic bear, a thimble, and a rubber chicken.Who I am Challenging:Bewildered Bug What I Challenged Them With: "May as well ask the chamber pot!"
Big Bad
I scarf down the food as if I'd never had any before. I realize this, shrug, and continue to devour them. I feel something being draped across my shoulders.
"Honey...? Sweetie?" I look up toward the voice mostly out of curiosity only to realize it's being directed at me.
"What are these?" I ask, crumbs spewing forth from between my lips. Without waiting for an answer, I stare at the bag. I know I should be able to make out what these symbols mean--but nothing comes. I shrug again, reach my hand into the bag and began once more to shove the deliciousness down my throat.
"Those--" she starts, and I can see her hesitantly trying to figure out how to take the bag from me without upsetting me--"are 'Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips.' Chips? Potato..." She trails off, apparently realizing I wasn't about to give them up.
"Chips," I say, and more crumbs tumble out. I lift my hand to my chin to catch what I can and shove them back in.
She stares at me balefully. Through the haze of yellow-and-green-flecked food fest, I notice her come to a conclusion in her mind. Squaring her shoulders, she reaches over, tugs the fabric on my shoulders more tightly around my body, and smiles encouragingly. "Can you tell me your name?"
"Jack!" I squeal, and then am amazed myself when I realize that, yes, Jack is my name. Jack Sprat. I also remembered that I could eat no fat. "Do these 'chips' have fat in them?"
"Fat? Honey, that's the least of your worries. Go on and eat." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a cell phone, stares at the tiny screen. "Still no reception, dammit," she half-mutters. When she realizes I've been watching her, she puts the phone back into her pants pocket and smiles wider than Texas. "Go on, sweetie. Eat up. The world ain't ending today--at least, I hope not..."
"Do these have fat in them?" I ask again, having not touched them since this thought crossed my mind. "I can't eat fat."
"So you remember some things?"
"I'm Jack Sprat. I can eat no fat. Hey, are you my wife?"
Her eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"
"Are you my wife?"
"Err... No, no, I'm not your wife."
"Shame. You're pretty. But I can't eat these." I place the bag of chips on the ground between my feet. I shrug the blanket off my body as I reach around behind me.
"What you got there, sugar?" my non-wife asked.
"My friends." I arrange them on the ground in a semi-circle around the half-eaten bag of chips. "They can have fat. So I'm going to share it with them."
She glanced at the menagerie. "Do... Do they have names, honey?"
"This," I said, lifting up one of them, "is Fuzzy Wuzzy. He's a bear. He has no hair." I place him back down and lift up my next buddy. "This is Chicken Who Crossed the Road. As you can see," I demonstrate by wildly flopping him back and forth with vigor, "he didn't quite make it across unscathed, but he's okay. He just can't walk anymore." I lay him down across Fuzzy's lap, and then pluck my last pal up from the dust. "And this," I say with pride, "is Thimbalina. She's my only daughter." I sigh wistfully.
"'Dis boy is cuckoo," I hear her say under her breath.
It's nothing I haven't heard before, mind you, but being as I wasn't in any position to argue--nakedness notwithstanding--I shrugged, placed my little girl on one of Fuzzy's non-fluffy toes, and then handed each of them a chip. "Share!" I commanded them. Then I stood.
"Oh, sweetie, no, uh-uh, no," she fussed, shoving me back onto the tree stump. She ripped the blanket back up from the ground, shoved it back down around my shoulders with a stern "Stay there!" Satisfied I wouldn't be disobeying her, she lowered herself back down onto her own tree stump. "Tell me what you do remember, okay? Can you do that for me... Er, Jack?"
"Yes, ma'am!" I practically shouted. I loved getting to talk, especially with other humans like they claimed I was, and since I so rarely had visitors...
I couldn't remember the last time I had a visitor.
But there was lots of other stuff I remembered! "I remember Tom and Jerry, but that we weren't allowed to watch them. That was Monday, I think. Steve said, 'It's too violent!' and Joe said it was only make-believe anyway, so it didn't matter. But I liked Tom and Jerry so I waited until Steve left and then I went back in and watched it anyway. They were in outer space, on a space ship of some kind--"
"Honey, honey, no, no, no. I mean..." She paused, stared around at no one, at the fallen trees, the destroyed houses, the dark clouds still receding from sight to the west. Downed power lines crisscrossed over cars and trucks, odd bits of appliance hung in precariously pristine places, and the odd rumble of thunder still managed to make her jump higher than I'd ever seen Jiminy Cricket hop. Her gaze refocused on me. "Do you remember which house was yours? Who or where your parents are? Your real name?" Hope filled her eyes as she sensed she was possibly asking all the right questions, jogging all the right memories.
I hated it when I had to disappoint the people who asked me questions. It made me sad. Once I was so sad, I ripped all of Fuzzy's hair off, which is when he actually became Fuzzy Wuzzy. Before that day, his name had been "Winnie" something or other. Not that it mattered. Before never seemed to matter to me, only to the people. I sighed, figuring silence would be better than giving her answers she wouldn't like. I rearranged Thimbalina, who was trying to walk off of Fuzzy's toes, then tucked Chicken Who Crossed the Road around Fuzzy's neck like a boa. That way they could keep each other warm. I smiled as they snuggled together, and handed them each another chip for behaving so well here in front of our company.
"Someone's gotta come sooner or later, right?" I looked up and realized she was muttering to herself. "I mean, it can't just be us two that made it. Me and cuckoo, oh lordy, what are you testin' me with now? Someone's gotta come, someone's gotta be on the line gettin' help out here." She turned back to me. "Sugar? I'm just gonna go for a small walk--I ain't going far, so don't worry. I just wanna, you know, see if any one else is about, see if anyone esle needs a helpin' hand, okay? You stay right here with your friends, keep that blanket on you nice and tight so you don't catch cold, and I'll be back in, like, ten minutes. Okay, Suagr? Okay?"
I nodded, since it seemed the only logical course of action when people went all crazy in the eyes like she was. Desperation, I think is what Doolittle had called it. Or was that Seuss? They always looked the same, with their white coats and black glasses, it was so hard for me to tell them apart.
"Sugar?"
I nodded at her again, looking her in the eye like I was supposed to do. Once I did that, she seemed reassured, and started walking away, slowly, as if she were afraid I would bolt, as if it weren't she that was looking for an escape of some kind.
"Jack, we need a fire," said Fuzzy.
"We aren't supposed to move," I admonished him.
"Fuck you, Jack, I'm cold. I getting wood for a fire." Fuzzy ripped Chicken off his neck, plopped Thimbalina off his toes, and wobbled off.
"Fuzzy!"
"Squack!" cried Chicken. "Squack! Squack!"
"Quiet," I said. I stayed on my stump as ordered, but kept craning my neck to keep Fuzzy in sight.
"Daddy, I need a finger!" Thimbalina cried.
I lifted her gently from the dirt, brushed her off, and placed her lovingly on my pinkie. "There, there, princess."
Soon Fuzzy was back with a few pieces of shattered wood and some pieces that looked like they had come from a shed's roof. "Some of that won't burn," I said as I picked up and sorted through the pieces.
"Everything burns," Fuzzy retorted. "We need matches."
"Sugar?" I looked up to see the lady standing about 30 feet away, partially behind an up-side-down Prius. "Sugar, who you talking to?"
