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Sunday, October 5th, 2003
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7:52 pm - Concerning William Hark, his home and affairs, and 2nd Street.
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In West Ruunsai, to its westernmost border, on Blackberry-Street-past-2nd, stood a very strange house, indeed. It had, the older neighbors would note, grown ever stranger and more menacing over the years. What had been a stark white house with a red door had turned into a blue-gray one with a pitch black entrance, bearing a glaring silver knocker. The shingles on the high-vaulting roof had darkened as the angles became steeper; the windows--sprawling bay windows, smaller round ones, a multitude of beautiful windows, plain glass or stained--had faded, yellowed, and were curtained over, one by one. The lights from inside dimmed. The sounds of children faded.
The house was tall--two stories, and an attic--and narrowly built, up above a slope of steep lawn, at the very end of the street where it dead-ended, and seemed to be overlooking the world around it, glaring down forbodingly. It was far from either of the only two streetlamps on the stretch of road, so stood banked in shadows, many cast by the tall and gnarling tree that had grown to block a few of the second story windows, though some of its branches were still low enough to remember the limbs of children hauling up inside of it. . .
And the oldest neighbors could remember the changes coming. They had watched the house's owner very late in the day piling on the darker paints, watched him rework the roof, replace the knocker. They saw him, late in the day, with the sun falling beyond the dead-end, painting new layers of onyx on the door, and polishing the knocker, while he let the rest of the home's weathered clapboard fall into disrepair. They remembered Jane growing ill and passing away, and Jonas running off into the unkind streets of West Ruunsai, and Judith leaving alongside her mother, abandoning the house's patriarch to himself, and his own devices. Only the Sewing Circle ever met there, now, as it had always done and would always do, but while Jonas Hark was still alive, his father would occasionally find hungry street urchins on his looming stone porch, or crouching behind the gnarling rose bushes. This riff-raff didn't make the peculiar man more liked or visited by his neighbors, and there was a good deal of gossip traded between most of them, as they generally either did not witness the young persons leaving, or saw them return quite too often. And that couldn't be safe dealing, however it all transpired.
All the same, Blackberry-past-2nd had never needed to call for the police, as petty criminals would not dare to tread where the 2nd street vagabonds kept their peace. Jonas, for all his wrath and ire, had made his impressions, and even after his death, they had hung over the area like his father's withered home; even after his charges had scattered to the far winds--Blind Tommy, the Twins, the Landleys, the Yamamotos, Parker, Nicki. . . all the old group long gone--new children, new urchins had taken up their livelihood from 2nd street, and by legend alone, kept it safe, and by word passed between them like ancient folklore, knew they might continue to haunt the Hark doorway, and to slip from its backdoor in the night, to the mottled discontent and mild interest of the neighbors.
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(1 voice | Do you have a voice?)
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| Tuesday, September 16th, 2003
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4:30 pm - A melodramatic teen's exercise in futility. (Kit Linkh, Aritrae)
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"My Hometown--What It's Like To Live In. . . ."
Thank you for your interest in International Living's "My Hometown" essay contest! In 1000 words, tell us what it's like in your town, city, city-state, village, colony or commune! Best essays will be published in our November issue, and the top three writers will win a free trip to Anywhere we can take you! Love your home? Hate it? Just like to write? Let us know! We'll take you somewhere else!
"Aritrae in a Thousand Words," by Guilliame Alexandre Linkh, 14
Being in Aritrae is kind of like living in a nest.
There's a flat, steady base, that gently prickles up at the sky in rows of corn and patches of cabbage and fields of melons, everything you could hope for, fruitful and providing, and a ring of hills all surrounding, shielding the basin from the outside world, and keeping the chicks from tumbling out unnecessarily.
The whole family is tucked inside, this little nation of pala- and kala- and naladourzjo, providing for the chicks and teaching them how to provide for themselves and the family, espousing tradition and promoting continuation of the species and so on.
And at a certain age, said young are dragged over the shield and pitched off the edge, into the mass of predators beyond, as is common when you still hold the hope that one of them will figure out how to spread his wings and gouge out the eyes of the aforementioned predators, before he can fall to his doom. And when you know that these predators will only break you a little before they let you out of their mouths to climb back over your shield, no better at flying or fleeing, there is no outcry against trying again and again--of course, the predators encourage it. But why we don't keep our young indoors and thorn the edge of our nest is as much a mystery to me as to our free groundbird cousins who do not nest at all--why we do not teach our young to fly, if we must, by flinging them to the freebirds, rather than the lions.
But living in Aritrae is something like living at the bottom of a dirty glass, that lives outdoors. The rains come and wash you up, waterlog you, until the sun sees fit to evaporate whatever the muck at the bottom couldn't absorb. The walls are steep and difficult, until some bigger, taller creature with a long arm reaches in and scoops you out for its pleasure, and (hopefully) throws you back for a season or two to let you rest up (by plowing and hauling and harvesting) before plucking you back out again by the tail. Though we can see over the walls and through the walls, when we try, the outside world is as unreachable as if the walls were stone, and more often than not we turn away and let them cake with dust or fog, so we don't have to imagine what could be beyond them, or what the world would be like if the taller creatures couldn't pluck us out on their whims.
