I am flying in a slight breeze, exploring a desert that just appeared out of nowhere, when the Commodore appears in a muddy Jeep. "You're looking at the symptom, my dear Hero. Things would go more smoothly if you checked out the cause first. Standard protocol in investigative procedures." He strides forward smugly, Indiana Jones hat set in a rakish manner, to examine the sand. He pinches a bit. Brings it to his nose. Sniffs. "Interesting," he mutters.
"What??" I exclaim, trying to peer over his shoulder.
"This isn't real sand."
....
The Commodore tracks the sand-signature to a manufacturing company in San Diego. The sign over the warehouse is old and the place looks like it hasn't been in use for quite some time. I peer in a grimy window, and can make out a few tiny figures moving inside. They look like...children. I sneak over the skylight and down into the building. "Hello?" Three little boys and a girl scramble behind a pile of empty packing crates. The dust they disturbed billows up in momentary obfuscation of my brain. I cough, trying to order my thoughts. "Er- Are you all right? I know you're here. I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just trying to figure out a certain mystery. Perhaps you could help me? It has to do with sand. Lots of sand." The little girl breaks from the others, hesitantly, and steps out of her hiding place.
"What d'you know about the Sand?" She asks suspiciously. "Where've you seen it?"
"Up north, in Oregon. Took a huge swath of the eastern countryside. Whole towns disappeared."
"Did you touch it?" She shouts, stepping back as if I carry a disease.
"Well, no, but my companion did. Anyway, we were just wondering where it came from, and traced it to this factory. If you could be so kind as to help us find the manufacturers, well..." I pause. The girl is staring in fear at something behind me. I turn, quickly, because I hate it when moments like this are drawn out, and my skin is crawling enough already. It's Dylan. The Commodore. Sand is bursting from his orifices, like the Waters of Mars creatures from one of my least favorite episodes of Doctor Who. He staggers forward, reaching out a desperate hand.
"Crap!" I shout, grabbing the girl's hand and heading for the back exit. "I mean, run!"
We scamper out the back of the warehouse, the boys leading the way, dodging through abandoned cars and streets rapidly filling with the strange sand...
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Pirate Granny
I'm not sure exactly what has come over her.
She's wearing that blue, high-waisted dress she made herself over fifty years ago. No shoes. My tri-corner hat. Mum woke up early this morning to make blueberry pancakes, to find that Granny had gone pirate. She is hanging from the kitchen light, singing bawdy sailor songs from her youth, waving a yardstick like a cutlass.
I try to coax her down with the blueberries but she isn't having any of it.
"Surrender or Die!" she yells from the ceiling, pointing the yardstick menacingly at my face.
Obviously, the only rational way to fix the situation is to have a face-off. I run to my room and get my own sword. "All right, Gran!" I cry. "Let's get this settled! I win, you have to come down from there and have breakfast." We strike up a fierce tune of metal on wood, but for some reason, Granny's stick is doing better than my cheap Goodwill sword. What the heck? I mean, it's metal! It should be much more effective...
It turns out Granny is not actually holding a yardstick. Nor are we in the kitchen. A strong smell of salt air pours in when mum opens the window, followed by a huge gush of water. A wave knocks us over the bow and into the sea, and down, down we sink into deepening shades of grey-blue confusion...
Mum looks over at me in the growing haze and gurgles, "Whaaaat juuuusst haaaapeeenned?" I answer back, "Graaany muuust beee haaaviiing heeerrr seecooonnd chiiildhoood..." indeed, her dream-forces are strong enough to suck us both into her own imagined realm. With a force this strong in her old age, I wonder what her imagination must have been like when she was a child...
We emerge, coughing and spluttering, onto a bank of yellow grass.
She's wearing that blue, high-waisted dress she made herself over fifty years ago. No shoes. My tri-corner hat. Mum woke up early this morning to make blueberry pancakes, to find that Granny had gone pirate. She is hanging from the kitchen light, singing bawdy sailor songs from her youth, waving a yardstick like a cutlass.
I try to coax her down with the blueberries but she isn't having any of it.
"Surrender or Die!" she yells from the ceiling, pointing the yardstick menacingly at my face.
Obviously, the only rational way to fix the situation is to have a face-off. I run to my room and get my own sword. "All right, Gran!" I cry. "Let's get this settled! I win, you have to come down from there and have breakfast." We strike up a fierce tune of metal on wood, but for some reason, Granny's stick is doing better than my cheap Goodwill sword. What the heck? I mean, it's metal! It should be much more effective...
It turns out Granny is not actually holding a yardstick. Nor are we in the kitchen. A strong smell of salt air pours in when mum opens the window, followed by a huge gush of water. A wave knocks us over the bow and into the sea, and down, down we sink into deepening shades of grey-blue confusion...
Mum looks over at me in the growing haze and gurgles, "Whaaaat juuuusst haaaapeeenned?" I answer back, "Graaany muuust beee haaaviiing heeerrr seecooonnd chiiildhoood..." indeed, her dream-forces are strong enough to suck us both into her own imagined realm. With a force this strong in her old age, I wonder what her imagination must have been like when she was a child...
We emerge, coughing and spluttering, onto a bank of yellow grass.
Trashbag Attack!!
Laila and I are hanging out behind the music room after school, among the dumpsters.
Usually a peaceful spot to talk and hide from the wind. Kids don't bother us, teachers don't know we are there. The smell keeps most curious folk at bay. Today, however, is different. Two random and suspicious-looking hikers come walking by the school, spot us, and decide to have some fun by flashing their multipurpose switchblades at us and-- cliche as it may be-- ASKING FOR LUNCH MONEY. They think they are incredibly funny. Laila laughs too, a bit longer than should be possible with human lungs, making them uncomfortable. Then she and I turn simultaneously, and launch two trashbags from the dumpsters right onto their faces. We dash out behind, twist their wrists, take the knives, and force them to the ground, waiting for someone with a cell phone to some by, see us, and call the police.
Instead, MORE suspicious characters turn up in the parking lot. Friends of the hikers. Since we have nothing with which to tie up the two we are already holding, while Laila keeps them in a steel grip, I focus my mind on the dumpsters and bring them closer to us. I start to spin them around in a protective field, then open the tops and start flipping garbage out at random. A cry emerges from the melee. "We got one!" I shout.
After awhile I start feeling bad about the amount of garbage scattered around the school yards, so I slow the dumpsters and return them to their places. Littered around the parking lot in various stages of trash-induced hysteria are seven men. They all look like members of some sort of hiking-cult: specialized fanny packs and color-coded water bottles, tailored shorts and combat boots, tattoos of trees...
Curious as I am, we do not have time to find out more about them, as a teacher comes by, calls the local fire department, and the hikers are dragged away, their walking sticks confiscated.
We have to file a report saying why we attacked them...
I leave out the mention of garbage, since we managed to get most of it cleaned up before the law arrived.
Usually a peaceful spot to talk and hide from the wind. Kids don't bother us, teachers don't know we are there. The smell keeps most curious folk at bay. Today, however, is different. Two random and suspicious-looking hikers come walking by the school, spot us, and decide to have some fun by flashing their multipurpose switchblades at us and-- cliche as it may be-- ASKING FOR LUNCH MONEY. They think they are incredibly funny. Laila laughs too, a bit longer than should be possible with human lungs, making them uncomfortable. Then she and I turn simultaneously, and launch two trashbags from the dumpsters right onto their faces. We dash out behind, twist their wrists, take the knives, and force them to the ground, waiting for someone with a cell phone to some by, see us, and call the police.
Instead, MORE suspicious characters turn up in the parking lot. Friends of the hikers. Since we have nothing with which to tie up the two we are already holding, while Laila keeps them in a steel grip, I focus my mind on the dumpsters and bring them closer to us. I start to spin them around in a protective field, then open the tops and start flipping garbage out at random. A cry emerges from the melee. "We got one!" I shout.
After awhile I start feeling bad about the amount of garbage scattered around the school yards, so I slow the dumpsters and return them to their places. Littered around the parking lot in various stages of trash-induced hysteria are seven men. They all look like members of some sort of hiking-cult: specialized fanny packs and color-coded water bottles, tailored shorts and combat boots, tattoos of trees...
Curious as I am, we do not have time to find out more about them, as a teacher comes by, calls the local fire department, and the hikers are dragged away, their walking sticks confiscated.
We have to file a report saying why we attacked them...
I leave out the mention of garbage, since we managed to get most of it cleaned up before the law arrived.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Mind-Body Synthesis
Sometimes things don't always go as planned.
Sometimes your body doesn't follow your brain. In this particular case, I am going grocery shopping with Syca, and while she ogles over the avocados in the veggie aisle, I spiral through the air happily in an imitation of Cirque du Solei magesty, swooping down over the carts of the shoppers who by now are used to my unnecessary antics. It is my hometown, after all.
But then this guy dressed in black jumps out and starts pelting me with hula hoops. Delighted, I duck into them and start dancing with spirals moving at different speeds all over my body, grinning and showing off. The guy speaks into his radio: "Yep! She's one of the 61! Initiate phase two!" A guy from my AP Chemistry class, whom I'd always admired as a human being, comes up from the floor, and suddenly my mind is ejected into space as my body rushes forward and begins doing various unseemly things to him. Fuming, I yell at myself: "This is OBVIOUSLY a trap, you silly mound of flesh! Come back here before you get kidnapped!"
It doesn't hear me, of course, and a moment later, the boy (who is actually a robot facsimile of the original) stuns my body's neck, throws it over his shoulder, and descends through the trapdoor in the floor.
Great. Now I gotta rescue my body...but when I do, I'll be faced with the reintegration of its sensory memories. Not lookin' forward to this...
Sometimes your body doesn't follow your brain. In this particular case, I am going grocery shopping with Syca, and while she ogles over the avocados in the veggie aisle, I spiral through the air happily in an imitation of Cirque du Solei magesty, swooping down over the carts of the shoppers who by now are used to my unnecessary antics. It is my hometown, after all.
But then this guy dressed in black jumps out and starts pelting me with hula hoops. Delighted, I duck into them and start dancing with spirals moving at different speeds all over my body, grinning and showing off. The guy speaks into his radio: "Yep! She's one of the 61! Initiate phase two!" A guy from my AP Chemistry class, whom I'd always admired as a human being, comes up from the floor, and suddenly my mind is ejected into space as my body rushes forward and begins doing various unseemly things to him. Fuming, I yell at myself: "This is OBVIOUSLY a trap, you silly mound of flesh! Come back here before you get kidnapped!"
It doesn't hear me, of course, and a moment later, the boy (who is actually a robot facsimile of the original) stuns my body's neck, throws it over his shoulder, and descends through the trapdoor in the floor.
Great. Now I gotta rescue my body...but when I do, I'll be faced with the reintegration of its sensory memories. Not lookin' forward to this...
Friday, March 23, 2012
B.A.L.D.
We've got it! The perfect superhero team name. Well, almost. It's thanks to the introduction of one Commodore Dylan Horton that D possibilities came into view, and Becca just happened to discover this one when randomly sounding out combinations of initials. I for one think it's brilliant...but it sounds like it'd only include Becca, Amanda, Dylan, and Laila, as a strict naming. Which makes me wonder...are we destined to separate? Laila's busy at college now, and I'll soon be going away, and Mary's got so many theatre positions she hardly sleeps...it looks like the major task force in Oregon may be left to those with the most time on their hands. Besides, I'm pretty sure Willa's becoming a villain, if she wasn't before...
Anyway, we take it as a brief name for our current logo purposes (we have to advertise to get business. Superheroes need to make a living, just like anyone else) and head off to an alternate universe. We received a distress call from Amanda's sister Chloe, who has apparently been living in this alt world for some time.
A troll guide leads us not to the silver city, but to the dangerous misty forest that guards the metropolis from unwanted visitors. We hack our way through the brush and evade the fierce jumping spiders as best we can, but then I accidentally drop my bag in quicksand. It's may favorite bag, too. The one I made out of a pair of jeans and decorated with a three-headed phoenix using multi-coloured sharpies. I have to rescue it! I touch the edge of the quicksand, and find I have a new power: I can emulate the earth. Although, I suppose all my powers stem from some form of emulation... I fight the quicksand with reverse suckage (I know it's a terrible-sounding term), and pull the bag out-- but to my surprise, there are now two bags. Great. Which one was the original? Did I duplicate it, or is the forest responsible for this trickery? I carry them both as we move on, staying close to the others to fend off attacks, trying to figure out which is the real bag. They both smell like swamp. They both look the same-- covered in goo. I guess I won't know until we reach civilization and a sink...
Well, we finally make it out, and to the skyscraper apartments where Chloe lives. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the apartment complex are filled with pillows, because it is an anti-grav establishment. We float along until we find her room-- the penthouse suite-- and she gives us a package to deliver: some vital information and a strange brown clayish thing. Apparently the seed of all genetic diversity or somesuch. We are to take it to Pluto somehow, and bury it deep in a crater. It's to be a safeguard for our Galaxy in case of a disaster that destroys all living things. In the event that its highly sophisticated sensors register no life within given parameters, it will begin a large-scale process of regeneration.
Who knew Chloe had access to such tech?
We are strictly warned not to let NASA know it exists. We sneak out in the middle of the night and stick it onto a probe headed for Pluto. When it arrives, the blob presumably knows to detach itself and float down into the nearest crater.
We return home, and I wash the bags, and decide to keep the smellier one, and give the other to a random hobo I meet in Portland. No harm there, right? I mean, it's not as if there could possibly be anything dangerous in a clone bag from an alt universe, just waiting to become an invasive species...
Anyway, we take it as a brief name for our current logo purposes (we have to advertise to get business. Superheroes need to make a living, just like anyone else) and head off to an alternate universe. We received a distress call from Amanda's sister Chloe, who has apparently been living in this alt world for some time.
A troll guide leads us not to the silver city, but to the dangerous misty forest that guards the metropolis from unwanted visitors. We hack our way through the brush and evade the fierce jumping spiders as best we can, but then I accidentally drop my bag in quicksand. It's may favorite bag, too. The one I made out of a pair of jeans and decorated with a three-headed phoenix using multi-coloured sharpies. I have to rescue it! I touch the edge of the quicksand, and find I have a new power: I can emulate the earth. Although, I suppose all my powers stem from some form of emulation... I fight the quicksand with reverse suckage (I know it's a terrible-sounding term), and pull the bag out-- but to my surprise, there are now two bags. Great. Which one was the original? Did I duplicate it, or is the forest responsible for this trickery? I carry them both as we move on, staying close to the others to fend off attacks, trying to figure out which is the real bag. They both smell like swamp. They both look the same-- covered in goo. I guess I won't know until we reach civilization and a sink...
Well, we finally make it out, and to the skyscraper apartments where Chloe lives. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the apartment complex are filled with pillows, because it is an anti-grav establishment. We float along until we find her room-- the penthouse suite-- and she gives us a package to deliver: some vital information and a strange brown clayish thing. Apparently the seed of all genetic diversity or somesuch. We are to take it to Pluto somehow, and bury it deep in a crater. It's to be a safeguard for our Galaxy in case of a disaster that destroys all living things. In the event that its highly sophisticated sensors register no life within given parameters, it will begin a large-scale process of regeneration.
Who knew Chloe had access to such tech?
We are strictly warned not to let NASA know it exists. We sneak out in the middle of the night and stick it onto a probe headed for Pluto. When it arrives, the blob presumably knows to detach itself and float down into the nearest crater.
We return home, and I wash the bags, and decide to keep the smellier one, and give the other to a random hobo I meet in Portland. No harm there, right? I mean, it's not as if there could possibly be anything dangerous in a clone bag from an alt universe, just waiting to become an invasive species...
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
It Never Happened.
Mum, Gran, Lyle and I are immigrating to Europe, because America has become so poor and corrupt you can't live in safety in an underground bomb shelter. We had to sell our home and all our possessions except the Terminator we reprogrammed to assist us on our journey. It goes slightly haywire every once-in-awhile, but then mum just bangs on its left foot and all its circuits return to normal.
On the way, our train gets pushed off a cliff by a giant dragon. I hold it in the sky as long as I can, while Laila chases after the creature. I tell mum to call Amanda and Becca and Mary, and see if they can come help me out, because super-strength is NOT my fortay. They come. We fix the train and discuss the merits of the new cell phone service, then are nearly crushed by the feet of the pursuing dragon as it returns our way, Laila leading it into the forest away from human settlements. The train continues down the underwater track leading to Europe.
When we arrive in Europe, there is a scandal afoot. Previous immigrants from America, a villanous cabal called "The Tamers," are going around innocent little country villages and drowning people. But...they appear to be doing it by convincing the victims to drown themselves. Some kind of Mind Control...emanating from the blonde dreadlocks of the beautiful leader. As she sings, and her hair reaches out toward me (whom everybody elected to use as bait in this situation), I can feel my brain start to grow foggy...
They wake me, hours later, and I wipe the bubbly drool from my face. "Yuck."
"Man, you were SO entranced," laughs Mary. "You had the dopiest-looking grin on your face."
"Did you catch them?" I cough, Standing and brushing a strange goo from my pants.
"No," Amanda sighs. "They had some sort of magic fairy dust. I've no idea where they went. But...it turns out they're not just killers. They're also dabbling in sorcery...And from the looks of it, just for fun." She motions to two motionless shapes lying across form me in the little tower room we are now in, which is filled with musty astronomy tomes and old telescopes and boxes of newspapers, neatly folded. I move closer and see that the forms are two dogs. Well, one normal-looking dog, one that appears to be made of blackberries.
Next to them are a series of spiked cages with bones in them. Bones of various shapes and sizes, some that look so unusual I wonder what kind of animal, if any, could have possessed them all in the same body.
The villagers are a grey, shadowy people, easily impressionable, easily afraid. Events like these could cause the entire species to go extinct if not treated carefully.
"What shall we say to them?" I ask.
"Nothing," says Laila, covering the dogs with an empty corn sack. "Tell them it never happened."
On the way, our train gets pushed off a cliff by a giant dragon. I hold it in the sky as long as I can, while Laila chases after the creature. I tell mum to call Amanda and Becca and Mary, and see if they can come help me out, because super-strength is NOT my fortay. They come. We fix the train and discuss the merits of the new cell phone service, then are nearly crushed by the feet of the pursuing dragon as it returns our way, Laila leading it into the forest away from human settlements. The train continues down the underwater track leading to Europe.