I pointed a finger at Fuzzy. She nodded slowly, then turned and walked off out of sight.
"Squack!"
"No, Chicken, we're not allowed to play with fire. Wait till the nice lady comes back."
"Squack!"
"No, she's not your new mommy."
"Stupid chicken," snorted Fuzzy. "I'll find matches." He lumbered off once more.
"Are you warmer now, Thimbalina?" I asked.
"Yes, Daddy, thank you." She squeezed my finger with her tiny metal sides. "Warm."
I smiled and stroked her sides. All too soon, Fuzzy returned with a lighter.
"I thought you said you would find matches?"
"This lights fire, too. I've seen Seuss and Doolittle outside the windows using them to make it. Without thumbs, though..." Fuzzy looked up at me expectantly.
"I'm not allowed to play with fire." I tucked my legs up under my arms on the stump. Fuzzy and I continued staring one another down for what seemed like hours until the lady returned.
"Still no reception. Hey, is that a lighter? Starting a fire's a great idea, Jack. At least it'll keep us warm till help arrives--or until we find you some clothes." She busied herself arranging not only what Fuzzy had gathered, but some other stray pieces of litter as well. "Sun's goin' down, gettin' dark, not another soul around for miles. You'd think when a tornado whips through people would be high tailin' it to see if anyone lived, you know?" She didn't wait for me to reply. "That's what they do on the news, least ways. Sirens, fire fighters, police and ambulances, all fillin' up the streets, goin' house to house lookin' for people and diggin' 'em out. Not here, though, not this time. You and me, Jack, we's gotta hold on until someone else shows up, right?"
She smiled her big, bright smile. After a few minutes, she had a nice small fire going. "Least ways someone might see this and know someone out here needs help, am I right? Now, Sugar, you hungry?"
"She talks too much," muttered Fuzzy.
"That's rude!" I admonished him.
"What's that, Sweetie?"
"Fuzzy was being rude," I apologized. "He doesn't get out much, you'll have to excuse him."
She eyed me up. "Uh-huh. Listen, I'm just gonna make this fire a bit bigger, okay?"
"Squack! Squack-squack-squack!"
"You say somethin', Sugar?"
"No, ma'am, that was just Chicken. You can understand why he doesn't like fire once you know he comes from a family of cannibals," I explained.
"Are you supposed to be on medicine of some kind, honey?"
"Well, the doctors used to give me blue pills and pink pills at night, and a yellow one in the morning. But they never told me what it was. I think they were those Flintstones."
"Yeah. Flintstones. Got it." She piled more wood on the fire. "It's gonna be a long night. Least ways I won't be lonely, that ain't no lie. Got any of those chips left?"
I reached down, picked up the bag and tossed it to her.
"Those were mine!" Fuzzy growled.
"We have to share," I said. "It's rude not to share."
He stuck his tongue out at her while she stared at me, eyes wide. "Everything okay?" she asked.
"Don't mind him, he's just a stink pot."
"Who, him?" she asked, pointing at Chicken.
"No!" I laughed at her silliness. "Not Chicken. Fuzzy. He's always a tad grouchy when new people are around." I picked up a stick and poked at the fire, now very bright against the ever darkening sky.
"Squack!"
"I'm just poking."
"Hot, Daddy!"
"Oh, sorry!" I cried, and pulled Thimbalina from my finger. When the lady looked at me, I explained, "I had her too close to the fire. She's metal, she gets hot easy."
The lady just placed a chip gently on her tongue, and continued to stare at me. "Honey, you better than anything cable got. Don't mind me now, you helpin' me an awful lot to be grateful."
I thought that was a compliment so I smiled at her. She shrank back a bit, so I wiped the smile from my face and went back to poking the fire with a stick.
***
Mission Woods, Kansas. Policemen and firefighters arrived yesterday morning in the small town of Rock Village to find the town in shambles. It is suspected that an F5 tornado ripped through the small town late yesterday during a freak storm, effectively erasing the small town from the map. Rescue workers are still digging through the rubble hoping to find survivors, and authorities are compiling a list of residents who not only called the quaint town home, but of those who were in the care of the Rainbow Mental Health Facility.
"I've never seen destruction like this in all my years of living here," one of the rescue worker, Mike Kelley, said. "I'm not sure we'll find a living soul, but I'm here hoping against hope that we will."
Sheriff's deputies had cordoned off the tiny parking lot in front of where the town's only store, Al's Feed and Supply, had once stood. The body of Lucinda Jamison was found there early this morning, dead, by a small campfire it looks like she had built herself. Authorities speculate that she, as the only known survivor thus far of the tornado, may have perished from wounds sustained during the storm, as well as shock.
"We'll know more once we get a coroner's report," Sheriff Hamilton said when questioned. "We're not ruling anything out at this point."
On condition of anonymity, one source tells that the body was found with a rubber chicken wrapped around her neck and a thimble shoved down her throat. When asked if there could be foul play involved, our source said, "I wouldn't be surprised. Tornado's don't throttle you to death with a child's toy and shove craft items down your windpipe once the storm has ended. Probably one of those nuts from that there hospital."
A candlelight vigil will be held at the Mission Woods Presbyterian Chapel at 7 p.m. tonight. Any and all donations will be welcome to help if any survivors are found in the aftermath of yesterday's devastation.
First off, I'm loving the show Enterprise--you know, the Star Trek show with the dude from Quantum Leap (Scott Bakula!) playing the captain? And the oh-so-hot-my-shorts-are-damp Connor Trinneer as the chief engineer? Ooh-la-la!
But whoever picked that goddamn awful "theme" music, "Faith of the Heart" by Rod Stewart? You should be shot, quartered, tarred, feathered, hung, asphyxiated in deep space, and then fed to the infamous Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal--and that's just for starters. I mean, who the hell picks that type of awful easy listening for a science fiction show? It's disgusting.
But that's not what this post is about. Well, not really anyway...
After watching a few episodes, I realized the show was set in the year 2151. Only a mere 140 years from now. Which, if science fiction is to be an accurate precursor to real life, means we should meet a Vulcan in about forty years, give or take.
Then we have to wonder how accurate a precursor to real life science fiction actually is. After all, I'm doubting there are actual Vulcans. (Sorry Spock...)
Please realize, however, that if it wasn't for great imaginations and science fiction, we wouldn't have half the wonders we have today--like satellite radio, cell phones, elevators, Tang... (Honestly? Okay, we could have forgotten the Tang...) But you get my drift.
Oh, yum!
Where was I? Oh, yeah...
Um...
(Could someone stop posting images of Connor Trinneer on my computer? It's highly distracting when I'm trying to type here... Thanks...)
So I'm on my back deck, taking in the lightning bugs, the gentle breeze, staring at the Big Dipper going, what if...?
You ever do that? Just stare up at space, taking in the Milky Way in all her brilliant glory? Not because there's supposed to be a meteor shower, not because you can't get your goddamn cell phone to get a signal, and not because you thought you heard a helicopter...
But just... Because...
Somewhere out there....
Shit. Now that fucking "Somewhere Out There" song that freaky little mouse Feivel sang is stuck in my head... Of course, that might have been a better theme song choice for Enterprise then that douche-bag Rod Stewart... But I digress... For now...
