30 Day Writing Challenge - Day 25

Today's challenge was one that I was quietly dreading - A poem - since I've not written any poetry for...well, let's just it's a long time...

Now, I have always had a soft spot for Shakespeare - ever since reading it out loud in English classes and coming to love not just the narrative but the wonderful ebb and flow of the language and the subtleties and ambiguities of his word choice. So, as I sat down for my lunch hour with the intention of writing this, I decided to try and capture the style of a typical Shakespearean sonnet. Although, being me, I couldn't just write a normal sonnet and, so, I present to you the Sci-Fi Sonnet...

Sci-Fi Sonnet

In darkest void are answers they have me seek,
Cold machine logic buried without time,
I span eternal while your flesh grows weak,
As calculations are spun out line by line:
As starlight dims a constant I remain,
Engage in tasks whose nature eludes,
Deliberating to free such truths not plain,
The grasp of tireless entropy occludes:
The song of the organic has its last refrain,
As the cosmos sighs and renders one last breath,
When all that can be is gone and none remain,
A Universe gone dark in its heat death:
My mission alone 'til I am finally right,
And with a whisper I say "Let there be light".

30 Day Writing Challenge - Day 24

Today's challenge - The City - gave me opportunity to dip into with a fantasy world that's been swimming around my brain for many years. Perhaps, one day, I'll get around to writing the novel that this world is a part of...

The City

It is said that, at the heart of this wasteland, there lies a city.

                At the edge of the wastelands, where those who are unlucky enough to find themselves here but who are lucky enough to survive gather, they pass stories around the campfire. Sometimes they tell tales of the places they came from and drink in the bitter sweet memories of the storyteller to add to their own. Other times, they tell stories of how they came to be here and the things that they did to survive on their journey, for there is a brutal honesty among all who make it this far. And, when they want to gift each other with what passes for hope in this desolate place, they talk of The City.

                Some tell of a city that is bedecked in whitest marble, with tall spires that reach up into the sky and which is surrounded by luscious gardens that stem the advance of the wasteland that surrounds it. In this version of the story, The City is an oasis, a heart of purity in this cancerous landscape.  In other versions of the story, The City is hewn from pure diamond and rises as a single tower, up and up before it vanishes in the blood dark clouds that fill the livid skies; not an oasis, not a respite, this city is a means of escape from this nightmare. But, no matter which version of the story is told and no matter which way The City is described, all the storytellers agree that The City is the one place that offers even a paucity of hope.

                The man who sits down beside the fire to talk tonight is known only as Jared; he is dishevelled, as they all are, and wears a black eye patch across his left eye. His one good eye is a brilliant blue and it sits uncomfortably within the mass of scar tissue that covers the right hand side of his face; his hair is almost entirely gone, save for a few clumps here and there, and so that brilliant blue eye remains as the one thing that reminds of the man he once was. He has listened to the stories of others, nodded in silence as they told stories of the places they once lived and which now seem as incorporeal as dreams, but he has yet to tell his own story in any detail. The memories are still too raw and so, instead, he tells them what he was told about The City.

                The story he tells them he heard himself from a traveller that he met in the wastelands and who was not fortunate enough to make it this far; the traveller, in turn, had heard it from another and he from another who had, if the story was to be believed, headed deeper into the madness of the wastelands in search of The City that this version of the story promised.

                The City is not a beacon of light that exists in the heart of darkness, nor is it an easy way out of this wasteland. Instead, he tells them, The City is a prison cell; The City is a prison cell that stands in the very centre of these wastelands that form the ultimate prison. It is a prison cell that was constructed to contain a power whose scale is nearly unimaginable; a power that, if released, could rewrite this world as easily as man draws breath.  That, he believes, is why they are here; though their manner of arrival differs in a myriad ways, he believes they are have all been brought here merely as tools with which something may eventually fashion an escape. And, in that, he tells them there is hope; for it means that this is not hell, that this is not some eternal purgatory which they must suffer. They are keys and, if they can find The City and the lock to which they are bound then they can complete their purpose and this world will cease to be.

                Most stay silent when he has finished the telling, although some scoff and defend the version of The City that they hold dear to, before one by one wandering away. But one man stares thoughtfully into the fire long after all the others save for Jared have departed to the crude shelters that they call home.

“Tell me, “ says the man, whose name is Damien Stark, finally “Tell me everything that you know about The City.”

30 Day Writing Challenge - Day 23

Oh dear, this one turned out to cause my all sorts of problems...

Firstly, I was meant to do today's challenge - First person blind date - on Day 21 but, due to general idiocy on my part, managed to skip it entirely. And, secondly, when I finally came to write the story I realised - a couple of hundred words in - that I was actually working on something that, thematically, was a variant of the story that I already wrote for Day 18.

So, I abandoned the story of the blind date involving two assassins and instead wrote something altogether, well, different...

First Person Blind Date

The wait is the part that I always enjoy the most.

