................
My back is sore
my belly is cramping
and everyone is being so
fucking unreasonable
I could scream.
I am very reasonable.
I am the epitome of reasonability.
Except
It is getting hard to be reasonable
in a world that is just so
stupid.
The radio is playing that song
again
and the girl with the too-short shorts is
shouting
ohmygod there was this guy
and the fly is still stuck
in the goddamned window
and I am still stuck
in this goddamned town
and the world
is an unreasonable mess
and everyone
(but me)
is mean.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sid
href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cadmin%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml">
Don’t have a rutting clue what to think.
Last time I woke up with a headache like this I was on a rickety cruiser halfway to Boros with nothing but the taste of whiskey, an empty wallet, and a cargo bay full of freeze-dried termites to tell me what the gorram hell had happened.
At least that time I could move.
When I raise my head up – which is none too easy for how heavy it feels – the room starts to spin and my stomach flips over half a dozen times, and before I know it I’m flat on my back again, eyes shut tight, breathing heavily and trying not to heave.
Well ain’t that just Jing cai.
I keep my left eye shut but ease the digital one open, letting it feed me an image of the ceiling. Which also seems to be spinning, so it can’t be the eye – it’s the head.
Shiny.
I shut it again before I can be sick.
This place smells like a hospital. Too clean and metallic for anything else. The idea is not exactly my favourite ever – waking up in a hospital don’t tend to make for a pleasant morning.
My stomach settles down a bit and my head starts to clear.
There’s something funny here, besides the way everything’s spinning this way an’ that. It takes a few minutes for it to sink in before I realize: the walls are shaking. Just a little. A vibration.
Which means that there’s either an earthquake happening under my feet, or I’m somehow on a ship.
The air tastes just recycled enough for it to be a ship.
There was nothing about a ship in the plan. Culhain would have mentioned it.
Somebody would have mentioned it.
I ease open my eyes again, make sure not to move my head too fast.
So far so good. Just no quick movements and I might be fine.
In a manner of speaking.
If I’m on a ship and it wasn’t a part of the plan, then the plan went wrong and I’m likely humped one way or another.
Gao yang zhong de gu yang.
I’m looking to be in a world of trouble, and I can’t even get off the gorram table.
Hurting or not, I can’t just lie here.
So – slowly – I tilt my head to the side and let things settle. My stomach rolls, but not as much as I was afraid of.
The place is about what I expected.
Low ceiling, off-white walls, some glass cabinets filled with pill bottles, a fairly clean floor…
And that’s when I see that I’m not alone.
Somebody’s curled up down there, head resting on a bit of sacking.
I move again, wait for the room to stand still, and then I take a closer look. And all of the sudden more’n the room is spinning.
Because I know this girl.
What’s it been? Three years now?
Don’t matter none – I know her like I know the workings of the first gun I ever held. You could put me on the other side of a dark room and I’d know it was her by the way she breathed. Hell even if she weren’t breathing I’d know. I’d know.
Well hell.
That explains the hospital, but not the ship.
My neck is aching from the way it’s tilted, but I can’t seem to look away.
It ain’t like I thought about her, ‘tween then and now, but if I had I’d have remembered her hair a bit darker. A bit shorter. Shoulders are tanned now, and she’s got freckles I know weren’t there before.
Same long lashes.
Did she look this young three years ago?
I remember she blushed.
I remember a hell of a lot more than that.
My stomach’s a bit less than pleased, and I know I should close my eyes, but I don’t just yet. She could wake up, and who knows…she might be a danger, state I’m in.
Can’t remember why I left, but I must have had a damned good reason.
Could have had something to do with the way it’s real hard to breathe in here.
Could have had something to do with that blush of hers.
Or it could even have been this. The way she stirs, blinks sleepily up at me and smiles so sweetly I just about forget I’m about to hurl all over her infirmary.
I still don’t know what the rutting hell is going on, but I can’t help but give her a grin.
“Morning bao bei.” I choke out.
That sleepy smile spins off faster than a feather in a wind storm, and before I know it she’s on her feet, spitting out a string of curses a mile long and glaring like I killed her cat.
When she walks out the door it’s with that heavy stride I forgot all about. Little thing like her sure makes an awful lot of noise.
When a woman walks off like that you don’t follow her, but it’s a good thing I’m so gorram tangle-headed, cause otherwise I think I might.
Instead I shut my eyes, rest my head back down on the gurney and say her name, just to remember the taste.
Ayla.
Well hell.
She sure beats the gou shi out of freeze-dried termites.
My Goals: Essay for Scholarship Application
......
Because I know you all really want to read this nonsense.
......
It would not be true to say that I have always wanted to be a writer, because there was a time when I did not know what that was. It would, however, be true to say that I have always been a writer.
As a small child I spent much of my time on a trapline in the Ogilvie mountains, traveling by dogsled. There were long hours in which I had to sit very still, wrapped tightly in my sleeping bag with my older sister. Even when we reached our cabins, there was no tv, no computer, no real form of ready-made entertainment. I learned to entertain myself on those long journeys, and my entertainment invariably came in the form of a tale.