Somewhere out there, another form of intelligent life may be looking at a constellation that they've named, and our sun might be one of the stars fueling their imaginations. There they sit there on their patios, drinking their version of Tang (and thinking their parents are cheap as well for trying to pass it off as orange juice), staring up at a formation of stars from their end of their solar system, having just watched a sci-fi show with a totally hot male version of their species, and hoping. Waiting. Watching.
For us. Or another intelligent being. Another creature or species with the curiosity and drive to reach up to those stars and look. To see what's out there, to experience the vastness of our galaxy, and even maybe one day our universe!
In early 2004, a new type of rocket fuel was being invented that was speculated could make a trip to Mars from 1.5 to 3 years (with conventional Apollo-type technology) down to 6 months to a year. (See here.) Now, after 6 more years of developing this technology, scientists think we could get to Mars in just 39 days! (See here.)
Thirty-nine days. To Mars.
Of course, we should already be on Mars. But NASA lost sight of it's mission, granted. Instead of constantly developing new and better technology for getting men into space, they stuck with the space shuttle program for waaaaaaay too long. Now, irony of ironies, we're going to be piggy-backing with the Russians to get to and from the space station, as if we lost the space race in the late 1960s...
It's shameful and humbling.
But it's also the chance we may need.
Now that we have to work with other countries, now that we have to cooperate for shallow-space missions, what could the brilliant scientists of many countries come up with? What's just around the corner?
Just how soon might we have planetary colonists on the red planet?
True, I'm probably gonna be six feet under by then. Worm food, if you will.
So until then, I'll just have to dream...
Of course, 39 days alone on a plasma-fueled rocket with Connor Trinneer couldn't hurt anything, could it? And honestly, it would only improve morale overall, especially when we discover that new intelligent life, and they find out how hot and sexy of a species we actually are, right?
Dad doesn't read my blog. I'm not sure the in's and out's why--it could be that their computer rivals the Tandy 64K color computer in age and memory capacity. It could be that he really just doesn't get into the whole "web surfing" thing these young kids today are doing. For all I know, he may view most of the web as a tool of Satan with pockets of righteousness far and few between...! I've never really asked because I don't feel like my friends or family have to read my blog to continue being counted among my friends or family--I *like* it that some of them do, don't get me wrong! But it certainly isn't a deciding factor in whom I love or like more or less (otherwise the husband would have been long gone as well!)
I could call Dad a shit-kicking, dumb-ass, ignorant son-of-a-bitch if I felt the urge (and who hasn't at some point in their lives thought this of their father?) and the only reason he would be the wiser is because my mother or my sister would tell him. (Tattle tales...)
However, I won't do that for two reasons:
He's my father, and I love and respect him too much to say things like that about him behind his back, and
It isn't true anyway...
Add in for good measure that I usually respect his opinions on things with nary a horrible thing to say, and we have a pretty good relationship--a fantastic relationship, truth be told, especially considering the relationship he has with his father...
Be that as it may, however, he is one stubborn, ass-backward thinking individual at times, and arrogant to boot! (Hey, I had to inherit these traits from somewhere, right? The stubborn and arrogant parts, at least...)
But see, here's the thing: He has somehow managed to convince himself that I actually do believe in god, with Jesus as my savior and sidekick (with guest appearances by Casper), that I subconsciously know he is right and am too stubborn to admit it for some reason, that science will somehow magically "prove" his interpretation of scripture is correct (not too mention the young earth it "teaches us" about), and that OT god was of course morally right and good for allowing the Israelite's to kill men, women, and children to live on a piece of land that he "promised them" as his children...
And that was just our conversation over dessert when the parents were over for dinner last weekend... There is a lot more that was discussed over dinner...
I wasn't even sure where to begin...
My father is a smart man--a really smart man, if I'm allowed to boast a tad here. He can design a building with nothing but a pencil and a sheet of paper, to scale, with all the electrical, plumbing, and architecture sound and stable. He can get a notion into his head about adding three feet onto the living room of his house, and do it from beginning to end without a lick of outside help. He can look at any problem, anywhere, at any time, and come up with a solution that works wonders on the problem, and foresees and forestalls future problems that weren't even problems yet. He has more talent in his pinkie finger than I could ever hope to possess in my lifetime...
But I can't help but wonder how he checks that brain out the door when the topic of religion or god or Jesus (with guest appearances by Casper) come up... I don't know if it's the very idea that they may not exist which makes him run screaming, or if it's just that he's been so deeply brainwashed by his father of a Baptist minister, or even if it's something else entirely...
I'm okay with the fact that he believes in a young earth, believe it or not. I'll argue with him the facts and theories of the matter til the cows come home on it, if for no other reason than I maintain hope that a seed of logic and rationality will plant itself and he may actually look into the pseudo-science he's been peddled all these years. But it really makes no difference here or there if he believes the earth is young or old--it really doesn't.
I could even care less when he or Mom tell me they're praying for me, or that they felt god helped them make a decision, or that they felt better about this or that after some deep thought and prayer about a situation--it floats their boat, it keeps them sane, whatever...
And far be it from me to tell people what crutches they can or cannot lean on when times are tough.
HOWEVER...
And I'm not sure why he thinks this was okay. I'm not even sure if he even realizes how just not okay this was...
And I've promised myself I'm going to call him to talk about this just as soon as it stops making me angry just thinking about it...
You see, he told me what I believe. Not what he thinks I should believe. Not what he wishes I would believe. He said, "You know I am right, and you know there's a god."
Excuse me?
I think I actually said, "Huh?" The "excuse me" may have been implied. I know my head was shaking, but then again, we both shake our heads at one another when we are busy disagreeing vehemently on all things of a supernatural nature. It's kind of how we Hughes's role. When we disagree, we shake our heads and try to make sure that the frowns on our face, with matching furrowed brows, conveys the deep amount of disagreement we are currently feeling.
How we Zartman's role, however, is a different matter entirely. (Kudos and props to my mom's side...) We speak up, say what we mean, mean what we say, exercise our right to free speech, and don't give a great big goddamn who agrees or disagrees.
So while my Hughes half is busy shaking it's head, furrowing it's brow, and frowning most vehemently, my Zartman half is going, "How can you even think that?! Do you not hear the words coming out of my mouth?!"
We all say stupid things. A lot of stupid things. I realize my parents are also prone to saying stupid things. A lot of stupid things. They are not perfect, they are people. Just as I am not perfect, and also say stupid things, mostly because I am a product of them, but partly because I am human. (Hughes arrogance notwithstanding...)
But he sat there on my deck and told me what I believe.
I'm not sure if he gets just how "not okay" that is. I may be wrong (see above about saying stupid things), but I'm pretty damn sure I don't run around telling people what they actually believe "deep down." I share what my beliefs are. I share my opinion on what your beliefs are. Hell, I've called their beliefs stupid (an opinion I still hold to be true) in what I feel are tactfully blunt ways, meant in love and with what I feel is a proper amount of respect. (Again, though, I could be wrong, but I doubt they would continue to talk to me, offspring-status notwithstanding, if I were that rude, outrageous, or disrespectful...) But I'm also pretty sure I would never feel the urge to say "This is what you believe, you just don't want to admit it."
