ai continued

The story continues!

Updated story you say?  Hmm...let's have a look.

Now is the winter of my disconnect!

(I haven't had internet access for a week)

I hope everyone is staying warm and drinking lots of spiced cider.  Tis' the season to mix eggnog with whatever alcohol you have available (tequila, sweet-tea vodka, raspberry schnapps, etc) right in the carton.  Shake it up and drink it that way.  Jolly folly.

Here's a short story I'm writing.  I'll be adding a new part to it every few days in this same post until it's complete.

Abi remembered being trampled after every recess.   She was the quiet kid, sitting on woodchips at the edge of the playground.  She used the chips and rocks and gravel and sand to build little towns.   The chips would be buildings and small rocks were people.   The look and feel of the rock was the character of the person.  She often had a handful of rocks - ones that were very dear in her world - kept safely in her pocket.  There was the Chief:   He was brown flint, and looked like an unfinished arrowhead.  He painted beautiful outdoor scenes of mountains and waterfalls, and he wove fabric for tapestries and  for his wife to wear.    The Chief's wife was called Sis, for she was the sister that Abbi always wanted.   Abi couldn't marry The Chief, because she was too young, but Sis could. 

                Sis was everything Abi wanted to be when she grew up.  Sis was smart, but sweet.   She never let anyone talk mean to her or tell her to do something she didn't feel right about.  Sis was strong too, and she and The Chief would ride horses and chop firewood together.  Sometimes Chief and Sis would play at archaeology.  Although neither was trained, their dig-sites in the playground sand could yield fantastic things.  Old bones and Spanish Galleons were unearthed many noontimes. 

                "I swear," The Chief would confess to Sis and Abi, "This is the finest dig yet, and we've only just begun!"  There was the whole universe to uncover and learn about, down in the sands of time, under the redwoods and California sun.

                Then the bell would ring.  Recess would rush and scream and shout in a wave of shoes on pavement right at Abi.  She would run to the safety of the school entrance, but they always caught her somehow.  They pushed her down and they  even stepped on her back and legs.  Once, she was kicked in the face, and blood poured out with tears.  She never, ever dropped The Chief or Sis.   They were held tight in her fist as she fell, and even when her hand was stepped on she wouldn't let them go.

Part 2

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'll tell you what Hunter, it's Abi's moods that keep me up at night."

               "Which ones?"  Hunter was two meters of man bred solely for the rigors of space.  His handshake felt like a promise of violence, but he was docile and logical by nature.

               "All of them.  Shit, Hunter, she's not human, but I can feel her thinking about me."  Cali said this in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning across the smooth plastic table where they were hooked for lunch.   Her arms were corded olive branches - she came from two lines of Italian families that could trace their ancestry back to Renaissance Sienna.  She always wanted a name to reflect that.

               Her mother had been a lovely flower-child who ended up in Redondo Beach and transitioned to valley-girl around the same time Cali was born.  She'd spent the last thirty years of her life with her blonde head stuck in textbooks.  In college and beyond, Cali soaked up physics, artificial intelligence research, and a healthy amount of science fiction.  She did this to dispel stereotypes.   She was imaginative, and her vibrant green eyes sparkled with intelligence.

               Hunter looked at her for a while, then laughed gently and looked past her to the viewport.  It showed the distance between stars.  These stars had a blue-shift hue to them, making this their preferred room for meals, study, and meetings.  The whole ship was a mile-long needle with Windsor-Halleck Potential Drives spaced evenly from front to back.  Each drive had a reactor dedicated to it, and a backup generator of hydrogen fuel cells linked in to the extensive water and cooling system.  "Not full of yourself at all today are you?  Her job isn't to think about us."

               Cali laughed with him at herself,  closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.  Hunter knew she had more to say, and that his slight jab would only make her more adamant.  "I think we're on Abi's mind now more than ever before." She started out, toeing her way carefully through a streambed of thoughts.  She knew there was a big, slippery Wrongfish swimming here, and she wanted to catch it and show it to Hunter.

ai

Now is the winter of my disconnect!

(I haven't had internet access for a week)

I hope everyone is staying warm and drinking lots of spiced cider.  Tis' the season to mix eggnog with whatever alcohol you have available (tequila, sweet-tea vodka, raspberry schnapps, etc) right in the carton.  Shake it up and drink it that way.  Jolly folly.

Here's a short story I'm writing.  I'll be adding a new part to it every few days in this same post until it's complete.