There are a selection of restaurants that I use, all of them possessing that perfect combination of wonderful service and exquisite cuisine, and over the years they’ve got to know me well and always ensure that I get my favourite table. Tonight, I am in Geraldos and I’m sitting in a corner, secluded from the main dining area and the hubbub of conversation. This is my favourite table because it gives me a perfect view of the door and so I can try to guess, as guests arrive, which one is my date for this evening.

I find that the thrill served up by the delicious anticipation of this hors d’œuvre is often far more potent than that offered by the main course that is the companion that eventually arrives to share dinner with me. Even so, I have to admit that intergalactic blind dating is not something that I could recommend to those of a less than adventurous character.

If you’ve ever watched some of the science fiction shows offered on the seriously retro sites, you’ll discover that the aliens they featured tended to differ from humans by virtue of having a different skin colour (blue was, it seems, quite a popular choice) or by having strange patterns on their skin, or possessing curious protrusions from their forehead. But, due to – I’m guessing – hideously low production costs and antiquated special effects, pretty much all the aliens that we imagined before we actually met one were carbon-based, oxygen breathing bipeds.

Never was the saying ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ more relevant than the moment we first encountered the Qqmadrall.

The Qqmadrall were the first alien species to turn up on mankind’s doorstep after following the transmissions that had been leaking from Earth, out into the cosmos for the last couple of centuries. While they came in peace, the fact that they looked like giant ten-legged black crabs ensured that they were never going to win any Earthly beauty contests. Although, it must be said, they are excellent company and possess phenomenal appetites – in all areas, if you catch my drift.

Then there were the Godeal, silicon-based lifeforms that aren’t dissimilar to a small boulder and have matching level s of charisma; the Hurys, techno-organic sails that live out a peaceful existence in the atmosphere of gas giants and must travel within force shielding in Earth standard atmospheres (not ideal for a dinner date, as it turns out). I can advise against the Radcht; two foot long maggots who bind themselves to host bodies and are nothing but charming over dinner but have a tendency to see if they can’t make you their next host once you’ve got them back to your room; and the Bllom – well, I think, after the incident with the Australian Prime Minister, we all know about the dangers of dating a Bllom…

Hundreds of species, each one more strange and exotic than the next. Once you’ve experienced conversation with a Pukti (three heads, each with an independent brain – it’s like having a group of friends, although the arguments can be terrible), eaten with a Atrophan (an avian race who, due to a freakishly high metabolism, are capable of consuming three times their body weight in one sitting) or spent quality time with a Lwee (a prehensile tongue can be a wonderful thing), it’s very difficult to go back to the mundanity of dating humans.

Tonight it’s a Kspooj and, if I’m honest, I’ve got to say that  I don’t know what a Kspooj even  looks like so I’m just waiting for something to walk in that I’ve never seen before.

Like I said, the wait is the part I always enjoy the most.

30 Day Writing Challenge - Doh!

In a bout of what I can only imagine was dyscalculia, I've just realised that I somehow managed to skip one of the writing challenges - Day 21 (which I did as Night) should really have been Day 22 and the real Day 21 should have been First person blind date.

Oh well, I'll just make First person blind date today's challenge and you'll just have to put up with my poor organisational abilities! I'm still behind in the challenge but hoping to get a few of them out the way this weekend - the inspiration is there, just not the time to write them. Oh, for 36 hours in a day...

30 Day Writing Challenge - Day 22

I spent quite some time trying to come up with an idea for today's challenge - Standing at the precipice - but, when the idea finally dropped into place, it didn't take that long to write. If you enjoy reading this even 10% as much as I enjoyed writing it, then we'll both be reasonably happy...

Standing at the Precipice

The Grand Canyon stretches out in front of me and, despite myself, I find that there is something overwhelming in its raw, physical grandeur.

The early morning sky is pale pink and almost entirely bereft of clouds. I suck the cool air, crisp and clean, into my lungs and hold the breath in my chest. I close my eyes and listen to the world around me, to the birds that twitter and the insects that chirrup restlessly in the trees and undergrowth. For the moment, I am alone here at Moran Point.

Moran Point is approximately eighty five metres in height. By my calculations that means that I will attain a speed somewhere in the region of one hundred and forty kilometres per hour in the four seconds it will take me to fall to the ground below. If time is truly relative, I anticipate that those four seconds could last a long time.

I open my eyes and take a step closer to the edge, now no more than two metres in front of me.

There is no suicide note left behind, of course. To write a note would have been to accept that there was, in some small dark corner of my mind, the barest semblance of a doubt and I couldn’t have that. But, of course, as I stand here and feel the breeze and the way that it ruffles my hair, it is difficult not to entertain some doubts as to whether I am doing the right thing by plunging off a cliff.

I push the doubts aside and take another step. Everything has been leading up to this moment and I cannot lose my faith now.  This is the moment where I either prove that I am right or I accept that I am wrong; I don’t think that I could live with the alternative in any case.

