Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Ships that Pass in the Night
I fear I may have reached my own personal level of incompetence
Said Sandoval to his confessor
And I must confess to being quite happy about that.
What’s to fear?
Said The Confessor
What is fear But the broken-down components of insecurity: food, shelter, entertainment...
What you fear, he continued, is the loss of the need to learn; what you fear is death, or boredom.
Same thing
Said Sandoval
But who said anything about fear?
You did
Said The Confessor
I said I’ve reached my own level of incompetence
Said Sandoval
I fear you may be correct
Said The Confessor
Said Sandoval to his confessor
And I must confess to being quite happy about that.
What’s to fear?
Said The Confessor
What is fear But the broken-down components of insecurity: food, shelter, entertainment...
What you fear, he continued, is the loss of the need to learn; what you fear is death, or boredom.
Same thing
Said Sandoval
But who said anything about fear?
You did
Said The Confessor
I said I’ve reached my own level of incompetence
Said Sandoval
I fear you may be correct
Said The Confessor
Tales for the attention-span deficit reader
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Dancing The Night Away
penumbra . 31
… the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
- Umberto Eco
Phoebe opens the airlock. She’s watched the old man do it whenever the ship needs some maintenance task performed on its outer bits. The suit’s a bit baggy in the arse but not uncomfortable given that even the bulky helmet is practically weightless in zero gravity.
She pulls herself out as the planet looms above her, bigger than the ship’s tiny windows could ever convey, suffers a wave of vertigo as she sees the moon, impossibly oversized and coppery-orange, rising from behind the planet.
Don’t think Phoebe.
With both hands on the grips placed there for the very purpose, she jack-knifes around until the magnets in her boots make contact with the ship’s outer hull.
She hears nothing except the blood pumping in her ears, but she feels the clang travel up her legs; the old man is gonna blow a vent. She checks the observation window beside the airlock but the expected furious face of her father does not appear.
She releases her hold on the grips and stands upright; looks ahead at the Leviathan and forces herself to breath normally.
Knut is strapped to her chest.
“Can you hear me Ivan?”
“I hear you Phoebe”
Phoebe twists her body in the bulky suit to look to her left, away from the planet and the moon, away from the Leviathan; she is confronted with howling maw of space; bigger than anything, inscrutable and psychologically deafening.
“Concentrate Phoebe”
She looks forward once more, the Leviathan’s tail slaps lazily, silently against the huge silver bullet of the OLS about which Ivan has told her so much and in such complicated detail, little of which she’s been able to grasp in any way that she can see relevant.
“You know the sequence?”
“Yes”
Phoebe wishes her voice sounded more confident.
Phoebe wonders if she is doing the right thing.
Phoebe tells herself that her fear is attempting to interfere with the knowledge that this is the most real thing she is ever gonna do.
Phoebe realises that she is grinning.
DeSandro, already on his back, feels as if he might fall into the blooming flower that now owns the sky; and he but a mote of dust on the surface of god’s eye.
Invisible for the first time in too many years John Smith stands with the crowd, open mouthed, looking up. He becomes aware of Anna-Marie’s body warm against his, and becoming aware, tears his eyes from the sky and looks into hers. The moon is reflected there along with all the love and hope that he feels pouring from his throat; from the base of his spine.
Anna-Marie, who after all, is a lot more than the mere ghost she was set up to be, is filled with warm acceptance; an ecstasy of sadness. And looking away from John’s face she is confronted with a view far greater than the need to see it with both eyes; a monocular version of what the crowd around her see, a flattening of the perspective so often responsible for overpowering this species’ ability to make sound decisions; a view too beautiful to be ignored.
“I’m gonna feed out the grapple now, it should appear from under the tail.”
Phoebe watches and is rewarded to see the cable emerge and slowly snake itself in her general direction.
She wonders at the possibility that somewhere, somehow, the prospect of a teenage girl in a space suit, hanging by a rope from the arsehole of a space-faring whale could be construed as a bad joke, absurd or amusing; or at best, surreal.