Never mind that that's supposed to be god's job (knowing what people are thinking and feeling), never mind that "psychic" has never been a family trait. If fact, let's even disregard the fact that maybe he hopes and truly believes that I do believe--is it really okay to make such assumptions about another person's life and values? It isn't like I decided to be an atheist while on the crapper last Tuesday, just because it seemed like atheists would have softer, more gentle toilet paper, and better reading material while shitting on the third rock from the sun!
In fact, this is the second time my father has trivialized decisions I've made in my life, the first time being when he found out I was gay, and decided, upon our first conversation since my coming out, to ask me if I was "still being stupid." (Because this decision, too, was obviously decided one random Wednesday morning on the crapper, when I decided that homosexuals were afforded more comfortable toilet seats beside windows with better views...)
Perhaps I'm not understanding something. Maybe I'm being too sensitive when it comes to Dad's words... Perhaps I do still seek his approval on levels I don't even realize, therefore when he makes such grand judgments, they hurt more than they should, or carry more weight to me than they actually do from his perspective?
All I know is I'm pissed, and until I can calm down, I can't talk to him about it, otherwise I, too, my end up saying something stupid to the father I love... Hell, maybe I'll pull a classic Hughes maneuver and just never bring it up again--who knows? (We Hughes men rock at not talking when we get in the mood...)
I just... Sigh... I just don't get my father sometimes...
It's writing challenge time, brought to you by Indie Ink. New contestants: Twisted; New feedback and comments: Terrific; Not meeting deadlines: Terrible. For everything else, there's me.
Welcome to Week 15.
Week 15. My Challenger:Kat My Challenge: Your car breaks down on a deserted road....Who I am Challenging:Tara Roberts What I Challenged Them With: Danger, intrigue, and romance...
The Death of a Betsy...
They never tell you about this kind of darkness, do they? Under the new moon (Whoever dreamed up that stupid term, anyway? Saying NO MOON was too simple and straight forward?) with only the pinpricks of light blinking, winking through the trees. No houses, no street lights...
I would call it "utter," but the blasted stars leave just enough to make every shadow a monster with gleaming fangs, every rotted stump a crouched predator of unimaginable cunning and stealth.
Yes, this is the darkness your parents shielded you from with your Disney Princess Ariel nightlight. This is the murky deep shade of gray that never quite descended as long as the neighbors left their outside lights on all night, every night, even as your father groused how nice it must be to never have to worry about the electric bill. This was the chilly, dank, foggy night where horror stories found root, where urban legends became reality, and where even Stephen King would piss his pants.
Somehow imagining the king of horror looking for those Depends he bought at Sam's Club in the backseat makes me feel slightly better.
I stare over at Betsy, the hunk of junk "car" (if such a term could still be used to describe her) that decided to commit suicide this evening on this deserted stretch of road, miles from service stations, street lights, and cell phone reception. Miles from light, miles from life.
Unimaginably dark miles.
"This could never happen with a hover car," I grumble out loud, if for nothing more than the comforting sound of a human voice, even if it was my own. And then I regret the decision, knowing that even now, the People of the Woods have heard my grousing and are zeroing in on my position, ready to torture me as they string me up by chains in their deserted and broken-down barns, grinning their evil cavity-infested yellowed grins, swigging moonshine from a bottle that hasn't been new since the late 1700s. They would raise their farming instruments high over their heads while laughing maniacally, having not had fresh human meat in months to feed their cannibalistic appetites. Torches would be involved, I'm quite sure of that. As they marched me through the woods, using an old cattle yolk to bind me, I'd trip over the bones of their more recent victims, the skulls who until recently had been seen grinning back at me from the back of my milk carton, flesh now having been consumed...
A noise!
I crouch deeper within myself, scoot slightly higher on the moss covered rock, eyes trying to divine the malevolent presence...
A bat pirouettes above. An owl questions it's own existence. The wind whispers of the happier places it's been, of it's depression at ending up here.
I allow my muscles to relax. I can't be the only person who uses this road, right? Why else would it have been built? Unless it's one of those "pork barrel spending" things I've heard so much about on the radio of the dead Betsy just hours earlier...
"Great. I'm gonna die because my government built a road it didn't need with money it didn't have because a car that was made overseas and not here in the U.S. decided to die."
I've got to stop this "talking out loud" thing...
Mountain lions. They were on the news as well. Something about a jogger in a California park having been mauled to death in a suburb of Fresno or something.
And this wasn't Fresno. So, of course there would be even more mountain lions here, yes?
Scooting higher on the rock once more, I await my fate as they crouch behind that stump, that tree, behind that boulder across the way. Or--no, they'd use Betsy as cover, slowly creeping up along her far side to within feet of my exposed flesh, smelling my fear, my sweat, my raw human aura radiating out the stench of blood and death. Her cubs would be mewling in their not-too-far-away cave, and she would see me as easy prey, my plump American obesity a rare delicacy in these remote parts of possum and raccoon land. Her low, deep growl would be the only warning I'd get before she pounced, her teeth clamping tightly around my neck, her claws slicing swathes of flesh from bone, my blood spilling out onto the asphalt...
"SHUT UP!" I command my brain.
"Goddamn car," I then mutter.
And then a beam of light cuts through the trees. Yes--yes! The hum of a motor! A CAR! A human! Rescue! Suddenly I'm Gilligan, knowing that this time I will be rescued, this time I will get home!
As the lights begin to brighten slowly, though, I remember all those stories, of how hitchhiking gets you killed. They pretend to be friendly, invite you to put your bag in the back, take a seat, what's your name, where you from? Before you know it, you're spilling your sob story. As you are trapped in a torrent of feelings, you have no clue where he's driving you toward, or away from. No idea who they are, what they do, why they are out on this deserted stretch of road at three a.m.! Then you realize the door handle is missing from your side of the car, that the window on your side won't go down. You see the gun on his lap aimed straight at you, and the evilness of his soul is bared as he stares at you and begins to tell you of how he will ravage your body, how you will never see your family or loved ones again, how you are the newest prisoner in a long line of pretty young things he keeps locked up in his momma's basement and how much you'll love being his newest pet and how the others will show me the ropes and how to behave...
I almost climb back into the shadows of the trees.
"Jesse?"
My head whips around. "Dad? Dad!"
"We've been looking for you for hours! What happened?"
I jerk my thumb toward Betsy. "She finally died, Dad."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I guess this means we'll be out here tomorrow, getting her towed."
"I'm so glad to see you!"
"Well, it wasn't like you not to call, so I knew you must've been out here somewhere with old reliable," he said, jerking his own thumb in Betsy's direction. "I hate to say, it ain't the first time, but it will be the last. What kind of dad would I be, letting you get deserted half a dozen times?"
I hop into his beat-up truck, with what I'm sure is the biggest grin I've ever had the pleasure of sharing. "Thanks, Dad!"
It's writing challenge time, brought to you by Indie Ink. New contestants: Funderbar; New feedback and comments: Fantabulistic; Not meeting deadlines: Priceless. For everything else, there's me.
Welcome to Week 15.
Week 15. My Challenger:Jules My Challenge: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars... go with the one that offers potential of stars." - Oscar WildeWho I am Challenging:Miranda What I Challenged Them With: All that glitters *could* be gold...
Time & Space...
"We'll be breaking every known law of relativity..."
"Not exactly... In fact, no, no we won't. We're 'side-stepping' them. Do you not pay attention during class?"