When we arrive in Europe, there is a scandal afoot. Previous immigrants from America, a villanous cabal called "The Tamers," are going around innocent little country villages and drowning people. But...they appear to be doing it by convincing the victims to drown themselves. Some kind of Mind Control...emanating from the blonde dreadlocks of the beautiful leader. As she sings, and her hair reaches out toward me (whom everybody elected to use as bait in this situation), I can feel my brain start to grow foggy...
They wake me, hours later, and I wipe the bubbly drool from my face. "Yuck."
"Man, you were SO entranced," laughs Mary. "You had the dopiest-looking grin on your face."
"Did you catch them?" I cough, Standing and brushing a strange goo from my pants.
"No," Amanda sighs. "They had some sort of magic fairy dust. I've no idea where they went. But...it turns out they're not just killers. They're also dabbling in sorcery...And from the looks of it, just for fun." She motions to two motionless shapes lying across form me in the little tower room we are now in, which is filled with musty astronomy tomes and old telescopes and boxes of newspapers, neatly folded. I move closer and see that the forms are two dogs. Well, one normal-looking dog, one that appears to be made of blackberries.
Next to them are a series of spiked cages with bones in them. Bones of various shapes and sizes, some that look so unusual I wonder what kind of animal, if any, could have possessed them all in the same body.
The villagers are a grey, shadowy people, easily impressionable, easily afraid. Events like these could cause the entire species to go extinct if not treated carefully.
"What shall we say to them?" I ask.
"Nothing," says Laila, covering the dogs with an empty corn sack. "Tell them it never happened."
The Betrayal
In the basement, past the laundry room, we plot our secrets.
Or, could, if we ever got around to it. The convention this Friday of five or six supers doesn't mean much, since there are nine total and everyone in the group has to be present to accomplish anything. Right now, those present are goofing off. Becca and Laila are playing foosball, Amanda's eating popcorn and watching Doctor Who, Mary's practicing the dance choreography from Chicago...No one shows even a hint of paying attention when I ask them to look over the plans with me. I slink over to the corner and slump onto the floor in defeat. They do not realize the gravity of the situation, the dark brooding matter spinning under my skin. I want things to be taken seriously. I am just about ready to split, to abandon this worthless cabal-- a mere splinter of obligation remains between loyalty and villainry.
Danny, a newer member of the group, saunters over and decides it'll be fun to mess with me. He waves his beautiful Native American locks in my face like a feather duster on crack. "Hey, hey, Hannah- don't sneeze!" he chuckles maniacally as I jerk my head away. I pull my knees up to my chin and sit huddled in frustration.
"Leave me, alone, Digger. I'm not in the mood for stupid games. If you're going to address me, be mature, and use my codename. I'm The Weaver, not Hannah, to you."
He rears back in farce. "Geeze, some fangs you got there, snakey. But can you bite?" I can see he wants to joust or banter with words, or both, but my patience is just about drained, and I can feel something else inside me boiling up to take its place. If he'll just walk away, maybe nothing bad will happen...
He doesn't. He saunters up until he is so close my nose touches his chin. He smiles, and the corners of his mouth twitch annoyingly. He pokes at my gut with a finger, looks into my eyes, and says: "You need to lighten up a bit," and, so saying, stomps his left foot so that the ground raises up under me and throws me into the air. He laughs at his little trick. He is just barely learning how to control the earth and move through it, but is not above using his limited talents for practical jokes. I am so sick of it. I'm sick of all of them...
I use my momentum and leap over to the weapons cabinet, yank open the badly locked wooden door. It splinters. I grab out two katanas from the top rack, throw one to Danny. "Defend yourself, you jerk!" I yell. "You've messed with me too much this morning, and now you're going to pay!"
Danny grins, thinking I have finally relinquished to his sport, but I am not fooling. His face grows shocked as I slam into him with my first blow. The ricochet of the metal knocks us both back and echoes throughout the base, bringing silence at last. Laila and Becca stop playing foosball to stare at us.
"I'm sick and tired of having to babysit you guys and wait around on your whims to get anything done!" I shout, slashing the air where Danny's organs were half a second before. "I'm the youngest member of the team, and it shouldn't be me that has to plan everything and get you all off your sorry derriers!" Smash. The flatscreen TV we got from the Superhero's Sustainability and Starter Support Fund dies under the piercing judgment of my angry blade. "What are you even doing, sitting around and watching TV all night? You're not heroes, you're friggin' bums! And not the cool kind, the purposely-leeching-off-society kind! You're not even motivated to come out of the basement because you're always getting takeout delivered to the door! I'm so SICK of you all!"
Something splits inside me. The growing thing. I can feel it, peeling itself apart from my soul, curling in smoky trails through my heart and lungs, resting its claws confidently upon my brow. A cold, murderous haze descends over me like rotten cotton candy. The monster within me is awake. It wants to come out... And I am bloody relenting.
I raise my arms and open my mouth wide, and begin sucking the power from all the lights in the building. With a flash, Becca and Mary and Laila are around me, but I funnel my energy into a spinning explosion that knocks them across the room.
I dash up the stairs, leaving a trail of disarrayed telekinesis behind me, whipping dryers off their cords and plates out of cupboards.
I race out into the street, and am momentarily disoriented by dancing people, balloons, music. I'd forgotten it was carnival weekend. *snicker*... These Portlandian fools. Always willing to celebrate one thing or another while the world comes crashing down around their heads...And soon, it will be.
I duck behind an ice-cream vendor's stand. Taking a moment, I change my face and form so that my friends will not recognize me when they come out at last, if they even try to search for me. As if they care. I step out, and hear the rushing of the first of the evening's fireworks. An idea strikes. Flying over the display, I wait until the timing is perfect-- until the next rocket has just been launched-- and direct it to the little underground base of my so-called associates. I wait, legs crossed and hovering calmly. BOOM.
I fly over the devastation, but see that they are already outside and unharmed. They spot me, and start running towards me. Silly little supernobodies...Waving their limbs frantically as if to ward off the Second Coming. They do not know what I have become, they are useless things. I will shape the world now, to my liking. They have already lost.
I land on the pavement with a sonic crash, and take a moment to look them all in the eye. "Goodbye, friends. you will not be seeing me again."
Then, I slow down time.
They rush forward pathetically, their little muscles nothing against the ravages of time. I rocket away into the atmosphere, and by the time my spell has worn off, I am sitting cross-legged on the wing of a passenger jet headed towards my new destination, reading A Tale of Two Cities for the third time. The relative concepts that guide my balance here ebb gently away from the aura burning inside my new soul.
How long it has waited to awaken.
Or, could, if we ever got around to it. The convention this Friday of five or six supers doesn't mean much, since there are nine total and everyone in the group has to be present to accomplish anything. Right now, those present are goofing off. Becca and Laila are playing foosball, Amanda's eating popcorn and watching Doctor Who, Mary's practicing the dance choreography from Chicago...No one shows even a hint of paying attention when I ask them to look over the plans with me. I slink over to the corner and slump onto the floor in defeat. They do not realize the gravity of the situation, the dark brooding matter spinning under my skin. I want things to be taken seriously. I am just about ready to split, to abandon this worthless cabal-- a mere splinter of obligation remains between loyalty and villainry.
Danny, a newer member of the group, saunters over and decides it'll be fun to mess with me. He waves his beautiful Native American locks in my face like a feather duster on crack. "Hey, hey, Hannah- don't sneeze!" he chuckles maniacally as I jerk my head away. I pull my knees up to my chin and sit huddled in frustration.
"Leave me, alone, Digger. I'm not in the mood for stupid games. If you're going to address me, be mature, and use my codename. I'm The Weaver, not Hannah, to you."
He rears back in farce. "Geeze, some fangs you got there, snakey. But can you bite?" I can see he wants to joust or banter with words, or both, but my patience is just about drained, and I can feel something else inside me boiling up to take its place. If he'll just walk away, maybe nothing bad will happen...
He doesn't. He saunters up until he is so close my nose touches his chin. He smiles, and the corners of his mouth twitch annoyingly. He pokes at my gut with a finger, looks into my eyes, and says: "You need to lighten up a bit," and, so saying, stomps his left foot so that the ground raises up under me and throws me into the air. He laughs at his little trick. He is just barely learning how to control the earth and move through it, but is not above using his limited talents for practical jokes. I am so sick of it. I'm sick of all of them...
I use my momentum and leap over to the weapons cabinet, yank open the badly locked wooden door. It splinters. I grab out two katanas from the top rack, throw one to Danny. "Defend yourself, you jerk!" I yell. "You've messed with me too much this morning, and now you're going to pay!"
Danny grins, thinking I have finally relinquished to his sport, but I am not fooling. His face grows shocked as I slam into him with my first blow. The ricochet of the metal knocks us both back and echoes throughout the base, bringing silence at last. Laila and Becca stop playing foosball to stare at us.
"I'm sick and tired of having to babysit you guys and wait around on your whims to get anything done!" I shout, slashing the air where Danny's organs were half a second before. "I'm the youngest member of the team, and it shouldn't be me that has to plan everything and get you all off your sorry derriers!" Smash. The flatscreen TV we got from the Superhero's Sustainability and Starter Support Fund dies under the piercing judgment of my angry blade. "What are you even doing, sitting around and watching TV all night? You're not heroes, you're friggin' bums! And not the cool kind, the purposely-leeching-off-society kind! You're not even motivated to come out of the basement because you're always getting takeout delivered to the door! I'm so SICK of you all!"
Something splits inside me. The growing thing. I can feel it, peeling itself apart from my soul, curling in smoky trails through my heart and lungs, resting its claws confidently upon my brow. A cold, murderous haze descends over me like rotten cotton candy. The monster within me is awake. It wants to come out... And I am bloody relenting.
I raise my arms and open my mouth wide, and begin sucking the power from all the lights in the building. With a flash, Becca and Mary and Laila are around me, but I funnel my energy into a spinning explosion that knocks them across the room.
I dash up the stairs, leaving a trail of disarrayed telekinesis behind me, whipping dryers off their cords and plates out of cupboards.
I race out into the street, and am momentarily disoriented by dancing people, balloons, music. I'd forgotten it was carnival weekend. *snicker*... These Portlandian fools. Always willing to celebrate one thing or another while the world comes crashing down around their heads...And soon, it will be.
I duck behind an ice-cream vendor's stand. Taking a moment, I change my face and form so that my friends will not recognize me when they come out at last, if they even try to search for me. As if they care. I step out, and hear the rushing of the first of the evening's fireworks. An idea strikes. Flying over the display, I wait until the timing is perfect-- until the next rocket has just been launched-- and direct it to the little underground base of my so-called associates. I wait, legs crossed and hovering calmly. BOOM.
I fly over the devastation, but see that they are already outside and unharmed. They spot me, and start running towards me. Silly little supernobodies...Waving their limbs frantically as if to ward off the Second Coming. They do not know what I have become, they are useless things. I will shape the world now, to my liking. They have already lost.
I land on the pavement with a sonic crash, and take a moment to look them all in the eye. "Goodbye, friends. you will not be seeing me again."
Then, I slow down time.
They rush forward pathetically, their little muscles nothing against the ravages of time. I rocket away into the atmosphere, and by the time my spell has worn off, I am sitting cross-legged on the wing of a passenger jet headed towards my new destination, reading A Tale of Two Cities for the third time. The relative concepts that guide my balance here ebb gently away from the aura burning inside my new soul.
How long it has waited to awaken.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Breaking into Biostorage
They keep them frozen.
All 88,000 of them, in slide-out drawers in a giant warehouse. Storage, while they're not being used for any of the various mental experiments funded by the Nightmare Company.
Thankfully, I know how to save them-- I think.
It's an experimental new technology designed by Willa, which will hopefully actually work, but we'll see. I shove the first of the patients into the "briefcase," and it immediately assimilates a proper room environment for them, with a bed and lamp and chair. I shove in the second, and the program adds a duplicate room, plus hallway connection. I twist the dial up a tiny way, and thirty people are sucked in at once, and the parameters of the tiny world expand to include a bathroom and snack bar.
It's working!
I haven't time to waste, though. The assistant who thinks I'm in the bathroom, and was taking me on a tour of the facility, will realize any minute now that he's been fooled. I crank the dial up to half power, and it starts sucking and assimilating minds by the hundreds. Laila jumps down from the ceiling. "Hurry up! We don't have much time left!"
"Hey," I say suspiciously, "Aren't you supposed to be monitoring the surveillance people to make sure they haven't caught on to us?"
"I was," she sighs in frustration. "They did."
"Oh, well, crap!" I reply. I crank the dial to maximum. Angry voices succeed some large banging sounds on the nearest door, which we barricaded on the inside. "Almost there..." I slow the dial down gently, and turn off immediately after the last person enters the virtual briefcase world. "Come on!" I yell. "Let's get these people outta here!" We burst out the skylight and into the night air, as the lab minions burst through in time to spot us from below. "Ready searchlights!"One yells into a radio. "They've stolen the specimens!" We race toward the dream-time continuity breach in the sky, to release the minds of these tortured souls out of the nightmare realm altogether and into the dreamless, deep sleep of what I like to call dream Limbo.
Before I can lob the briefcase in, however, a tidal wave of colossal windy power sucks me into the breach as well. The sky closes, and all grows dark.
I walk out onto Amanda's back porch. Her mother waves as she simultaneously stacks wood for the winter, bakes apple pie, and dances to jazz. I dive off the balcony into a sea of memories, floating among MyScene dolls and dress-up clothes and Beatles records...the tang of sweaty feet in the air. I can feel childhood closing in around me. I close my eyes and open them again to find myself sitting at a tea table with Laila and Amanda, who are leafing through pages of emotion and treasure and memory and laughing, as the tides of life, rather than allowing us to be present and enjoy the moment, sweep us ever onward to the Future. A TV screen rises form the depths and engulfs the world around us. Its electrical impulses in the space between thought and action register as comets in a starry sky. We talk of philosophy, physics, the relevancy of claims...Around our little tea table, floating in celestial space, we count the ways one can be a hero, the opportunity cost of the road less traveled, the merit of looking forward by hoping to perpetuate those things we enjoy now.
The sun sets, but we are so far above it in space that we do not notice the darkness, only the constant relationship of our little planets doggedly circling their source of light, and never straying too far from orbit, out of love. It must be love.Why else would they keep such creatures as us alive on their backs?
I leave at last, happy to have spent some life outside the confines of time in a quality way, with good friends.
You see, even in dreams, we are limited by time.
Unless we can find a way to separate ourselves.
All 88,000 of them, in slide-out drawers in a giant warehouse. Storage, while they're not being used for any of the various mental experiments funded by the Nightmare Company.
Thankfully, I know how to save them-- I think.
It's an experimental new technology designed by Willa, which will hopefully actually work, but we'll see. I shove the first of the patients into the "briefcase," and it immediately assimilates a proper room environment for them, with a bed and lamp and chair. I shove in the second, and the program adds a duplicate room, plus hallway connection. I twist the dial up a tiny way, and thirty people are sucked in at once, and the parameters of the tiny world expand to include a bathroom and snack bar.
It's working!
I haven't time to waste, though. The assistant who thinks I'm in the bathroom, and was taking me on a tour of the facility, will realize any minute now that he's been fooled. I crank the dial up to half power, and it starts sucking and assimilating minds by the hundreds. Laila jumps down from the ceiling. "Hurry up! We don't have much time left!"
"Hey," I say suspiciously, "Aren't you supposed to be monitoring the surveillance people to make sure they haven't caught on to us?"
"I was," she sighs in frustration. "They did."
"Oh, well, crap!" I reply. I crank the dial to maximum. Angry voices succeed some large banging sounds on the nearest door, which we barricaded on the inside. "Almost there..." I slow the dial down gently, and turn off immediately after the last person enters the virtual briefcase world. "Come on!" I yell. "Let's get these people outta here!" We burst out the skylight and into the night air, as the lab minions burst through in time to spot us from below. "Ready searchlights!"One yells into a radio. "They've stolen the specimens!" We race toward the dream-time continuity breach in the sky, to release the minds of these tortured souls out of the nightmare realm altogether and into the dreamless, deep sleep of what I like to call dream Limbo.
Before I can lob the briefcase in, however, a tidal wave of colossal windy power sucks me into the breach as well. The sky closes, and all grows dark.
I walk out onto Amanda's back porch. Her mother waves as she simultaneously stacks wood for the winter, bakes apple pie, and dances to jazz. I dive off the balcony into a sea of memories, floating among MyScene dolls and dress-up clothes and Beatles records...the tang of sweaty feet in the air. I can feel childhood closing in around me. I close my eyes and open them again to find myself sitting at a tea table with Laila and Amanda, who are leafing through pages of emotion and treasure and memory and laughing, as the tides of life, rather than allowing us to be present and enjoy the moment, sweep us ever onward to the Future. A TV screen rises form the depths and engulfs the world around us. Its electrical impulses in the space between thought and action register as comets in a starry sky. We talk of philosophy, physics, the relevancy of claims...Around our little tea table, floating in celestial space, we count the ways one can be a hero, the opportunity cost of the road less traveled, the merit of looking forward by hoping to perpetuate those things we enjoy now.
The sun sets, but we are so far above it in space that we do not notice the darkness, only the constant relationship of our little planets doggedly circling their source of light, and never straying too far from orbit, out of love. It must be love.Why else would they keep such creatures as us alive on their backs?
I leave at last, happy to have spent some life outside the confines of time in a quality way, with good friends.
You see, even in dreams, we are limited by time.
Unless we can find a way to separate ourselves.
The Extinction of the Magic Crystals...
Mom and I decide to go hiking up on Mt. Hood, as it is a hot summer day and the rocks look very inviting.
Up on the viewpoint, I find two beautiful crystals wedged into the path, and eagerly bend down, trying to pull them out. An old man walking by warns me: "If'ens ya want phenomenuh like time travel and magic tuh last, ya better leave 'em there. Pull out the foundation, and all else'll crumble away, sure 'nuff." Sighing, I leave them there, but mention to mom how hard it is to find nice rocks these days that come with no spatio-temporal strings attatched.
I turn to leave when I notice mum is no longer beside me. Instead, she is scrambling up the side of the embankment to the right of the path. "Mum, what are you doing?" I cry, fearing for her already unsteady ankle. "Get down from there!"
"I just want to look for agates," she replies cheerfully, paying me no heed. She stumbles a bit.
