#chengdu bookworm

[grumpy-anni]

Flash Fiction: Life/Cycle

As I lie here, immobile, I look back on my life. The best memories come first: sunshine, a hillside, flying fast, wind whipping through her hair. Her name was Melanie, and we met four years ago. Melanie, Melanie… She had the most beautiful smile, the softest hands. When we went out, she liked to wear floral skirts that would flip and dance, showing off her well-toned legs. And the places we’d go!…

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“Backstory.” 15/09/2016.

He was not sleeping with the right woman.

Scorch poked at the arm draped over his chest, a pale and slender appendage, attached to an equally pale and slender female form. Her skin reminded him of fine cotton, bleached and beaten and re-woven until it was ultra-soft and white. Blonde hair haloed her head as she slept, dreamt, and he did not. She was not what he wanted.

Rolling out of the bed, he shivered. Autumn had arrived and he had not prepared. Heat dredged from the fireplace remained in the front room, trapped in closed-off pipes and let loose through ceiling vents; his windows were open to let in the summer sunlight that had waned and distanced itself months ago. He busied himself with work, not house-keeping, but that would have to change if he wanted to be able to drag himself from under his covers in the winter.

The girl was a mistake. He did not look back at her as he wrapped his fur-lined robe around him and stepped gingerly over the chilly floorboards into the next room. Even the rugs had absorbed some of the cold. He would have to shut up all the windows and open up the heat-transfer pipes in the morning.

He hopped to his desk and pulled out a bottle and a glass from one of the drawers, poured two fingers of liquor into the glass, paused, then filled it to the brim. It would warm him up, he hoped, or at least help him forget the lady that was taking up his bed right now. He gulped half the alcohol, shuddered as it burned down his throat and filled his belly. Sipping the rest, he settled into his chair and closed his eyes.

She—Scorch thought her name might be Jemma, or Jane, something like that—had distracted him with a coy smile here and there, a brush of their hands when she passed him with drinks for another table.

He felt like he was trying to drown himself. He let the glass rest on his chin, its iciness almost painful on his fingers and palm.

Jemma (Jane? Whatever, he thought) was too young, too buoyant, too fixated on silly games between men and women. She flirted and hid her mouth when she laughed behind one outward-turned hand, the other resting in her lap or stroking the stem of a wine glass. She did not drink hard liquor, only sweet, light things like fruit juices. Despite her falsely shy behavior, he brought her to bed without much effort. She was too young.

Clara had been young, of course, but she was still, and quiet, and gave no time to games. Scorch rubbed the rim of his glass along his lips, remembering how long it had taken him to get her to smile. She was not easy, at least not in any sense that mattered. Sex for them had been quite simple, but prying open Clara’s chest to get to her heart? That had exhausted him.

He had not kept it, either. He had touched upon it for one brief moment before she locked herself up and went away. It probably had not helped that he had cheated her out of a massive fortune, but…well, that was business. Scorch drained his glass and contemplated pouring another.

Chengdu Bookworm Writing Prompt: Write a personal story, not using the first person perspective. I cheated, because this is part of my novel.

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A Life in Abeyance. 13/09/2016.

In the ten seconds that it takes me to die, I live my entire life again.

:01

I was born half in darkness, and that is why I recognized Death when I saw it for the first time.

:02

Death carried my mother away from me, wrapped her tenderly in its cool embrace and brought her somewhere else; I did not know where, but everybody told me that I could not go there. Not yet.

:03

Mistakes. Mistakes make up so little of our lives and yet when we look back through them, rifling page by page as if our years were sections in a book, each mistake is in bold print. Mistakes title my chapters and take up paragraphs.

:04

I avoided Death for a long time. I avoided church, I avoided graves, I avoided the night sky. I kept a pet once and Death took it too, but I suppose it was for the best because I was better off alone anyway.

:05

What was the point of all those moments in between wakefulness? I slept my life away, and day-dreamed, and dreamed too much and too little and never wrote any of it down and so it feels now like I have forgotten half my life. I used to dream about traveling far, far away, to someplace else. There was no image in my mind of what this place looked like, but I imagined it anyway.

:06

When Death slipped in at night and brought my father to that place, I may have lost some sense of direction. I saw a path before, a direct line from where I was to where I was going and where everybody else was, and when father and mother were gone, I stepped off that path. Maybe I had dreamed away some of life, but I drank away the rest of it. I never remember being so angry as I was then.

:07

Did I do this to myself? I don’t remember. Would it matter, if I did? There is no motion, no feeling of movement, from me or anything in me, so I don’t think I’m traveling to someplace else, no I don’t think that at all—

:08

What was I doing, in between the flight from Death and the wasting away and the attempts at locating my parents’ spirits in whatever method I could think of?

