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I post a random title. You write a random story to go with it.
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2008
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October
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- And Then We Got Married OR Does Your Mother Know?
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- Born into Light
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October
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8 comments:
Born Into Light
The sun was shining beautifully that day. The sky was a beautiful shade of sea-foam green. The clouds, a muted pink, glinted as they raced across the sky. Everything seemed to sparkle underneath the warm rays of the sun. Everything looked even more mysterious and overwhelming, despite the fact that we’d been there for six years.
It was a strange planet they’d taken us to. The sun rarely shone directly on the planet due to other planets that were closer to the sun than ours. Our large moon provided most of our light, although reflections off the other planets helped too. This was a good thing. This sun was much closer to this planet than Earth’s sun was to Earth. Had it shone directly on this planet for long periods of time, the planet would shrivel and died quickly. The reflections alone carried enough heat and light to make the planet livable.
But the reflections seemed to cause a little oddness. Shadows came from multiple directions. You would see something moving out of the corner of your eye, but when you looked, there was never anything there. It wasn’t easy to get used to. It made us all a little uneasy at first, but we eventually we did get used to it. Humans are good at adjusting, after all.
The colors took a while to get used to, as well. Whereas in the moonlight on earth everything grew pale and silvery, here it was muted pastel. The sky and ocean weren’t blue, but pale green. Plants tended toward the blue end of the spectrum. The rocks and dirt were a hue of yellow – and not sand yellow, either… more like florescent yellow. In fact, there were colors we hadn’t even imagined before. These got informally named by us. My favorite new color? Wamwa. It was named after the call made by the creature that bore it. We likened it to being a mix of orange and purple, and it was found on certain species of six-legged amphibians and flyers. The unusual coloring and sound shared by the two made the scientists believe the two were related.
There were many unusual animals on this planet. So many, in fact, that we didn’t need to bring our own. Our children didn’t even know what a dog or cat was, much less the more interesting things found on earth, like platypus and penguins. Here, they shared the house with the multiple-headed rquoros – man’s new best friend. We get our meat from a creature that walks on two legs. Luckily, it’s stupider than a box of rocks, so we have no qualms about eating something that looks vaguely human. And our “milk” comes from a flyer. The flapping wings made milking difficult at first, but we’d found ways around that.
The fact that the sun was actually going to shine on our planet that day was a cause of great excitement. In fact, we were getting our first holiday since we’d arrived. We all figured that we’d been working hard enough for long enough that we deserved a time to celebrate this first-time event.
The scientists had been working for years to figure out exactly when it would shine on the planet, for how long, and what the effects would be. Basically what they figured out was that we would all have to get sunglasses and run around scantily clad to avoid vision damage and heat exhaustion. They even developed a tinting for our windows so that our houses wouldn’t become unintentional saunas.
The sun would rise at exactly 8:21 p.m., and it would set at 12:56 a.m. We had a little over five hours to bask in direct sunlight.
And it was beautiful. When it rose above the horizon, it did it’s best to show us how beautiful this planet and its unusual colors truly were. Colors we had grown used to suddenly had a new dimension. Things became so unbelievably beautiful that people were moved to tears.
We ran around in our bikinis and swim trunks sweating and crying, laughing and dancing in the pure, bright sunlight. No one wanted it to end, even though we knew that it would in a few short hours, and despite the fact that we knew it had to in order for the planet to prosper.
Then the rumbling started. The scientists had warned us that the direct heat of the sun might cause the Teutonic plates to shift, as though the planet were uncomfortable. It startled us at first, as we grabbed on to whatever was nearby to steady ourselves, but then someone shouted out the answer, and we all laughed in embarrassed relief, stumbling as we continued exploring our beautiful, beautiful planet. How lucky we felt to be the ones on this planet. Those people who had chosen to stay on Earth had no idea what they were missing.
When the earth cracked and split, we still had no worries. Our houses were built to withstand these types of eventualities. We were well prepared. Even if we lost a house or two that was sitting directly on a crack, everything was replaceable. In a mere two hours, when the sun set, we would take the time to sort out who had lost what and how much damage had been done.
But we never got to see the sun set. Something on that planet is born into the light, and it’s hungry at birth.
Over at my blog
Finally sated, Yrawgn'oth brought 95 of his 96 limbs to stillness, and idly picked his mandibles with the hooked suckers on the other. There were still some tasty pieces of the visitors lodged in there.