"It's okay mom, we don't need any more rocks, just come down," I urge, as a man in an orange-striped coat walks up next to me. I'm starting to feel embarrassed of the spectacle, but mom, in that life-or-death stubbornness inherent in our family tree, struggles onward even more fiercely.
"No. I'm doing this for you! You can make art projects with them!" I have a momentary flash of Belle's father picking the flower from the beast's garden. There are going to be repercussions from this, I am sure. The man next to me decides at that moment to take from his bag a small clipboard. He asks me questions about mom, her age and how many dependents she has and stuff that sounds very FAFSA-esque, and finally tears off a small piece of paper and hands it to me.
"What is it?" I ask.
"A ticket. It's illegal to climb up the embankment. It's said to be possessed of evil spirits."
"Great," I sigh, shlumping against the post that tells of the site's historical and legendary past. "Okay, mom, you really need to come down now," I call.
"I'm trying!" she returns frantically, throwing down her fistfuls of little rocks in order to yank at her legs. She glances mournfully down at me. "My feet are stuck." I snort.
"Yeah, right, like that's not just a ploy to stay up there longer and collect more rocks. Come on."
"No, really, I mean it, my feet are stuck! I think something's got ahold of them..."
That makes me sick to my stomach. There could be anything lurking in the rock fields...I fly up to her, disregarding the stares from other visitors, and pluck my mother from the rocks as fast as I can without risking damage of her sensitive ankle. I vaporize the man's clipboard on the way over, for good measure. Don't want mum worrying about fines when she could be cursed or have a parasite infiltrating her system or goodness knows what. We fly home and I fix some tea.
Together we watch Perry Mason with granny, happy and blissfully ignorant of the fact that mum transmitted a bacteria on her shoes that is even now destroying the last of the magic crystals...
Up on the viewpoint, I find two beautiful crystals wedged into the path, and eagerly bend down, trying to pull them out. An old man walking by warns me: "If'ens ya want phenomenuh like time travel and magic tuh last, ya better leave 'em there. Pull out the foundation, and all else'll crumble away, sure 'nuff." Sighing, I leave them there, but mention to mom how hard it is to find nice rocks these days that come with no spatio-temporal strings attatched.
I turn to leave when I notice mum is no longer beside me. Instead, she is scrambling up the side of the embankment to the right of the path. "Mum, what are you doing?" I cry, fearing for her already unsteady ankle. "Get down from there!"
"I just want to look for agates," she replies cheerfully, paying me no heed. She stumbles a bit.
"It's okay mom, we don't need any more rocks, just come down," I urge, as a man in an orange-striped coat walks up next to me. I'm starting to feel embarrassed of the spectacle, but mom, in that life-or-death stubbornness inherent in our family tree, struggles onward even more fiercely.
"No. I'm doing this for you! You can make art projects with them!" I have a momentary flash of Belle's father picking the flower from the beast's garden. There are going to be repercussions from this, I am sure. The man next to me decides at that moment to take from his bag a small clipboard. He asks me questions about mom, her age and how many dependents she has and stuff that sounds very FAFSA-esque, and finally tears off a small piece of paper and hands it to me.
"What is it?" I ask.
"A ticket. It's illegal to climb up the embankment. It's said to be possessed of evil spirits."
"Great," I sigh, shlumping against the post that tells of the site's historical and legendary past. "Okay, mom, you really need to come down now," I call.
"I'm trying!" she returns frantically, throwing down her fistfuls of little rocks in order to yank at her legs. She glances mournfully down at me. "My feet are stuck." I snort.
"Yeah, right, like that's not just a ploy to stay up there longer and collect more rocks. Come on."
"No, really, I mean it, my feet are stuck! I think something's got ahold of them..."
That makes me sick to my stomach. There could be anything lurking in the rock fields...I fly up to her, disregarding the stares from other visitors, and pluck my mother from the rocks as fast as I can without risking damage of her sensitive ankle. I vaporize the man's clipboard on the way over, for good measure. Don't want mum worrying about fines when she could be cursed or have a parasite infiltrating her system or goodness knows what. We fly home and I fix some tea.
Together we watch Perry Mason with granny, happy and blissfully ignorant of the fact that mum transmitted a bacteria on her shoes that is even now destroying the last of the magic crystals...
TIRED...
Dreamed that I couldn't get a wink of sleep all night, and drooled all over the pillow. When I went to the bathroom to wash my face, I could hardly see. My eyes hung in droopy folds of pus and eroding tissue, swirling and with the scent of sour milk. I poked one, and it felt like a soggy sponge. I leaped back in bed, resolving to sleep better.
When I woke for real, the first thing I did was run to the bathroom. My eyes looked perfectly normal, if a bit peaky around the edges...
When I woke for real, the first thing I did was run to the bathroom. My eyes looked perfectly normal, if a bit peaky around the edges...
Whose House Is This?
I wake up underneath someone's bed with a sore arm and what appears to be, when I poke it, a loosened rib. How'd I get here, exactly?
I wander around the empty suburban house, confused and slightly hungry. Dang, I must've forgotten to eat dinner again last night. I head downstairs and poke around until I find the kitchen, and immediately start raiding the pantry. I'm sure the inhabitants won't mind if I borrow a little food, I'm feeling so very faint...
Just as I am bringing some tomato soup to a boil, two cars pull up. A group of hungover college students piles out haphazardly and three of the guys head for the door of this house, while the others wander away to their own respective dwellings. Oh, no...drunk college students? They tend to be more protective of their food. Maybe I'd better eat my soup on the way out the back door. I don't want to hazard any confrontations in this state...I rummage for a jar and pour in the soup, and jam a handful of crackers into my pants pockets. I am tiptoeing out of the kitchen and heading for the back door, when I bump into a guy that was apparently in here all along, just watching me cook. He grins, holding tight to the scruff of my shirt. "Where you going, pixie?" he asks. "You haven't finished what we were doing last night..." and belts me a good one right in the gut.
I fall backward onto the stairs, and my soup jar smashes on the tiled floor. Darn. I was so hungry...
It's the soup tragedy that makes me angry. So angry, that I decide this is one of the worst villains I've ever faced, especially someone that would take advantage of me while sleeping in a perfectly innocent Dream! My skin burns red hot, and I don't feel the rib anymore. Whether it knits itself together, or not, I don't care. I am going to make this jerk pay. I leap into the air, crackling with angry electricity.
"Don't. Call. Me. Pixie." I growl, sending bolts of lightning through the house, shorting out all the power grids simultaneously. "You are going to wish you had NEVER SPILLED MY SOUP!" I yell, zapping cabinets and flying about in hysteria. The other guys wander in, looking slightly confused.
"YOU ARE ALL GOING TO PAY!" Fumes are coming out of my nostrils now. I summon all the energy I can muster and funnel it into the ground right below their feet. They tumble to the basement below. I smooth down my frazzled hair, block the door to the cellar with a chair, and continue cooking in the kitchen.
I drink my new-made batch of soup, sitting on the couch in the front room. It is a nice house. Rather peaceful this way. I turn to look out the window, and several heads vanish from the corner. It seems the ruckus I caused might have disturbed the neighbors...
I leave the house but, as a last sign of spite, take all the tomato soup cans in the house, double wrap them in plastic bags, and fly away to re-stock the laughable larder of my moon base.
Not exactly the best, moral way to deal with the situation?
I know.
But I was hungry.
I wander around the empty suburban house, confused and slightly hungry. Dang, I must've forgotten to eat dinner again last night. I head downstairs and poke around until I find the kitchen, and immediately start raiding the pantry. I'm sure the inhabitants won't mind if I borrow a little food, I'm feeling so very faint...
Just as I am bringing some tomato soup to a boil, two cars pull up. A group of hungover college students piles out haphazardly and three of the guys head for the door of this house, while the others wander away to their own respective dwellings. Oh, no...drunk college students? They tend to be more protective of their food. Maybe I'd better eat my soup on the way out the back door. I don't want to hazard any confrontations in this state...I rummage for a jar and pour in the soup, and jam a handful of crackers into my pants pockets. I am tiptoeing out of the kitchen and heading for the back door, when I bump into a guy that was apparently in here all along, just watching me cook. He grins, holding tight to the scruff of my shirt. "Where you going, pixie?" he asks. "You haven't finished what we were doing last night..." and belts me a good one right in the gut.
I fall backward onto the stairs, and my soup jar smashes on the tiled floor. Darn. I was so hungry...
It's the soup tragedy that makes me angry. So angry, that I decide this is one of the worst villains I've ever faced, especially someone that would take advantage of me while sleeping in a perfectly innocent Dream! My skin burns red hot, and I don't feel the rib anymore. Whether it knits itself together, or not, I don't care. I am going to make this jerk pay. I leap into the air, crackling with angry electricity.
"Don't. Call. Me. Pixie." I growl, sending bolts of lightning through the house, shorting out all the power grids simultaneously. "You are going to wish you had NEVER SPILLED MY SOUP!" I yell, zapping cabinets and flying about in hysteria. The other guys wander in, looking slightly confused.
"YOU ARE ALL GOING TO PAY!" Fumes are coming out of my nostrils now. I summon all the energy I can muster and funnel it into the ground right below their feet. They tumble to the basement below. I smooth down my frazzled hair, block the door to the cellar with a chair, and continue cooking in the kitchen.
I drink my new-made batch of soup, sitting on the couch in the front room. It is a nice house. Rather peaceful this way. I turn to look out the window, and several heads vanish from the corner. It seems the ruckus I caused might have disturbed the neighbors...
I leave the house but, as a last sign of spite, take all the tomato soup cans in the house, double wrap them in plastic bags, and fly away to re-stock the laughable larder of my moon base.
Not exactly the best, moral way to deal with the situation?
I know.
But I was hungry.
Chivalry is dead.
I am a prince. A ragged, wandering prince, hunted by my own father because I would not kill my younger brother and prove myself worthy of the throne. I believe in chivalry. I am also, unfortunately, quite naive.
I happen upon a meadow far within the tangled reaches of the Delirious Forest. In the meadow stands a beautiful white pillar. On the pillar sits a lady who, with her four pearly arms, is simultaneously painting, embroidering, reading, and braiding buttercups into her long, ebony tresses. I call out to her. She turns her face, revealing only a dark blue mask gilded with swan feathers. "If you with words wish to beguile, begone from hence, else, stay awhile,"she sings in the musical voice of a thousand nightengales. I am hopelessly enchanted with her already, though I know nothing of her. The thought shames me a little, and I blush. I cannot court a lady of whom I know nothing, whilst she also knows naught of my standing and family! And the guards...they draw ever closer, following the hounds' keen scent...if I lead them to her, who knows what they shall do? I couldn't hold them off forever...better to keep running. To lead them away.
"I'm sorry, milady. I bid you no harm intentionally, but am running in haste from cruel pursuers who would have me dead, and, if they caught sight of you, would not hesitate to harm you. So, much as I would like to stay and probe the air of mystery about you, my Pillared Lady, I must be off. I can but retrace my steps to another end, unless a miracle appears."
The lady puts down her needlework. She marks the place in her book. She sets the last buttercup in her braid, and, paintbrush in hand, descends the secret steps inside the pillar to emerge upon the meadow. "If perilous foes you wish to best, and death strikes quickly on your heels, then take this paint upon your chest, and though they slash, your wounds shall heal." She lifts my chain mail, loosens my jerkin, pulls my doublet from its proper place, and gently, with the tip of her brush, paints a small blue symbol on my chest, right over my heart. She replaces my clothing once the mark is dry, and whispers a string of foreign phrases that sound suspiciously like magic. My father would certainly have her burned...I, on the other hand, cannot get enough of being so near her. Her scent is pine and cedar; her hair, the color of night with the sheen of the moon down the long, glossy braid; her eyes, two perfect ovals of rich, brown earth...her dress moves with the shape and sound of whispering leaves upon the ground. She seems one with the forest and its wild enchantments. And yet...so young.Why is she here, all alone? With no one to protect her?
But then, perhaps she is not the one who needs protecting...
I thank her for the gift, and venture back down the trail to meet my fate. But instead of seeing my father and his soldiers racing on horseback down the winding forest path, I see a tall man in black, carrying a satchel full of herbs, heading toward the pillar. He hardly gives me a glance, brushing past with his herbs as if they are sacred. He offers them to the lady, and begins to sing to her poetry more beautiful than I could compose if I had a thousand dictionaries. As he sings, he begins a series of strange undulating hand motions which slowly bring the maiden nearer. He leans in, and his hands become claws.
"Stop, you ruffian!" I shout, breaking out from the brush. "Unhand her at once!" In response, the man in black merely takes off his glove and throws it down before me, in the rite of gauntlets.
"Very well, I accept your challenge!" I huff, drawing my trusty sword from its scabbard. "I shall defend the lady against you, and my father's guards, and anyone else who wishes to harm her! Have at you!"
I only wish I had known beforehand that he was a powerful Mage, and would fight with magic, not swords. I was no match for his power...
The monster at once begins to reveal his true shape, rising before me as a giant, if a very handsome and clever one. A stab of his fist rends the air, and his feet stomp massive cracks into the peaceful meadow. He digs his bare toes into the ground like roots as I burrow through the cracks cartoon-style to avoid his snapping pincers...and at last he laughs, his head that of a mockingbird. "I can feel your every vibration under my feet, boy," he cackles. "You cannot hide in the dirt forever. I will find you and shred you to bits with my claws! It will be terribly enjoyable to hear you scream. Then the witch and I will marry, before I sacrifice her on the sacred altar, to suck her powers dry and add them to my already considerable endowment."
So saying, he deftly burrows one growing arm under the shifting earth and plucks out my eye. He laughs, oh so loud, as he brings it to his lips and bites, and I feel the pain as if it is still connected. I lash out, grabbing his ankle and slashing desperately with my sword, but quick as a python, he wraps himself around me, pinning my arms to my sides, and with a grin, produces a giant pair of wire cutters. He proceeds, slowly, to cut off every one of my fingers. I scream, scream as he releases me and I drop to the ground and my legs fold under me, scream almost without realizing I haven't stopped once to breath in again, my mind burning with pain and the knowledge that I am lost. My life has been nothing but a short, painful battle against the inevitable downslide. I thought this was supposed to be a happy dream... But I shall make one last push for chivalry and good, before the ground takes my body into itself eternally. I stand, resolute though shaking, and, grasping the sword with my forearms as best I can, plunge it through the confident back of the already celebrating villain. As he whips around in response, cutting into my chest with the blade of his arm, I cry to the girl I do not really know:
"I love you!"
.......
I wake to the sound of her singing. There is sunlight. It smells sweet like oranges and flowers, and singing. I am not sure which sense is causing the others, or if they are all separate, but the medley soothes my aching mind and I slip once more into rest. When I next awaken, it is night. I try to move my shoulder, my arm...I try to wiggle my fingers. I feel nothing, and can see nothing, but the pleasant smell remains. Perhaps I am truly dead after all, and this is what happens after life in this realm. I have no way of knowing, but I hope the girl is all right...On what I venture to be the third day of my invaliditude, I muster the strength to explore my habitat. I find myself, my other self, hung before a fireplace to dry, complete with supersuit and glasses and all. She is snoring quite loudly, so I sneak past and continue exploring this strange abode, looking for the Pillared Lady, wondering where I truly am...I can hear the singing once more. I pass another version of myself, lazing in front of the television watching Doctor Who. There is another in the kitchen trying to cook scrambled eggs with escargo in them, mumbling about some recipe Amanda sent her. I vaguely know that I am connected to them all, as in every room I pass another personality trait, or whatever they are, but I do not care to investigate. I want only to follow the singing, find the lady, make sure she is safe.
At last, I see her. Sitting outside on the grass, under a large weeping willow tree. She is sewing.
I tentatively take off my shoes and make my way to her, sink down beside her. "Thank you for saving me," I say meekly, fingering the bandage around me chest. I don't know what I would have done, had I been left to my own devices. That must be some strong magic you have." I look down at my hands. The fingers are indeed re-attatched, but still I feel nothing.
The lady turns to me, and lifts up her mask-- and I see myself. "When on the other side, you play the game, you find you would have done exactly the same," she sings, stroking my face. Then, in an unprecedented normal voice: "You wouldn't have fared so well if you let your pride get ahead of you. The first time you attempted this, you got your head cut off and I was unable to save you." I am drawn aghast by her unprecedented statement.
"You mean to say...that I fought that fight before? That I've been here before?"
The Pillared Lady shrugs her shoulders, swinging up into the lower branches of the tree.
I happen upon a meadow far within the tangled reaches of the Delirious Forest. In the meadow stands a beautiful white pillar. On the pillar sits a lady who, with her four pearly arms, is simultaneously painting, embroidering, reading, and braiding buttercups into her long, ebony tresses. I call out to her. She turns her face, revealing only a dark blue mask gilded with swan feathers. "If you with words wish to beguile, begone from hence, else, stay awhile,"she sings in the musical voice of a thousand nightengales. I am hopelessly enchanted with her already, though I know nothing of her. The thought shames me a little, and I blush. I cannot court a lady of whom I know nothing, whilst she also knows naught of my standing and family! And the guards...they draw ever closer, following the hounds' keen scent...if I lead them to her, who knows what they shall do? I couldn't hold them off forever...better to keep running. To lead them away.
"I'm sorry, milady. I bid you no harm intentionally, but am running in haste from cruel pursuers who would have me dead, and, if they caught sight of you, would not hesitate to harm you. So, much as I would like to stay and probe the air of mystery about you, my Pillared Lady, I must be off. I can but retrace my steps to another end, unless a miracle appears."
The lady puts down her needlework. She marks the place in her book. She sets the last buttercup in her braid, and, paintbrush in hand, descends the secret steps inside the pillar to emerge upon the meadow. "If perilous foes you wish to best, and death strikes quickly on your heels, then take this paint upon your chest, and though they slash, your wounds shall heal." She lifts my chain mail, loosens my jerkin, pulls my doublet from its proper place, and gently, with the tip of her brush, paints a small blue symbol on my chest, right over my heart. She replaces my clothing once the mark is dry, and whispers a string of foreign phrases that sound suspiciously like magic. My father would certainly have her burned...I, on the other hand, cannot get enough of being so near her. Her scent is pine and cedar; her hair, the color of night with the sheen of the moon down the long, glossy braid; her eyes, two perfect ovals of rich, brown earth...her dress moves with the shape and sound of whispering leaves upon the ground. She seems one with the forest and its wild enchantments. And yet...so young.Why is she here, all alone? With no one to protect her?