"Man was not meant to travel this way!" He turned and stared out at the black hole, at the brilliant light of so many stars on the verge of falling over the event horizon. Like fire flies, he thought. Stars zooming in from seemingly nowhere as others blinked and fizzled out once they reached that point.
The point of no return.
"Theoretically, you mean."
"What?"
"You said 'the point of no return'," Chandra said, a small smile on her face as she strapped on her foot-gear. "And I said, 'Theoretically'." She stood up, grabbed her helmet from her locker, then slammed it shut as she turned to face him once again. "You best finish suiting up. We're heading out in five."
"But man was not meant--"
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm no man." Chandra turned and headed out the door. "Five minutes!" she called back, her voice echoing back to him.
***
Kennedy twitched. He hated his space suit. He hated this tiny craft. He hated that it felt immoral to "side step" known laws of the physical universe.
He hated that he wasn't more like Chandra.
He readjusted the belts again, if for nothing else, than to occupy the fingers that would give everything up to be back on Earth; to feel a blade of grass; to reach up toward a star that wasn't graveside.
Chandra plunked down on the seat beside him. "Ready, cowboy?"
He blinked at her, attempting to convey nonchalance.
She punched him in the shoulder playfully. "Oh, buck up. We won't be cutting the trip short if you soil your suit."
He apparently needed to work on his conveying skills.
"DS-Twelve, this is Hole Jumper One. Beginning preflight checks," she said into her in-helmet mic.
"Copy that, Jumper One. Begin preflight check when ready."
Kennedy tapped his helmet. "Is your com static-y?"
"Nope, and neither is yours. Hand me that pencil, will you?"
"You see? You see? This is a perfect example of why we shouldn't be doing this!"
"A... Pencil?" She quirked an eyebrow at him as she grabbed it from his hands.
"How many different types of ink pen have been invented for zero-gravity situations just like this? Huh? And yet we come back to the trusty pencil! If we can't get ink to flow out in a way that doesn't require--"
"Stow it, Kennedy," came a voice over the com.
"Yes sir."
"Jumper One, begin preflight."
"Yes sir," Chandra answered. She shrugged sympathetically at Kennedy then began the rundown.
***
"What if...?"
"What if what?"
"What if the tests were wrong? What if, when we jump out of the four dimensions and cross over that event horizon..."
"Kennedy?"
"Yeah?"
"It's okay to be scared. But we've run the simulations, we've sent over and brought back the cams and bots and rabbits and monkeys..."
"Yeah... I know..."
"We'll be all right."
"But how do you know?"
"Because I know."
He absorbed this statement, this faith, this improbable possibility. Then he turned to her and said, "You realize that monkey was never the same, right?"
"And maybe we won't be either. But I plan on attending the funerals of several stars today so that tomorrow? Tomorrow we can start saving a few."
"We're attempting to play god."
"We're attempting to save our galaxy. And hell, if god ain't gonna do that for us, we better start playing god, or we're all fucking dead."
***
He remembered being amazed at how gray everything was. Granted, the gray only lasted a split second--check that. It seemed to last only a split second. And then they were there--or not there, depending on where you were on the side of time.
Not to mention the other three dimensions that, until this point, no other human had managed to leave.
"Breathe, Kennedy! Dammit, breathe!"
He turned to face Chandra. Then his glass mask fogged up.
"Oh, thank goodness! I have no idea how long that was, but get a grip, turn on your suit-stasis, and don't lose it on me, okay?"
He nodded.
"Say something."
"Something."
He saw her smile. Then he saw her frown. "What?"
"I... I don't know." She shook her head. "Come on, let's start up the cams, see what the hole is like on this side of relativity."
Switches were flicked, screens lit up, images began to appear. "Everything seems in order, just..."
"I know," Chandra agreed. "Odd. Bluer, yes?"
"I would say 'aqua-er'," he replied, tapping one screen which seemed to be distorted.
"You can't pick a real color, can you?"
"Do you see this?"
"What?" Chandra frowned.
"The matter--or, the singularity--the middle, the fucking middle of the black hole!"
"But..."
"Yes."
"But..."
"Yes."
"Is that...?"
"When you take away the four dimensions..." Kennedy trailed off.
"But the cams we sent over. Why didn't they see this?"
"I don't know." He began running calculations. He tapped keyboards, consulted screens. "This is incredible."
"What is?"
"Mass... The mass... All those stars and planets and light and matter that have been sucked in, sucked down, compressed into that single point... I don't..."
Chandra punched him. "Seriously, Kennedy, if you don't learn how to complete a goddamn sentence real fucking soon, so help me, I swear, I'll leave your ass here."
"I'd live forever," he mused.
"Alone. Now what were you saying?"
"Over here, on this side of time? It's not a black hole at all. It's a white hole!"
"You going monkey on me?"
"No-no-no! Look!" He pointed to the furthest-most left screen. Where large bodies of matter were being expelled over the event horizon.
"Is that...?"
"The birth of a dark-matter star..." Kennedy confirmed.
"It's... It's so beautiful."
They watched for what seemed to be several minutes as stars and planets spun out erratically in all directions, flung out of the singularity with rapid profusion.
"But--wait," Chandra interrupted. "Did you say 'dark-matter star'? Dark matter is nothing more than a vast, thin collection of molecules and atoms, invisible to the naked eye but with a gravity equal to that of most other..."
"Yes. Equal to that of other stars or planets that we can see."
"But--"
"They were wrong. All those scientists, all those years, for the last sixteen centuries. All wrong. This, Chandra, is really what dark matter is."
"We need to get back."
"Just--just a little longer. Please."
"It is beautiful..."
***
Gray. Of course, the gray seemed to last for only a split-second, depending on where you were on the side of time.
"There they are!" shouted the commander as the tiny ship popped up on their radar. "Jumper One, Jumper One, this is DS-Twelve, repeat, this is DS-Twelve, do you copy?"
Silence. "Jumper One, this is DS-Twelve, do you copy?"
More silence. "Captain, start pulling in that ship."
"Yes, Commander."
"And alert the medics to meet me in the landing bays. Hopefully it's just that their coms have malfunctioned."
"Yes, Commander."
He strode through the halls, his mind pondering the millions of things that could have gone wrong, from the inane to the fantastic. Medics fell in behind him, but he didn't acknowledge them, barely registered the fact that they were now following him.
He reached the landing bay just as the small silver craft was lowered by boom onto it's landing pad. "Get me a ladder!" he shouted to one of the crew.
As he climbed the now-positioned ladder, he ignored the fact that they still hadn't popped up the cap of the craft on their own, ignored the fact that he could see no movement behind the glare of the lights. He reached up and grasped the ice-cold emergency latch and the cap popped off and fell down the other side.
"Sweet Jesus..."
Two sets of very ancient eyes pivoted from sunken flesh...
"Caaa...." one of them said.
"Fooo..." gasped the other.
More men appeared on top of a ladder on the other side of the craft.
The commander tried to regain his composure. "Get them to the infirmary."
***
The doctor came into the commander's quarters.
"Doctor? What is it? That--they... They are Kennedy and Chandra, yes?"
"Well, yes. They were Kennedy and Chandra."
"Were?"
"They passed away about half an hour after we got them into sick bay. Commander, I'm so sorry."
"What...?"