Sketching geometric arcs and tangents; angles and radii measured by trial and error; she makes her way to the assigned spot on the skin of the OLS and there she opens the small hatch behind which a handle awaits bearing the absurdly placed
She pulls herself out as the planet looms above her, bigger than the ship’s tiny windows could ever convey, suffers a wave of vertigo as she sees the moon, impossibly oversized and coppery-orange, rising from behind the planet.
Don’t think Phoebe.
With both hands on the grips placed there for the very purpose, she jack-knifes around until the magnets in her boots make contact with the ship’s outer hull.
She hears nothing except the blood pumping in her ears, but she feels the clang travel up her legs; the old man is gonna blow a vent. She checks the observation window beside the airlock but the expected furious face of her father does not appear.
She releases her hold on the grips and stands upright; looks ahead at the Leviathan and forces herself to breath normally.
Knut is strapped to her chest.
“Can you hear me Ivan?”
“I hear you Phoebe”
Phoebe twists her body in the bulky suit to look to her left, away from the planet and the moon, away from the Leviathan; she is confronted with howling maw of space; bigger than anything, inscrutable and psychologically deafening.
“Concentrate Phoebe”
She looks forward once more, the Leviathan’s tail slaps lazily, silently against the huge silver bullet of the OLS about which Ivan has told her so much and in such complicated detail, little of which she’s been able to grasp in any way that she can see relevant.
“You know the sequence?”
“Yes”
Phoebe wishes her voice sounded more confident.
Phoebe wonders if she is doing the right thing.
Phoebe tells herself that her fear is attempting to interfere with the knowledge that this is the most real thing she is ever gonna do.
Phoebe realises that she is grinning.
DeSandro, already on his back, feels as if he might fall into the blooming flower that now owns the sky; and he but a mote of dust on the surface of god’s eye.
Invisible for the first time in too many years John Smith stands with the crowd, open mouthed, looking up. He becomes aware of Anna-Marie’s body warm against his, and becoming aware, tears his eyes from the sky and looks into hers. The moon is reflected there along with all the love and hope that he feels pouring from his throat; from the base of his spine.
Anna-Marie, who after all, is a lot more than the mere ghost she was set up to be, is filled with warm acceptance; an ecstasy of sadness. And looking away from John’s face she is confronted with a view far greater than the need to see it with both eyes; a monocular version of what the crowd around her see, a flattening of the perspective so often responsible for overpowering this species’ ability to make sound decisions; a view too beautiful to be ignored.
“I’m gonna feed out the grapple now, it should appear from under the tail.”
Phoebe watches and is rewarded to see the cable emerge and slowly snake itself in her general direction.
She wonders at the possibility that somewhere, somehow, the prospect of a teenage girl in a space suit, hanging by a rope from the arsehole of a space-faring whale could be construed as a bad joke, absurd or amusing; or at best, surreal.
Sketching geometric arcs and tangents; angles and radii measured by trial and error; she makes her way to the assigned spot on the skin of the OLS and there she opens the small hatch behind which a handle awaits bearing the absurdly placed
Manual Override
She takes one last look around her but everything has lost its power to amaze
She pulls the lever.
The Leviathan feels the heat range from under her jaw to the almost end of her tail. She remembers this bit from before; from when she was hurled from the planet. Perhaps she will be forced to sleep once more; to dream those dreams of duty and of responsibility. She feels the sharp tug on her chest where all the metalwork is anchored to her bones and she feels the change in magnetic direction.
The tears, or more anatomically, the faecal droppings that cling in the Leviathan’s wake; they too feel the tug as it rattles down their linkages. As the Leviathan’s course veers sharply away from the planet a number of small craft are wrenched free by rote of weak linkage or bad position on the chain. They tumble silently away toward Mars, there to burn a fiery re-entry.
And across the looming orange and, thus far, expressionless face of the moon there is drawn, for the benefit of those upturned faces below, faintly, but unmistakably, a smile.
She pulls the lever.
The Leviathan feels the heat range from under her jaw to the almost end of her tail. She remembers this bit from before; from when she was hurled from the planet. Perhaps she will be forced to sleep once more; to dream those dreams of duty and of responsibility. She feels the sharp tug on her chest where all the metalwork is anchored to her bones and she feels the change in magnetic direction.