But then, perhaps she is not the one who needs protecting...
I thank her for the gift, and venture back down the trail to meet my fate. But instead of seeing my father and his soldiers racing on horseback down the winding forest path, I see a tall man in black, carrying a satchel full of herbs, heading toward the pillar. He hardly gives me a glance, brushing past with his herbs as if they are sacred. He offers them to the lady, and begins to sing to her poetry more beautiful than I could compose if I had a thousand dictionaries. As he sings, he begins a series of strange undulating hand motions which slowly bring the maiden nearer. He leans in, and his hands become claws.
"Stop, you ruffian!" I shout, breaking out from the brush. "Unhand her at once!" In response, the man in black merely takes off his glove and throws it down before me, in the rite of gauntlets.
"Very well, I accept your challenge!" I huff, drawing my trusty sword from its scabbard. "I shall defend the lady against you, and my father's guards, and anyone else who wishes to harm her! Have at you!"
I only wish I had known beforehand that he was a powerful Mage, and would fight with magic, not swords. I was no match for his power...
The monster at once begins to reveal his true shape, rising before me as a giant, if a very handsome and clever one. A stab of his fist rends the air, and his feet stomp massive cracks into the peaceful meadow. He digs his bare toes into the ground like roots as I burrow through the cracks cartoon-style to avoid his snapping pincers...and at last he laughs, his head that of a mockingbird. "I can feel your every vibration under my feet, boy," he cackles. "You cannot hide in the dirt forever. I will find you and shred you to bits with my claws! It will be terribly enjoyable to hear you scream. Then the witch and I will marry, before I sacrifice her on the sacred altar, to suck her powers dry and add them to my already considerable endowment."
So saying, he deftly burrows one growing arm under the shifting earth and plucks out my eye. He laughs, oh so loud, as he brings it to his lips and bites, and I feel the pain as if it is still connected. I lash out, grabbing his ankle and slashing desperately with my sword, but quick as a python, he wraps himself around me, pinning my arms to my sides, and with a grin, produces a giant pair of wire cutters. He proceeds, slowly, to cut off every one of my fingers. I scream, scream as he releases me and I drop to the ground and my legs fold under me, scream almost without realizing I haven't stopped once to breath in again, my mind burning with pain and the knowledge that I am lost. My life has been nothing but a short, painful battle against the inevitable downslide. I thought this was supposed to be a happy dream... But I shall make one last push for chivalry and good, before the ground takes my body into itself eternally. I stand, resolute though shaking, and, grasping the sword with my forearms as best I can, plunge it through the confident back of the already celebrating villain. As he whips around in response, cutting into my chest with the blade of his arm, I cry to the girl I do not really know:
"I love you!"
.......
I wake to the sound of her singing. There is sunlight. It smells sweet like oranges and flowers, and singing. I am not sure which sense is causing the others, or if they are all separate, but the medley soothes my aching mind and I slip once more into rest. When I next awaken, it is night. I try to move my shoulder, my arm...I try to wiggle my fingers. I feel nothing, and can see nothing, but the pleasant smell remains. Perhaps I am truly dead after all, and this is what happens after life in this realm. I have no way of knowing, but I hope the girl is all right...On what I venture to be the third day of my invaliditude, I muster the strength to explore my habitat. I find myself, my other self, hung before a fireplace to dry, complete with supersuit and glasses and all. She is snoring quite loudly, so I sneak past and continue exploring this strange abode, looking for the Pillared Lady, wondering where I truly am...I can hear the singing once more. I pass another version of myself, lazing in front of the television watching Doctor Who. There is another in the kitchen trying to cook scrambled eggs with escargo in them, mumbling about some recipe Amanda sent her. I vaguely know that I am connected to them all, as in every room I pass another personality trait, or whatever they are, but I do not care to investigate. I want only to follow the singing, find the lady, make sure she is safe.
At last, I see her. Sitting outside on the grass, under a large weeping willow tree. She is sewing.
I tentatively take off my shoes and make my way to her, sink down beside her. "Thank you for saving me," I say meekly, fingering the bandage around me chest. I don't know what I would have done, had I been left to my own devices. That must be some strong magic you have." I look down at my hands. The fingers are indeed re-attatched, but still I feel nothing.
The lady turns to me, and lifts up her mask-- and I see myself. "When on the other side, you play the game, you find you would have done exactly the same," she sings, stroking my face. Then, in an unprecedented normal voice: "You wouldn't have fared so well if you let your pride get ahead of you. The first time you attempted this, you got your head cut off and I was unable to save you." I am drawn aghast by her unprecedented statement.
"You mean to say...that I fought that fight before? That I've been here before?"
The Pillared Lady shrugs her shoulders, swinging up into the lower branches of the tree.
Today.
After the war, my right foot was Surgerized and replaced with Laila's, and her heart, lungs, and spinal cord were all replaced with invincible robotic inventions of doom that Willa made in one of her mad scientist frenzies...she looks very Dresden Codak now. I try to urge her to dress up that way for the Boston Comic Con, but in her maturity, she says we don't have time to go to it anyway, let alone create new costumes solely for the purpose...
Fog rolls in around the supermarket, and some vampyre-zombies spill out. They are bloodthirsty and indestructible. A good morning warmup before we go on our rounds to keep earth safe from real problems. Becca is trying out her new disappearing trick: "I learned it from the weeping angels!" And vanishes through the hide of a zombie by touching his sleeve. Amanda travels down to the training center (AKA old abandoned supermarket) on a Megaski, which is a ski-snowboard hybrid that actually works pretty well on the icy ground. Mary and Amanda start chatting about new boarding tricks and how many people have died at Ski Bowl recently. Laila huffs, "Guys, let's try to keep on track here! We have a tight schedule today!" Becca, bouncing over excitedly, offers to show me her new trick-- and all at once I am zapped into a small antique store.
The sign says OPEN on this side, so they must be closed. I move to open the door and leave, but it is locked. A voice behind me says, "Can I help you?" I mumble something about the door being locked, and the woman says, "Once we lock the front door for the night, there's no leaving that way. There's a back door that leads out past the shed. Bo can show you out." She gestures to a black curtain, and I walk through the storage area to find good sir Bo smashing little glass figurines with an axe. There are piles of mutilated dolls everywhere...barbies and raggedy anns and action figures and little ballerinas, all smashed and melting in piles around the raging bulldog of a man. Behind him, people wander down eternally stretching aisles with empty carts in a sort of trance. A sales clerk notices me, and intercepts my path, vacant smile and hollow eyes turned on me with a menacing force that screams I should get out of here.
"Are you lost, child?" She stretches her arms out towards me, and I leap backward to avoid their touch. I can almost hear a hissing sound coming from her skin...The shoppers start breaking out of the trance in multitudes, reaching their arms toward me. I fly up to the ceiling and focus on the lone window on the opposite wall, gathering my strength. In one great leap, I clear the heads of the shopping zombies and prepare to smash through the glass, fists curled, thumbs protected-- but the glass does not break.
The window is a fake. It rebounds like rubber and throws me to the ground, and the long arms of the shoppers envelop me. The clerk woman smiles as they lift me up. "A vandal in our store simply will not do. We must bring her to the manager..."
They throw me in my old middle school classroom. The teacher is lecturing on black holes. A kid makes a joke and he kicks him out the window, saying, "You've just lost the chance to attend here for the next four years! We're the last school in fifty miles, so you better think your future over carefully! There'll be no protection for you out there without a degree!" The principle (also the teacher), then looks at me with a stern glare. "New student, eh? Take a seat. You've a lot to learn."
Instead, I take my opportunity and leap out the window after the boy. Together, we forge our way back into his principle dream world, then I sneak back through some subliminal tunnels to my own. Thankfully, the crew is still practicing and don't really notice I've been gone (though it's kinda annoying, too)...
We discuss adding new members to the group, and what our name should be. We could use the initials of our real names to create something, but at the moment we've got a B, H, L, A, and M, and that makes for a rather limited range of choices. BAMLH? LAMBH? HAMBL? Not very attractive sounding.
We've already rejected the idea of joining a group like the Teen Titans or Young Justice League, because we aren't quite that talented or coordinated yet, and because our medium is mostly dream justice, and those supers usually deal with trials occurring in spheres closer to the real world and its succeeding tiers of fantasy realms. This stuff is more complicated than we first thought...
Thus ends a normal day in dreamland.
Fog rolls in around the supermarket, and some vampyre-zombies spill out. They are bloodthirsty and indestructible. A good morning warmup before we go on our rounds to keep earth safe from real problems. Becca is trying out her new disappearing trick: "I learned it from the weeping angels!" And vanishes through the hide of a zombie by touching his sleeve. Amanda travels down to the training center (AKA old abandoned supermarket) on a Megaski, which is a ski-snowboard hybrid that actually works pretty well on the icy ground. Mary and Amanda start chatting about new boarding tricks and how many people have died at Ski Bowl recently. Laila huffs, "Guys, let's try to keep on track here! We have a tight schedule today!" Becca, bouncing over excitedly, offers to show me her new trick-- and all at once I am zapped into a small antique store.
The sign says OPEN on this side, so they must be closed. I move to open the door and leave, but it is locked. A voice behind me says, "Can I help you?" I mumble something about the door being locked, and the woman says, "Once we lock the front door for the night, there's no leaving that way. There's a back door that leads out past the shed. Bo can show you out." She gestures to a black curtain, and I walk through the storage area to find good sir Bo smashing little glass figurines with an axe. There are piles of mutilated dolls everywhere...barbies and raggedy anns and action figures and little ballerinas, all smashed and melting in piles around the raging bulldog of a man. Behind him, people wander down eternally stretching aisles with empty carts in a sort of trance. A sales clerk notices me, and intercepts my path, vacant smile and hollow eyes turned on me with a menacing force that screams I should get out of here.
"Are you lost, child?" She stretches her arms out towards me, and I leap backward to avoid their touch. I can almost hear a hissing sound coming from her skin...The shoppers start breaking out of the trance in multitudes, reaching their arms toward me. I fly up to the ceiling and focus on the lone window on the opposite wall, gathering my strength. In one great leap, I clear the heads of the shopping zombies and prepare to smash through the glass, fists curled, thumbs protected-- but the glass does not break.
The window is a fake. It rebounds like rubber and throws me to the ground, and the long arms of the shoppers envelop me. The clerk woman smiles as they lift me up. "A vandal in our store simply will not do. We must bring her to the manager..."
They throw me in my old middle school classroom. The teacher is lecturing on black holes. A kid makes a joke and he kicks him out the window, saying, "You've just lost the chance to attend here for the next four years! We're the last school in fifty miles, so you better think your future over carefully! There'll be no protection for you out there without a degree!" The principle (also the teacher), then looks at me with a stern glare. "New student, eh? Take a seat. You've a lot to learn."
Instead, I take my opportunity and leap out the window after the boy. Together, we forge our way back into his principle dream world, then I sneak back through some subliminal tunnels to my own. Thankfully, the crew is still practicing and don't really notice I've been gone (though it's kinda annoying, too)...
We discuss adding new members to the group, and what our name should be. We could use the initials of our real names to create something, but at the moment we've got a B, H, L, A, and M, and that makes for a rather limited range of choices. BAMLH? LAMBH? HAMBL? Not very attractive sounding.
We've already rejected the idea of joining a group like the Teen Titans or Young Justice League, because we aren't quite that talented or coordinated yet, and because our medium is mostly dream justice, and those supers usually deal with trials occurring in spheres closer to the real world and its succeeding tiers of fantasy realms. This stuff is more complicated than we first thought...
Thus ends a normal day in dreamland.
When the Dragonlord Speaks.
He is trying to seduce my mother. This wayward logger.
I can smell his deceit. It drips off the edges of his well-groomed mustache. He will trick her into selling all our land and then he will cut down all the trees, even the Fairy Tree, for firewood and furniture and little carved Christmas ornaments...
And at present, being locked inside the spring-pump apparatus that brings water to the house, I can't do much to stop him. There are a few inches of air just below the latch, but if the water rises, I will be forced to hold my breath in here for goodness knows how long...
There is a little dragon statue sunk in the bottom of the spring. Something is glinting in its paws.
I give up prying at the lock for a moment and dive down to explore.
The little statue has glinting ruby eyes, and clutches a small silver sword between its claws. Perhaps, if I can get the sword out, I can use it to pry open the lock and get out of here! I thrust out my arms eagerly, grabbing for the statue, when a flash of light momentarily blinds me. As my eyes clear, I am aware of more turbulence in the water. I open them a crack-- and see the glint of a scaly tail flash past. Quite a large tail. I open my eyes wide, and realize that I have shrunk. The spring pool is now the size of a lake. In the miniscule cracks of the spring cover, light streams out in little patches like on a cloudy day. I can feel the powerful movements of the dragon, somewhere below me. Maybe now I can fly up to the surface and escape through a crack? But...how will I fight the logger, now that I am grown so small? It must have been a spell put on that tiny statue...
I whirl frantically to find the dragon, only to find he has been watching me from behind the whole time. His ruby eyes stare into my own brown pools of surprise. I feel he can see the tremors of my soul. He blinks, slowly, a landslide of scaly rocks. He reaches out a claw and, ever so gently, brushes a strand of floating hair away from my face. "Let me see you better, childe," the rocks breathe. He seems to manipulate the natural world around him. The water is next to say, in bubbling tones around my ears, "You are soo young for such a grumpy face. What is it that troubles you?"
I slip into the role too easily. "I fear for my mother, and am imprisoned here so I cannot help her. Can you help me?"
"I can show you the fastest way down the hill. Climb onto my back. We shall enter the tunnels." I clamber over the dragon's scales, and together we pry open the lid of the filter and race down the hose leading to the house. We exit out the spout of the bathtub, into a rather foamy mess. It must be time for granny's bath. We climb out, roll ourselves on towels, and sneak out to the laundry room, where the Logger is talking in hushed tones on his cell phone.
"Yeah, yeah, I almost got 'er, just gimme two more days to seal the deal. No problem. She doesn't suspect a thing." He hangs up, sneaks back to the living room. "Now, where were we? Thank you for the lovely tea, Miss Collman. Now, have you considered my offer further? No? Well, that is quite all right. I will be in the area for a few more days yet. I shall call upon you again tomorrow." The door slams.
The dragon and I sneak around the corner to observe. Mum is sitting on the couch, frowning and perusing a long and complicated-looking set of documents. Her hand hovers above the pages, and grasps a black legal pen loosely. Her face is ashen.
"We've got to stop that guy from blackmailing mum, or seducing her, or whatever he's doing to get her to sign away our forest!" I leap onto the coffee table and snatch the papers away. Mum looks as if she's seen a ghost-- I realize I am still shrunken. No matter. I heave on the pages with all my might, and they rip in half. "Hah! Now they can never take our property! Mindless villains! Go pick on some trees your own size!" She laughs, saying, "I'm glad that wasn't the property deed I was holding."
The guy returns, and we beat up a little on him and his friends when they seem not to understand that no means no, and the deal is sundered....I tend to be a little protective of my trees. We call the local police and get them to take the beguiling villains away. The dragon sneaks back to his relatively peaceful abode in the spring house, and I go back to my moon lair to plot more dastardly acts of good.
Mum seems bewildered, but then just sets about gathering leftover apples to make crisps.
I can smell his deceit. It drips off the edges of his well-groomed mustache. He will trick her into selling all our land and then he will cut down all the trees, even the Fairy Tree, for firewood and furniture and little carved Christmas ornaments...
And at present, being locked inside the spring-pump apparatus that brings water to the house, I can't do much to stop him. There are a few inches of air just below the latch, but if the water rises, I will be forced to hold my breath in here for goodness knows how long...
There is a little dragon statue sunk in the bottom of the spring. Something is glinting in its paws.
I give up prying at the lock for a moment and dive down to explore.
The little statue has glinting ruby eyes, and clutches a small silver sword between its claws. Perhaps, if I can get the sword out, I can use it to pry open the lock and get out of here! I thrust out my arms eagerly, grabbing for the statue, when a flash of light momentarily blinds me. As my eyes clear, I am aware of more turbulence in the water. I open them a crack-- and see the glint of a scaly tail flash past. Quite a large tail. I open my eyes wide, and realize that I have shrunk. The spring pool is now the size of a lake. In the miniscule cracks of the spring cover, light streams out in little patches like on a cloudy day. I can feel the powerful movements of the dragon, somewhere below me. Maybe now I can fly up to the surface and escape through a crack? But...how will I fight the logger, now that I am grown so small? It must have been a spell put on that tiny statue...
I whirl frantically to find the dragon, only to find he has been watching me from behind the whole time. His ruby eyes stare into my own brown pools of surprise. I feel he can see the tremors of my soul. He blinks, slowly, a landslide of scaly rocks. He reaches out a claw and, ever so gently, brushes a strand of floating hair away from my face. "Let me see you better, childe," the rocks breathe. He seems to manipulate the natural world around him. The water is next to say, in bubbling tones around my ears, "You are soo young for such a grumpy face. What is it that troubles you?"
I slip into the role too easily. "I fear for my mother, and am imprisoned here so I cannot help her. Can you help me?"
"I can show you the fastest way down the hill. Climb onto my back. We shall enter the tunnels." I clamber over the dragon's scales, and together we pry open the lid of the filter and race down the hose leading to the house. We exit out the spout of the bathtub, into a rather foamy mess. It must be time for granny's bath. We climb out, roll ourselves on towels, and sneak out to the laundry room, where the Logger is talking in hushed tones on his cell phone.
"Yeah, yeah, I almost got 'er, just gimme two more days to seal the deal. No problem. She doesn't suspect a thing." He hangs up, sneaks back to the living room. "Now, where were we? Thank you for the lovely tea, Miss Collman. Now, have you considered my offer further? No? Well, that is quite all right. I will be in the area for a few more days yet. I shall call upon you again tomorrow." The door slams.
The dragon and I sneak around the corner to observe. Mum is sitting on the couch, frowning and perusing a long and complicated-looking set of documents. Her hand hovers above the pages, and grasps a black legal pen loosely. Her face is ashen.
"We've got to stop that guy from blackmailing mum, or seducing her, or whatever he's doing to get her to sign away our forest!" I leap onto the coffee table and snatch the papers away. Mum looks as if she's seen a ghost-- I realize I am still shrunken. No matter. I heave on the pages with all my might, and they rip in half. "Hah! Now they can never take our property! Mindless villains! Go pick on some trees your own size!" She laughs, saying, "I'm glad that wasn't the property deed I was holding."