:09

What I do remember is that Death was stalking me. I lived my life between interludes, wherein I held conversations with Death and exchanged furtive glances, and prayed that it would not catch up with me. I saw Death in the corner before I died, no judgment on its moon-bright face, but resignation. Why are we resigned to die? Why are we resigned to live?

:10

There is warmth and then cold and then warmth and then cold again. I do not remember why it happened or how it happened, only that it happened and it hardly mattered whether or not I was ready for it.

:11

Death comes towards me at the most crucial moment and holds out its hand. I see my own hand, red, red, red, placing it in the moon-bright palm—

Chengdu Bookworm Writing Prompt: Your main character dies.

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Woolgathering. 06/09/2016.

If I were to build a time machine—say that we suspend all measures of disbelief and, really, all the facts that contradict this very notion of building time machines—and it were to work, where would it go?

If I were to build a time machine that could not only send a person from one fixed point in time and space to another fixed point in time and space, but also to multiple points in time and space, where and when would I go?

Say I have already built a time machine. It was not that difficult. Say I have already built one, and it works, and it can not only send a person from one fixed point in time and space to another, but also to multiple points in time in space. Say that these things are true, and that I chose to go somewhere and somewhen.

Would you believe me if I told you that I tried to kill Hitler? Probably. Everyone who travels through—would travel through—time would try to kill Hitler. It’s only common sense. But would you believe me if I told you that when I tried to kill Hitler, I made Hitler a killer? It’s not a stretch. Take that leap, if you will, in your imagination. We are beyond time machines anyway, you can think about killing Hitler.

If I were to build a time machine and try to kill Hitler but, because the past is the past and the past has happened, I ended up turning Hitler into what he was/is/will be, would you forgive me? I know that you would forgive me building a time machine—there is hardly a soul on Earth who would find the manifestation of that impossibility an unambiguously immoral act—but would you forgive me for creating evil Hitler?

I have basically caused World War Two. I’m not admitting it, but if I were to build a time machine and try to kill Hitler but inadvertently nudge Hitler into that genocidal path, World War Two is my fault. I didn’t try to do it, but if we’re being honest, I didn’t try not to.

This is hypothetical, just so you know. I didn’t cause World War Two by accident while I was trying to stop it from happening. The past is the past. My interference had nothing to do with it. But—

Say I built a time machine, and that it was successful, and then I went back in time and tried to kill Hitler, but obviously he was meant to foment World War Two, and did, and I only had a marginal role in that happenstance.

Would you forgive me? If I were to stand over your grave and beg, would you?

I hope another version of you does—one that exists in a world where I did not make a mistake and send you to your death. Would that version of you forgive me for killing this version of you? This is hypothetical. I did not build a time machine and go back in time to kill Hitler but end up causing World War Two and losing you in the process.

This is hypothetical.

But what if I were to go back and try again?

Another attempt at the prompt for this week based on an inevitable fate like the example given in “Appointment in Samarra.”

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Fate Is Not What You Expect. 09/01/2016.

Stamp.

“Motion approved. Next.”

The old woman shuffled forward and placed her application onto the clerk’s pseudo-wooden polymer desk. It gleamed unnaturally despite the lack of adequate lighting, which was how the old woman knew it could not possibly be real mahogany.

“Name?” the clerk asked.

“Says on the paper.”

The clerk gave her a long, hard look through fashion-forward metal-rimmed glasses. Then he shook his throat. “Cassandra Geneva Albertson, née Leoht. Eighty-nine. Closer to ninety upon expiry—”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You most certainly should. Closer to ninety upon expiry and with no significant achievements to speak of.” The clerk peered at her paper. “Astonishingly boring life, wasn’t it?”

“Excuse me?”

He sighed. “I’m not judging, really. I mean, I am judging. But. Well. There’s not much to judge. Most people they, uh, know right away what they’re supposed to be doing. What do you think you deserve, hm?”

Cassandra blinked at the clerk. “I think I deserve a little bit more respect, young man. I filled out the application that your colleague over there gave me. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

He sighed again and adopted a put-upon expression, the corners of his mouth turning downward. “I suppose…well, you were a Catholic for a long time, weren’t you? Sort of…doing that whole…preparation for the afterlife thing? Yeah?”

She bristled. “Yes, I was raised Catholic. I stayed in the church until I realized that doing everything in your power to stave off an inevitable fate was rather useless. What’s the point in preparing for the afterlife while you’re alive? We’re all getting there anyway.”

The clerk nodded. “Well, that was clever of you. Look. It’s not that you were Catholic. I have nothing against Catholics, really—it’s the waffling that bothers me.”

“How’s that?”

“You were Catholic, then you got married…then you…” He looked down through the application. “…what was this? Got involved in bio-hacking? Well, that is a highlight. I take back what I said about your boring life. Didn’t you say you gave up trying to avoid the inevitable? That’s a bit of a turnaround.”