So I suppose living in Aritrae is most like living at the bottom of a well. Though some of us cling and claw as we grow pale in the oppressive shade, there is little hope of getting out but on the backs of others, if you mean to get out by any route but the rope the neighbors drop. And like the angels in our old tales, trapped in such dark that they could not find their way out of the valleys, we are forgetting what it feels like to be in the sun. We are bearing our children into a world of shadow and despair, with only the most distant of stars to be seen and known, and hoping all the same that they'll scale the walls, someday, and crawl out into the fitful light, to lower the rope and load the bucket, and carry us all to freedom. But like the angels, we will wait until those oppressive gods see fit to drag us out, and blindly move as moved until returned to the stifling black where we can breathe and squint and make out our fellows. And like the angels, we wait for that celestial, perfect moment when the sun casts down just so, and fills our black tunnel with garish midday sun, bathing broken bodies and withered souls, blinding widened eyes, and delivering us--should we manage to crawl up the crevices, supported by sunbeams, aware of our disgusting condition--to that strange, elusive goddess called Sanity, called Life, called Freedom.
For now, a few of the bravest will dig their ways out through the walls, likely not to return, but to run for their lives and liberties in the fabled faraway cesspools beneath the groundwater. And for now, I'll climb the backs of my brothers and sisters into the sun, to flirt and keep fleeting romances with that sweet goddess of mine, all the while meaning to run and keep running, and hide and keep hiding, but never really making it. . . because no matter the miles from her, that valley, that pit called Aritrae is a black beacon. It is the dim spot through the blinding day that promises comfort and quiet and tradition, and the steady swish and twirl of seasons, the ebb and flow of servitude and self-sufficience.
And I am too tired and weak to run, to flee from the lion's den whose mouth we nest in, my eyes already so accustomed to the dark that the light grows too much for me, and I haunt the dusk and dawn in the faraway freelands until the word comes that the lions need their prey or the farms need their farmboys, because what will have I to resist?
Am I really the hope for the generations? My brothers and sisters the praised saviors, to carry our people from oppression? The blessed ones? We, the children of a silent God, the children of those sweet angels lost in the dark. . . Nay, we are but forgotten spawn left in the clutches of tyrants, too weak and pathetic to drag ourselves out of our own bonds.
So there we stay.
Living in Aritrae is lying half-dead and bound in an earthen coffin in chains we've forged ourselves, by the will of others. I often wonder, Does Aritrae even deserve deliverance?
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(Do you have a voice?)
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| Saturday, May 17th, 2003
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9:54 pm - The host continues: Commentary from the gallery, Part Two.
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Eliza has a less annoying habit than Blind Tommy, for whom I hold the greatest disdain and little to no respect. Her less annoying habit is the cheerful, charming Kure ('Ku-rei).
Kure is willing to drop by at any hour--particularly those where I, myself, am still up and about. She laughs and jokes and makes plenty noise, but at reasonable hours. She is neither stiff nor exceedingly formal (unlike Tommy), but loose and chatty and constantly grinning. And generally wears Eliza out with her antics to where she can sleep a quiet period straight through, without tossing in foul dreams or waking my companion or myself. Eliza is really far more bearable after Kure Episodes, we like to call them.
I suppose I could almost like Kure.
But, with Kure occasionally comes an entourage, and I am not so sure about that, at all.
Occasionally she totes Tommy, at hours unusual for him. And I disapprove of that, I'll tell you. But the most notable if least rambunctious of Kure's fellows is the sibling she tugs along; he's very formal, much like the cursed Tommy, but exceedingly mild and. . . easy to be around. She'll bring him to hear Eliza play on her strings, or to have some more practical service from your's truly (I am quite level in financial games, if I do say so, myself). Occasionally, Kure will need help with some stitching, or will bring him over for a bite (Eliza cooks, too--dreadful habit), or will need help darkening his hair (and I've a fine eye for detail)--there is quite a lot of it, and his roots were starting to show, and that's just uncouth. . .
Now, why they bleached it in the first place, I'll never know, though the sheet of white was certainly. . . celestial. Still, I (personally) would've prefered raven tresses--they are a favorite! And aren't we supposed to want to go back to the shade we had? I know if I were going grey I would have the box of Level 3 Goldenrod in an instant, not Snow or Ice or whatever they'd call them if they were trying to glamourize deterioration (and bleach is so bad for the texture. . . ). Besides, that boy couldn't pass for thirty; black would have looked more natural. But I've always said Ruunsai was an odd country--you know, the natives stay dark 'til the end of their days, or go gray practically before their hormones kick in--Midori is, apparently, in the latter group. A shame, really. He is starting to own up to his lot, though, and I'm sure that's admirable. But my companion has to use the darkeners, these days, as well, Eliza is barely strawberry blonde, if that dark, and Kure (though she does still have black hair, herself) commonly streaks hers through with warm tones and rough tails and generally inelegant things. Dark hair continually escapes me. So, of course, "Tommy" has to have the rotten coal black mop. Solely to taunt me. I swear it is his purpose in life, right down to his pigments.
But, no matter. Why dwell on the sightless wonder? The siblings are, for the most part, visually appealing (though Kure is less my "type"--a bit overweight, really, too heavily made up)--not that I'd only judge them on their appearances, of course. Their names, too, are less grating than "Tommy." Their accents, their clothing, their mannerisms. . . And they smile sincerely (Tommy smirks at me, constantly, behind my back--I just know it). And they are, in short, not "Tommy."