Once upon a time, they all began, but where they went from there – besides the ultimate and expected happy ever after – was anybody’s guess.
Those years of being cooped up in a dogsled had a profound impact on me. Because of them, storytelling became as much a part of me as the need to eat and walk and converse; without it I am hungry, restless and lonely.
There has never been any doubt that I want my life to be about writing, but just how to go about making it that way has been somewhat of a sticking point.
There is, of course, the small matter of being able to feed and clothe myself.
It is important for me to balance being sensible (it’s all very well to devote your life to art, but how are you going to eat?) with being artistic (but writing is all I ever want to do!). The compromise that struck a chord with me was to pick a field of writing where it was possible to make a reliable living while still doing what I love.
The career that best fits that description is editing. As long as I can work with literature (and still have time to write and attempt to publish) I will be more than content – I will be happy.
And that, of course, is the way the stories are meant to end.
Because I know you all really want to read this nonsense.
......
It would not be true to say that I have always wanted to be a writer, because there was a time when I did not know what that was. It would, however, be true to say that I have always been a writer.
As a small child I spent much of my time on a trapline in the Ogilvie mountains, traveling by dogsled. There were long hours in which I had to sit very still, wrapped tightly in my sleeping bag with my older sister. Even when we reached our cabins, there was no tv, no computer, no real form of ready-made entertainment. I learned to entertain myself on those long journeys, and my entertainment invariably came in the form of a tale.
Once upon a time, they all began, but where they went from there – besides the ultimate and expected happy ever after – was anybody’s guess.
Those years of being cooped up in a dogsled had a profound impact on me. Because of them, storytelling became as much a part of me as the need to eat and walk and converse; without it I am hungry, restless and lonely.
There has never been any doubt that I want my life to be about writing, but just how to go about making it that way has been somewhat of a sticking point.
There is, of course, the small matter of being able to feed and clothe myself.
It is important for me to balance being sensible (it’s all very well to devote your life to art, but how are you going to eat?) with being artistic (but writing is all I ever want to do!). The compromise that struck a chord with me was to pick a field of writing where it was possible to make a reliable living while still doing what I love.
The career that best fits that description is editing. As long as I can work with literature (and still have time to write and attempt to publish) I will be more than content – I will be happy.
And that, of course, is the way the stories are meant to end.
Ayla
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........
NOW its done, Jesi.
I am halfway through writing what Sid thinks of the next morning, but am not sure when I might get finished.
We shall see.
........
Put the syringe down real soft because a doctor is never rough with his instruments or his patients, take one last look at the sleeping merc who’s draped across my gurney like a hound-dog across an old porch, strip off the blood-stained gloves and hang up the apron, walk down the hallway and into my tiny room, shut the door softly and then punch the wall so hard they’ll hear the crack away up in the bridge.
Zhu fuen chse!
Does every single thing on this gorram ship have to be made of metal?
Hell.
They just brought him aboard.
Because he’s a ‘friend’.
Anybody else they’d have left him there to bleed to death, which wouldn’t have taken too long, scalp wound like that.
But since ol’ Sidney Xou is a friend of theirs, they couldn’t just leave him planet-side. Not when they have such a reliable doctor on board to patch him up.
Headboard of the bed ain’t metal. Course it just splits in half when I kick it, which don’t help none.
Since when do Culhain and George even have friends? Not since I’ve seen, anyhow, and if they have to start, why start with him?
Hell.
When I watched them wheel him in and I saw all that blood, wo de ma if I wasn’t scared for the bastard.
I slowed the bleeding down and started to go for the anaesthetic and then just stopped and looked.
Three years can add a lot of scars, I bet, but his face looks just the same.
Which don’t matter.
He was just…Sid was just…
Hell.
All out of things to hit.
He woke up just when I slipped the needle home, opened his eye and saw me.
Three years can add a lot of women too, I bet.
I was all set to scowl at him, but he just smiled, and then I couldn’t.
Just smiled, like three years hadn’t gone by and he was waking up and seeing me next to him, liking the sight.
Never happened. He skipped out before I ever opened my eyes, never to be seen again.
Till now.
He smiled and then he blacked out again, but before he did, he said something.
Something. He didn’t he did not he did not he did not he did NOT say my name.
Gorram it.
It was a mumble.
He’d hit his head.
What he tried to say was ai ya. Damn. Not Ayla.
Like as not he wouldn’t even remember my name, man of as many worlds as he is.
I’ll have to go in there in the morning.
I’ll have to check his vitals and make sure the scanner didn’t miss anything important.
I’ll have to talk to him and there’s not a thing in the ‘verse I’ll know how to say.
He’ll like as not call me bao bei.
Hell.
I want to break something, but there’s nothing breakable left.
Not here anyway.
Lots in the infirmary, though.
I don’t let myself think too much about that idea, just pick up my boots from the floor, flick the light off and slip out into the hall.
Nobody’s out and about at this hour but me. Empty humming hallway is all there is between there and here.
When I shut the door behind me, I don’t look at him, just grab a bandage for my hand and wrap it up, and then sit down on the floor because I’m liable to fall anyhow.
Not a thing in this gorram galaxy ever goes the way it ought.