His brother, Cthulu, would be angry. The eternal sleeper had been awfully restless ever since his chosen cattle had the misfortune to figure out how to leave the planet, and when he heard that he, Yrawgn'oth, had dined on some of those emigrants, he would be most agitated indeed. He might even wake up before the stars came into alignment. Yrawgn'oth looked forward to it.
He always thought Cthulu was a bit touched in the head. His brother had style, no question about that - the whole sleeping business, and waking when the stars reach a certain alignment, all that - and oh, putting the octopuses there was a piece of genius. Yrawgn'oth wished he'd thought of that. Then again, Cthulu never had any fun. At least Yrawgn'oth got to see the once once every cycle! True, it was a bit chaotic trying to work out the cycle period, but a little chaos never did an elder god any harm.
Yrawgn'oth could see why Cthulu had chosen that planet, even if he was letting his cattle get away with far too much. These - what were they? - humans, they tasted very good. Especially when frightened out of their wits - he wished he'd known that before he'd eaten the first half. No wonder his brother had gone to such lengths to cultivate that whole cult of madness thing.
Yrawgn'oth salivated at the very thought of it - millions of the things, all mad or terrified and often both. Yrawgn'oth's drool, blue-black and glistening, ran down his abdomen - still distended from his feast.
He looked up. The sun would go soon, before it even reached the horizon, covered by the cloud of inner planets. He'd eaten all of Cthulu's cattle visitors. Unlike his own cattle, they wouldn't be spawning again. He needed to return soon - it was too cold out here when the sun was gone. His slimy skin already jerked and twitched in the cool air.
He didn't have too go back, though. There was another way.
He coiled all of his limbs underneath him, and released with a mighty spring that crushed a continent and sent him spinning off into the pale green sky. Before too much of his heat bled away, he took a sighting and flung a few asteroids around to adjust his course - and then, he curled up, and slept.
It was about time he paid his brother a visit.
His first memory was light.
Though, as he understood it, it wasn’t technically his first memory but it was the first in this body.
And it wasn’t so much “light” as people tended to speak of it. No flash merely brighter than the dark it illuminated or even a strong beam from the sun that warmed whatever it touched.
His first memory was of being sucked into the essence of light. It was light so true it nearly killed him…again. It wrapped tentacled arms of searing heat around his body, pulling it into the air. It tore scream after scream from his unused vocal chords, christening them with its own power. It was absolute pain and unadulterated beauty and he continued to both crave it and curse it from the depths of his being. He would say soul, but he wasn’t at all sure he possessed one; his fashioner had only the hubris of man, not the ability of God.
He once saw the light’s reflection in a woman he encountered and had sought its beauty without thought. That’s when he saw the dark underlying any light in a human. Hatred and fear smothered any of light’s beauty. He had run from the dark, from her, from them, bewildered at the change.
He had also discovered that even a creature born into light as he had been could not be of it. Perhaps especially one such as he. Cruel murder he had committed time and again. Did it matter that he was had only meant to seek the light found in belonging or that he deserved revenge?
He had finally learned the meaning of irony, absorbed its cruelty into his every pore. He who was born into the light more truly, more thoroughly than perhaps any other creature in time was doomed to the dark in every moment of living. His maker had cursed him to that fate when he had first stitched him together and then abandoned the living creation.
Now he would seek the light one final time. He would pay penance for all the dark he had done by falling willingly into the flames. And maybe once they had eaten all of his abominable flesh from his stolen bones, the light would find him once again, forgive him for his betrayals, and engulf him forever.
The clothes she'd taken off the Marga didn't fit very well. They were too wide, too short, and smelled awful. But they did offer some protection from the suns. Parta scratched at the neck where it rubbed on her collarbone and looked back toward the city dome, watching it slowly dim to a deeper blue.
Outside the dome, day still blazed merrily on, as it always did on this planet. Two suns meant a brief, quasi-twilight, never true night. But when humans came here, they brought their circadian rhythms with them despite the pioneering spirit of the first settlers. Characteristically, the first thing they did was build something to make them feel like they never left. The unimaginably giant, permeable dome over the city - a base, really, but housing more than 5 million - was for the sole purpose of creating darkness, an artificial night for the comfort of the populace, most of whom still used artificial light to allow them to further modify their circadian schedule.
She'd never seen the dome darken from outside of it before. A few feet from the dead native, she sat entranced and squinting against the harsh native light watching a curve of darkness dawn against the horizon, eating up the city while she watched. As it turned a dark lapis blue her eyes started to water. She must have been staring for longer than she thought, and she reached up to rub her eyes before she remembered the implants. She dabbed carefully instead, avoiding the eye itself and barely brushing the lids.