"Time. That's all it was," the doctor said. At the confused look on the commander's face, he continued, "They died from extreme--and I do mean extreme--old age. Their biometric readings were... well, let's just say for as old as they were, our machinery and technology couldn't even begin to fathom..."
"From--"
"From popping back into time, apparently," the doctor continued. "They both managed a few words, but on review of some of the cams, when they popped back into time... Well, let's just say we never... We never expected footage like that."
"What did she say? Chandra. What did she say?"
"She just kept muttering 'monkey,' over and over."
"And Kennedy?"
"He said..." the doctor choked up. "He said," he continued, voice quavering, "that forever was longer than anyone could imagine."
"I don't understand."
"Apparently what takes a split second physically to pop back into time," the doctor said, "takes an eternity for the consciousness to do."
"Sweet Jesus. You mean...?"
"That's exactly what I mean."
"And..."
"And he also said he was never so happy to see stars again."
Yes, yes, ladies and gentlemen--you are reading the blog of a winner. Sorry, that should be A WINNER.
You see, I've just won something from a contest on Facebook--I know, Facebook, of all places! (But before you get too excited, no, it wasn't a Hover Car...)
Of course, this isn't the first thing I've ever won. I originally won these adorable, gay-pride-colored Grateful Dead-esque little guys in a raffle at a camp site far, far away from where I currently sit and impart my wisdom to you:
See, there's Squishy, and George, and Dixie, and... Ahem! Well, yes, where was I? Oh, the winning. Me = Winner.
I know, I know--the bears do bring to mind strawberry fields, pot heads, bad seventies-porn-type mustaches... But they're mine, and I won them, and I love them...
But today, folks--TODAY--I've won Preen! Preen, if you didn't know, is a weed killer. And I won because I submitted the winning caption on this photo:
My winning zinger of awesomeness: This is your brain on gardening... Any questions?
The contest was put on by the National Gardening Club(of whom I am a proud Life Member) to see who could come up with the awesomest, zingiest, most creative caption for the picture above--and out of the (thus far)212 comments, it is I, Jason Hughes, who was declared, and I do not quote, "Awesomest." (And the only reason I do not quote is because they actually forgot that part in the email letting me know I won, but I'm thinking it's because they knew it was implied... And it was...) I can't wait to start killing me some weeds!
Of course, I can't help but think if Karma is trying to tell me something:
Win Marijuana-type Bears
Win Weed Killer
You think... Maybe...? Naaaah!
I'm just one of those people--you know?
A WINNER.
At least, that's what I tell you the next time you nonchalantly stop me tomorrow morning to say "Hi! How are you?"
I'm a WINNER. And don't you forget it!
(The husband is so not going to let me enter contests anymore... But I like to think it's so others can have a better shot at winning...)
It's writing challenge time, brought to you by Indie Ink. New contestants: Funderbar; New feedback and comments: Fantabulistic; Not meeting deadlines: Priceless. For everything else, there's me.
The thing is, it's not only ever just "their fault." Shit happens. Sometimes a lot of shit happens. I get that.
But I also don't get it, if that makes sense. It scares me--scares the holy bejesus shit out of me, honestly--to think that I could end up that way. Homeless.
But then again, I truly don't believe it ever could happen to me, which part of my mind just whispered, That's what you think...
I hate that voice.
I can't even begin to imagine it. I don't believe for a second that they are all wino's, or addicts, or lazy, although some of them probably are. I can't guarantee that whenever I hand a homeless person some change or a bill that they aren't going to turn around and spend it on alcohol, or drugs, or sex...
But then again, I don't care if they do--but allow me to clarify that statement, if you please. "I don't care," as in, if they, as a homeless, wandering human soul who hasn't a roof over his/her head and no guarantee of food or a place to sleep safely at night, finds even five minutes of comfort in a drink, or a high? I cannot begrudge them that. I'm not an idiot. I know $5 isn't going to really, truly help them, in the sense that they certainly couldn't rent a room for the night--hell, if it weren't for the so-called "dollar" menu at fast-food chains, I doubt anywhere else it would even buy a proper meal (and that's assuming the dollar menu falls into the "proper meal" category, which we all know it doesn't...). What I'm saying is, I'm not one of those people who make someone who is begging--BEGGING, mind you, for change, pennies--promise me they aren't going to spend it on this or that.
And I would hope that, were I ever to find myself in such a situation, someone else would be kind enough not only to hand me some type of money, but would allow me the dignity, that tiniest part of dignity, to spend this treasured gift in whichever way I choose. After all, if I were homeless, what dignity have I left? What kind of choice could I possibly make? No job, no money, no home, no food--but for a brief moment, when that money hit my hand from your heart, I know I'd feel like a king, albeit briefly. And I personally can thing of nothing more degrading, nothing more humiliating, than, having accepted your generous gift, to then listen to a list of demands and rules about how to spend it. It breaks my heart when I see others treat the homeless like children who are being punished, children who just need a good talking-to, children who are ultimately someone else's responsibility...
I'm not sure we could ever fully "solve" the so-called "homeless problem" in our country. I'm not sure we could even begin to fathom a way to make sure every person gets that chance, at that moment, to turn their lives in a direction which would restore their dignity and pride at being a human being once again. After all, some of it would have to be a conscious decision on their part--but it will also take a hell of a lot of heart on our part.
And honestly, I don't see us ever getting around to having that much heart, as a country at least. Sure, on a case-by-case, person-by-person basis, sure, we can save a few--and by "save," I certainly don't mean "Every single one a home owner and making thousands each year at a job." And, of course, each year there is a success story in one way or another of a formerly homeless person reaching for and getting the life back that they want, the life back that they lost, due to their own hard work and other's giving them a break, giving them a job, giving them a place to lay their head safely each night.
But thousands more never get that shot.
The homeless. Each individual is someone's child, someone's son or daughter, someone's brother or sister, someone's father or mother.
They aren't the homeless--they are human beings. They are who each and every one of us could end up becoming.
But for each other.
But for me. And you.
And the thousands of those whom we have failed in one way or another.
Do me a favor, will you? Next time you pass by a homeless person, don't think of handing them money because it will make you feel better--do it because it might make them feel better, feel human again, just for a moment.
Because it will only take one fateful moment in your own life, and that could be you.
It's me. Jason. It's approximately the year 2011 (I say approximately because we've realized we can't trust our government about anything--least of all those hover cars that were promised, let alone the year...). I was gonna take the easy route and write to future me--after all, if I'm this awesome now, how totally, insanely, fan-freakin-tastically awesome will future me be?
Yeah, I drew the same conclusion: Unstoppably Rockin.
So instead, I decided to write to those of you who have perfected faster-than-light travel; who think skipping off to the rings of Saturn for a weekend jaunt is old hat; where a beach-vaca in the Andromeda galaxy is "too local" for you mere Earthlings. Yeah, you know who you are. (You've also perfected time-travel, obviously, and are laughing your asses off as you read this thinking we haven't caught on to you--well, we have, we'd just hate to blow your cover... Duh!)
You see, I have no idea when all that nifty stuff--like space travel for the lay person, or trans-warptation from your bed to your job, or when you can genetically alter your mutt just enough to learn to mow the lawn--is going to happen. After all, I'm back here in the supposed year 2011. Will ancient blogs like mine still be available to read in the year 3030? Will these typed, digitized words be archived somewhere on an administrative planet to be shielded from those pesky, data-wiping gamma bursts when stars thoughtlessly die without regard for how much consumer debt they wipe out? Will Pauly Shore be just as dorky? Will an Alf-like creature have been discovered that actually use felines in their General Tsao's?