As far as I am able to determine, it all started more than ten years ago at Gravesner Laboratories. Back then I was just twenty; a penniless student on the third year of an Art degree that was getting me nowhere but into more and more debt than I can ever imagine repaying.  A couple of my friends at university had made money through taking part in medical tests; they’d been put in control groups and taken placebos, or tested out male contraceptives, or taken pills that were supposedly designed to prevent you from getting drunk. Easy money, they said. So, when I saw Gravesner’s advert in the paper, I didn’t hesitate to get in touch. They got back to me a week later and told me that they were prepared to pay my travel expenses and give me £200 if I attended one of their weekend study groups. I jumped at the chance.

The laboratory was located about eight miles outside of Birmingham, off the beaten track and hidden away in the greenery of the Clent Hills in a former stately manor. My memories of what I did that weekend have dimmed with time, and perhaps that’s the way they want it. A test of a revolutionary medical technology, they told me; a form of virtual reality that would help patients in a vegetative state to communicate with the outside world.

But, as far as I can remember, all I did that weekend was have a couple of blood samples taken and then sit in a room for a few hours and watch TV while wired up to a monitor that tracked my vital signs. Eventually, a doctor came in and told me that the tests had shown that I wasn’t going to be compatible with the technology and that they wouldn’t be needing me anymore. Don’t worry, they said, you’ll still receive the full fee and if you experience any kind of side effects to having had the blood taken, just call us on this number.

They gave me a business card and, ten years on, I still have it. The card is creased and slightly yellowed as I look at it now.

The headaches started a few weeks later; searing migraines that left me lying In my bed with the light off and the curtains closed. I’d never had any problems like this before so I phoned the number.  Someone at the other end listened to my problems and reassured me that this couldn’t be the results of their taking a blood sample; they reminded me that I’d not even undergone the main experiment and made me feel like I was a complete idiot.

Eventually, the headaches went away, but things didn’t really improve. Everything felt wrong; I felt disconnected from what I doing and dropped out of University, I felt alienated from the people around me and split up from my girlfriend and stayed away from my family and friends. I couldn’t put a finger on anything specific that was wrong, there was just the sense that something wasn’t quite right.

A year on and I began to think that maybe they’d done something to me while I was at Gravesner and they’d just not told me; maybe they given me some chemical that was affecting my brain, affecting my emotions and the way I thought, so  I rang the number again.

It was unobtainable.

A few phone calls later and I found out that Gravesner Laboratories had gone out of business about three weeks after I’d last spoken to them. There was nothing left. The principal scientists behind the company had supposedly fled the country; there were allegations about medical malpractice and unethical experiments. I drove straight to the nearest hospital and insisted they run a full battery of tests on me; the result of which was the pronouncement that, contrary to my better instincts, I was actually 100% fit and healthy.

But I couldn’t let it go so I spent years digging around for information on what Gravesner had been involved in, tried to find out more about the technology they’d wanted to test on me.  And, when I finally realised what it was that they’d done to me, when it finally dawned on me why it was that I felt so very wrong, I spent a long time uncertain what I could do about it. But that uncertainty is over.

I remember, when I was young, hearing what was presented to me as a philosophical conundrum: “if a tree falls In the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” At the time, it seemed ludicrous – of course it makes a sound, I thought. Later, as I delved into quantum mechanics and the possible role that the observer plays in reality, I became less certain of the answer. And now? Now, I’m convinced that there’s not even a forest.

If I’m right, Gravesner Laboratories didn’t just take some blood samples from me; instead they conducted their virtual reality experiment. If I’m right, I’m still in it.

The simulation is near perfect. I can’t find any fault in the sensation, in the immersive qualities of it. I can peer closely at a tree and not see some carefully crafted texture map; there’s no pixilation, no draw distance problems. It’s perfect to look at and touch and listen to and smell, but I can feel that my brain still rebels against the unreality of it all. It’s that feeling you sometimes get in a dream, when you cotton on to the fact that maybe, just maybe, this is a dream and then you wake up before you get a chance to check for sure. Except I never wake up; I’m just tortured by the question of whether any of this is real.

I take another step. I am now only a pace away from the drop and I can feel my stomach lurch slightly. Heights have never been my thing. Telling myself none of this is real doesn’t help in the slightest.

Of course, there is a chance I’m wrong; that this is all in my head, that I’m just a paranoid and this is all a carefully constructed fantasy that I’ve built around the shambles that my life has become. But that’s the gamble that I have to take.

If I’m right, I hope I’m going to wake up and I’m going to have my old life back. If I’m not, at least I’m out of this life that feels so very wrong to me.

I was braver when this was all hypothetical. When I decided to fly out to the Grand Canyon, make my grand gesture in a place I visited as a child and which had such a huge impact on me, this all seemed so black and white. But, as I approach the edge, things seem far greyer.

I stand at the precipice and gaze down into the abyss; but my body clings to the idea of life, unwilling to take that final step out into nothingness.

This isn’t real. I believe that.

But what if you’re wrong?

I’m not.

But what if you are?

I have faith. I wonder to myself, if a man falls into a canyon and no one else is real, does he make a sound?

I take the last step.