His seabag’s beside me, and I reach for it, wanting to count his guns and find an excuse to hate him – not that I need one – but all of the sudden I’m tired, so tired, and it’s easier to lie down than it was to sit.
Easier to shut my eyes than to keep staring at Sid.
Second last thing I think as I slip off into sleep is that I’m going to feel all manner of foolish when he wakes up and sees me stretched out on the floor with my head on his seabag.
Last thing I think is that it smells like him.
Hell.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Acacia (2506, on Shadow)
.........
Something different this time. I guess people's childhoods and pasts were on my mind. But anyway, hope you had a good day at work, Jesi :)
.........
She walks right inside without taking her shoes off – a thing she never used to do – through the kitchen with the sink full of dishes, past the living room that looked nice six months ago, and into the room where she used to sleep with her husband. When she had one.
She shuts the door very quietly, sits down on the soft mattress and begins to cry.
She cries often now, although never when the children can see. Marcus would weep too, climb onto her lap and suck on his thumb, blue-eyed and angelic and sad for Mummy. Ayla would stamp off to shout at the cattle, red-faced and uncertain.
What do you do with a girl who doesn’t know how to cry? Acacia doesn’t know the answer to that any more than she knows what to do with a boy who won’t do much else.
She looks down at her hands – folded on her lap just as properly as they ought to be – sees the calouses on the palms and despairs.
Oh she knows it could be worse. Barret isn’t gone for good – she’s not a war widow, not yet. She’ll have him back just as soon as there’s been Unification, just as soon as the Alliance has done with him.
She can’t help it: she seethes. Wives of high-ranking military men should be patriotic, she knows, but since when does the state have a better right to her husband than she does? They need him for the war, and she can have him when they’re done, but she needs him now, and besides, when will the war end? Six months he’s been gone, and no sign of a good solid leave in sight.
The Alliance sets up a vid session once a month, sure as clockwork. She puts her hair up the way he likes it, rubs cream onto her rough cheeks so he won’t see how sun-hardened they’ve become. She tries to soften her eyes, too, but she worries that he sees the accusation in them.
“Cacy,” he said, the last time, “I know you didn’t marry me for this, Bao bei. I never meant it to happen.”
It’s rare, this quiet tenderness. New. Her husband has always been loud and boisterous. She never felt smothered by him, just protected. She doesn’t know how to respond to his apologies.
So she’d smiled and shaken her head, told him she was perfectly capable of running the ranch, and besides, the farm-hands, those young men from across town, they were helping so much…
They steal from her, she knows, but what can she say? A woman alone like this, she can count herself lucky they don’t do more. And Barret would be murderous if he knew, but how could he help from there? She won’t make him feel powerless.
And so she is up before the sun, pumping water to fill the troughs for the cattle, mixing their food, herding them into the fields and back to the barn before the children are awake. She walks into town, her skirts gray to the knee with mud and dust, buys what she can afford and carries it home in time to cook breakfast.
Ayla helps, as much as a twelve-year-old girl can do, but the work is endless.
Acacia sees her out the window now, ordering the farm-hands about with an ease that impresses even them. It breaks her heart to watch this girl, this daughter of hers with the boy-short hair and deep-down vulnerability, try to fill the shoes her father left empty.
Quite literally, in fact. Ayla is wearing heavy boots that reach her knees, has stuffed socks inside the toes, does not seem to mind the weight of them. Acacia doesn’t know where she found Barret’s old boots.
“Give them their good feed tonight,” the girl’s saying, her clear voice drifting through the open window. “And don’t let me catch you skimming off the top the way you were last week. Gan mang! How much time you think we’ve got?”
There’s a twang of rim-speech to her voice that Acacia doesn’t think should be there. She tries to teach her children to speak right, but she even finds herself slipping into common speech sometimes these days.
The burly young men march off, grinning at each other.
Does the girl see she’s being humoured? Acacia doubts it. Ayla is squaring her shoulders and walking towards Marcus now, who has been sitting on a nearby fence watching the proceedings with wide eyes. She holds out her hand, says something to him that their mother can’t hear, and helps the little boy climb down.
They are coming back to the house. Acacia pulls out her handkerchief, pats away the tears and composes herself. He will come back, her husband. The state will give him back, and he will come home and he will marvel at the children, and he will not see the new lines on her face or the gray in her hair. They will make up for the time stolen from them, and this will only be a bad memory. It will be alright.
She listens to the muffled voices of the children, and then, impossibly, the noise of the pump and a splash of water in the sink.
The dishes, she thinks. My children are washing the dishes.
She should get up – the work is endless and she is behind – but instead she sits, listening to her children. Marcus is talking loudly, exclaiming that he doesn’t understand why Mummy isn’t here, but she’ll be so happy when she sees the flowers he found.
It will be alright, Acacia thinks, but it doesn’t ring true.
Berret was right say she wasn’t meant for this. She twists the ring on her finger and reminds herself things she can’t quite believe anymore: how much she loves her husband, and how much better things will be when the war is over and he comes back.
Sometime later, there is a knock on the door, and she stands up, smoothing her skirts and shaking away her gloom. They mustn’t see she’s been crying.