The guy returns, and we beat up a little on him and his friends when they seem not to understand that no means no, and the deal is sundered....I tend to be a little protective of my trees. We call the local police and get them to take the beguiling villains away. The dragon sneaks back to his relatively peaceful abode in the spring house, and I go back to my moon lair to plot more dastardly acts of good.
Mum seems bewildered, but then just sets about gathering leftover apples to make crisps.
The High Empress
I never thought Whoopi Goldberg would take over the world, though everybody knew she was quite capable of doing it. Turns out, she is an alien empress with magical locks like Medusa's, whose powers became dormant when she took on human form to better understand our civilization, before destroying it utterly.
She laughs in a musical, deep-throated way no human is capable of mastering, as her armada dives down into the atmosphere and starts sucking up all of the best performers on the planet. She knows that if we no longer have quality entertainment, we shall start killing each other immediately, and humanity will be its own undoing. We are only held in check from anarchy by the antics of a lone clown who hacks into all the TV networks and begins to broadcast a slapstick show with occasional profound statements on the meaning of life. He works round the clock without sleeping, and his friends sit in tanks day and night to guard the Last Performer from abduction.
Then, one night, he opens the doorknob to his dressing room to do a quick change, to find Her sitting at his vanity table. "How'd you get in here?" He dashes to leave, but the door has disappeared. "I'm sorry, but you've been transported to my ship. There'll be no escaping. Your efforts were valiant, but ultimately futile. The human race will fall, without you. Now, do what you do best. Entertain me."
Amanda takes this as our cue to burst through the wall dressed in mime outfits. Who says superheroes can't be performing artists as well? Besides, I like to make costumes. The Empress merely laughs. "Don't tell me, you're going to try and stop me without uttering a word? What do you call yourselves, the Silent Supers? Calm Cavalry? Mime Mutilators? You're a laughable excuse for heroes. Hahahahahaha!"
We stare at her, glance at each other, smile-- and attack.
Within minutes, the ship is overthrown.
We don't even have to speak a word.
We send Whoopi and her people, tied up, back to their home world on autopilot, with a strict warning taped to the command chair, should the Empire ever think they have the right to cause our doom again.
I keep the makeup on because I like it.
She laughs in a musical, deep-throated way no human is capable of mastering, as her armada dives down into the atmosphere and starts sucking up all of the best performers on the planet. She knows that if we no longer have quality entertainment, we shall start killing each other immediately, and humanity will be its own undoing. We are only held in check from anarchy by the antics of a lone clown who hacks into all the TV networks and begins to broadcast a slapstick show with occasional profound statements on the meaning of life. He works round the clock without sleeping, and his friends sit in tanks day and night to guard the Last Performer from abduction.
Then, one night, he opens the doorknob to his dressing room to do a quick change, to find Her sitting at his vanity table. "How'd you get in here?" He dashes to leave, but the door has disappeared. "I'm sorry, but you've been transported to my ship. There'll be no escaping. Your efforts were valiant, but ultimately futile. The human race will fall, without you. Now, do what you do best. Entertain me."
Amanda takes this as our cue to burst through the wall dressed in mime outfits. Who says superheroes can't be performing artists as well? Besides, I like to make costumes. The Empress merely laughs. "Don't tell me, you're going to try and stop me without uttering a word? What do you call yourselves, the Silent Supers? Calm Cavalry? Mime Mutilators? You're a laughable excuse for heroes. Hahahahahaha!"
We stare at her, glance at each other, smile-- and attack.
Within minutes, the ship is overthrown.
We don't even have to speak a word.
We send Whoopi and her people, tied up, back to their home world on autopilot, with a strict warning taped to the command chair, should the Empire ever think they have the right to cause our doom again.
I keep the makeup on because I like it.
I Am M@rked...
By the stain of the creature clinging to my left arm. The hunt begins. I am to be absorbed, my energy fueling the empire of a sick old man. I jump out of elevators, run through a school auditorium, behind Mr. Sunseri's kitchen, climb tree after tree, but even after I have destroyed their master with a swirling golden ball of Thermite and death, the minions still besiege me. I jump into a car with a girl and her mother, and shout at them to drive as if their lives depend on it- which they do, now that I have pulled them into my problems. The mother peels out of the school parking lot with the fury of one used to long commutes and five-minutes-to-spare arrivals, racing down the windy Oregon roads at near the speed of light. I can feel individual skin cells separating from each other, starting to peel off my face in fury...Perhaps I'd be safer in the hands of the bloodthirsty minions.
I jump out the window just before the car careens off the side of a mildly steep precipice. Thankfully, the mother installed ejection seats complete with parachutes, and she and her daughter float in safety to the valley floor. I turn to face the dust cloud slowly growing as the henchmen gallop nearer. I am tired, and kinda feeling lazy, so I guess I'll finally fight them so I don't have to keep running. Sheesh. Talk about unwanted exercise, I've come halfway around the globe!
I stop in the middle of the road.
A small bird hops across, and I imagine that is is a fierce and crusty tumbleweed. I hum showdown theme music in my head.
As the leader of the dust cloud minions steps forward, I ready myself to fight-- but he holds up his hands. "We come in peace," he asserts, clapping his hands. The warriors behind him promptly sit in the dust. "We merely wish to offer the removal of your mark. It is an unseemly thing to display to the public, in our culture. Now our master is dead, we are no longer obligated to suck out your soul, and would like to have the tracking creature back for...other purposes.
"But...what will you do with it?" I ask.
"Make stew."
I jump out the window just before the car careens off the side of a mildly steep precipice. Thankfully, the mother installed ejection seats complete with parachutes, and she and her daughter float in safety to the valley floor. I turn to face the dust cloud slowly growing as the henchmen gallop nearer. I am tired, and kinda feeling lazy, so I guess I'll finally fight them so I don't have to keep running. Sheesh. Talk about unwanted exercise, I've come halfway around the globe!
I stop in the middle of the road.
A small bird hops across, and I imagine that is is a fierce and crusty tumbleweed. I hum showdown theme music in my head.
As the leader of the dust cloud minions steps forward, I ready myself to fight-- but he holds up his hands. "We come in peace," he asserts, clapping his hands. The warriors behind him promptly sit in the dust. "We merely wish to offer the removal of your mark. It is an unseemly thing to display to the public, in our culture. Now our master is dead, we are no longer obligated to suck out your soul, and would like to have the tracking creature back for...other purposes.
"But...what will you do with it?" I ask.
"Make stew."
Saturday, February 11, 2012
The Cave-dwelling Devil
I am a 72-year-old rock climber, collecting rare fungus specimens with my elite, expertly trained group of young hooligans. One of the girls proposes to one of the boys when we reach the top of the first peak near sunset. She gives him a ring she made herself in the jewelry studio in town.
He is so happy that he runs circles around the small campfire I've just managed to get going, and some sparks fly away into the darkness of the Crystal Caves beyond.
I hope that they hold all the marvelous fungi legend speaks of, but we shall have to wait until tomorrow to find out...
A shuffle. Something is moving in the darkness. It is late, and the fire has gone out. They told us to beware of lizards, our guides, but we are far away from the shrubbery that is their natural dwelling place. Could there be other creatures out there, lurking in the advantage of the new moon's cover? I rummage in my rucksack and produce a headlamp. Struggling out of the confines of my sleeping bag, bones creaking in the cold, dry mountain air, I sneak away from camp to investigate the tentative scurryings.
The sounds lead to one of the smaller caves, probably the dwelling of a night crawler of sorts. I decide to throw caution to the wind, as the taste of excitement and curiosity takes hold of my old bones and wistful heart. I imagine that I can call out to the creature and befriend it, and together we will climb the mountains searching for glory and natural cures for all ailments, for that most treasured of fungi that glows like the moon and unfolds its ferned head only once a generation to sprout anew...They say it can even cure cancer.
Swot. Something flutters to the ground behind me. I turn my head, and my spotlight illuminates a small maple leaf. Strange...That sort of tree doesn't grow around here... I enter the cave.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I squeeze through the opening. The ground is moist, almost warm, inside. There are two passageways crudely dug out of the sides of the natural cave, one leading upward, the other off to the left. I listen closely. The scamperings, fast diminishing, are coming from the left. I crawl in that direction. Then, suddenly, something huge moves behind me, its vibrations betraying a ponderous weight, and before I can turn, the entrance to the cave is shut off by a large boulder. Even though I am a savvy climber, and strong for my old age, I cannot make it budge. Not that it really bothers me very much. I am too excited to see where this tunnel goes. (I don't stop to wonder, until later, how a boulder larger than the entrance could have contrived to enter the cave in the first place...)
I continue hobbling faster down the tunnel, my knees not complaining for once because they, too, are excited to see where this venture culminates. I am thinking that I should have brought my camera in case there are any interesting fungi or insects along the way, when the path ahead of me opens into a vast cavern. Along the walls are runes of beautiful colours, golden, red-green, shining masterpieces that twine across to the other side. Intertwined among the colours are dark depictions of sacrifice and torment, daemons and angels and terror. They increase in size and vividity until they point to a throne painted on the apex of the ceiling. And in the throne, swathed in purple robes, sits a devil black as shadow...
In noticing the ceiling and walls, I have almost completely ignored the floor of the august cavern. I have been treading upon the softest and palest of ferns-- the flowering fungi of legend! I halt immediately, bending down to inspect them more closely...
When a voice speaks out of the darkness. "If you break it, you buy it." I whirl frantically, my headlamp swinging around randomly, searching. The quite voice continues. "You know, I really wouldn't advise taking a step further, unless you have a really great excuse for the desecration of my garden."
"I-I'm sorry," I say, backing up a step, trying to localize the sound. "I had no idea this was someone's garden. These caves are government-sanctioned nature preserves, so I wasn't aware that anyone could plant here. These are very lovely ferns," I continue. The echoes are tricky, but it seems-- the voice is coming from the ceiling. I gaze upward in time to see the shadow-devil from the central portrait peel himself out of the two-dimensional, and, frowning, reply in a softly menacing voice: "You thought wrong."
He lands on a protrusion of rock in the center of the cave, settles himself down and raps on its side. "Have a seat," he offers, and another rock emerges under my behind. "I do hope you're planning on staying for a long time, because now you've discovered my lair, I'm afraid you can't leave. You see, some...angels...of destruction happen to be looking for me to fulfill a certain curse they have in mind, and if I let you go, you might spread word of me and ultimately bring about my untimely, if well-deserved, persecution. So you may as well make yourself comfortable. Besides, by the looks of your well-worn hide, you won't last long anyway." I rear up from the rock, affronted.
"Now, listen here! If you were so keen on no one discovering you, why did you lead me straight to your lair? Surely you knew I was following you, and could've blocked off the entrance before I got there. Why then, did you wait until it was too late to warn me off? I think it's down-right cruel, even for a devil."
"Now, you're a smart old human nag. Try to see my predicament. I've been hiding up in these craggs for millennia. I'm bored. I'd even go so far as to say-- lonely. You don't look as if you have much life left anyway, so what am I really taking from you? Besides, I'm a great storyteller. I can help you pass your days with comfort until the final end. I am in every respect a perfect companion, but--" sniff-- "have never had the opportunity of proving my skills, thanks to those self-righteous, truth-seeking heavenly heroes out there. I can't get in a moment's chat with proper society for fear of being spotted. It's an atrocious way to live."
So, I stayed with the devil. I listened, and my, did he have good stories. But, come morning, I sneaked out the top hole which ventilated the inner cavern, and returned to my companions with a sack full of the glowing fungi of the cave. We returned to the city and gave them to a lab to test for cures, and are still waiting for the reply.
I often wonder what became of that daemon. But then, how many travelers pass through even the most remote and forbidden government preserve in a year?
I'm sure he has plenty of company.
He is so happy that he runs circles around the small campfire I've just managed to get going, and some sparks fly away into the darkness of the Crystal Caves beyond.
I hope that they hold all the marvelous fungi legend speaks of, but we shall have to wait until tomorrow to find out...
A shuffle. Something is moving in the darkness. It is late, and the fire has gone out. They told us to beware of lizards, our guides, but we are far away from the shrubbery that is their natural dwelling place. Could there be other creatures out there, lurking in the advantage of the new moon's cover? I rummage in my rucksack and produce a headlamp. Struggling out of the confines of my sleeping bag, bones creaking in the cold, dry mountain air, I sneak away from camp to investigate the tentative scurryings.
The sounds lead to one of the smaller caves, probably the dwelling of a night crawler of sorts. I decide to throw caution to the wind, as the taste of excitement and curiosity takes hold of my old bones and wistful heart. I imagine that I can call out to the creature and befriend it, and together we will climb the mountains searching for glory and natural cures for all ailments, for that most treasured of fungi that glows like the moon and unfolds its ferned head only once a generation to sprout anew...They say it can even cure cancer.
Swot. Something flutters to the ground behind me. I turn my head, and my spotlight illuminates a small maple leaf. Strange...That sort of tree doesn't grow around here... I enter the cave.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I squeeze through the opening. The ground is moist, almost warm, inside. There are two passageways crudely dug out of the sides of the natural cave, one leading upward, the other off to the left. I listen closely. The scamperings, fast diminishing, are coming from the left. I crawl in that direction. Then, suddenly, something huge moves behind me, its vibrations betraying a ponderous weight, and before I can turn, the entrance to the cave is shut off by a large boulder. Even though I am a savvy climber, and strong for my old age, I cannot make it budge. Not that it really bothers me very much. I am too excited to see where this tunnel goes. (I don't stop to wonder, until later, how a boulder larger than the entrance could have contrived to enter the cave in the first place...)
I continue hobbling faster down the tunnel, my knees not complaining for once because they, too, are excited to see where this venture culminates. I am thinking that I should have brought my camera in case there are any interesting fungi or insects along the way, when the path ahead of me opens into a vast cavern. Along the walls are runes of beautiful colours, golden, red-green, shining masterpieces that twine across to the other side. Intertwined among the colours are dark depictions of sacrifice and torment, daemons and angels and terror. They increase in size and vividity until they point to a throne painted on the apex of the ceiling. And in the throne, swathed in purple robes, sits a devil black as shadow...
In noticing the ceiling and walls, I have almost completely ignored the floor of the august cavern. I have been treading upon the softest and palest of ferns-- the flowering fungi of legend! I halt immediately, bending down to inspect them more closely...
When a voice speaks out of the darkness. "If you break it, you buy it." I whirl frantically, my headlamp swinging around randomly, searching. The quite voice continues. "You know, I really wouldn't advise taking a step further, unless you have a really great excuse for the desecration of my garden."
"I-I'm sorry," I say, backing up a step, trying to localize the sound. "I had no idea this was someone's garden. These caves are government-sanctioned nature preserves, so I wasn't aware that anyone could plant here. These are very lovely ferns," I continue. The echoes are tricky, but it seems-- the voice is coming from the ceiling. I gaze upward in time to see the shadow-devil from the central portrait peel himself out of the two-dimensional, and, frowning, reply in a softly menacing voice: "You thought wrong."
He lands on a protrusion of rock in the center of the cave, settles himself down and raps on its side. "Have a seat," he offers, and another rock emerges under my behind. "I do hope you're planning on staying for a long time, because now you've discovered my lair, I'm afraid you can't leave. You see, some...angels...of destruction happen to be looking for me to fulfill a certain curse they have in mind, and if I let you go, you might spread word of me and ultimately bring about my untimely, if well-deserved, persecution. So you may as well make yourself comfortable. Besides, by the looks of your well-worn hide, you won't last long anyway." I rear up from the rock, affronted.
"Now, listen here! If you were so keen on no one discovering you, why did you lead me straight to your lair? Surely you knew I was following you, and could've blocked off the entrance before I got there. Why then, did you wait until it was too late to warn me off? I think it's down-right cruel, even for a devil."
"Now, you're a smart old human nag. Try to see my predicament. I've been hiding up in these craggs for millennia. I'm bored. I'd even go so far as to say-- lonely. You don't look as if you have much life left anyway, so what am I really taking from you? Besides, I'm a great storyteller. I can help you pass your days with comfort until the final end. I am in every respect a perfect companion, but--" sniff-- "have never had the opportunity of proving my skills, thanks to those self-righteous, truth-seeking heavenly heroes out there. I can't get in a moment's chat with proper society for fear of being spotted. It's an atrocious way to live."
So, I stayed with the devil. I listened, and my, did he have good stories. But, come morning, I sneaked out the top hole which ventilated the inner cavern, and returned to my companions with a sack full of the glowing fungi of the cave. We returned to the city and gave them to a lab to test for cures, and are still waiting for the reply.
I often wonder what became of that daemon. But then, how many travelers pass through even the most remote and forbidden government preserve in a year?
I'm sure he has plenty of company.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
The Convenience Booth
Short dream. Everybody wanted the easiest access to everything, so they crammed inside the Convenience Booth with all of their possessions, family members, pets, memories...A thousand cell phones ringing every second. It wasn't until they got bored with their new life of unimaginable ease and hyper-connectivity, that they realized the booth was NOT bigger on the inside. They had compacted Time and Space with such force that they created a black hole, and were now in the center of nothingness. The first to open the door was the first to realize this, but it did them no good. They slipped out of the paradox and faded into oblivion.
Cows are Mysterious...
I go outside to feed Mr. Shy, only to find the ENTIRE pasture covered in manure. He is sitting huddled in the smashed remnants of our barn (the roof caved in over the winter), refusing to come out. He says apparently some other cows, city cows, came out to mark their turf, and started having gang wars with each other in the backyard. He tried to get them to settle it rationally, but they wouldn't. So, he had to call up his friends who own a satellite and get them to call some of their friends who happen to have connections with a guy who knows...and, here, his voice hushes with a snort: "ALIENS."
"I know, it was a cruel thing to do," he says, "But I couldn't just let them destroy the field. I had to do something...then I had to hide under here, lessen' they mistook me for one of them troublemakers. Come to think of it, I don't think these particular aliens're all that discriminatory about who they take..."
Thankfully, though, he has it all worked out. He has been fashioning a tin-foil body suit, so they can't pick up his uniquely cowish signature.
"That's great," I mumble, stumbling away. I didn't even know he could talk...
"I know, it was a cruel thing to do," he says, "But I couldn't just let them destroy the field. I had to do something...then I had to hide under here, lessen' they mistook me for one of them troublemakers. Come to think of it, I don't think these particular aliens're all that discriminatory about who they take..."