And I approve of that.
If Eliza really must have friends, they would better be the siblings than the darkly-lensed, horribly dressed, proud, stiff, early-rising, dancing, quick learning, talented, flower-bringing, old-fashioned, obnoxious sod of a foreigner they happen to live with and depend on and care about..
Some people.. . . . .
Really, the nerve. . .!
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(Do you have a voice?)
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2:16 am - Commentary from the gallery: On guests, visitors, and general good manners.
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I have decided that Eliza is the most miserable house-guest I have ever had. She is giving music lessons. In return for dancing lessons. In my sitting room.
My very own parlor.
At insanely late and early hours, no less; that schedules can conflict so much is positively boggling. Conspiratorial. Do they really feel that great a need to wake me up, or keep me up late, every night and day? It's terribly rude.
The nerve.
You know, she wasn't this rude when I met her. But she was also hungry. And homeless. . . I suppose even I would be sweet-tempered at that point.
. . . No, probably not. All the same, she seemed to be a very mild-mannered, polite breed of houseguest; very quiet, kept the music to reasonable hours, didn't claw up the furniture. But then here comes the so-called "Blind Tommy" trudging up the stairs at 4 in the blasted morning to trade lessons for lessons, usually with flowers (not that that really matters. . .), to impede my attempts at rest, and intrude on my lair, as it were, and generally brighten Eliza's mood, setting her into fits of giggles, of all things, or chattering. . .
The nerve.
Furthermore, she attempts to bring home felines, and that is completely out of the question; she is constantly ill, and that's dampening; she's obnoxiously starry-eyed, which is excruciating; and worst of all, she's sweet and caring and absolutely insane, so I have to keep her.
Rather than carve her into little pieces to feed the fireplace with. Not that I haven't considered it. For instance, when "Tommy" is trying to teach her to dance to something catchy and grating and involving much pattering on the floor.
Couldn't they waltz?
The nerve. . . .
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(Do you have a voice?)
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| Saturday, February 8th, 2003
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7:38 pm - Character Stories - Devon's Story - Part 4
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Devon had been barely thirteen when she had first set out for Galton. And two years passed before she truly settled in the city. Even at fifteen, she was often mistaken for a child just barely past eleven. Most strangers who spoke to her, particularly if they were women, would ask after her parents. She had nothing to tell them on the subject of her parents, as she didn’t know the answers, herself. On a few rare occasions she found herself thwarting adoption attempts by well-meaning people. She wasn’t homeless, she would assure them. She was simply trying to be, and perhaps make a living at it if she could. Devon had a habit of leaving people rather bemused.
She spent less time daydreaming about the stranger by the time she was in her fifteenth year, and more time daydreaming about the man with the bird. He was very tall. It seemed to her that he was almost half again as tall as she was. And she decided quite early on that he was the most handsome man in the entire known world. That is, the world as she knew it to be. Which, admittedly, wasn’t a very large world… still. The man was impressive, nonetheless. He always wore dark glasses, so she had plenty of leeway to fantasize about what color his eyes might be. She liked to think that they were a brighter blue than her own… or perhaps a brilliant green, like Keli’s. However, when he appeared in her dreams they were always as black as the glass that hid them from view, and just as unfathomable.
The streets he walked rarely varied wildly, and were not difficult to note. She began to purposely choose those streets to walk, herself, and counted the times she managed to sell him an apple. They far outnumbered her fingers when he finally asked her name, her age, and offered her a job. It was not as if she had never been offered a job, before. She spent one or two days each week cleaning up a bar towards the East end of the city, under the leering gaze of its owner. For the most part, she would accept what was offered to her, but, with the exception of the job at the Prophet’s Keep, the arrangements were never lasting and were always well thought out in advance. She made sure of that. Working for Jason Prophet had taught her not to enter contracts with people without making doubly sure that they weren’t binding to the point of discomfort. Even with the ample forewarning Ms. Hart had given, and even with the experience that she’d had with Jason, Devon did not so much as pause before she had accepted Mr. Seven E. Marx’s proposal. She didn’t even ask him to clarify what the job would be.
Of course, she learned soon enough what it would be. It seemed a child had been placed in the care of Mr. Seven E. Marx. Devon’s heart plummeted when she thought the child might be his, but it leapt for joy to discover that no, the child was his niece. Mr. Seven E. Marx was not married, and had never been. Mr. Seven E. Marx was not a father, but a caring brother who was willing to help out a sister in need by taking in her young daughter. Mr. Seven E. Marx was quite likely the most perfect man on the face of the planet, and Devon eagerly gave him her heart when she shook his hand for the first time, the summer she turned fifteen.
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(Do you have a voice?)
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| Sunday, January 26th, 2003
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8:57 pm - Excerpt from an Interview With C.E. Marx
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“Ms. Marx, when did the synthetics become a goal of your corporation?”