There is a knock again, polite and nearly quiet. Acacia opens the door, a smile ready for Marcus and his flowers, and has to adjust her expression for Ayla. The smile slips for a moment, and she knows her daughter sees it. Sees it, as she sees everything, but does not understand that it did not slip out of disappointment but out of surprise.
We don’t understand each other, my daughter and I, she thinks, and spontaneously pulls the girl into a hug.
“Xie xie, Ayla. You worked hard today, love.”
The girl is stiff for a moment, but softens into her arms with something like a sigh.
Too hard, Acacia thinks, but does not say. You worked too hard, my darling girl.
Something is burning in the other room, and Marcus is beginning to shout, but they stand for a moment, each drawing strength from the other.
It will be alright, Acacia thinks again, and this time she nearly believes it.
Something different this time. I guess people's childhoods and pasts were on my mind. But anyway, hope you had a good day at work, Jesi :)
.........
She walks right inside without taking her shoes off – a thing she never used to do – through the kitchen with the sink full of dishes, past the living room that looked nice six months ago, and into the room where she used to sleep with her husband. When she had one.
She shuts the door very quietly, sits down on the soft mattress and begins to cry.
She cries often now, although never when the children can see. Marcus would weep too, climb onto her lap and suck on his thumb, blue-eyed and angelic and sad for Mummy. Ayla would stamp off to shout at the cattle, red-faced and uncertain.
What do you do with a girl who doesn’t know how to cry? Acacia doesn’t know the answer to that any more than she knows what to do with a boy who won’t do much else.
She looks down at her hands – folded on her lap just as properly as they ought to be – sees the calouses on the palms and despairs.
Oh she knows it could be worse. Barret isn’t gone for good – she’s not a war widow, not yet. She’ll have him back just as soon as there’s been Unification, just as soon as the Alliance has done with him.
She can’t help it: she seethes. Wives of high-ranking military men should be patriotic, she knows, but since when does the state have a better right to her husband than she does? They need him for the war, and she can have him when they’re done, but she needs him now, and besides, when will the war end? Six months he’s been gone, and no sign of a good solid leave in sight.
The Alliance sets up a vid session once a month, sure as clockwork. She puts her hair up the way he likes it, rubs cream onto her rough cheeks so he won’t see how sun-hardened they’ve become. She tries to soften her eyes, too, but she worries that he sees the accusation in them.
“Cacy,” he said, the last time, “I know you didn’t marry me for this, Bao bei. I never meant it to happen.”
It’s rare, this quiet tenderness. New. Her husband has always been loud and boisterous. She never felt smothered by him, just protected. She doesn’t know how to respond to his apologies.
So she’d smiled and shaken her head, told him she was perfectly capable of running the ranch, and besides, the farm-hands, those young men from across town, they were helping so much…
They steal from her, she knows, but what can she say? A woman alone like this, she can count herself lucky they don’t do more. And Barret would be murderous if he knew, but how could he help from there? She won’t make him feel powerless.
And so she is up before the sun, pumping water to fill the troughs for the cattle, mixing their food, herding them into the fields and back to the barn before the children are awake. She walks into town, her skirts gray to the knee with mud and dust, buys what she can afford and carries it home in time to cook breakfast.
Ayla helps, as much as a twelve-year-old girl can do, but the work is endless.
Acacia sees her out the window now, ordering the farm-hands about with an ease that impresses even them. It breaks her heart to watch this girl, this daughter of hers with the boy-short hair and deep-down vulnerability, try to fill the shoes her father left empty.
Quite literally, in fact. Ayla is wearing heavy boots that reach her knees, has stuffed socks inside the toes, does not seem to mind the weight of them. Acacia doesn’t know where she found Barret’s old boots.
“Give them their good feed tonight,” the girl’s saying, her clear voice drifting through the open window. “And don’t let me catch you skimming off the top the way you were last week. Gan mang! How much time you think we’ve got?”
There’s a twang of rim-speech to her voice that Acacia doesn’t think should be there. She tries to teach her children to speak right, but she even finds herself slipping into common speech sometimes these days.
The burly young men march off, grinning at each other.
Does the girl see she’s being humoured? Acacia doubts it. Ayla is squaring her shoulders and walking towards Marcus now, who has been sitting on a nearby fence watching the proceedings with wide eyes. She holds out her hand, says something to him that their mother can’t hear, and helps the little boy climb down.
They are coming back to the house. Acacia pulls out her handkerchief, pats away the tears and composes herself. He will come back, her husband. The state will give him back, and he will come home and he will marvel at the children, and he will not see the new lines on her face or the gray in her hair. They will make up for the time stolen from them, and this will only be a bad memory. It will be alright.
She listens to the muffled voices of the children, and then, impossibly, the noise of the pump and a splash of water in the sink.
The dishes, she thinks. My children are washing the dishes.
She should get up – the work is endless and she is behind – but instead she sits, listening to her children. Marcus is talking loudly, exclaiming that he doesn’t understand why Mummy isn’t here, but she’ll be so happy when she sees the flowers he found.
It will be alright, Acacia thinks, but it doesn’t ring true.