Thankfully, though, he has it all worked out. He has been fashioning a tin-foil body suit, so they can't pick up his uniquely cowish signature.
"That's great," I mumble, stumbling away. I didn't even know he could talk...
Competitions...
So, I've always sort of bounced back and forth from being super-competitive to being afraid of my own shadow. There are dreams where I can take on the world, and dreams where it feels like the entire population of Earth is after me and all I can do is run. (And there was that time in PE, playing hockey, when I went for the puck and totally forgot this guy's head was right there...and that's why you're not supposed to wield your weapon (I mean...um...stick thing?) like an axe...)
But this dream is one of those in-between times, when I want to do well at something, but not at the cost of others. I'm in a male form (I did mention I shapeshift?), and am snailing away from an alien airport where a beetle woman is trying to sell me credit card applications. The atmosphere is that of a bazaar on the streets, rather than the inter-planetarily acclaimed epicenter of the Coalition of Cunning, Charismatic, Cryptic, and Creative Crime-fighting Champions...that it actually is. It's a bit intimidating, I have to admit. I enter the place, and in a blur am assigned a place to start competing, flushed through the system with millions of other contestants who've made it through the application process to come to this planet, home of the most epic supers in the galaxy. My first test goes horribly- at least, I think it does. I'm not really sure what it was about. They push me onto a ramp. A car comes speeding towards me. I leap over it, grab the back fender, hang on as we spin through a maze of dangerous things, finally have to release as I see the automated car heading toward a giant bomb. The blast knocks me off the path and into a web of shadows...I can feel my brain, swinging around like Tarzan in my head. Was that just supposed to test endurance? Was there any meaning to it?
...I am next transported to a virtual mansion where I battle Crilletains. Then, before they can whisk me away to another test, I sneak past the simulation and through the back door. I turn invisible and watch the guy who's supposed to be monitoring me, wait for me to emerge from behind the pillar I left. Heh. They must not know I don't have one specific set of rational, dependable powers.
Speaking of which, the invisibility spell gives way. I crash to the floor in surprise, forgetting to hover. The white-coated assistant turns to me with disdain, brushing imaginary dust from his coat. "Please return to the testing area." He comments pertly, returning to his surveillance of the nine other supers in this quadrant. "If you are not in the test, you cannot obtain a score, and cannot continue on."
I huff, but go back to the room and finish out with a speciality I've developed that I like to call the "shining door effect"-- basically, I grab a door, and if there are any water/mirrors/reflective surfaces around, combine them and levitate the glowy door thing so that the reflections blind my opponents, while coming at them from behind. It only works under very specific circumstances, but...it's still fun to do. And kinda flashy. Might get me noticed.
Next is a street race. Fifty contestants in all. Some leap across telephone poles, some on foot or in cars below, and I take to the clouds with several other high-flyers. I have never been terribly fast, but it's fun and I enjoy being with these people like myself, so I make a concentrated effort to keep up with the group. I notice a kid on a bicycle down below, who looks completely normal. No costume, no war cry...just an "I <3 Earth" T-shirt...how strange...
And then I see what his power is. As he peddles cheerfully along, taking an apple from his bag, munching, He slowly but steadily gains on a particular opponent. He then projects a different path in front of them, so that they side-track out of the racing zone and are disqualified. How clever...he doesn't even have to hurt anyone.
I don't win any of the competitions, in brawn or brain or beauty, etc., but I do learn a lot more about the nature of varies super strategies. And, boy is it entertaining to see a willowy boy on a bike beat the fastest, strongest, and smartest heroes in the galaxy all through the power of perception.
But this dream is one of those in-between times, when I want to do well at something, but not at the cost of others. I'm in a male form (I did mention I shapeshift?), and am snailing away from an alien airport where a beetle woman is trying to sell me credit card applications. The atmosphere is that of a bazaar on the streets, rather than the inter-planetarily acclaimed epicenter of the Coalition of Cunning, Charismatic, Cryptic, and Creative Crime-fighting Champions...that it actually is. It's a bit intimidating, I have to admit. I enter the place, and in a blur am assigned a place to start competing, flushed through the system with millions of other contestants who've made it through the application process to come to this planet, home of the most epic supers in the galaxy. My first test goes horribly- at least, I think it does. I'm not really sure what it was about. They push me onto a ramp. A car comes speeding towards me. I leap over it, grab the back fender, hang on as we spin through a maze of dangerous things, finally have to release as I see the automated car heading toward a giant bomb. The blast knocks me off the path and into a web of shadows...I can feel my brain, swinging around like Tarzan in my head. Was that just supposed to test endurance? Was there any meaning to it?
...I am next transported to a virtual mansion where I battle Crilletains. Then, before they can whisk me away to another test, I sneak past the simulation and through the back door. I turn invisible and watch the guy who's supposed to be monitoring me, wait for me to emerge from behind the pillar I left. Heh. They must not know I don't have one specific set of rational, dependable powers.
Speaking of which, the invisibility spell gives way. I crash to the floor in surprise, forgetting to hover. The white-coated assistant turns to me with disdain, brushing imaginary dust from his coat. "Please return to the testing area." He comments pertly, returning to his surveillance of the nine other supers in this quadrant. "If you are not in the test, you cannot obtain a score, and cannot continue on."
I huff, but go back to the room and finish out with a speciality I've developed that I like to call the "shining door effect"-- basically, I grab a door, and if there are any water/mirrors/reflective surfaces around, combine them and levitate the glowy door thing so that the reflections blind my opponents, while coming at them from behind. It only works under very specific circumstances, but...it's still fun to do. And kinda flashy. Might get me noticed.
Next is a street race. Fifty contestants in all. Some leap across telephone poles, some on foot or in cars below, and I take to the clouds with several other high-flyers. I have never been terribly fast, but it's fun and I enjoy being with these people like myself, so I make a concentrated effort to keep up with the group. I notice a kid on a bicycle down below, who looks completely normal. No costume, no war cry...just an "I <3 Earth" T-shirt...how strange...
And then I see what his power is. As he peddles cheerfully along, taking an apple from his bag, munching, He slowly but steadily gains on a particular opponent. He then projects a different path in front of them, so that they side-track out of the racing zone and are disqualified. How clever...he doesn't even have to hurt anyone.
I don't win any of the competitions, in brawn or brain or beauty, etc., but I do learn a lot more about the nature of varies super strategies. And, boy is it entertaining to see a willowy boy on a bike beat the fastest, strongest, and smartest heroes in the galaxy all through the power of perception.
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Wild West
I live in Oregon.
This is a perfectly normal thing.
Unfortunately, coupled with the certain people I tend to associate with, this simple fact can cause many strange things. I am walking leisurely alongside Amanda as she rides her horse Spider up the road, when everything changes. The trees shrink rapidly, then grow, the grass dies and grows back in quick succession, torrents of rain and snow and hail lash around us like a maelstrom...time is sucking us backwards. Actually we are standing still but time is sucking everything else, until a giant tree rips loose from the ground and smacks into us, tearing us out of the eye of the storm and straight into temporal chaos.
We are dropped into a small valley of nothing but small shrubs and sandy dirt and a few cacti. It is very hot, even though it is about dusk. Amanda thinks we are in Death Valley at first, but it is small and strange and there are these weird tiger-striped frogs hopping about everywhere, so we rule out the normal world. There appears to be more than one sun setting, too. Three spots glow on the horizon, almost with the same brightness. A world of cold, hard precision in some ways, and downright strange customs in others...
As the world grows dark and slightly more breathable, the parched air sucking a little life from the evening dew, a smaller light appears on the opposite side of the valley. Swinging slowly back and forth in the air. Like a will-o-the-wisp, or a very methodical ghost. As it approaches, we realize it is merely a lantern tied to a walking stick held by a wizened little man. In his other hand glints a silver pistol.
"What're you kids doin' out here after dark?" he asks suspiciously, gesturing with the pistol. "Don'tcha know them Wild Things're up 'n about this time uh night?" He looks at Spider suspiciously. "They love the taste of horse. You sure 'nuff just signed your own death warrants, bringin' that thing down here."
"Oh, we meant no harm, we just ended up here by accident," Amanda begins-- when a piercing howl echoes off the valley walls. We look to the western ridge, and there stands a beautiful creature, silver and grey in the light of the three moons, coat flowing in a slight breeze. It turns and fixes its yellow eyes upon us.
"Great!" I chirp enthusiastically, rubbing my palms together. "Werewolves!"
As they rush down the slopes, I dart into the air to prepare a counter attack and test my recent upturn in vim. Amanda pulls a GIANT dictionary from her pack-- "For light reading, while I ride"-- and bashes the first wolf on the head as it leaps for the old man. I counter the other two by spinning around in the air, arms turned so I raise a great cloud of dust and sand. More come rushing in, but we have them well in hand. I'm actually feeling quite relaxed during the whole fight-- it's as if the outcome is certain. Then, I see a mother werewolf with its cub, a small changeling boy who has not quite figured out how to turn all the way wolf. She is nudging him to the side, though he clearly wants to fight. I wonder, who he is, why his mother looks so worried, but have no time to find out. My last dust storm blows the place apart, and when it clears, Amanda and I are once again on a winding path below the stars. We appear to have traveled a little further up into the logging trails, and some hours have passed. We decide to walk back home, have some tea, and try to plot more structure into our dream adventures. Just so we actually know WHAT we're fighting and WHY.
Which makes me wonder...why was the old man in the dangerous valley at nightfall himself?
This is a perfectly normal thing.
Unfortunately, coupled with the certain people I tend to associate with, this simple fact can cause many strange things. I am walking leisurely alongside Amanda as she rides her horse Spider up the road, when everything changes. The trees shrink rapidly, then grow, the grass dies and grows back in quick succession, torrents of rain and snow and hail lash around us like a maelstrom...time is sucking us backwards. Actually we are standing still but time is sucking everything else, until a giant tree rips loose from the ground and smacks into us, tearing us out of the eye of the storm and straight into temporal chaos.
We are dropped into a small valley of nothing but small shrubs and sandy dirt and a few cacti. It is very hot, even though it is about dusk. Amanda thinks we are in Death Valley at first, but it is small and strange and there are these weird tiger-striped frogs hopping about everywhere, so we rule out the normal world. There appears to be more than one sun setting, too. Three spots glow on the horizon, almost with the same brightness. A world of cold, hard precision in some ways, and downright strange customs in others...
As the world grows dark and slightly more breathable, the parched air sucking a little life from the evening dew, a smaller light appears on the opposite side of the valley. Swinging slowly back and forth in the air. Like a will-o-the-wisp, or a very methodical ghost. As it approaches, we realize it is merely a lantern tied to a walking stick held by a wizened little man. In his other hand glints a silver pistol.
"What're you kids doin' out here after dark?" he asks suspiciously, gesturing with the pistol. "Don'tcha know them Wild Things're up 'n about this time uh night?" He looks at Spider suspiciously. "They love the taste of horse. You sure 'nuff just signed your own death warrants, bringin' that thing down here."
"Oh, we meant no harm, we just ended up here by accident," Amanda begins-- when a piercing howl echoes off the valley walls. We look to the western ridge, and there stands a beautiful creature, silver and grey in the light of the three moons, coat flowing in a slight breeze. It turns and fixes its yellow eyes upon us.
"Great!" I chirp enthusiastically, rubbing my palms together. "Werewolves!"
As they rush down the slopes, I dart into the air to prepare a counter attack and test my recent upturn in vim. Amanda pulls a GIANT dictionary from her pack-- "For light reading, while I ride"-- and bashes the first wolf on the head as it leaps for the old man. I counter the other two by spinning around in the air, arms turned so I raise a great cloud of dust and sand. More come rushing in, but we have them well in hand. I'm actually feeling quite relaxed during the whole fight-- it's as if the outcome is certain. Then, I see a mother werewolf with its cub, a small changeling boy who has not quite figured out how to turn all the way wolf. She is nudging him to the side, though he clearly wants to fight. I wonder, who he is, why his mother looks so worried, but have no time to find out. My last dust storm blows the place apart, and when it clears, Amanda and I are once again on a winding path below the stars. We appear to have traveled a little further up into the logging trails, and some hours have passed. We decide to walk back home, have some tea, and try to plot more structure into our dream adventures. Just so we actually know WHAT we're fighting and WHY.
Which makes me wonder...why was the old man in the dangerous valley at nightfall himself?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Doctor Who?
But not as you'd think. (Also I should add that I was at the beach with friends at the time of this dream, and apparently I sleep-wrote a very sloppy synopsis in all-caps in my journal. And then went back to sleep.)
I am trying to get my dad to watch it for the first time. A new episode is airing, one with Martha Jones and the 10th Doctor, and I am hoping that if dad likes it he might invite Laila and I over and we can watch it together more often, thus spending quality time in something 2/3rds of us already enjoy...
Unfortunately, this episode is so far out of cannon that I almost start retching when I see the beginning credits.
Instead of the typical shot of the TARDIS whizzing its way through the TimeVortex, it begins with a close-up shot of Martha and the Doctor inside the Tardis, as explosions and fire ring around them, making out... It's crashing. And they are making out. On the console. So, the TARDIS is DYING, and all they care to do is mess up the coordinates while she tries to land, by sliming themselves all over the friggin' console! (This is supposed to be a family show!) She eventually does crash. The episode begins, and Martha and the Doctor immediately wander outside with no thought of sympathy for the poor sentient machine. "She'll heal," the Doctor says dismissively. "Let's go explore this forest."
I don't know who wrote this, but it's starting out pretty terribly.When dad's not looking, I leap into the screen. Let's see if I can't make events a little more interesting-- and a lot less disgusting...
They traipse through the jungle hand in hand, thwacking away innocent brambles and vines when there is actually a path right next to them. I decide to make them notice it. I grab a hunk of grass and dirt and chuck it over their heads and onto the path. They follow the new plot change like good lemmings.
It leads to a strange, cage-like cave, with stalactites and stalagmites grown together like bars over the entrance. Strange runes and ancient-looking paintings of alien animals litter the floor and walls, though the ceiling, high above, is too rough for art. The figures all appear to be leading in one direction. The Doctor follows, curious. Martha stops to examine something interesting. (Classic separation before DOOM...)
Then something changes. For some reason, quite imperceptibly at first, the runes on the floor begin to look brighter as the Doctor steps over them. More vivid. More...alive. They peel themselves silently away from the floor, growing into three-dimensional beings of strange shapes and doubtful significance to the typical semi-rational sci-fi plot: dragon-riding sentries with surveillance camera heads, men with the lower halves of their bodies carved into canoes, strange eight-armed goddesses with cats in their hair... and then the buzzing.
It starts slowly and imperceptibly, but grows over time until the very air is vibrating with the gusts of wind from the wings of a thousand giant:
Killer Bees.
"Run!" shouts the Doctor, grabbing Martha's hand, and finally they do something sensible. They run for their lives as the sacred bee protectors of the cave-temple zoom after them, and I am forced to come out of my silent role in the tail. I disguise myself as an Indian warrior priestess and leap out with my sword.
"I'll distract the bees, Doctor!" I shout as I run towards them. "You figure out how to give these vengeful drawings peace!"
The Doctor looks down. In his hands is a small pack of crayons. He looks up again, the familiar old sparkle in his eyes. "I've got an idea..." So while Martha wails in the background like a disgruntled horror movie actress (shame, I really admired her before), the Doctor scribbles furiously upon the ground creating pictures of light and harmony, to balance the forest. And once again, the world is saved with crayons.
So then we pat ourselves on the collective back and head off to the Tardis, except she is nowhere to be found. She is angry over the Doctor's complete lack of sympathy. (Turns out, he had a parasite in his brain.) We call the Tardis back and apologize, and then debate the thought of our recent actions, of killing a creature that develops out of a drawing: for, in such a world, would it not be abortion, rather than self-defense? They were as of yet not fully real, nor did they truly understand their instincts. In a world of crayon sketches, life begins the moment the drawing is conceived. We leave the planet quickly so we won't have to deal with a tribunal over our hasty actions.
I am trying to get my dad to watch it for the first time. A new episode is airing, one with Martha Jones and the 10th Doctor, and I am hoping that if dad likes it he might invite Laila and I over and we can watch it together more often, thus spending quality time in something 2/3rds of us already enjoy...
Unfortunately, this episode is so far out of cannon that I almost start retching when I see the beginning credits.
Instead of the typical shot of the TARDIS whizzing its way through the TimeVortex, it begins with a close-up shot of Martha and the Doctor inside the Tardis, as explosions and fire ring around them, making out... It's crashing. And they are making out. On the console. So, the TARDIS is DYING, and all they care to do is mess up the coordinates while she tries to land, by sliming themselves all over the friggin' console! (This is supposed to be a family show!) She eventually does crash. The episode begins, and Martha and the Doctor immediately wander outside with no thought of sympathy for the poor sentient machine. "She'll heal," the Doctor says dismissively. "Let's go explore this forest."
I don't know who wrote this, but it's starting out pretty terribly.When dad's not looking, I leap into the screen. Let's see if I can't make events a little more interesting-- and a lot less disgusting...
They traipse through the jungle hand in hand, thwacking away innocent brambles and vines when there is actually a path right next to them. I decide to make them notice it. I grab a hunk of grass and dirt and chuck it over their heads and onto the path. They follow the new plot change like good lemmings.
It leads to a strange, cage-like cave, with stalactites and stalagmites grown together like bars over the entrance. Strange runes and ancient-looking paintings of alien animals litter the floor and walls, though the ceiling, high above, is too rough for art. The figures all appear to be leading in one direction. The Doctor follows, curious. Martha stops to examine something interesting. (Classic separation before DOOM...)
Then something changes. For some reason, quite imperceptibly at first, the runes on the floor begin to look brighter as the Doctor steps over them. More vivid. More...alive. They peel themselves silently away from the floor, growing into three-dimensional beings of strange shapes and doubtful significance to the typical semi-rational sci-fi plot: dragon-riding sentries with surveillance camera heads, men with the lower halves of their bodies carved into canoes, strange eight-armed goddesses with cats in their hair... and then the buzzing.
It starts slowly and imperceptibly, but grows over time until the very air is vibrating with the gusts of wind from the wings of a thousand giant:
Killer Bees.
"Run!" shouts the Doctor, grabbing Martha's hand, and finally they do something sensible. They run for their lives as the sacred bee protectors of the cave-temple zoom after them, and I am forced to come out of my silent role in the tail. I disguise myself as an Indian warrior priestess and leap out with my sword.