“The synthetic person has been a dream of MarxCorp for many years, now. The idea originated before my time. … Well, we started with basic designs. Cogs and gears. The original models were little more than wind-up toys. There was an essential problem to that, however… Yes. Exactly. They needed to be wound back up whenever they ran down. Perpetual power was beyond us – beyond anyone, at that point. With the advent of electricity, we were able to make some more progress. We tried many different fuel-powered models, but none were as efficient as we wanted. Let alone cost-effective. When the idea that a soul --… Yes, a soul -- could be developed or placed within a synthetic, the project became a very high priority. The very first soul-bearing synthetic is still in my possession. She is based on a rather inspired model of the clockwork type – one that winds itself as it moves, once it is set into motion. The trouble with her is that she cannot ever cease to move, or she’ll wind down and – Yes? Well, yes. She’ll basically die …insofar as a synthetic can die. She is still very much a work of brilliance, however.”
“And this synthetic is still active?”
“Yes. She will remain active until her parts wear down, and she literally falls to pieces. She is primarily formed of a metal alloy, and is much older than even this building. She is somewhat rusted, but still functioning.”
“Where do you keep it?”
“In the mailroom, actually. She sorts letters.”
“If it can’t stop moving… what happens if it sorts all of the mail?”
“She sorts it all again.”
“And you claim that it has a soul?”
“Yes. She has a soul.”
“Can it aspire?”
“Of course. If you mean does it aspire to be anything other than a mailroom clerk, then no. She was told that her purpose in life was sorting mail, and she believes it.”
“She’s content with that?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“But if she has a soul--”
“I never claimed that it was a very complex soul.”
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(1 voice | Do you have a voice?)
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| Saturday, January 18th, 2003
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8:30 pm - Character Stories: Seven Marx - 1
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The first day was spent settling into the new apartment and getting his accounts and papers in order. He was officially a resident. Once all of that was accomplished, he spent the next few days buying clothes – as traditional garb was not exactly appropriate for local street-wear in this country. On the second day he visited the main office and did not meet with Ms. Marx. While this was a disappointment to him, he was outfitted with a formal position in the corporation, including an occupational contract. As that was his reason for visiting the main office in the first place, he did not feel that the entire day was a loss. On the third day he went to work.
His was to oversee the distribution and collection of profits earned from the corporation’s various housing properties and boarding establishments. A handful of hotels and apartment complexes were under his watch, including the one in which he lived. While it was, altogether, not the most lucrative position he could maintain, it was very convenient. And it was certainly a better occupation than he could hope for at home.
On the fifth day, he found the crow. It was having an argument with a large spider, which was firmly settled with two points. First the spider made its point by biting the crow, and then the crow countered by biting the spider. The last bite was more damaging, and the debate was settled. Because the crow was unwilling or unable to fly (though obviously still possessed of fine discussion skills), he decided to offer it his assistance. The crow was less than grateful. It attempted to react to his handling methods with the same arguments it had been using with the spider – and he was unimpressed to learn that it only knew the one good counter. Believing that it could be a fine orator in time, he decided to teach the bird manners befitting a member of polite society. He purchased two cages – a rather large one for his apartment and a smaller one suitable for travel (as no one could predict what the spiteful creature might get up to, left on its own) – and was often to be found discussing politics and table manners with the Spider-Battling-Crow, whose name was shortened over time to just “Spider.” The name seemed to suit the bird’s venomous personality quite well.
It was not until the eleventh day – a holy number if ever there were such things – that he saw the Goddess Incarnate. He knew she was Semshi Herself because of the way she moved, a mistress of grace and ethereal beauty. She was an unusual creature to behold – with silken strands of long, white hair and the darkest eyes he’d ever seen on a human being. Not that he would call such a vision human. Never in his life would he insult her so. She embodied everything he imagined the Sun-Goddess to be. And as he could not hope to resist falling completely in love with her at first glance, he did not attempt to.
As serendipitous events often play out, he found that she lived in one of the buildings under his supervision. It did not take long to discover her name, nor did it take much longer to move his belongings to an apartment in the same complex, next to hers. Arranging a chance meeting was a bit more complex, and required a careful observance of her daily routine for a period of time before making himself known to her in a corner market. Weeks of research went into his approach. Countless hours of meticulous planning, excessive grooming, and very serious discussion with his crow were rewarded when he carefully stepped up to her and inclined his head over the pineapples in greeting with a friendly smile.
“Good day, my Lady. My name is Seven Marx. I believe we might be neighbors.”
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(Do you have a voice?)
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| Monday, December 30th, 2002
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9:24 pm - Culture: Kidusi - An Overview
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If you travel far enough, and cross enough water, you may manage to find Sa’anti, where there live two races of people quite unlike any others. Joined geographically at the hip, they manage to coexist peaceably enough, while retaining some very remarkable cultural differences. To the North, and covering most of the land, are the Sa’antians, the Sun People. And while they are a proud and solitary people, they are quite well-known even so far as the city of Galton. This is due mostly in part to the enterprises of one very well known Sa’antian who really need not be named here. Or anywhere, for that matter, as such people are only best spoken about in certain company and under very particular circumstances. As any good Sa’anti councilwoman would be able to tell you, the names that bear the most weight are not to be dropped lightly. It is a proven fact that the heaviest name of all, that of the Sultani, the Semshi, the Sun-Goddess Incarnate and Queen of Her People, can be heard hundreds of miles away even if spoken at a mere whisper. So you really cannot be too careful.