Berret was right say she wasn’t meant for this. She twists the ring on her finger and reminds herself things she can’t quite believe anymore: how much she loves her husband, and how much better things will be when the war is over and he comes back.
Sometime later, there is a knock on the door, and she stands up, smoothing her skirts and shaking away her gloom. They mustn’t see she’s been crying.
There is a knock again, polite and nearly quiet. Acacia opens the door, a smile ready for Marcus and his flowers, and has to adjust her expression for Ayla. The smile slips for a moment, and she knows her daughter sees it. Sees it, as she sees everything, but does not understand that it did not slip out of disappointment but out of surprise.
We don’t understand each other, my daughter and I, she thinks, and spontaneously pulls the girl into a hug.
“Xie xie, Ayla. You worked hard today, love.”
The girl is stiff for a moment, but softens into her arms with something like a sigh.
Too hard, Acacia thinks, but does not say. You worked too hard, my darling girl.
Something is burning in the other room, and Marcus is beginning to shout, but they stand for a moment, each drawing strength from the other.
It will be alright, Acacia thinks again, and this time she nearly believes it.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Manditory Writing (much thanks to my mother)
............
It's amazing how motivating threats can be.
This is what my mother told me to write about, so I'm just obeying her. I suppose there'll be more at some point.
............
The sun is coming up somewhere in the world, but here it is ten o’clock in the morning and looks like midnight. Or nearly. In the past five minutes I have noticed the slightest lightening of sky over the mountaintops to the east. They are suddenly blue-black, and the stars are fading into the backdrop of sky. I have been snowshoeing for two and a half hours already, through this dark mountain pass, and it is astonishingly peaceful to be so alone. I picture a camera zooming out from me, taking in the hundreds of miles of wilderness all around.
Gilles is somewhere not too far behind me, having stayed behind to boil water for the thermoses. He walks faster, and should be catching up quickly.
I am the happiest person in the world.
My knees ache, my ankle is sprained, and I hauled myself out of my snow-trench at five in the morning to spend a day from sunrise to sunset pulling a sled.
But it is beautiful here, and it is worth every second of pain and cold and discomfort.
A snowshoe hare races across the snow ahead of me, its too-large feet so much better than what I’ve got strapped to my moccasins that it just seems to float on the surface. It doesn’t so much as glance at me, and I don’t blame it – the rate I’m moving at the moment doesn’t make me much of a threat to it.
Morning, when it comes, is sudden. That pool of light slinks across the sky, and suddenly the mountains are pink and orange, and the ptarmigan in the shrubs around me are beginning to wake up, rustling their feathers and cackling loudly into the morning.
The sun never shines properly in the Ogilvie mountains in January. Over the next month, it will slowly creep higher in the sky, till we can see it and feel it on our faces. It will feel like our skin is drinking in light, like the return of a long-gone loved one. We will close our eyes and smile and tip our faces upwards to be kissed. For now, though, all we get is a gray sort of half-light, and the sight of sunlight on mountaintops far away.
Gilles is coming up behind me now. When he reaches my spot atop the ridge we stop for lunch, taking out the trail mix and dutifully passing the water bottle back and forth. Neither of us is really thirsty, but we know we should drink more. Snow melt is curiously metallic. It tastes like campfire smoke and the inside of the bottle. Chocolate and dried fruit and nuts taste like heaven.
“Did you see the sunrise?” I ask, although he must have.
He nods. “The camera froze after a few pictures, though.”
Our camera does not like the cold, and makes its objections plain by dying as soon as we expose it to the air. Only by holding it against the warmth of our stomachs and cradling the batteries in our hands is it possible to coax it back to life.
A few minutes of sitting is enough to numb our fingers and chill our faces, so we stand up, repack our sleds, and start on.
Gilles is soon out of sight along the trail, and the going is a little easier, following in his tracks.
We are several days from the Depmster Highway, but at this time of year there is nearly no traffic. One vehicle every few hours if you’re lucky, and if you’re not, a long stretch of snow-blown empty road as far as the eye can see.
Apart from the ptarmigan and snowshoe hares, we are very alone.
It's amazing how motivating threats can be.
This is what my mother told me to write about, so I'm just obeying her. I suppose there'll be more at some point.
............
The sun is coming up somewhere in the world, but here it is ten o’clock in the morning and looks like midnight. Or nearly. In the past five minutes I have noticed the slightest lightening of sky over the mountaintops to the east. They are suddenly blue-black, and the stars are fading into the backdrop of sky. I have been snowshoeing for two and a half hours already, through this dark mountain pass, and it is astonishingly peaceful to be so alone. I picture a camera zooming out from me, taking in the hundreds of miles of wilderness all around.
Gilles is somewhere not too far behind me, having stayed behind to boil water for the thermoses. He walks faster, and should be catching up quickly.
I am the happiest person in the world.
My knees ache, my ankle is sprained, and I hauled myself out of my snow-trench at five in the morning to spend a day from sunrise to sunset pulling a sled.
But it is beautiful here, and it is worth every second of pain and cold and discomfort.