"I'll distract the bees, Doctor!" I shout as I run towards them. "You figure out how to give these vengeful drawings peace!"
The Doctor looks down. In his hands is a small pack of crayons. He looks up again, the familiar old sparkle in his eyes. "I've got an idea..." So while Martha wails in the background like a disgruntled horror movie actress (shame, I really admired her before), the Doctor scribbles furiously upon the ground creating pictures of light and harmony, to balance the forest. And once again, the world is saved with crayons.
So then we pat ourselves on the collective back and head off to the Tardis, except she is nowhere to be found. She is angry over the Doctor's complete lack of sympathy. (Turns out, he had a parasite in his brain.) We call the Tardis back and apologize, and then debate the thought of our recent actions, of killing a creature that develops out of a drawing: for, in such a world, would it not be abortion, rather than self-defense? They were as of yet not fully real, nor did they truly understand their instincts. In a world of crayon sketches, life begins the moment the drawing is conceived. We leave the planet quickly so we won't have to deal with a tribunal over our hasty actions.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The Judgement Place
There is a marble platform centered on four white pillars that stretch downward forever, obscured by cloud and mist, hanging in the void of space. It is the last concrete form of existence in this plane at the end of all worlds. Countless lifeforms, trillions beyond trillions, huddle clustered together at the outer edges-- for, in the center the platform is sloped inward, to the mouth of a vast, dark hole. I watch as a seal, hissing, is pulled down toward the inevitable. It flails desperately to regain ground, and in doing so, knocks the girl next to it down the slope as well. Together they plummet toward the creeping darkness, screaming the same fear in their separate native tongues.
At the last moment, the girl manages to grab ahold of something at the edge of the Pit-- a small bit of shrubbery, perhaps-- while the seal goes sailing past her into the darkness, I leap from my place as an observer in the sky and plummet toward the girl. I know I must rescue her. Just as I reach her, however, the branch snaps, and she falls. I have no chance but to fly down after and hope to catch her. As I emerge below, the scene changes. I look above me-- there is the locked, tangible, wooden face of a trapdoor. I am holding a small oil lamp, and lift it before me to see a series of steps leading ever downward. Horrible smells, and the faint echo of screams, waft up from the below. As I go farther down, the steps seem to increase in size and roughness, so that soon I am climbing backwards down a steep ravine, then traipsing along a flat meadow-like land filled with dead flowers, then descending upon a cliff once more. There are strange carvings in the stone which make for good, deep footholds, but are occasionally filled with slime or seem to pierce so deeply into the rock that a cave-dweller could make them his home. It is unearthly, to say the least.
Wails of banshee terror grow in intensity as I descend, and I almost feel as if they are coming from the rock itself. I decide not to climb, but rather fly down more quickly, since the girl fell rather fast, and may not have found the steps, and may be falling still... I would hate to think of her body, broken on whatever ground this Abyss must eventually have, all because I could not catch her in time. Suddenly, a giant wall of flames rears up before me, blinding me. The glass of my lantern shatters. I drop it in surprise, and try to shield my face from the heat, searching for a way out of the Maze of the Beast which has arisen from the flames. I am beginning to feel a little out of my depth.
Then, I see Him. He comes from a door on the left, and cools the flames in his path as he walks. Beside him is the girl. She clutches something tightly in her hands, and tears stand shining in her eyes as she gazes up at the Man. He stops in front of a studded bronze door, turns to hug her, then pushes it open. A sharp cacophony of yowls and cackles and screams issues forth, then it is closed again.
The girl, shuddering, turns away, and notices me. "Hello?" she asks cautiously. "Who is there?" I step closer to her, now the flames have died down and I can safely walk. I lift up my hands in a sign of peace.
"My name is the Dream Weaver, but you can call me Art. I followed you here because I wanted to make sure you were okay. But, I see your Friend has already taken care of that."
She sniffles, wipes her nose on her sleeve. "He was so brave. He found me when they were about to tear me apart and just commanded them to stop and they did. Then, He spoke to the Beast and got him to accept His life as repayment instead of mine. I will never forget what he did for me." She unfolds her hands, and in the center of her palms lies a small, golden key. Suddenly, the stairs behind me start crashing down, dust filling the air. When it clears, a golden door stands tall, shining with an even more unearthly light.
I want to follow the girl, to make sure it is not merely another trap, but the calm in her eyes convinces me this is a real goodness. I bid her farewell, and take the secret tunnel exit behind the door that leads back to my own realm. I sit on my hammock, mulling over the things I have seen, and wondering whether the end of our Universe will come about in a similar fashion. And whether I, too, will someday get to walk through the Golden Door...
At the last moment, the girl manages to grab ahold of something at the edge of the Pit-- a small bit of shrubbery, perhaps-- while the seal goes sailing past her into the darkness, I leap from my place as an observer in the sky and plummet toward the girl. I know I must rescue her. Just as I reach her, however, the branch snaps, and she falls. I have no chance but to fly down after and hope to catch her. As I emerge below, the scene changes. I look above me-- there is the locked, tangible, wooden face of a trapdoor. I am holding a small oil lamp, and lift it before me to see a series of steps leading ever downward. Horrible smells, and the faint echo of screams, waft up from the below. As I go farther down, the steps seem to increase in size and roughness, so that soon I am climbing backwards down a steep ravine, then traipsing along a flat meadow-like land filled with dead flowers, then descending upon a cliff once more. There are strange carvings in the stone which make for good, deep footholds, but are occasionally filled with slime or seem to pierce so deeply into the rock that a cave-dweller could make them his home. It is unearthly, to say the least.
Wails of banshee terror grow in intensity as I descend, and I almost feel as if they are coming from the rock itself. I decide not to climb, but rather fly down more quickly, since the girl fell rather fast, and may not have found the steps, and may be falling still... I would hate to think of her body, broken on whatever ground this Abyss must eventually have, all because I could not catch her in time. Suddenly, a giant wall of flames rears up before me, blinding me. The glass of my lantern shatters. I drop it in surprise, and try to shield my face from the heat, searching for a way out of the Maze of the Beast which has arisen from the flames. I am beginning to feel a little out of my depth.
Then, I see Him. He comes from a door on the left, and cools the flames in his path as he walks. Beside him is the girl. She clutches something tightly in her hands, and tears stand shining in her eyes as she gazes up at the Man. He stops in front of a studded bronze door, turns to hug her, then pushes it open. A sharp cacophony of yowls and cackles and screams issues forth, then it is closed again.
The girl, shuddering, turns away, and notices me. "Hello?" she asks cautiously. "Who is there?" I step closer to her, now the flames have died down and I can safely walk. I lift up my hands in a sign of peace.
"My name is the Dream Weaver, but you can call me Art. I followed you here because I wanted to make sure you were okay. But, I see your Friend has already taken care of that."
She sniffles, wipes her nose on her sleeve. "He was so brave. He found me when they were about to tear me apart and just commanded them to stop and they did. Then, He spoke to the Beast and got him to accept His life as repayment instead of mine. I will never forget what he did for me." She unfolds her hands, and in the center of her palms lies a small, golden key. Suddenly, the stairs behind me start crashing down, dust filling the air. When it clears, a golden door stands tall, shining with an even more unearthly light.
I want to follow the girl, to make sure it is not merely another trap, but the calm in her eyes convinces me this is a real goodness. I bid her farewell, and take the secret tunnel exit behind the door that leads back to my own realm. I sit on my hammock, mulling over the things I have seen, and wondering whether the end of our Universe will come about in a similar fashion. And whether I, too, will someday get to walk through the Golden Door...
Making Friends in the Grocery
I've been waiting for mum for over an hour, and she said she was only getting milk. This situation is far too similar to real life, so I get out of the car and head inside. I meet a little boy, and we comment on the unusual appearance of turkeys in the bread aisle that are apparently on sale. In fact, everything in the store is weirdly well-priced, almost as if they want you to stay there, shopping forever to satisfy your heart's desire...meh.
There is a giant cardboard box at the back of the store marked "Free Things," and we rummage through it and manage to find some pretty good comic books, suspicious-looking candy, and most prized of all, a Guide to Meeting Moon Mermaids, which I have been looking for throughout the galaxy, and am super-excited to try out. The mermaids on Earth's moon are particularly shy, and you have to know the right kind of rites to entice them out of their hermitage. I am hoping they can perhaps show me how to grow some moon plants, like the glowing mushrooms and moss I've dreamt of before...
Then I slip off into another trance. I can see a mermaid, fallen to earth, and a foolish prince riding his horse on the sand assumes she is a regular one. He tries to throw her back into the sea so she will live, but I know the salt water will kill her-- already the thickness of the oxygen chokes her in her unprotected form. She grabs the mane of the horse and absorbs its essence into her being, takes its shape. The prince, now unhorsed, sits on his rump, befuddled. He looks over at the horse, which now appears to glow in a faint, translucent sort of way. He tries to get back on it. The horse whinnies, rears, and gallops down the beach, and the sand-coated prince is left to run after it, while I sit in the background, chuckling to myself.
There is a giant cardboard box at the back of the store marked "Free Things," and we rummage through it and manage to find some pretty good comic books, suspicious-looking candy, and most prized of all, a Guide to Meeting Moon Mermaids, which I have been looking for throughout the galaxy, and am super-excited to try out. The mermaids on Earth's moon are particularly shy, and you have to know the right kind of rites to entice them out of their hermitage. I am hoping they can perhaps show me how to grow some moon plants, like the glowing mushrooms and moss I've dreamt of before...
Then I slip off into another trance. I can see a mermaid, fallen to earth, and a foolish prince riding his horse on the sand assumes she is a regular one. He tries to throw her back into the sea so she will live, but I know the salt water will kill her-- already the thickness of the oxygen chokes her in her unprotected form. She grabs the mane of the horse and absorbs its essence into her being, takes its shape. The prince, now unhorsed, sits on his rump, befuddled. He looks over at the horse, which now appears to glow in a faint, translucent sort of way. He tries to get back on it. The horse whinnies, rears, and gallops down the beach, and the sand-coated prince is left to run after it, while I sit in the background, chuckling to myself.
Neighborly Relations...
"I don't mean to seem rude, but that guy is really weird," Becca says to Mary as they both stare out the front window at the man walking his pet deer up the road. He glances repeatedly around with shifty, red-rimmed eyes, and stares up into the sky.
"Yeah, who exactly is he?" Mary queries, helping herself to more salsa and chips. "I mean, I've seen most of your road. I know your people. Is he a new neighbor?"
Laila comes over to the window as well. "Yeah, he just moved in across the street five days ago. And ever since, the light's always been on in his house. I've a mind to tell him to turn it off and conserve some energy." The rest of us smirk at her polite-seeming but secretly intensely passionate words. Of all of us, Laila is definitely the most in tune with the earth, and all its species, at this point. She wants to be a counselor, and her super-pseudonym has changed from "Electra" to "Lisirena," as she intends to heal wounds, not create them. She will be the balm for ills both both physical and psychological, with a combined herbal, meditative, and discussionary blend of super-therapy. She's stopped messing with the weather for fun (there were some very annoying incidents which I have chosen not to record), and is a passionate advocate of conserving energy, food, and friendship. The most important resources.
"Well, I think he's very odd beyond what he chooses to do with his lights," continues Becca. "I mean, a pet deer? Isn't that illegal?"
"Uhhh, I think so." I reply, stretching out on the couch and trying defend myself from Amanda's sneaking up to poke me in the stomach. "But what does it matter?We haven't always followed the law ourselves. Besides. That deer is cute."
"Still, something's not right," Mary insists. "I think we'd better investigate."
"Okay," I laugh as we jump up to plan our scouting mission,"But don't just go burning the place down on the first sign of suspicion."
"Oh, for cryin' out-- it was ONE time!" she retorts. The others laugh quietly as we sneak out the back door.
While the new neighbor is engaged walking his pet deer, we lift up the garage door and creep into the house which used to be the Benders' until a very unfortunate cougar accident...
To find rows upon rows of a beautiful fan-like plant, hung in bunches from the ceiling and stacked in neat, clear boxes in shelves. "Cool, he's like a natureopathic physician or something!" I exult. "See, guys he's not that weird." Mary gives me a look.
"Hannah? That's marijuana."
"Oh..."
Laila paces back and forth in the crowded space. "Great! Now we have a grower on our hands! What are we supposed to do about this? He could be growing anywhere, on anyone's property. If we call him in, WE could get arrested! Granny could lose her home!"
"You appear to be in quite a predicament," says a deep voice from behind us. "Allow me to lighten your earthly burden." We turn around to see the guy, and his deer, both holding crossbows.
"Run!" Laila shouts, and we dash up the stairs to the second story, break out a window and fly across the field and into the forest, the man with his cache of long-range weapons in swift pursuit.
"Ya know, we reeaally need better surveillance systems," huffs Becca. "That guy prolly saw us coming a mile away, and here we are being chased, instead of chasing him? What's wrong with this picture?"
"Right!" Amanda says, and turns to face the small-time villain, when we realize he is nowhere to be found...
"That's kinda creepy..." Just then he jumps out from behind a fallen log. Instead of screaming, however, we ready ourselves for attack. We are, after all, professional heroes. Or will be. Eventually.
We manage to subdue the guy, then spend a few hours hiking around to find his plot. Thankfully, most of the plants were on his own property, so we won't get in any trouble...As we head back over to our house, Becca says, "We really need to get team efforts going more often. I mean, just one of us facing that guy, and we coulda been skewered...besides, you know none of us has the gumption to work alone." So we decide, once we graduate high school, we are going to move out together and get regular jobs and an apartment in Portland. "It sounds pretty cool to me," I say, and I don't yet tell them all about my own secret base in Mare Insularum on the moon, and Laila doesn't volunteer the information, so for now I will keep it to myself. Just so I have at least one place for peaceful, solitary refuge. I can still hang out with the gang on weekends. Plus, I can get really cranky, especially around people I love, when cooped up inside the same walls for a long time...
"Yeah, who exactly is he?" Mary queries, helping herself to more salsa and chips. "I mean, I've seen most of your road. I know your people. Is he a new neighbor?"
Laila comes over to the window as well. "Yeah, he just moved in across the street five days ago. And ever since, the light's always been on in his house. I've a mind to tell him to turn it off and conserve some energy." The rest of us smirk at her polite-seeming but secretly intensely passionate words. Of all of us, Laila is definitely the most in tune with the earth, and all its species, at this point. She wants to be a counselor, and her super-pseudonym has changed from "Electra" to "Lisirena," as she intends to heal wounds, not create them. She will be the balm for ills both both physical and psychological, with a combined herbal, meditative, and discussionary blend of super-therapy. She's stopped messing with the weather for fun (there were some very annoying incidents which I have chosen not to record), and is a passionate advocate of conserving energy, food, and friendship. The most important resources.
"Well, I think he's very odd beyond what he chooses to do with his lights," continues Becca. "I mean, a pet deer? Isn't that illegal?"
"Uhhh, I think so." I reply, stretching out on the couch and trying defend myself from Amanda's sneaking up to poke me in the stomach. "But what does it matter?We haven't always followed the law ourselves. Besides. That deer is cute."
"Still, something's not right," Mary insists. "I think we'd better investigate."
"Okay," I laugh as we jump up to plan our scouting mission,"But don't just go burning the place down on the first sign of suspicion."
"Oh, for cryin' out-- it was ONE time!" she retorts. The others laugh quietly as we sneak out the back door.
While the new neighbor is engaged walking his pet deer, we lift up the garage door and creep into the house which used to be the Benders' until a very unfortunate cougar accident...
To find rows upon rows of a beautiful fan-like plant, hung in bunches from the ceiling and stacked in neat, clear boxes in shelves. "Cool, he's like a natureopathic physician or something!" I exult. "See, guys he's not that weird." Mary gives me a look.
"Hannah? That's marijuana."
"Oh..."
Laila paces back and forth in the crowded space. "Great! Now we have a grower on our hands! What are we supposed to do about this? He could be growing anywhere, on anyone's property. If we call him in, WE could get arrested! Granny could lose her home!"
"You appear to be in quite a predicament," says a deep voice from behind us. "Allow me to lighten your earthly burden." We turn around to see the guy, and his deer, both holding crossbows.
"Run!" Laila shouts, and we dash up the stairs to the second story, break out a window and fly across the field and into the forest, the man with his cache of long-range weapons in swift pursuit.
"Ya know, we reeaally need better surveillance systems," huffs Becca. "That guy prolly saw us coming a mile away, and here we are being chased, instead of chasing him? What's wrong with this picture?"
"Right!" Amanda says, and turns to face the small-time villain, when we realize he is nowhere to be found...
"That's kinda creepy..." Just then he jumps out from behind a fallen log. Instead of screaming, however, we ready ourselves for attack. We are, after all, professional heroes. Or will be. Eventually.
We manage to subdue the guy, then spend a few hours hiking around to find his plot. Thankfully, most of the plants were on his own property, so we won't get in any trouble...As we head back over to our house, Becca says, "We really need to get team efforts going more often. I mean, just one of us facing that guy, and we coulda been skewered...besides, you know none of us has the gumption to work alone." So we decide, once we graduate high school, we are going to move out together and get regular jobs and an apartment in Portland. "It sounds pretty cool to me," I say, and I don't yet tell them all about my own secret base in Mare Insularum on the moon, and Laila doesn't volunteer the information, so for now I will keep it to myself. Just so I have at least one place for peaceful, solitary refuge. I can still hang out with the gang on weekends. Plus, I can get really cranky, especially around people I love, when cooped up inside the same walls for a long time...
Friday, January 6, 2012
Relax...
I've been having pretty bad dreams lately. Dreams where either I or my surroundings are completely out of control. Dreams where I am so tense, or bumbling into something stupid, that my skin starts peeling off in strips or my eyes become infected with an incurable disease or my feet turn into solid gold and prevent me from flying and rising to greet the dawn...Or, where the serial killers run rampant and nobody cares, and I cannot stop them because I am normal...They look in my eyes and laugh at the futile courage, sapped by fear, that I've managed to muster, which is nothing against the oncoming threat... Can it be a sort of dream-depression? Still. I am resolved not to let it get the better of me.
Laila and Amanda certainly seem to see it in me as well, because in my next dream, we are about to embark upon a routine patrol of the nearest city when Laila turns to me and says: "You look a little worse for wear. Let's take a break and do something fun."