Abi remembered being trampled after every recess.   She was the quiet kid, sitting on woodchips at the edge of the playground.  She used the chips and rocks and gravel and sand to build little towns.   The chips would be buildings and small rocks were people.   The look and feel of the rock was the character of the person.  She often had a handful of rocks - ones that were very dear in her world - kept safely in her pocket.  There was the Chief:   He was brown flint, and looked like an unfinished arrowhead.  He painted beautiful outdoor scenes of mountains and waterfalls, and he wove fabric for tapestries and  for his wife to wear.    The Chief's wife was called Sis, for she was the sister that Abbi always wanted.   Abi couldn't marry The Chief, because she was too young, but Sis could. 

                Sis was everything Abi wanted to be when she grew up.  Sis was smart, but sweet.   She never let anyone talk mean to her or tell her to do something she didn't feel right about.  Sis was strong too, and she and The Chief would ride horses and chop firewood together.  Sometimes Chief and Sis would play at archaeology.  Although neither was trained, their dig-sites in the playground sand could yield fantastic things.  Old bones and Spanish Galleons were unearthed many noontimes. 

                "I swear," The Chief would confess to Sis and Abi, "This is the finest dig yet, and we've only just begun!"  There was the whole universe to uncover and learn about, down in the sands of time, under the redwoods and California sun.

                Then the bell would ring.  Recess would rush and scream and shout in a wave of shoes on pavement right at Abi.  She would run to the safety of the school entrance, but they always caught her somehow.  They pushed her down and they  even stepped on her back and legs.  Once, she was kicked in the face, and blood poured out with tears.  She never, ever dropped The Chief or Sis.   They were held tight in her fist as she fell, and even when her hand was stepped on she wouldn't let them go.

Another Poem?! Eeeeeeee!!!!

 
Here's another great, glistening, tanning-oil lathered, beach volleyball playing poem for everyone.  Belly Bump!

Bon Pain (submitted)

A monkey with a whistle

screeches bad math at every thistle.

Every thorn and every missed cue

prompts deafening equations to issue.

A red-faced coach with several strokes

Screams hints at mighty oaks,

On how to play safe.

On how to save face.

The first lie

Your body ever told you

Was that you and it are the same thing.

POST REMAINDER REMOVED, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU WOULD LIKE AN ELECTRONIC COPY OF THIS STORY.  THANKS! -A

Gravitate

Thanks for all the comments on my last story!  I'm still considering whether or not that one is strong enough to submit.  I'll update if I decide to.

Here is a brand new poem I wrote this week.  I've been thinking about unifying theories of physics a lot lately.  This poem wrote itself very quickly because of that, I think.  I've already submitted this one and one I will share later this week.  Enjoy!

Oh, and there was no Monday Madness because I had nothing to recommend.  I went through about 10 webcomics looking for inspiration, but came up empty-handed.

 

Gravitate

What is down among the dark?

Where well-walls dank with condensation stop,

at water black but blue but not.

Unseen fathoms reach down below,

where eyes and noses cannot go.

You and I stop miles before

the weight of everything atop itself.

Slabs and boulders pushing down,

to crowd an exit never found.

Where a point of constant yearning,

fixed but churning, burns and aches.

POST REMAINDER REMOVED, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU WOULD LIKE AN ELECTRONIC COPY OF THIS STORY.  THANKS! -A

Resplendent Bagginess Part 2

The gripping finale to part 1.  Really though, from now on I think if I just have a normal fiction/literature story and not something with a twist or suspense I will just put it all in one blog post.  Without suspense, the order of blog posts doesn't make sense.

So here is the entire story instead of just the second part.  I'm learning here, folks :)

A brown Silverado, dented but not rusted, pulls into the parking lot of Safeway.   It's an early morning, and cold too; the short dirty skirt of mudcicles on the running boards won't be coming off any time soon.   

The Silverado arcs to the spot farthest from the Safeway entrance, rocks once, and three baggy piles of hand-me-downs rustle out.   They each lose and then find their footing on the dirty ice and begin a trek of ordered chaos:  The largest, a brown duffel-bag finds it easiest, and stretches out in front of the other two.  The second, a rumpled backpack, struggles but makes his boots work like blocky skates somehow.   The third, the smallest - not much more than a satchel of funny-looks from head to toe falls and falls again.  By the time satchel meets duffel and backpack he has become the dingiest, and everyone is huffing steam from various indignities.