In any event, the Sa’antians, as solitary as they may be, have a big enough place in the history books to require no more than the briefest reference at this time. It is their small band of cousins to the South whom we turn our attention towards now. If the Sa’antians are the Sun People, then it can well be said that the Kidusi are the Children of the Sea. They are a fishfolk, the majority of whom live in a cove at the edge of the very continent, where the temperatures are not quite so hot as in the midland deserts, and the ocean is at their doorsteps. By nature, the Kidusi are nomadic, but this Kidu village has been where it is for many years. Long enough for the Sa’antians to evolve from predators to protectors, of a sort, as the Kidusi have no militia of their own. Hardly an aggressive species, by all rights they should have died out years ago. Yet, they persist. Without warfare, without suspicions… And, perhaps just as surprisingly, so has their culture.
Kidu religion can be simplified well enough. All life sprung forth from the vast womb of the ocean, and all life will return to it, given time. The earth itself was born of water, and when it has served its time it will be submerged again. The cycle of life, as far as the Kidusi are concerned, is very similar to the water cycle. Children are born in water. In the forgotten days, a saltwater Kidu might lay as many as three-dozen eggs in the very ocean itself… but due to more modern conveniences, a Sa’antian-Kidu will lay hers in a suitably prepared tank or bathtub. Fewer eggs are produced in today’s Kidusi, as the survival rate has become a bit more encouraging over the years. Still, it is tradition to never name any Kidu child until after it has survived the first year of its life cycle. Not very many do. After a year of development, the child’s skin has become thick enough to withstand sunlight, and it should be able to breathe air and walk on its own. At that time, the child will emerge from its family’s home to be named – in a celebration known in the village as the “First-Light” ceremony.
Kidusi have a tendency to mate very young, but it is certainly not a requirement. When they mate, they do it for life. This is unsurprising, since a Kidu does not live a particularly long time in comparison to, say, a human being. As far as physiology is concerned, they are quite a fragile people. Matings are never a formal arrangement. They are indicated by a declaration made by the couple, and if the village approves (as it generally does), there will be a celebration. A Kidu wedding is not something to miss. Pairs can be identified by certain patterned beadwork worn on the arm or leg. Kidusi beadwork is very renowned, and the Sa’antians have come to utilize it in their own culture.
As a community, the Kidusi are primarily artisans and fishermen. They do offer slightly more in trade goods than just those would provide, but those alone are enough to make them quite valuable to their neighbors. A Kidu child is raised to contribute to and benefit from the village on a small, community scale. They are not, as a people, very ambitious. They mature, they breed, and they die. During that time, if they manage to contribute by providing food for the community or becoming adept at a craft, they are remembered more fondly by their family once they pass. The only event in a Kidu’s life that might compare with the first-light and mating ceremonies is a funeral celebration. After all members of the immediate family and closest friends have consumed small pieces of the deceased Kidu, the body – and assumedly the life once housed inside of it – is returned to the sea to be reborn.
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(Do you have a voice?)
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| Monday, December 16th, 2002
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8:59 pm - Character Stories: Twilight Speaks 1
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The record was playing a single from 1958. Seconds before the final chords of the song rang out, a hand would languidly pluck up the needle and slide it over to start the song anew, and a smile would form. Heavenly shades of night were falling . . .
She lost count of how many times the song played. She wasn’t counting. She was floating above a sea of purple colored curtains and mist . . . a deliciously dark abyss where the music was her dance partner and nothing else could be heard or felt. Nothing else was real. The setting sun had been surrendered hours ago, and the fingers of night had surrounded her in a cold, loving embrace. If the thick smell of smoke in the air or the heat from the nearby fire reached her at all, she didn’t show it. All of her attention was on floating, and the only movements she made were the slight shift of her hand to move the needle, and the smile playing at her lips. Out of the mist a voice was calling . . .
Calling. Crying. Screaming. Piercing the serenity of what was, otherwise, a very lovely evening. But she wasn’t going to go help them. She wasn’t ready to crawl and claw her way down through the thick mountains of fog and mist to find the cries. Not yet . . . not yet. And eventually, they would stop. And the smell of smoke would ease, and fade. Hours would pass, dawn would break, but heavenly shades of night kept falling . . . At least, until the batteries died.
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(1 voice | Do you have a voice?)
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| Friday, October 18th, 2002
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1:38 am - Character Stories: C.E. Marx 1
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She liked the painting a great deal. It was simple and abstract. Worth nothing, as the artist was unknown, but that was part of why it had appealed to her. All of the art that she bought was by unknowns. Art was an investment, and a good portion of her fortune was founded on risky investments. Those who inherited her estate might find themselves in possession of a lot of worthless paintings, but they would also find a few valuable ones in the lot as well.
She had decided to hang this painting in her main office. It portrayed a pyramid of rectangles, free-floating, most of the same dull color; a yellowed gray that reminded her of the desert she had been raised in. All but one, which was blue. The observer wanted the discolored rectangle to be central, but it wasn’t. She liked the painting for not conforming to symmetry.
It wasn’t exactly a pyramid-shape, either. But that was what she wanted it to be. A flawed, but otherwise sandy pyramid floating on a vast expanse of sky. It often inspired her during the times, more frequent of late, when she wasn’t sure her research would yield the desired results. Or any practical results at all.