"Fun?!?" I cry out in defiance. "There are people out there who need our help, and you talk of fun? We can't take a break from saving lives! We're superheroes, for whales' sake! We keep on fighting the good fight until we're DEAD!" I think the use of the antiquated exclamation clinches their theories about me, because the next moment we find ourselves on a secluded stretch of beach near Laila's college, soaking up rays and chilled Martinelli's apple cider...
"Guys!" I insist, scrambling off of my towel. "Seriously, I'm fine! We need to get back to work, there are nefarious plots to be foiled!" They ignore me and keep reading their books.
I try a different tack and start slowly sneaking away, but Amanda, out of the corner of her eye, catches me, and with the lift of a finger raises a force field in the sand. "Nah-ah, Art. Just sit down and enjoy the sun. We're not going anywhere until you've calmed down a little. We know you haven't been sleeping well. You have the eyes of a rabid dog." I slump back down in defeat. Her force fields have always been stronger than mine. There's no way I'm breaking through.
"At least let me listen to the police scanner," I whine. Laila takes it out of the picnic basket and hands it to me, and like a spoiled and grumpy child, I curl up with it in a small ditch of sand, my back to my friends, to sulk over what I am missing.
Just then, a shadow falls over our beach. Something huge is rising from the water.
"Yes!" I exult, jumping to my feet and preparing to meet the monster. "Finally!"
"Pack your stuff," says Laila, grabbing her basket, shoes, and umbrella."We're leaving."
"WHAT?!" I cry in shock. "But that thing is coming towards the houses! We have to stop it before it destroys them! It is our sworn duty to protect the people!" I break out of the field with a muster of energy and rush toward the oncoming behemoth, leaping into the air, preparing to deal a glancing blow on its strange and unseemly head. Just as I am landing, I notice something strange. The monster appears to be...sliding apart...
The monster is not a monster after all. It is a whale. As the collected algae and coral and assorted sea life slides off its back, I can see the normal shape of a small whale, its side pierced by the weight of a hunting spear. It is already dead. I sink to my knees in the shallow water and place my hand on its rough skin. I was ready to attack this thing, when I didn't even know what it was. I could have hurt something innocent. My mind is obviously not ready for work right now.
Amanda comes over and puts her hand on my shoulder, and I don't have to hear her words to understand. I stand up and help her push the poor whale back out to sea, and together we gather up the rest of our belongings and go home to watch movies and relax, and build ourselves up for the fights of tomorrow. The world and its troubles will always be there, I have discovered, but you cannot always be there for it if you do not first care for yourself.
Laila and Amanda certainly seem to see it in me as well, because in my next dream, we are about to embark upon a routine patrol of the nearest city when Laila turns to me and says: "You look a little worse for wear. Let's take a break and do something fun."
"Fun?!?" I cry out in defiance. "There are people out there who need our help, and you talk of fun? We can't take a break from saving lives! We're superheroes, for whales' sake! We keep on fighting the good fight until we're DEAD!" I think the use of the antiquated exclamation clinches their theories about me, because the next moment we find ourselves on a secluded stretch of beach near Laila's college, soaking up rays and chilled Martinelli's apple cider...
"Guys!" I insist, scrambling off of my towel. "Seriously, I'm fine! We need to get back to work, there are nefarious plots to be foiled!" They ignore me and keep reading their books.
I try a different tack and start slowly sneaking away, but Amanda, out of the corner of her eye, catches me, and with the lift of a finger raises a force field in the sand. "Nah-ah, Art. Just sit down and enjoy the sun. We're not going anywhere until you've calmed down a little. We know you haven't been sleeping well. You have the eyes of a rabid dog." I slump back down in defeat. Her force fields have always been stronger than mine. There's no way I'm breaking through.
"At least let me listen to the police scanner," I whine. Laila takes it out of the picnic basket and hands it to me, and like a spoiled and grumpy child, I curl up with it in a small ditch of sand, my back to my friends, to sulk over what I am missing.
Just then, a shadow falls over our beach. Something huge is rising from the water.
"Yes!" I exult, jumping to my feet and preparing to meet the monster. "Finally!"
"Pack your stuff," says Laila, grabbing her basket, shoes, and umbrella."We're leaving."
"WHAT?!" I cry in shock. "But that thing is coming towards the houses! We have to stop it before it destroys them! It is our sworn duty to protect the people!" I break out of the field with a muster of energy and rush toward the oncoming behemoth, leaping into the air, preparing to deal a glancing blow on its strange and unseemly head. Just as I am landing, I notice something strange. The monster appears to be...sliding apart...
The monster is not a monster after all. It is a whale. As the collected algae and coral and assorted sea life slides off its back, I can see the normal shape of a small whale, its side pierced by the weight of a hunting spear. It is already dead. I sink to my knees in the shallow water and place my hand on its rough skin. I was ready to attack this thing, when I didn't even know what it was. I could have hurt something innocent. My mind is obviously not ready for work right now.
Amanda comes over and puts her hand on my shoulder, and I don't have to hear her words to understand. I stand up and help her push the poor whale back out to sea, and together we gather up the rest of our belongings and go home to watch movies and relax, and build ourselves up for the fights of tomorrow. The world and its troubles will always be there, I have discovered, but you cannot always be there for it if you do not first care for yourself.
Why we fight.
"What are you doing?! Give him back to me! You can't do this. We belong to each other, I need to be with my brother to take care of him, don't you see? He's fragile. You can't take him away like this! YOU MONSTERS!!!"
The girl stands in the center of the orphanage, pulling on the coattails of one of the four men carrying away her little brother, who kicks and screams with all his might. The man at the head of the awful procession, a tall, pale fellow with a spotless white tie, says dismissively: "We don't need the girl. We only want to-- adopt-- the boy. Remove her grasp from my associate's clothing so we may be on our way. Our time is a precious commodity."
The orphanage manager stammers politely, avoiding the eyes of the men, and firmly but gently pries away the clutching fingers.
This is when Syca jumps down from the ceiling.
"In what universe does kidnapping mean the same thing as adopting?" she asks politely, hands clasped demurely behind her back on the hilt of her concealed sword. "Just release the boy, and I won't tell the police about your little definition slip."
"Who are you?" scoffs the leader. "I wasn't aware this orphanage housed common ruffians as well as children."
I jump down beside her. "We're not ruffians, and we're certainly not common. We would rather think of ourselves as Protectors. We're here to defend the weak, the young, the innocent, from being abused or manipulated. The girl says she doesn't want you to take her brother. It would be wise to listen to her. We don't like to use force. Well, actually, we do, but it's frowned upon in most centuries."
The men give an assortment of not-so-charitable laughs, and then quiet down immediately as the leader lifts a gloved finger. "I don't think that will be necessary, or effective. You have no jurisdiction over us. We have acquired this boy by the usual legal methods. He is now the ward of our company CEO. He shall be treated fitly for a boy of his-- nature-- and that is all you need to know. You have no evidence to dispute our claim. You have no power to deny us our due. Now step out of the way."
This is when Laila also comes down, on a rope rather than risking the considerable distance, since at the moment she has no sheild or flight to lessen the impact. She produces from her pack a series of photos of different children, hooked up to terrible machines of light and wires, their eyes haunted. In the background, on the wall, stares the insignia of an eye gazing boldly out of the center of the sun.
"You work for SolarFlare? The solar energy plant?" Laila questions.
"Perhaps," replies the Tie-Man stiffly, "But I don't see what this has to do with--"
"Are you aware that your machines are harvesting the energy of certain children's imaginations instead of the energy of the sun?"
"Why, that's preposterous! We would never--" I jump into the conversation.
"Save your breath. Already, pictures and videos of your crimes are being leaked to news sources around the world. What you did to these special children will be seen. It will be heard. The eyes of parents and grandparents and single mothers around the world will be watching you. They will not judge lightly your conniving abuse of these orphans, not to mention all the children that went missing from homes around the world. Your time for exploitation is over. Hand over the boy, and no one else will get hurt."
The villains decide, of course, to make a run for it. The leader slips a small device out of his pocket and, deploying it and flinging it to the ground, runs away into the ensuing chaos and smoke.
"He's headed for the back door!" Syca shouts.
I dash toward it and manage to catch sight of the fleeing coat. The man hastens to a waiting car, but I pursue it with all the muscle and brainpower I can possess this early in the morning. There is no way I am letting a criminal this terrible escape. Those who would willingly hurt children earn a special place in my book...
Tackle. Crash. Scuffle.
I do pride myself on being able to subdue an ordinary, weaponless human in three action words or less. Besides, longer fights are too exhausting...
We head back inside, my new prisoners and my own ragged-looking self, to meet the inevitable swing of Justice which the manager called on the phone during the fighting. As police sirens wail increasingly louder, I sneak over to have a chat with the sister.
"You defended your brother quite bravely today."
"I wish I had superpowers like you guys. Then I could really keep him safe from harm."
"I thought the same thing when I was your age. Turns out, most of these things are in your head. When you need them, and fervently believe in their power, they'll come to you. Or, perhaps, when you least expect it."
I get up and walk back over to the others, leaving her to develop that small, untapped potential of imagination dwelling in her brain. We have to wait here until the criminals are processed, then return for trial to make sure they are well and truly put away.
The girl stands in the center of the orphanage, pulling on the coattails of one of the four men carrying away her little brother, who kicks and screams with all his might. The man at the head of the awful procession, a tall, pale fellow with a spotless white tie, says dismissively: "We don't need the girl. We only want to-- adopt-- the boy. Remove her grasp from my associate's clothing so we may be on our way. Our time is a precious commodity."
The orphanage manager stammers politely, avoiding the eyes of the men, and firmly but gently pries away the clutching fingers.
This is when Syca jumps down from the ceiling.
"In what universe does kidnapping mean the same thing as adopting?" she asks politely, hands clasped demurely behind her back on the hilt of her concealed sword. "Just release the boy, and I won't tell the police about your little definition slip."
"Who are you?" scoffs the leader. "I wasn't aware this orphanage housed common ruffians as well as children."
I jump down beside her. "We're not ruffians, and we're certainly not common. We would rather think of ourselves as Protectors. We're here to defend the weak, the young, the innocent, from being abused or manipulated. The girl says she doesn't want you to take her brother. It would be wise to listen to her. We don't like to use force. Well, actually, we do, but it's frowned upon in most centuries."
The men give an assortment of not-so-charitable laughs, and then quiet down immediately as the leader lifts a gloved finger. "I don't think that will be necessary, or effective. You have no jurisdiction over us. We have acquired this boy by the usual legal methods. He is now the ward of our company CEO. He shall be treated fitly for a boy of his-- nature-- and that is all you need to know. You have no evidence to dispute our claim. You have no power to deny us our due. Now step out of the way."
This is when Laila also comes down, on a rope rather than risking the considerable distance, since at the moment she has no sheild or flight to lessen the impact. She produces from her pack a series of photos of different children, hooked up to terrible machines of light and wires, their eyes haunted. In the background, on the wall, stares the insignia of an eye gazing boldly out of the center of the sun.
"You work for SolarFlare? The solar energy plant?" Laila questions.
"Perhaps," replies the Tie-Man stiffly, "But I don't see what this has to do with--"
"Are you aware that your machines are harvesting the energy of certain children's imaginations instead of the energy of the sun?"
"Why, that's preposterous! We would never--" I jump into the conversation.
"Save your breath. Already, pictures and videos of your crimes are being leaked to news sources around the world. What you did to these special children will be seen. It will be heard. The eyes of parents and grandparents and single mothers around the world will be watching you. They will not judge lightly your conniving abuse of these orphans, not to mention all the children that went missing from homes around the world. Your time for exploitation is over. Hand over the boy, and no one else will get hurt."
The villains decide, of course, to make a run for it. The leader slips a small device out of his pocket and, deploying it and flinging it to the ground, runs away into the ensuing chaos and smoke.
"He's headed for the back door!" Syca shouts.
I dash toward it and manage to catch sight of the fleeing coat. The man hastens to a waiting car, but I pursue it with all the muscle and brainpower I can possess this early in the morning. There is no way I am letting a criminal this terrible escape. Those who would willingly hurt children earn a special place in my book...
Tackle. Crash. Scuffle.
I do pride myself on being able to subdue an ordinary, weaponless human in three action words or less. Besides, longer fights are too exhausting...
We head back inside, my new prisoners and my own ragged-looking self, to meet the inevitable swing of Justice which the manager called on the phone during the fighting. As police sirens wail increasingly louder, I sneak over to have a chat with the sister.
"You defended your brother quite bravely today."
"I wish I had superpowers like you guys. Then I could really keep him safe from harm."
"I thought the same thing when I was your age. Turns out, most of these things are in your head. When you need them, and fervently believe in their power, they'll come to you. Or, perhaps, when you least expect it."
I get up and walk back over to the others, leaving her to develop that small, untapped potential of imagination dwelling in her brain. We have to wait here until the criminals are processed, then return for trial to make sure they are well and truly put away.
A Superhero Doesn't Need Family
I'm in New York.
I've never actually been to New York before, so this is my brain's very stylized version. Walkways on the ground and spiraling into the sky are filled with people of all kinds, bustling to their destinations in complete ignorance of the other people around them. There are vendors with hover-carts chasing the pedestrians, trying to sell their wares-- hot greasy foods and cheap nicknacks and second-hand jewelry. I really want to enter one of the third-tier bookshops to browse around, but I am here, like everyone else, for a specific purpose. I keep on flying through the crowded streets, searching for the sign that will say "Mulligan & Son's Time-Repair Shop." I have a message to deliver.
At last, I spot it-- a dinky, run-down shop on the bottom level of the city, the windows boarded up, the "Closed" sign swinging half-heartedly in the wind made by passing cars on their way to the Skyramp.
I knock tentatively on the stained door, peer in through the window. I know he is here. Syca told me he would be, and she is not often wrong.
"Hello?" I call out. There is a slight lull in the traffic behind me, so I quickly extract one of Prof. Willa's new devices, and unlock and open the door without ever having to touch it. I don't want fingerprints here. That might give some indication of exactly who did what I'm about to do...and I don't want him to become biased by that knowledge.
I slip inside and make my way to the back of the shop, where a pile of old clocks and assorted clutter dominates a small workdesk. Using the device, I carefully lift the Object from my coat pocket and place it on top of the pile. I place the Letter beside it. Sometimes, you see, super heroes can save lives in obscure and non-aggressive ways...
I expect that when the Hermit Child comes tentatively out of the back room to discover who has come, he will immediately notice the new items, and their significance. He will realize that the loss of his father does not mean he can no longer do the world any good-- that he can perpetuate his father's legacy through his own struggle for right. I remember his sardonic comment that "A superhero doesn't need family. While they are busy out saving the rest of the world, their family gets left behind or held prisoner or killed. They trade the lives of those close to them for the power to defeat what most people suppose is the greater evil. The truth is, they invite pain and destruction upon themselves. They ignore their loved ones in the pursuit of glory. They are nothing but hypocrites." The Hermit told Syca that he could never forgive the pain caused when his father was murdered. His father who just happened to cross the path of a supervillain. The villain who just happened to desire information on the lower-tier super force his son had recently and not-so-inconspicuously joined. It was one of life's unfortunate happenings, and no one could have predicted its emergence-- but now, with this letter and gift from his father, which he never had the chance to send, I hope to inspire Daniel not to grow embittered at the world, but rather to keep fighting that which distracts us from our greatest priority of love, both in our foes and ourselves.
I cannot say what was in the letter, nor can I divulge the nature of the object. All I can say is: with an open mind, they have the power either to heal or destroy the world. It is the heart which divides this power. I hope that he makes the right choice. In the end, we are all one big family, the Human Race-- though a very large, dysfunctional, maniacal one. We tend to get in scraps too big for us.
I've never actually been to New York before, so this is my brain's very stylized version. Walkways on the ground and spiraling into the sky are filled with people of all kinds, bustling to their destinations in complete ignorance of the other people around them. There are vendors with hover-carts chasing the pedestrians, trying to sell their wares-- hot greasy foods and cheap nicknacks and second-hand jewelry. I really want to enter one of the third-tier bookshops to browse around, but I am here, like everyone else, for a specific purpose. I keep on flying through the crowded streets, searching for the sign that will say "Mulligan & Son's Time-Repair Shop." I have a message to deliver.
At last, I spot it-- a dinky, run-down shop on the bottom level of the city, the windows boarded up, the "Closed" sign swinging half-heartedly in the wind made by passing cars on their way to the Skyramp.
I knock tentatively on the stained door, peer in through the window. I know he is here. Syca told me he would be, and she is not often wrong.
"Hello?" I call out. There is a slight lull in the traffic behind me, so I quickly extract one of Prof. Willa's new devices, and unlock and open the door without ever having to touch it. I don't want fingerprints here. That might give some indication of exactly who did what I'm about to do...and I don't want him to become biased by that knowledge.
I slip inside and make my way to the back of the shop, where a pile of old clocks and assorted clutter dominates a small workdesk. Using the device, I carefully lift the Object from my coat pocket and place it on top of the pile. I place the Letter beside it. Sometimes, you see, super heroes can save lives in obscure and non-aggressive ways...
I expect that when the Hermit Child comes tentatively out of the back room to discover who has come, he will immediately notice the new items, and their significance. He will realize that the loss of his father does not mean he can no longer do the world any good-- that he can perpetuate his father's legacy through his own struggle for right. I remember his sardonic comment that "A superhero doesn't need family. While they are busy out saving the rest of the world, their family gets left behind or held prisoner or killed. They trade the lives of those close to them for the power to defeat what most people suppose is the greater evil. The truth is, they invite pain and destruction upon themselves. They ignore their loved ones in the pursuit of glory. They are nothing but hypocrites." The Hermit told Syca that he could never forgive the pain caused when his father was murdered. His father who just happened to cross the path of a supervillain. The villain who just happened to desire information on the lower-tier super force his son had recently and not-so-inconspicuously joined. It was one of life's unfortunate happenings, and no one could have predicted its emergence-- but now, with this letter and gift from his father, which he never had the chance to send, I hope to inspire Daniel not to grow embittered at the world, but rather to keep fighting that which distracts us from our greatest priority of love, both in our foes and ourselves.
I cannot say what was in the letter, nor can I divulge the nature of the object. All I can say is: with an open mind, they have the power either to heal or destroy the world. It is the heart which divides this power. I hope that he makes the right choice. In the end, we are all one big family, the Human Race-- though a very large, dysfunctional, maniacal one. We tend to get in scraps too big for us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)