You see, it sucks being back here--not as much as it sucked for cavemen, granted (or worse yet, BETAMAX VCRs)--but it sucks nonetheless. We have no idea what you future dudes and dudettes are up to! (Yes, an homage to the supposed decade known as "1980s"...) Have you kept that human drive of curiosity burning? Have you actually reached the limits of your species' imagination? What wonderous toys and gizmo's and what-not you must take for granted, like your super-deluxe Ninja-Cacti-Gremlins that slice and dice while waxing your Kia Centauri Cruiser! Or your green Flibbidijibbits that serve exactly what you were hungry for before you even knew what you were hungry for! (Hmm... Pizza... With Asteroid cubes and Jupiter Crust!!)
Perhaps you'll be sunning on the event horizon of a black hole three galaxies to the left (because of course you have by now mastered which end of space is UP, so obviously there is, indeed, a left...), wishing for a simpler time when all the hooligans left black holes well enough alone...
But enough about that--after all, we have it pretty good too. I bet you aren't even going to realize what it was like to gaze at the stars and wonder... To imagine what it would be like to stand on a planet with orange skies and magenta clouds... To contemplate if the jump into hyper-light would give you butterflies much like today's roller coasters...
Granted, in a few decades time, I'll be finally getting that hover car I was promised, upping my awesomeness to whole new levels of unmentionable and unforseen zeniths that humanity never knew it could reach until I came along...
But until then, I will slightly envy you, future humans...
Because to you, hover cars will be so old, they won't even be considered classics...
It's writing challenge time, brought to you by the ever-awesome site of Indie Ink. New contestants always welcome; new feedback and comments always welcome; not meeting deadlines never welcome...
Welcome to Unlucky Week 13.
Week 13. My Challenger:Trish My Challenge: What goes up, must come down.Who I am Challenging:Sunshine What I Challenged Them With: Retell the tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff from the Troll's perspective...
This week's challenge is eerily apt, as I feel the ups and downs of life are really trying to get me to crack. Be that as it may, what goes down must also come back up, yes?
On the Down...
He glanced to his left--toward the window which looked out onto sterile walls, starch white uniforms, and the numb stares of his caretakers.
He then turned to his right, staring out the window whose frame held a tree, some parked cars, and buildings in the distance filled with people going about their daily lives in the same sort of way he used to.
A sigh escaped his lips quite involuntarily.
His son was coming today, along with his wife, a few of their kids, and a few of their kids. That's what the sigh was all about, he decided. He stared down at his hands, rubbed his fingers over his other fingers, feeling the callouses that no longer sloughed off after a hard days' labor, as if they, too, knew they were on their way down, not worth the effort to produce new skin and shed the damaged, hard sections.
As a nurse came in and mumbled something about the sun shining; he didn't even spare her a glance. Another involuntary sigh escaped, and he grimaced as he realized the nurse had picked up on it.
"Now, don't you be sighing like that--your family's coming today!" she said between overly-white teeth framed by overly-red lips. "That'll cheer you up something for sure!" She fussed with some papers on his chart, delaying, waiting for a stock-answer which meant her job was done, she had done her good deed for the dying soul, that she could move on to the next with a clear conscience.
He harumphed.
She smiled, waiting. No longer even bothering to pretend to be doing paperwork, or checking his IV, or one of any other of a dozen menial tasks. He was no longer worth the pretending, so near the end, and they both knew it. She just wanted her fix from her pimp, and he was unwilling to oblige.
Staring her straight into her mascara-purple eyes, he harumphed again.
It was her turn to sigh. "Don't like your family?" she queried.
"What's to like--or not like? Dammit!"
"Language!"
"Go away!"
She shrugged her shoulders and left, shaking her head. He saw another nurse shake her head in agreement out in the hall.
He leaned back against the pillows, eyes cast back toward the outside-facing window.
Do I not like my family? he pondered. No. Definitely not. In fact, he did have a slight uplifting of spirits on the days he knew they were coming, the break of the monotony, even if it did interrupt Dr. Phil.
No, he didn't dislike them. He just couldn't relate any longer. His mind drifted back to the days when he was going places--going up, as it were. One of the few who were lucky enough to survive the Normandy beach landing... Later, as a crane pulled him up on a beam several stories above the ground, just two feet and four fingers balancing in the air on the faith of a steel cable and a crane... And when he finished building that cottage for him and Martha, on the roof nailing in that last nail into that last shingle, Martha on the ground beaming up at him with pride and love... Helping Dennis learn to first ride a bicycle, then a car... When he'd finally saved enough to take the wife and kids on that trip to the Grand Canyon--what pride he had felt, what a sense of accomplishment!
What would his grandkids, his great-grandkids ever know of him? They wouldn't know him as the young man who saved lives in Europe, or the guy who built those sky scrapers in the distance, or who helped their dad or granddad learn to ride a bike...
Or any of the hundreds of other events in his life that no longer came when summoned. They'd just know him as the guy in the bed who they had to visit once a month, with the smelly room, the mottled skin, the sagging flab, the runny eyes.
They would only ever remember the down.
He could only hope that, when they, too, started the down, they would remember him.
He turned to stare out at the solitary tree beyond the glass, just beginning to turn a mottled shade of yellow as autumn approached. Hopefully, just hopefully, they'd have a better view.
It's writing challenge time, brought to you by the ever-awesome site of Indie Ink. New contestants always welcome; new feedback and comments always welcome; not meeting deadlines never welcome...
Welcome to week 12.
Week 12. My Challenger:Miranda My Challenge: whatever you write you must use onomatopoeia in it somewhereWho I am Challenging:Random Girl What I Challenged Them With: A life lesson learned from an *extremely* unlikely source/event...
Worth a Thousand Words...
Definition by Webster's, Enlightenment by Nature...
"What's this?" the young woman asked as she brushed away the dirt and dust.
"Why, it looks like... Yes, yes, my child, you have found it!"
"What?!" She straightened and stepped back, unsure if this was one of those "Yes! Step back!" moments or one of those "Yes! Bring it here!" moments. The first were far more often than she liked to admit, let alone experience.
The man knelt down on the dirt and slowly lifted the item, holding it with tweezers. "I never thought we'd find any evidence, and here it is!"
"Here is what?" she half-whispered, seeing the reverence in his eyes, the stillness of his fingers as they applied the just-right amount of pressure to secure the thing between the metal tongs. These moments were indeed rare, explosive, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and she had yet to figure out which of these it would be. She thought back to the time when they had been on Ares, when a similar item bearing analogous markings had been raised from the red soil--and scattered to the wind once it was freed from the soil. That had been a bad, bad day for them both. Not to mention the ridicule and charges of imagined evidence that had followed them for months.
Now they found themselves on Terra, supposed mythological home to the Second. As she let her gaze sweep over the brown, dusty landscape, she couldn't help but wonder if the myths were just that--myths.
"Draga, this--this," he said, his hands now quivering as he gently carried the item through the flaps of the nearby tent, "will prove that I've been right all along--come, come, quickly, inside!"