The synthetics, at least, had been a success. Putting a patent on the technology used to create them had been something of a task, but a manageable one. She had been able to let a representative handle most of it, thankfully, though she had been slightly worried. There was the technicality of using souls in the process . . . something that wouldn’t have gone over well with the public, should anyone care too look very closely at how the synthetics were being made. Her lawyer had been able to gloss over it easily enough, and no one had bothered to question the specifics to that degree. She was the only one who knew that she was cheating to bring her synthetics to life.
That thought had surprised her, when she’d first had it. Several years ago, that had been. A time when she should have been elated by the success. She had discovered how to -- quite literally -- breathe life into a piece of glass, but she felt no closer to Godhood than she had when she started.
The longevity serum was failing. That was it. She was taking it in steadily increasing doses, now. Soon she would need a constant drip, and one day that wouldn’t be enough. Gods, presumably, lived forever, and she would not. Not unless the vampiric studies she was currently conducted uncovered the secret of immortality. She refused to let herself become overly optimistic about them at this point. The mermaids had been a red herring, after all.
Though, it was entirely possible that the mermaids she had been looking for had gone extinct. Had bred out into the thousands of species and subspecies of water-dwelling folk that she had found and ran her tests on, fruitlessly. She had even gone so far as to test the Kidu -- who hardly resembled merfolk at all -- to no avail. Countless experiments had been run on over eight thousand individuals, and the secret of immortality was still as locked away as it ever had been. It made sense, now. None of the mercreatures themselves were immortal. That had been established early on. Why would their flesh grant such a gift to others?
So she had turned to the vampires.
The longevity serum had been plant-based in nature. It had worked amazingly well at first, but after a while the body will build up a tolerance for it. She hoped that an answer to that could be found with the vampires. If only she could find a truly immortal vampire . . . So far, none of the ones she had tested were indestructible in the least.
Not that they didn’t have their uses, of course. She was a practical person. Practical people wasted nothing. The vampire research was yielding fascinating results so far, just no answers to the problem of the serum.
The answer was simple -- if no one was meant to live forever. However, she planned to. She didn’t fear death, but she needed to finish her research. She needed to see a few more centuries out. It wasn’t much to ask. The thought of leaving things unfinished . . . of not seeing what sort of impact she had made -- could make -- was horrifying. No one but she could manage such a powerful corporation. She couldn’t leave her companies, the labs . . . in the hands of the synthetics at this point. Or her son. And she couldn’t take it with her. So she had no choice but to live forever. Or . . . two or three more centuries. An estimated hundred years to finish up her projects, the rest for
retirement.
She longed for the day that she could retire -- surround herself with reliable, synthetic employees, and only interact with living forms through the arts. Of course, she wasn’t pouring all of her hopes into the vampires. Practical people were resourceful, after all. “Reverie?”
“Yes, Ms. Marx?”
“Get Seven on the phone, would you?”
“Yes, Ms. Marx.”
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(Do you have a voice?)
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| Thursday, October 10th, 2002
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12:50 am - Character Stories - Soonati - Devon's Story Part 3
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Miss Hart was delighted when Devon approached her with the idea. Keli was decidedly less so, as was to be expected, and tried to dissuade her with nightmarish tales of what the cities were like. In the process, he convinced himself that he needed to accompany her for protection, which was fine as far as Devon was concerned; she didn’t want to get lost on the way, and Keli could keep her on the right path. Still, she didn’t leave right away. Keli scouted the best routes to the nearest cities while she made herself a travelling tunic. Miss Hart encouraged her to charge even more for her apples, because they were unique to be ripe in this season, and were worth a good deal more than a penny, but Devon didn’t want to cheat anyone. The tree had always belonged to the twins, and she would charge as she would for its fruit.
When Devon set out, she set out for Galton, to the South, the only city within a day's walk from the grove. There was another to the West, but it would take at least a day to get there, and Devon hadn’t planned on being gone for several days, particularly without a place to stay. Galton wasn’t, perhaps, the nicest of cities. It's size lent to its being very impressive and intimidating, but it suffered from the problems of any big city; high population, crime, pollution . . . The northernmost part of the city, in particular, was lined with bars and seedy shops. It was the crowded, dirty home of thousands of questionable people. To the South were the nicer apartments, shops, and office buildings; more care had been taken with the landscaping, and the people were more well-groomed. Devon unwittingly stayed in the more sour parts of town, and Keli followed her from a small distance, his initial apprehension shifting to boredom within the first few minutes (when the first week proved just as uneventful as that first day, he decided he wouldn't need to follow her every time). It took five hours for Devon to sell her apples -- people were wary of her cheerful demeanor and cheap price -- and once her basket was empty, she headed back. The twins managed to return to the grove late that same night.
It was an exciting thing, for Devon, this new freedom. She loved being around that many people, questionable as they were. She was friendly to a fault, and it was sheer good luck that she didn’t run into trouble sooner than she did.
Well, a little more than just luck. Devon was questionable, herself, though she didn’t know it. She was small-framed, particularly in comparison to the city-folk, and that led most people to the assumption that she was a child. Even when looked at as a child, she was plain in appearance, but she wasn't shy. Devon had no qualms about meeting people’s eyes when she looked at them, and her smile was confident. Thrown by the nonchalant demeanor in someone who should, by all rights, be acting like a natural victim, most people left Devon to herself. Besides, what could be gained by robbing someone who was so bad off that they had to sell apples for a penny a piece on the streets? Unaccosted, Devon settled easily into her new routine in Galton, and the city largely ignored her presence there.