A snowshoe hare races across the snow ahead of me, its too-large feet so much better than what I’ve got strapped to my moccasins that it just seems to float on the surface. It doesn’t so much as glance at me, and I don’t blame it – the rate I’m moving at the moment doesn’t make me much of a threat to it.
Morning, when it comes, is sudden. That pool of light slinks across the sky, and suddenly the mountains are pink and orange, and the ptarmigan in the shrubs around me are beginning to wake up, rustling their feathers and cackling loudly into the morning.
The sun never shines properly in the Ogilvie mountains in January. Over the next month, it will slowly creep higher in the sky, till we can see it and feel it on our faces. It will feel like our skin is drinking in light, like the return of a long-gone loved one. We will close our eyes and smile and tip our faces upwards to be kissed. For now, though, all we get is a gray sort of half-light, and the sight of sunlight on mountaintops far away.
Gilles is coming up behind me now. When he reaches my spot atop the ridge we stop for lunch, taking out the trail mix and dutifully passing the water bottle back and forth. Neither of us is really thirsty, but we know we should drink more. Snow melt is curiously metallic. It tastes like campfire smoke and the inside of the bottle. Chocolate and dried fruit and nuts taste like heaven.
“Did you see the sunrise?” I ask, although he must have.
He nods. “The camera froze after a few pictures, though.”
Our camera does not like the cold, and makes its objections plain by dying as soon as we expose it to the air. Only by holding it against the warmth of our stomachs and cradling the batteries in our hands is it possible to coax it back to life.
A few minutes of sitting is enough to numb our fingers and chill our faces, so we stand up, repack our sleds, and start on.
Gilles is soon out of sight along the trail, and the going is a little easier, following in his tracks.
We are several days from the Depmster Highway, but at this time of year there is nearly no traffic. One vehicle every few hours if you’re lucky, and if you’re not, a long stretch of snow-blown empty road as far as the eye can see.
Apart from the ptarmigan and snowshoe hares, we are very alone.
stream of consciousness - writers' block
..........
This is something I wrote last week, in a moment of extreme frustration and misery. Actually the whole week was kind of like that.
Anyway.
..........
It is morning and the birds are chirping and I am writing stream of consciousness. It isn’t fair that I should be doing my own exercise. I don’t LIKE doing stream of consciousness. I don’t know if it does me any good, either, but here I am, typing away, hoping something comes out of it. I can hear the birds chirping away. They don’t know I have writers’ block and I don’t think they care much besides. I can hear cars on the road and I know they don’t care either; they just want to get where they’re going. Where am I going? Squirrels are digging insulation out of our roof for nests – I can hear them scratching away up there, and I know they don’t care either.
The trouble is, the only person breathing in this house is me, and I care an awful lot.
It is like living with a head full of angry bees. Somebody put them in a jar and shook them, and then turned them loose up there to wreak havoc. They bounce off of my skull and buzz and sting and sting and buzz, till I want to scream. The only way to let them out is to write, but I can’t…why can’t I?
Jealousy is like wads of cotton jammed in my ears and eyes. It is bread dough that clings to my fingers. I can’t write through it. It clogs up every story, every poem why can’t I write like her, why can’t I be like him?
And then it isn’t about jealousy anymore, but nothing but itself.
I can’t even write like me anymore, because what if I’m not good enough? Better to never find out.
Once upon a time there was a girl who loved stories and she died alone because she thought it was worth it but oh it wasn’t…
I go for long walks and I watch the ice jam flow down the river in chunks the size of my mother’s car. I could jump aboard and go where they take me, but they spin so fast I’d never make it.
Why do I feel as if I’m no good when I know I am?
I don’t really want to be him or her – I like the inside of my own head, even when it’s filled with bees and unwanted visitors. I’m comfy up there and I’d never move out, and these insecurities are laughable but tonight they’re not.
Tonight they’re not.
Away goes the ice without me.
My head is pounding, pounding, buzzing, buzzing, coming to pieces in all directions but nobody can see it.
Away go the birds without me.
Once upon a time there was a girl and she gave up her stories to have adventures and she met a boy…
Away go the cars without me.
…and she fell in love and she thought it was worth it, but oh it wasn’t…
Away goes the squirrel, his nest a little softer.
And the universe died a little because everyone needs stories…everyone does.
Away go the bees, and they carry me with them, past once upon a time through the forest toward the uncertainty of happiness. What is a quest without longing? Success without doubt?
What is love without belief?
Bread rises by the stove and oh it is worth it for the moments when life is easy. When art is effortless.
When the universe is spinning around a point and I spin with it, and together we spin the stories we are supposed to spin, and nobody wonders what’s worth it because everyone knows all the stories end how they were meant to.
Once upon a time there was a girl and she was not so afraid…
This is something I wrote last week, in a moment of extreme frustration and misery. Actually the whole week was kind of like that.
Anyway.
..........
It is morning and the birds are chirping and I am writing stream of consciousness. It isn’t fair that I should be doing my own exercise. I don’t LIKE doing stream of consciousness. I don’t know if it does me any good, either, but here I am, typing away, hoping something comes out of it. I can hear the birds chirping away. They don’t know I have writers’ block and I don’t think they care much besides. I can hear cars on the road and I know they don’t care either; they just want to get where they’re going. Where am I going? Squirrels are digging insulation out of our roof for nests – I can hear them scratching away up there, and I know they don’t care either.