Cassandra frowned. She had not expected an interrogation. She had not really expected anything at all, after going to the hospital that last time, but now that she was here. Well.

The clerk tapped his pen on her application. “There’s some artificiality in here that I don’t like. Claiming that you’re accepting of death and then going and trying to make yourself immortal through technology? Hm. Hm. Not like you can avoid it. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Are you the only pencil-pusher available? Maybe I want to speak to someone who’s less prejudiced.”

He raised his hand and shook it in front of her face. “No, no. You’re in my line. We’ll sort this out. Do you feel like you left the world a better place than when you entered it?”

“Hardly.”

“Do you feel like you’ve done irreparable harm to anybody?”

“No.”

The clerk groaned. “Ugh, fine. Sort it out in your next life. I’m filing for reincarnation.”

“What? I don’t believe in that—”

His red rubber stamp flashed down onto the white paper.

Stamp.

“You do now! Have fun as a cockroach or something. I don’t know. I’d put in a request for a mammal at least. The line is that way.”

He shoved the application into her hands and shooed her along.

Chengdu Bookworm Writing Prompt: Use the storytelling technique in “Appointment in Samarra.” As in, someone causes their fate by trying to avoid it.

I don’t know if I did exactly that but...this is where it took me. I didn’t feel like writing anything tragic today, so that’s why it’s not, perhaps, exactly what the prompt was supposed to result in.

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Wordless. 29/08/2016.

Say something.

Say anything.

I sit stiff on my firm-backed chair, across from you and your downcast eyes, and you say nothing. Where are you going with those thoughts I see racing through that vein that pumps fierce in your neck? I am going nowhere. There is no force acting upon me, nothing willing me into motion. But you? I see you peeling away from your seat, picking up speed, speed, speeding away. There will be no stopping you once you leave.

I have nothing to say about it to you.

Nothing at all?

Nothing at all.

There is a box, weighing heavy on us and straining the pull-out wings of this old table it groans on, wrapped and stamped and static. Gravity creaks around it, pooling and tugging. I lean forward, but you lean back. The blood in the vein in your neck pumps faster. I see it pulsing. My hands are cold and I can’t feel my own heart beating in my chest. I can feel yours across the table, across the box.

Say something.

Words will not work for me. You have nothing to say and I have nothing to say and the box would eat anything we said, anyway. Your lips don’t even move, except to breathe more shallowly than I have ever seen you breathe. Are you imitating a corpse? That is what you look like: someone who has died, become a corpse, was reanimated, and is fleeing from its creator. I suppose I created Corpse You.

But you have nothing to say about it to me either?

I know I won’t—rather, I can’t—let any words out from the pit of my stomach where I have pushed them down, but you always liked to talk. We will wait forever, if we wait for the other to speak first. That is not the way it should be, but the box has made it so; and physics. You and your perpetual motion, and me here, shorn into the dark forces that surround this box.

Say something!

Say anything!

I am screaming it inside my head now—can you see the way my face flushes, my jaw clenches? My fists are in my lap, hidden under the table, so perhaps you can’t see those—but they are clenched hard, too. Look up at me. You keep looking at the box, twitching, flight itching in your bones and your muscles, and I want you to look at me.

You look at me.

I said it aloud.

The words escaped somehow and hung in the air and you heard them and looked. What is that in your eyes? It is probably fire. Anger fuels fire and fire is rage and that is what has been building in your body while you sit staring at this box.

“You can’t bring him back, mom,” you whisper, that rage and that pressure trembling in your voice.

“No, I can’t,” I manage. Somehow I manage that. And somehow, I manage more: “I can never undo that. But I promise, I will help you raise a new Tamagotchi.”

Chengdu Bookworm Writing Prompt: Write an apology without saying the words “I’m sorry” or any variation thereof. Also, my friends and I were talking about childhood nostalgic toys, and Tamagotchis came up. My friend had a truly traumatizing experience where her Tamagotchi died because she had to set the table. 

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Bloom Where You’re Planted. 05/08/2016.

In the grand scheme, how much difference can one intention make? How much change can one thought, one decision, one feeling bring about? I would be tempted to say none at all, in the grand scheme. According to the universe, we almost don’t exist—and even though we do, in fact, exist, this does not obligate the universe to respond in any particular way.

But take a look at our world. The universe may not notice us, but we notice ourselves. One small intention—save the world, say—can cause unfathomably broad ripples of change, and who could know what will be altered, and how, and for how long?

Maybe that’s why most people shut themselves away after the nukes and the temperature fluctuations.

Maybe that’s why I’m not getting anywhere with this goddamned garden.

“It’s been two months, and there’s not even a seedling!” I complain to Daniela.