She still needed to be rescued, but she was able to forget about that . . . for a while, at least.
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(Do you have a voice?)
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| Tuesday, October 1st, 2002
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8:48 pm - Character Stories - Soonati - Devon's Story part 2
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If she wanted to be honest with herself, she would have to admit that she’d only been dreaming of rescue for about five years. That wasn’t really all that long. Miss Hart had been waiting for over twenty, after all. But Devon didn’t want to end up like Miss Hart. Spending her entire life waiting in the grove. What if the heroes couldn’t find it? Heroes didn’t seem to get lost very often. They knew where they were going. The grove might be completely overlooked in the years to come, and that was a very frightening thought.
There were other women -- famous women -- in her storybooks who had to face similar circumstances. Several were locked away in tall towers, hidden from the world, and had to wait for chance to bring their heroes to them. Taking a page from their many examples, Devon tried patience. She even sat at her favorite window of the tree-house and sang, thinking that her voice might lure a heroic passerby closer to the inn. Alas, none seemed to be forthcoming.
Devon began to wonder if heroes were growing scarcer now than once upon-a-time. It could be that there weren’t enough to go around, anymore. That would certainly explain the plight of Miss Hart, and it didn’t bode very well for Devon’s own future if the heroes were all getting used up elsewhere.
It wasn’t really fair that she was getting overlooked just because of her location. If only there were a dragon in the local forest . . . or an evil witch, perhaps . . . something worthy of rumor, so that word of her turmoil would get around. A good prophecy would do it, but Devon doubted that there were any prophecies or legends about bored girls in trees. At least, none that were current enough to grab a local hero’s attention. Waiting for one to turn up was somewhat risky, if she didn’t want to end up waiting forever. It was certainly a problem that would require some thought.
And so it was that she was thinking about that, rather than sleeping, when someone came scuffling around their tree just before sunrise that morning. Devon held her breath, waiting for Keli to bolt out of the top bed and dash out of the house with his crossbow. When that didn’t happen, she cautiously got out of her bed and approached the window to see who it was. Miss Hart never ventured out of the inn before sunrise, so it couldn’t be her.
It wasn’t Miss Hart. Someone that Devon had never seen before was gathering apples from their tree. For a moment, Devon was struck with the idea that it might be her stranger. That he had made his way to the grove at last . . . but she couldn’t imagine why her stranger would want to steal apples before making himself known to her, so she pushed that idea aside. It was just a stranger. An older man with graying hair and a taste for apples. “The green ones are bitter, but very good for pies. The red ones are very sweet. The yellow ones are probably best to eat on their own.”
The man jumped a little, and peered up into the tree. “Hello?”
Devon smiled, even though she knew that he couldn’t see her from where he was. “Good morning. Are you from the city?”
“Who are you talking to?” Devon turned to watch Keli climb down from the top bed. He must have been out very late last night, if it had taken him this long to wake up. On most days he would have been the first to wake up to a strange noise outside.
“I’m not sure. Someone who wants apples. I think he might be from the city.” Devon looked back out the window and raised her voice again. “Well, are you from the city?”
“Not really! Where are you?”
Devon placed a warning hand on Keli’s arm, to keep him grabbing for a weapon. “In the tree. We live here. You woke us. You aren’t from the forest.”
“No. But I’m not from as far as the city, either. Where did you get a tree that grows three kinds of apples? How can it be fruiting in early spring? Are you magical tree-sprites?”
“Tree-sprites!” Keli pulled away, and dashed out of one of the side doors. Devon sighed. It had been a silly thing to say. Their tree was usually fruiting, and it had always grown three kinds of apples. Sprites had nothing to do with it. Besides, sprites were very small. Keli, always a little self-conscious about his height, took offense at the suggestion that he might be nothing more than a sprite. Devon felt compelled to climb outside, herself, just to ensure that nothing untoward happened to the man. She didn’t want Keli to get in trouble.
“Oh! You’re just children!” The man chuckled, completely unwary of the sling Keli had in hand. “Do you have a treehouse up there, then? I used to have one, when I was a boy. A bit cold to be sleeping outdoors, though, isn’t it?”
Devon -- trying not to visibly bristle at being called a child -- wrapped her arms around her twin’s waist to pacify him, and smiled. “We’ve always slept outdoors.”
“Is that so?” Another chuckle, and the man stooped to gather what apples he had previously dropped. “Well, then, I suppose you’re used to it.”
Keli wasn’t being pacified. “Who the hell do you think you are? You’re stealing!”
That paused the man, and he seemed to think about it for a moment. “Oh, now . . . I wasn’t going to take these apples without paying for them.”
“Yes, you were!” Keli struggled a bit, and must have gone through an entire mental list of threats before settling on tried and true. “I’ll kill you! Lying, apple-stealing bastard!”
Devon rolled her eyes and tightened her grip. “Keli . . .”