Funny how she had to remind herself of something so obvious. Parta had never seen night from the outside before, and had never seen it from inside prior to a week ago. The doctors had assured her the procedure would change her life. They seemed so certain that anything that was awry in her world (and they knew little enough about her world) was due the her blindness. They were doing her a favor, and her life would never be the same.
But it was, in all the ways they couldn't fix. She could see, but old habits died hard. She still counted her money without looking. She still had to live in the same dump. Her brother was still dead, it was still a struggle not to smoke puff, she still had to shower at the commons. She still made her money the same way. And she still, whenever she was able, lived in the dark.
Not only had people brought their need for darkness to sleep, but they had brought their quaint, deep-seated metaphors of light and dark and the activities appropriate to each. Crime was low on the bright, nightless world, but humans were still human and couldn't be good all the time. Men still preferred their prostitution under cover of night, however contrived. It didn't matter to Parta, but her blindness had added to her air of discretion, their sense of illicit pleasures.
Fortunately, most of her customers didn't notice she could now see, a fact which both amused and exasperated her. But one had noticed. The most powerful one she knew, one of the most influential men in the city, was scandalized when he realized his dirty little whore could see him, could identify his face. He'd flipped out on the spot, wouldn't listen to a word she said. He didn't knock her around - this planet was far too light and civilized for that - but instead accused her of trespassing and a few other choice charges that resulted in her exile from the only night on the planet.
The irony was not lost on Parta.
What the dumb git didn't seem to grasp was that she could have identified him at any time. She knew his pompous voice, knew his name as well as everyone else did, knew his aura. That would have been more than enough to pick him out of a crowd if she'd wanted to expose his sexual quirks. More than that she knew his wife. Quite well, in fact. Well enough they'd hatched a plan to be rid of him in a few more days whether Parta's surgery had been successful or not, and retain a good chunk of his wealth besides.
She'd probably never see the money now. Wifey might get her pardoned, but she couldn't hope for more generosity than that. She just hoped she would be allowed back inside the dome before she died of exposure. A cave would provide shelter and relief from the heat if she could find one, and probably a meager source of water. Food would have to wait. She shaded her eyes against the suns, one of which was just starting to set, and trudged off in the direction the Marga had come from.
Within just a few yards, from a different vantage point, Parta spotted the cave entrance as a bright, sharp ray of the setting sun invaded it for a moment. She stumbled forward and clambered into it, far enough to get out of direct sunlight. She didn't even check to make sure it was unoccupied. After a few minutes she turned her back on the suns and closed her new eyes, wandering deep into the cavern, out of reach of the light.
It was nearly as good as being blind again.
Struggle, struggle...push, strain.
Man, this is killing my petals. And I think I sprained my stamen. I can't help it, though. I can't see the sun, but I can feel its warmth through my calyx. I've got to get to it.
Move the third petal from the left a little to the right...move the second petal from the right a bit to the right...nudge, stretch, push a little harder...
I can feel the sun cracking through, tracing thin lines here and there on my petals. One more push and my petals burst open and I feel the sun upon my face.
“I have no insurance to pay for my bills,” Agnese said. Her tone was careful and deferential. She spoke very little English and was easily startled by corporate America. The receptionist, dressed in watermellon pink scrubs, began explaining payment options to cover the expenses of having a baby without medical coverage.
“I am not going to go to the hospital,” Agnese interrupted.
The receptionist moved with automatic ease to a discussion of birthing centers and midwives.
“No,” Agnese said. “I am not looking for to—to have this baby.”
The receptionist’s jaw tightened. “You must have the wrong office, Ma’am. Dr. Harrison doesn’t handle abortions.”
Agnese floundered. “No. You do not understand. The baby is not ready to come. I only want for Dr. Harris to listen and tell me if the baby is safe in me.”
“You want a check up,” the receptionist clarified. She felt that she was missing part of the woman’s meaning, and the insecurity made her defensive. “That’s what we’ll do today, but I meant that in the future, when the baby comes—”
“The baby is not coming,” Agnese said, growing frustrated. “There is not need for a hospital. The baby is not coming. What I want from Dr. Harris is only to say that the baby is not sick in me.”
“Ma’am, I understand that the baby isn’t coming today, but what I’m saying is that if Dr. Harrison is going to be your doctor, he’ll want to know what your birth plan will be—where you’d like to have the baby.”
“Maybe the baby will come, maybe the baby will not come,” Agnese said, curtly. “I think it will not come. It is three years now and the baby still not come.”
The receptionist stared. “Excuse me?”
Yay! Kathy's here!
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