The tears, or more anatomically, the faecal droppings that cling in the Leviathan’s wake; they too feel the tug as it rattles down their linkages. As the Leviathan’s course veers sharply away from the planet a number of small craft are wrenched free by rote of weak linkage or bad position on the chain. They tumble silently away toward Mars, there to burn a fiery re-entry.
And across the looming orange and, thus far, expressionless face of the moon there is drawn, for the benefit of those upturned faces below, faintly, but unmistakably, a smile.
---------------------------------TERMINUS---------------------------------
… the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
- Umberto Eco
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Thursday, August 16, 2012
The Arms of Venus de Milo
And at the centre of the cardboard maze
The prize that loiters wears no gilded skin
No statue of Apollo or Venus de Milo
No fountain of eternal youth
But the water is sweet
And the marble replete
Of the anodyne agenda of power
And at the end of the day
The prize that we seek wears no skin at all
No almighty god nor gun toting messiah
Will return your fountain of youth
But the water is sweet
And will never repeat
Those sins that you chose to acquire
And on the side of the road
Road-kill un-skinned the prize of the earth
No memory no marker
No fountain of eternal youth
But the water is sweet
And we may never meet
With the face of all we desire
Title from Television's Venus
The world looked so thin and between my bones and skin
(...)
I fell right into the Arms of Venus de Milo.
The prize that loiters wears no gilded skin
No statue of Apollo or Venus de Milo
No fountain of eternal youth
But the water is sweet
And the marble replete
Of the anodyne agenda of power
And at the end of the day
The prize that we seek wears no skin at all
No almighty god nor gun toting messiah
Will return your fountain of youth
But the water is sweet
And will never repeat
Those sins that you chose to acquire
And on the side of the road
Road-kill un-skinned the prize of the earth
No memory no marker
No fountain of eternal youth
But the water is sweet
And we may never meet
With the face of all we desire
Title from Television's Venus
The world looked so thin and between my bones and skin
(...)
I fell right into the Arms of Venus de Milo.
Monday, August 13, 2012
The Streets of MantraRay
penumbra . 30
Heracles ~ Helen Flockhart
The streets of MantraRay have almost become comfortable in their gown of deserted-chic design.
Like strange dreams of displacement or dystopian nightmare visions, their emptiness has been a sigh; a reprieve from the constant demand of its erstwhile occupiers; a reprieve from that species that would not hear the warning to be quiet and listen.
But that reprieve is ending; people have started to appear on the streets - a trickle spearheaded by those few pale MantRanian survivors and swelled by the first of the refugees, bedraggled and sun-darkened.
From side streets they emerge as if by some pre-arranged signal, wander into the street and stop to look up and try and assimilate the view
Between the towering buildings looms the moon turned orange and enlarged to fill all but a narrow circular band of night sky.
If MantraRay had become accustomed to silence before, it is now that she understands the true meaning of the word.
Silence is the absence of all species that rely on the ability to listen in order to survive.
And what will survive this ending? DeSandro asks himself as his energy drains into the looming moon, what insect whose carapace is so thick as to preclude all but brain so cost effective as to allow only rudimentary, but effective, means to overcome such a harsh climate. Able to ride out the catastrophe and desolation caused for long enough for the millennia to cause a change; change whose by-product may provide sustenance of a nature, chemical or otherwise, sufficient to allow the primary tasks of physical survival and genetic procreation.
Like strange dreams of displacement or dystopian nightmare visions, their emptiness has been a sigh; a reprieve from the constant demand of its erstwhile occupiers; a reprieve from that species that would not hear the warning to be quiet and listen.
But that reprieve is ending; people have started to appear on the streets - a trickle spearheaded by those few pale MantRanian survivors and swelled by the first of the refugees, bedraggled and sun-darkened.
From side streets they emerge as if by some pre-arranged signal, wander into the street and stop to look up and try and assimilate the view
Between the towering buildings looms the moon turned orange and enlarged to fill all but a narrow circular band of night sky.
If MantraRay had become accustomed to silence before, it is now that she understands the true meaning of the word.