The man, for his part, was laughing. “Oh, now, son! I said I’d pay for them. I will. Wouldn’t take what’s yours, would I? Not me.” He straightened up and dug into a pocket, coming up with a handful of coins. “This should cover the lot, at a penny a’piece. Which is a fair price for apples, nowadays, isn’t it?”
She had no idea what a fair price for apples was, but that sounded just fine. No one had ever offered to buy anything from Devon, before. The coins that the man was setting on one of the roots of their tree might be enough to buy something from the city, the next time Miss Hart ordered supplies. The idea of buying books for herself was very appealing, so Devon nodded. “That’s fair. See, Keli? He’s buying some apples. That’s all right.”
Keli said nothing, which was all the permission the man needed to gather his apples and leave the grove, waving at the tree as he went, and chuckling the whole way. Devon refused to let her twin follow the man, instructing him instead to go inside and tell Miss Hart what had happened while she gathered the coins. She would never have thought that anyone would want to buy their apples, before. They were very nice apples, but she had always imagined that apple trees were very common. Perhaps they were less common than she knew, and in the city, where there were less trees of any sort, they were sure to be quite rare. There might be a market for apples there . . .
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(Do you have a voice?)
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12:40 am - Character Story - Soonati - Devon's Story part 1
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Devon needed a rescue.
Well, it wasn’t so much that she needed a rescue . . . more that she dreamed of being rescued. It didn’t occur to her that there was nothing for her to be rescued from in the grove. At fourteen, that sort of thing didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was getting listless . . . and thus felt that she needed to be rescued. Oh, she loved the grove. Miss Hart, the blind lady who ran the inn next to their tree house, was the closest thing to a other Devon had ever known. And Keli was there for company, always. There was just so little to see.
The road to the inn had long since been swallowed by the surrounding forest. Very few travelers made it there anymore, and those few who did were invariably lost. She couldn’t be sure which city they usually came from, because Keli never allowed them to get close enough to the tree for Devon to get a good enough look at their clothing to tell. She often thought about going to one of the cities on her own, but Keli wouldn’t hear of it. She was much safer in the tree-house, after all.
The supplies for the inn usually came once a month, from the South. Devon looked forward to those days the most, because they often meant that Miss Hart would be giving her a new book to read. She had a passion for books, and was deeply grateful to Miss Hart for being willing to get them for her. They often held the same story -- they’d start with an adventure, flaunt a daring rescue, and end with a kiss. The people in them would change, of course. It wouldn’t do to have the same characters tell the same story over and over again. But the basics were always the same.
Very rarely, she was sent a book as a gift from the stranger. It was always the same stranger, because she came to recognize the lettering on the package. It wasn’t always a book, however. Sometimes the stranger would send clothes, or such things of a more practical nature. Sometimes, the stranger sent something musical, like Keli’s whistle, which had come the year before. But the books were always Devon’s favorite gift. Whoever the stranger was, he had the most interesting taste in books. He never sent the same story twice. He didn’t even care if he sent a book that was in the same language as the others. His presents never failed to be exciting.
Devon wasn’t entirely sure that the stranger was a he, of course. She had never met him, but she imagined that he was of a heroic sort. The kind who traveled to places that might have exotic books. The kind who had adventures. Those kinds of people were always men. Just as the people who sat alone in the treetops, reading those books and hoping that they might be rescued were always women. So while she wasn’t entirely sure that the stranger was a he, she had a very good notion that he was. And, since he took such great care to send her and Keli presents, she didn’t think it was entirely too silly to hope that -- just perhaps -- the stranger would turn up in the grove some day, himself, and want to rescue her.
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(1 voice | Do you have a voice?)
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| Friday, September 27th, 2002
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7:56 pm - Culture: Sa'anti: Folktale
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From long before the time our people had lost their tails or crossed the waters, there is a story of a woman who wished more than anything to look like the Sultani, for that has always been a sign of great fortune. But she was too dark, much darker than Semshi.
So she covered herself in stale urine and Kidusi milk and slept in the sun until she was lighter.
Still, she was not happy . . . because her hair was curly, and the Sultani then had straight hair.
So she spent three whole days with her hair pressed under a large hot rock until it was straight,
and seared the ends off so that it was right length.
Still, she was not happy, because the tail of the Sultani was longer than her own, and had a black tip.
So for months she stretched her tail, by tying it around a boulder. Every week, she would replace the boulder with a larger one, until her tail was long enough. Then she dyed the tip with crushed Jensaa bark.
And still, she was not happy, because the Sultani had golden eyes.
So she made new eyes out of pearl from a Kidu trader and gold from the Muunari plains, and replaced her own with them.
She was so perfect, she thought! She looked exactly like the Sultani. Just as beautiful . . . just as desirable . . . She felt out her finest clothes, put them on and went to stand in front of the palace guards.
She wished to pay homage to Sultani, she said, proud of her sacrifices.
But they could not let the woman into the palace, for the Sultani had died in her sleep, and her eldest sister was being prepared to rule.
The Sultani's eldest sister had a deep red coloring, no tail, and green eyes.
The poor woman was cruelly mocked as she made her way back to her home, but she held her head high. Until the day of her death, she would proudly tell people that she looked exactly like the Sun Queen, because she could not see any difference.
You see, it is silly to waste your life on a fool's wishes.
But it is even sillier to waste your life on regrets.
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(Do you have a voice?)
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