The whole experience of a grocery store sends the bags into another cacophonic symphony:   They split off as soon as the doors slide open to the ocean of warm smells within.  Backpack cruises down the bread aisle to the bakery.  His head reels from the fresh scents of baking and frosting.  Duffel sets out for the pharmacy, inhaling the medicine and bandage aisle as the chemistry and coats wait for him ahead.   Satchel slinks off toward the toys, which are shelved in a small nook next to magazines and cheap books. 

Satchel looks at the toys for a long, long time.   He runs his mind over the textures without touching or opening anything.  He shifts from foot to foot, knocking off caked dirt around them in boot outlines.  he wipes his runny nose with the back of his ratty leather glove and stares at the G.I. Joes.   The leather smell increases as he takes the gloves off and stuffs them in too-small pockets.   Sense-memories of grand dreams float through Satchel's mind, and his eyes glaze.  They are clear amber eyes, and he reaches out with fine piano-player hands to the Joe with the most gear.  This one is head-to-toe a ninja, sporting enough bandoleers, pouches, and extra weapons to be functionally immobile.

There is a brief flight inside Satchel's mind, where he imagines that he becomes Joe, and flip-kicks his way out through the roof, bounding tree-to-tree  to the river, where a speedboat waits, bobbing in water the same color as the Silverado.   He remembers where he is and pulls back from touching the plastic view-box of the package.  Duffel whisks by, trailing the pharmacy-odor with him and proclaiming "not today."  Satchel's heart does a told-you-so bounce off the floor.

"But how does sledding sound?"

Satchel slips his gloves on and grins.

Out above the town, fifteen miles north on a plateau with nothing but farms and fields, there is deep powder.  It is the straw and nothing patchwork where horizons are the exact curvature of the earth.  Backpack and Satchel take turns on a steerable ski-sled towed behind the Silverado.  Duffel fishtails around roads and empty fields.  The powder blows up and back behind them like a powerboat's wake.

Falling out of the sled is like falling through a cloud.  Satchel gets whipped off a drift and flies through the air before jetting through the snow.  He feels safe and warm, even when thrown through snow doing thirty plus, even in winter gear that wicks up water like wearing paper towels.

POST REMAINDER REMOVED, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU WOULD LIKE AN ELECTRONIC COPY OF THIS STORY.  THANKS! -A

Thanks for Reading

New short story - Resplendent Bagginess

Sure is quiet in the land of blogs.  I know on my end it is because I've spent too many weeks away from the computer, not keeping up with my end of things.  I'll be working back up to it as time allows.

Here's the first part of a new story.  I used the word association method I mentioned in Blossom Archer to write it.

 A brown Silverado, dented but not rusted, pulls into the parking lot of Safeway.   It's an early morning, and cold too; the short dirty skirt of mudcicles on the running boards won't be coming off any time soon.   

The Silverado arcs to the spot farthest from the Safeway entrance, rocks once, and three baggy piles of hand-me-downs rustle out.   They each lose and then find their footing on the dirty ice and begin a trek of ordered chaos:  The largest, a brown duffel-bag finds it easiest, and stretches out in front of the other two.  The second, a rumpled backpack, struggles but makes his boots work like blocky skates somehow.   The third, the smallest - not much more than a satchel of funny-looks from head to toe falls and falls again.  By the time satchel meets duffel and backpack he has become the dingiest, and everyone is huffing steam from various indignities.

The whole experience of a grocery store sends the bags into another cacophonic symphony:   They split off as soon as the doors slide open to the ocean of warm smells within.  Backpack cruises down the bread aisle to the bakery.  His head reels from the fresh scents of baking and frosting.  Duffel sets out for the pharmacy, inhaling the medicine and bandage aisle as the chemistry and coats wait for him ahead.   Satchel slinks off toward the toys.  It's a small nook next to magazines and cheap books. 

Satchel looks at the toys for a long, long time.   He runs his mind over the textures without touching or opening anything.    He shifts from foot to foot, knocking off caked dirt around them in boot outlines.  he wipes his runny nose with the back of his ratty leather glove and stares at the G.I. Joes.   The leather smell increases as he takes the gloves off and stuffs them in too-small pockets.   Sense-memories of grand dreams float through Satchel's mind, and his eyes glaze.  They are clear amber eyes, and he reaches out with fine piano-player hands to the Joe with the most gear.  This one is head-to-toe a ninja, sporting enough bandoleers, pouches, and extra weapons to be functionally immobile.


...To be continued in Part 2 (I'll post part 2 on Friday the 3rd)

Editor's note:  Whoops, sometimes I'm an idiot:

And that's why I blog before I submit now!