The trouble is, the only person breathing in this house is me, and I care an awful lot.
It is like living with a head full of angry bees. Somebody put them in a jar and shook them, and then turned them loose up there to wreak havoc. They bounce off of my skull and buzz and sting and sting and buzz, till I want to scream. The only way to let them out is to write, but I can’t…why can’t I?
Jealousy is like wads of cotton jammed in my ears and eyes. It is bread dough that clings to my fingers. I can’t write through it. It clogs up every story, every poem why can’t I write like her, why can’t I be like him?
And then it isn’t about jealousy anymore, but nothing but itself.
I can’t even write like me anymore, because what if I’m not good enough? Better to never find out.
Once upon a time there was a girl who loved stories and she died alone because she thought it was worth it but oh it wasn’t…
I go for long walks and I watch the ice jam flow down the river in chunks the size of my mother’s car. I could jump aboard and go where they take me, but they spin so fast I’d never make it.
Why do I feel as if I’m no good when I know I am?
I don’t really want to be him or her – I like the inside of my own head, even when it’s filled with bees and unwanted visitors. I’m comfy up there and I’d never move out, and these insecurities are laughable but tonight they’re not.
Tonight they’re not.
Away goes the ice without me.
My head is pounding, pounding, buzzing, buzzing, coming to pieces in all directions but nobody can see it.
Away go the birds without me.
Once upon a time there was a girl and she gave up her stories to have adventures and she met a boy…
Away go the cars without me.
…and she fell in love and she thought it was worth it, but oh it wasn’t…
Away goes the squirrel, his nest a little softer.
And the universe died a little because everyone needs stories…everyone does.
Away go the bees, and they carry me with them, past once upon a time through the forest toward the uncertainty of happiness. What is a quest without longing? Success without doubt?
What is love without belief?
Bread rises by the stove and oh it is worth it for the moments when life is easy. When art is effortless.
When the universe is spinning around a point and I spin with it, and together we spin the stories we are supposed to spin, and nobody wonders what’s worth it because everyone knows all the stories end how they were meant to.
Once upon a time there was a girl and she was not so afraid…
Monday, May 4, 2009
Sid
......
Dillon, if you object to anything, please let me know...I'm kind of just making things up now.
...........
Sid:
Life I lead, it’s none to safe to be wandering the streets with a limp and a bloody lip. In particular if those streets happen to be on Persephone, where any urchin worth a rag full of engine grease’ll pick your pocket and crack your skull within a minute of meeting you.
Life I lead ain’t none to safe at the best of times, mind you, and this seabag don’t get lighter for standing around with it.
The sun’s going down, but back on Ariel, it’d just be heading up.
Wo de ma. Space-lagged and hurting…what a pretty picture I must make.
Thought makes me grimace.
I swing my belt around so that my knife sits easy on my hip to ward off the urchins. I might look to be an easy mark, but I am feeling none too patient right about now.
City’s changed since I was here last. Time was there was enough dust to coat your throat and clog your eyes within a minute of landing. Now they’ve cleared it up some, though I can’t see how they might have done it. Some of the landing vessels are – if not exactly shiny and new – a little less rusted and fit for the scrap heap than I’m used to seeing round these parts.
I walk a few more dusty small-town blocks and then stop for a minute. My knees are afire. I want to sink to the ground and howl, but I sure as ruttin hell don’t do that. Instead I turn around and grab the collar of the kid who’s got his fingers in my seabag, slam him none too gently against the wall. His eyes go wide.
“Ni yao wo kai qiang?”
I tighten my grip and push him a little harder.
He shakes his head, and even though his eyes tear up a bit and his teeth must be a bit rattled, he don’t look none too scared.
Street kids on Persephone – specially round these parts of Persephone – are a breed their own. And they don’t scare none too easily.
I let go of his shirt and he slides a few inches down, watches me as I turn around.
Limp….limp.
Gorramit if I don’t feel like I’ve been dragged through seven hells face down and hollering. Is there anything that don’t hurt?
I go half a block, maybe, before I feel that telltale tug and whirl around to pin some other hapless piece of dirt to the wall. This time I’m mad, but surprise makes me put more weight into the shove than I meant to.
It’s the same kid.
He looks like every second rim-born brat, to tell it true. Brown hair brown eyes, healthy layer of dirt over a none-too-healthy layer of skin and bones.
But this kid is persistent, and he don’t have a clue how to steal.
“Wo de ma,” I mutter. “You are pushing your luck, kid.”
He shrugs. Gives me a level look. “Ain’t got none to push, old man. Got a spare coin?”
Old man? I grit my teeth – which don’t appreciate it, having been recently booted by an asshole in steel-toed boots – and try my hardest not to hit him.
Persephone ain’t none too kind to strangers. Any one of them can slit one of these brat’s throats – not that I’m in that foul a mood, though I am mighty miffed at this turn of events – but if a stranger so much as gives an urchin a bruise, he’s liable to meet a lynch mob.