She looks at me half-caring and says, “It’s not like two centuries ago where you could stick seeds in the ground and things would just bloom where they’re planted. Wanting it to grow won’t make it happen.”

“I’ve synthesized all the proper ingredients for the soil, corrected the moisture levels, generated harmless UV light on a twenty-four-hour schedule…what’s wrong? How could it possibly not be working by now?”

She sighs and turns back to her own charts. “Maybe life has just…given up.”

“No. No,” I say, shaking my head. “I found this first little guy in a goddamned fallout zone, Dani, and it was surviving just fine.”

“So maybe you need more radiation? Iron? Alpha particles? Ionized sand? Dirty water?”

“Sure, yeah,” I mutter. I file those ideas away for future tests.

“Why are you so worked up about making more of those plants anyway? We can’t exactly eat it.”

I fiddle with the temperature and light controls in my mini-biome as I answer her. “It’s not about making food, Dani. We have food. Not great food, God knows, but it’s not like we need it or we’ll die. This is about…hm. This is about.”

Frustration sets in, and I gnaw at the inside of my cheek.

“Humankind?” she suggests.

“Yeah,” I say finally. “Life can’t have given up. If the world’s given up on us, then…what’s the point, I guess? Why bother trying to stick around if there’s nothing worth saving?”

“One hundred years from now, we’ll all be dust, Mei.”

There is no bitterness in her voice, only sincerity and sadness.

She has many unspoken questions about me, about my work, about our lives, but I only have one reply.

“We don’t have to be,” I answer. “Not if I get this right. If I get this right…hell, I’ll save the world. And it all starts with you, you lucky piece of shit. Shit.”

“Hm, what happened?”

“Fertilizer. I need fertilizer. Maybe this leafy thing grew in the irradiated wilds, but our ancestors farmed, Dani. They used manure and plant castoff mixtures and bacteria-rich mulch to stimulate growth.”

“Where are we going to find stuff like that? Or how can we make it?”

“We’ll thing of something.” I stare at the hardy greenish plant in my makeshift garden biome. “I’ll make you sprout, you little fucker. Right there where I put you.”

Chengdu Bookworm Writing Prompt: “Bloom Where You’re Planted.”  This is set in the same storyline as a couple of other prompts I’ve written.

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The Encounter. 26/07/2016.

They do not speak our language.

They live in such a light atmosphere that they cannot even vocalize; communication occurs through wavelengths and patterns of light. It is beautiful to behold, and when I say the word beautiful, I do not mean in any sort of subjective, societally-determined way—I mean it is beautiful because it cannot be anything else. There is no argument.

Each fiber of their being is hyper-optic, fanatically patterned, indicating layer upon layer of meaning incomprehensible to our untrained, suboptimal human eyes. Imagine a rainbow, folded upon itself, a hundred times folded upon itself. This would be a start. Then focus in on one stripe of that rainbow, and behold! One might imagine it to contain only a single color, but in fact that color is a multitude of shifting hues, some vibrating too slow or fast for us to see without aid. If one stripe—still a lonely fiber amongst a bristling bunch in one portion of their bodies—were to be observed in laboratory conditions, it would reveal itself to be infinitely more complex than even this description allows. Light exists in one dimension for us, and it is limited. Light, for them, goes beyond existence and into the extra-planar, the extra-sensory, the extra-universal.

Now, this is but one aspect of these creatures. Physical light and how it pertains to their advanced communication is something we have not decoded as of yet. We have, however, been able to understand a basal emotional range and, even, some of their culture.

Take, for example, our human expression of happiness. We display upturned corners of the mouth, and perhaps the more subtle of us will display a sort of brightness in the eyes, a leaning forward in the posture. We indicate openness and pleasure with a series of physical cues. These beings do much the same, but with vibration, a shift in light wavelength, and pattern-making. Happiness is a slow ripple of warm red color down their torsos, which of course varies in speed depending on the extent of that emotion. I have seen a range from strobe-like pulses to a molasses-slow trickle from trunk to outer appendages.

Culture, as you might guess, is based on light display as well. There are different patterns for Hello, and Goodbye, although the intricacies of polite behavior (if there is such a concept for them) remain beyond us at this time.

Pairing—or as we would say, marriage—is visible if you look closely. We have not yet seen any offspring or young, but what might be considered “intimate” relationships can be seen in matching patterns on the head. Those with particular markings may also come into frequent physical contact, which, as far as I can tell, does not occur unless there is a previous established pairing. Which is to say, those who do not match, do not touch. It might also be genetic, but they are almost entirely genetically similar, so we have put forward this other hypothesis based on that information.

Who can know what more we will learn with further interaction? I, for one, am delighted to catalogue our findings….

Based somewhat on Ursula K. LeGuin’s "Elementals.” Inspired by the Chengdu Bookworm prompt: A character speaks a language that the author does not understand.