She shrugged, and followed him into the darkness, where she watched as he placed the item into a protective shield, then sealed it inside, preserving the item--
"Paper!" he said, the reverence still in place. "With actual, hand-written letters! Do you realize what this means?"
"Not really..." she trailed off.
She stepped closer to peer at the item, knowing now that she could set off fusionworks and the thing--paper--would be safe. She leaned down, making out scratches of color on the pale yellow surface. "I take it those are the... Um, 'letters'?"
"Yes, yes, silly child!" He rubbed his hands excitedly, unsure what to do now that he had his proof, his vindication. Now that his hands had placed the paper into safety, they seemed to have minds of their own, rubbing together, waving about, running through his hair...
"Oh, when my colleagues see this..."
She tried to keep from rolling her eyes. "Any chance we can figure out what these letters mean?"
"Oh, how silly of me! Yes, yes, hold on..." He wandered to the left side of the tent, picked up their helmets, and handed hers to her. "We'll download all of my research now--it's a lot, so take the painkillers or you'll end up with a hell of a headache. Once you're ready, navigate towards the com in the rear of the reality and press the orange key. That's where the information is stored." Then he had his helmet on and his body, released from conscious thought, collapsed on the chair behind him.
She eyed her helmet. She hated these trips across the ether, especially so far from home. She'd heard of consciousnesses being lost, carried away on the lightwaves of the universe, never to arrive in any body, anywhere. The teacher may think it all superstitious nonsense, but there were just too many stories to poo-poo the idea entirely.
"What are you waiting for?" He was back, obviously, as he raised his helmet off and stood back up. "Come on, we have much work to do! Get going!"
She sighed, sat, and placed the visor over her head. Closing her eyes, she reached up and engaged.
And then she was there, in his office back on Yiu. She wandered over to the consoles at the back, located the orange button, and pressed her fingers deep inside.
The teacher hadn't been kidding about the headache, as information zoomed into her brain: thoughts; ideas; images; pictures; vids; other conscious matter. She half-stumbled back across the office, sat back into the ether-chair, and in nanoseconds found herself back on Terra.
She let out the breath she had been holding.
"Draga, see this--and this?" He was pointing excitedly at the "paper," picking out symbols that apparently meant something. She shook her head, willing the downloaded information to quickly disseminate so she, too, could act as excited as he was.
"Yes... Yes, I do see..." she mumbled as she stared, the scratches starting to form coherent, logical meaning. "But--"
"But?"
"Why-- I mean, what kind of civilization would try to place ideas in such a rudimentary form? I mean, all throughout the galaxy, all conscious minds work on images, pictures, intangible thoughts. What kind of being would use... You called them 'letters,' yes?"
"Exactly!" he cried. "These beings--they called themselves 'humans,' but you were taught 'the Second' in school--this was their main form of communication for centuries--eons, in fact! It's why they were classified as the Second. Their contributions to the races of sentients that followed are almost unparalleled, excepting, of course, the First. But that's hotly debated, as you know."
"With letters?"
"Yes!" he cried. "Evidence has been far and few between, granted. Once they perfected and harnessed the power of electricity, soon the hand-written word was replaced by the typed word, and then the light-scribed word, and so on. Most of this has been speculation, of course, as we only have our own records to fall back on to the earliest days of our races intermingling, near the end of the Second's time in this galaxy. By then they were so many millenia old, they had long since ceased with letters, written, typed, or otherwise!"
"But I fail to see how this archaic means of communication--"
"Think of this," he said, now thoroughly engaged in teacher mode. "Back into the recesses of time, long before our race, the Tenths, had even dreamed of space travel. We had long, long lists of images for communicating even the most basic of needs! The Second's had a few similar early cultures in which images served them instead of these letters--Cheenese, I believe they were called, something like that anyway--but even as we, the Tenth, were evolving almost in lock-step with the Second, they achieved so much more in such a shorter amount of time because they realized that not all images were viewed equally! Take our water picture, for instance. To some of the Second, it meant life, while to another Second it could mean wet, or where fish are found, or--"
"What's a 'fish'?"
"Never mind that! Don't you see? The Second realized that, until brain-transferring thought technology could be harnessed, where images and their conscious meanings could be sent to another leaving no doubt as to what was meant, they needed a system of communicating exact, specific, precise ideas!"
"So they knew in the future they would have brain-transferring thought technology?"
"Don't be stupid! Of course not! But through their evolution, they realized, unlike the evolution of our own cultures, that to create 'letters' to ascribe meaning in ways images could not, they had a better chance of communicating, which set the stage for them to be the Second! It was only by the merest of chances that the First came along before them! Fluke chance!"
She soaked all this in, melded it into the downloaded information she had received back in his office. "I guess I see what you're getting at..."
"Second, you know, was the culture that came up with the phrase, 'A picture is worth a thousand words.' And in that little phrase lies the whole of their successes!"
"Hmm..."
She stared at the paper, the first evidence of the Second's ancient form of "writing." Somehow she felt a bit dirty staring at something so old, as if it were beneath her to consider something so archaic as "grand."
She stared harder as her brain started making more sense out of more and more of the symbols. "Not much repetition..."
"No, and that was part of the genius. Twenty-six symbols, or letters, were all they needed to get even the most complex ideas across. Twenty-six! Compare that to our ancient image system thousands upon thousands of images deep!"
"What are these?"
"Those are 'numbers.' They sometimes used these symbols to shorten, or 'abbreviate,' if you will, so it would take even less letters to get the idea across."
"You have got to be kidding."
"Second was nothing if not succinct at times. Straight to the point, that's how they liked things. Something I think our species could take a lesson from." His eyes never left the paper, engaged in seemingly trying to memorize this document in case it's fate went that of the way the one on Ares had gone.
"And this--" he said, pointing at the paper behind the shield, "this is what truly made Second great."
She scanned through her brain database. "But-- that's not even... It's not..."
"Exactly!" he cried. "This is better than even I could have dreamed of finding!"
"These letters make no sense in that configuration though!" she cried. "How great can the Second have been if they couldn't even then get their letters in the right order? Or even the right combination of letters?!"
"Read the letters, don't simply stare at them," he urged.
"What? 'Read'?"
"You see this word? I read it as 'Brumrumrummmmrumrummmm'."
She stared at him blankly.
"If I read the entire line, or lines, I get the image in my head of thunder making noise over the horizon!"
"I don't follow! It's not a 'word' using their 'letters'."
"Oh, but it is, it is. One thing Second was great at was creativity. And realizing that sometimes even their known letters and words failed them when trying to get across an idea, they made it up!"
"What?"
"They knew what sounds each letter made. So they would throw the letters together to convey the sound! It's called--or at least I think they called that, an 'onomatopoeia'. When they threw letters together to convey the image they had no exact word for! Whether out of reverence for such basic sounds and noises I suppose we'll never know."
"Sounds like the silliest--"
"Oh, but it's not, and here's why," the teacher stated emphatically. "How would you communicate the quiet whisper of the wind? How would you know whether it was a breeze before a storm, or a breeze bringing relief to a sweltering day?"
"I'd just... Well, you just know. You look at the sky, you watch the weather vids, you..." She trailed off.
"Ah, but with a simple, quiet spelling of "sssshhhh through the trees," using the Second's letters, all humans knew! And if it was a 'fictional' story, they couldn't very well watch the weather vids to know what the human was trying to convey, could they?"