From the way this kid is grinning, he knows that well as I do.
I can’t brain him with my seabag and leave him to bleed to death, so I do the next best thing.
“As it happens,” I tell him, “I do have a few spare coins, but I need you to do something for me first.”
His eyes flicker to my hand on his throat, and he nods.
“I’m visiting an old friend here. A Mr. Stitcher, maybe you’ve heard of him.”
Again the eyes go wide.
“Maybe you’d like to carry my seabag for me.”
Another nod, and I let go of his throat and heave the seabag onto his shoulders.
I can see when he takes it that he’s planning to do a runner with it, but as it settles over his shoulder, his eyes go wide with the weight.
I grin.
He wavers a little, straightens out with determination, and takes a few wobbly steps.
I put a hand on his shoulder – best not to let him get any ideas about running off – and lean just a little.
His knees creak and mine sigh in relief.
We shuffle the rest of the way like that.
And it all works out to the best because when we get where we’re going and I knock on Hiram Stitcher’s door with a grin full of dried blood on a face he hoped never to see again, I’ve got a free arm to use to stop him slamming the door.
We go way back, Hiram Stitcher and me.
Dillon, if you object to anything, please let me know...I'm kind of just making things up now.
...........
Sid:
Life I lead, it’s none to safe to be wandering the streets with a limp and a bloody lip. In particular if those streets happen to be on Persephone, where any urchin worth a rag full of engine grease’ll pick your pocket and crack your skull within a minute of meeting you.
Life I lead ain’t none to safe at the best of times, mind you, and this seabag don’t get lighter for standing around with it.
The sun’s going down, but back on Ariel, it’d just be heading up.
Wo de ma. Space-lagged and hurting…what a pretty picture I must make.
Thought makes me grimace.
I swing my belt around so that my knife sits easy on my hip to ward off the urchins. I might look to be an easy mark, but I am feeling none too patient right about now.
City’s changed since I was here last. Time was there was enough dust to coat your throat and clog your eyes within a minute of landing. Now they’ve cleared it up some, though I can’t see how they might have done it. Some of the landing vessels are – if not exactly shiny and new – a little less rusted and fit for the scrap heap than I’m used to seeing round these parts.
I walk a few more dusty small-town blocks and then stop for a minute. My knees are afire. I want to sink to the ground and howl, but I sure as ruttin hell don’t do that. Instead I turn around and grab the collar of the kid who’s got his fingers in my seabag, slam him none too gently against the wall. His eyes go wide.
“Ni yao wo kai qiang?”
I tighten my grip and push him a little harder.
He shakes his head, and even though his eyes tear up a bit and his teeth must be a bit rattled, he don’t look none too scared.
Street kids on Persephone – specially round these parts of Persephone – are a breed their own. And they don’t scare none too easily.
I let go of his shirt and he slides a few inches down, watches me as I turn around.
Limp….limp.
Gorramit if I don’t feel like I’ve been dragged through seven hells face down and hollering. Is there anything that don’t hurt?
I go half a block, maybe, before I feel that telltale tug and whirl around to pin some other hapless piece of dirt to the wall. This time I’m mad, but surprise makes me put more weight into the shove than I meant to.
It’s the same kid.
He looks like every second rim-born brat, to tell it true. Brown hair brown eyes, healthy layer of dirt over a none-too-healthy layer of skin and bones.
But this kid is persistent, and he don’t have a clue how to steal.
“Wo de ma,” I mutter. “You are pushing your luck, kid.”
He shrugs. Gives me a level look. “Ain’t got none to push, old man. Got a spare coin?”
Old man? I grit my teeth – which don’t appreciate it, having been recently booted by an asshole in steel-toed boots – and try my hardest not to hit him.
Persephone ain’t none too kind to strangers. Any one of them can slit one of these brat’s throats – not that I’m in that foul a mood, though I am mighty miffed at this turn of events – but if a stranger so much as gives an urchin a bruise, he’s liable to meet a lynch mob.
From the way this kid is grinning, he knows that well as I do.
I can’t brain him with my seabag and leave him to bleed to death, so I do the next best thing.
“As it happens,” I tell him, “I do have a few spare coins, but I need you to do something for me first.”
His eyes flicker to my hand on his throat, and he nods.
“I’m visiting an old friend here. A Mr. Stitcher, maybe you’ve heard of him.”
Again the eyes go wide.
“Maybe you’d like to carry my seabag for me.”
Another nod, and I let go of his throat and heave the seabag onto his shoulders.
I can see when he takes it that he’s planning to do a runner with it, but as it settles over his shoulder, his eyes go wide with the weight.
I grin.
He wavers a little, straightens out with determination, and takes a few wobbly steps.
I put a hand on his shoulder – best not to let him get any ideas about running off – and lean just a little.
His knees creak and mine sigh in relief.
We shuffle the rest of the way like that.
And it all works out to the best because when we get where we’re going and I knock on Hiram Stitcher’s door with a grin full of dried blood on a face he hoped never to see again, I’ve got a free arm to use to stop him slamming the door.
We go way back, Hiram Stitcher and me.
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