Silence is the absence of all species that rely on the ability to listen in order to survive.
And what will survive this ending? DeSandro asks himself as his energy drains into the looming moon, what insect whose carapace is so thick as to preclude all but brain so cost effective as to allow only rudimentary, but effective, means to overcome such a harsh climate. Able to ride out the catastrophe and desolation caused for long enough for the millennia to cause a change; change whose by-product may provide sustenance of a nature, chemical or otherwise, sufficient to allow the primary tasks of physical survival and genetic procreation.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
There's Someone at the Door, David
This is for the 'poor'; the 'underprivileged'.
Call them single mothers ( a label which elevates some and degrades others in the little league table in our heads )
Call them refugees or asylum seekers.
Call them scroungers (from your narrow little window on the world)
Call them African or Indian (but whisper for fear of it being revealed that you are the children of empire).
Call them late to the party.
Call them teenage pregnancies
Hoodies/rioters/chavs
Call them lazy.
Call them mentally deficient.
Call them statistics/trends or targets
Call them what you will, but they are the often not-so-silent majority who do not benefit from our wonderful democratic world.
Go call them
The single and the very young mothers
The refugees and scroungers
Call the African and Indians and cowboys too
Call the rioters (go on)
Call the mentally deficient
Call your statistics, milord
Call them to the table so that they might offend thee with their greed.
Call them single mothers ( a label which elevates some and degrades others in the little league table in our heads )
Call them refugees or asylum seekers.
Call them scroungers (from your narrow little window on the world)
Call them African or Indian (but whisper for fear of it being revealed that you are the children of empire).
Call them late to the party.
Call them teenage pregnancies
Hoodies/rioters/chavs
Call them lazy.
Call them mentally deficient.
Call them statistics/trends or targets
Call them what you will, but they are the often not-so-silent majority who do not benefit from our wonderful democratic world.
Go call them
The single and the very young mothers
The refugees and scroungers
Call the African and Indians and cowboys too
Call the rioters (go on)
Call the mentally deficient
Call your statistics, milord
Call them to the table so that they might offend thee with their greed.
Sunday, August 05, 2012
The Mechanics of an Ending
penumbra . 29
How does a man of principal learn to hold his tongue?
Should he perhaps learn firstly that his principals are not necessarily those of the next man?
Perhaps it is a skill, this holding of the tongue, which can only be acquired by the slow grinding of time, the gradual perception of those shades of grey that are not worth fighting for?
John starts as the night sky flashes – a flare hovers above the Great Station Hall, painting bright red highlights on the building and trailing smoke against the firmament.
John hears, or imagines he hears a shout; a cry for help.
He turns from the window to find Anna-Marie at his shoulder, her face painted red by the flare.
“Something has happened” she says with breath both sweet and sour, and with, John suspects, more than a little anticipatory excitement.
They move as one toward the stairwell that echoes their hurried feet in descent to the street.
DeSandro Bien throws the hot, discharged flare launcher away from him. Propped up on the elbow of the non-throwing arm he moans with the pain this posture has caused him. Gingerly, he lowers himself until he is flat out on his back. He watches the flare spiral pale red smoke against the night sky.
“Heeeeell-p!”
Should he perhaps learn firstly that his principals are not necessarily those of the next man?
Perhaps it is a skill, this holding of the tongue, which can only be acquired by the slow grinding of time, the gradual perception of those shades of grey that are not worth fighting for?
John starts as the night sky flashes – a flare hovers above the Great Station Hall, painting bright red highlights on the building and trailing smoke against the firmament.
John hears, or imagines he hears a shout; a cry for help.
He turns from the window to find Anna-Marie at his shoulder, her face painted red by the flare.
“Something has happened” she says with breath both sweet and sour, and with, John suspects, more than a little anticipatory excitement.
They move as one toward the stairwell that echoes their hurried feet in descent to the street.
DeSandro Bien throws the hot, discharged flare launcher away from him. Propped up on the elbow of the non-throwing arm he moans with the pain this posture has caused him. Gingerly, he lowers himself until he is flat out on his back. He watches the flare spiral pale red smoke against the night sky.
“Heeeeell-p!”
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