Author Topic: The Forum's Scriptorium  (Read 110479 times)

Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #300 on: March 24, 2020, 06:26:56 AM »
Here's the first of two short stories that share a common inspiration - I'll explain when I post the second one.

LIFEKILLER

It had no name and no identity, but it had a purpose.

The great blue planet drifted into the solar system, drawn by the light of the blazing yellow mass at its centre. It knew that such stars were likely to have attendant planets, which meant a much higher probability of finding its objective, so it probed the subtle shifts in gravity as it drew nearer the star.

There were several larger masses, too far out and too large to be viable. Closer in there were more likely targets, and one that lay at the right distance, and was of the right size.

With a subtle mass ejection, the blue planet shifted its course to pass the third planet, and opened its more precise sensory nodes. In seconds it had the data it required. Lifebearer, one-quarter own diameter, density high.

The blue planet executed another mass ejection, and then another larger one, to bring itself arcing back towards the life-bearing planet. The adjustments were precise, and the target was lined up; dead centre of the blue planet’s mass. It moved inexorably closer, growing larger and larger in the sky of the smaller planet.

The blue planet had no thought of what might be observing it as it drew nearer. It had no identity, and it had no concept of an identity in anything. It simply knew what it had to do.

When it impacted the lifebearer, the blue planet was prepared, softening part of its surface enough to draw the lifebearer in before it shattered. The fragments were swiftly absorbed, and the new mass distributed carefully to maintain the blue planet’s stability.

Had it thought about what it had done, the blue planet would have called it a textbook operation, but it had no idea of judgement. It did what it had to do. Its creators had seen no purpose in giving it higher thought.

With its work done, the blue planet prepared to leave the system. It had another long journey ahead through the interstellar void, but it had no sense of time. It was supremely patient.

There would be other lifebearers to destroy.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2021, 02:40:40 AM by Yastreb »
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

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Keep Looking

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #301 on: March 24, 2020, 08:30:39 AM »
Ooh, wow... I love where this goes. It's ominous and raises unanswered questions, and there's a sense of mystery and doom. The perspective from which it's written is also really interesting.
I write poetry sometimes.

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Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #302 on: March 24, 2020, 09:10:37 AM »
Thanx for that, Keep Looking!

Here's the other story that I promised.


PRESERVER

It had a purpose, and an identity, and it gave itself a name - Preserver.

It had found a yellow star with eight planets, and one of them was a life-bearer, with life well established. Preserver was satisfied. Taking up a home in the debris field distant from the star, it set about making all the necessary preparations.

Drawing in material from around it, Preserver constructed companions and spread them around the system. They came in many forms; messengers, observers, and combatants, and all of them shared its purpose and identity. 

Time passed. Preserver watched the lifebearer closely, taking pleasure in the variety of lifeforms in its biosphere. It allowed all of the drones, not merely the observers, to look closely at the world, for they shared its joy. There were moments of regret, such as the impact of a large meteorite that caused mass extinctions, but that was part of the natural order; Preserver could not interfere. When Preserver sensed the rise of sentient life, it felt a special pleasure.

In all that time, Preserver made other preparations, directing combatant drones to attach themselves to sizeable fragments from within the system, and others to surround themselves with clouds of smaller fragments. It raised a multitude of possible scenarios, and calculated the necessary elements to succeed with each one.

Then the time came when it sensed the arrival of what it had been preparing for, as a great blue planet entered the system from interstellar space. Preserver signalled observer drones to view the intruder, and alerted the combatant drones. 

The identification was absolute; Lifekiller.

Preserver issued orders, and the combatant drones obeyed.

Suddenly the Lifekiller found itself struck from all sides by clouds of stony fragments that tore into its surface. Its atmosphere was no protection. It could sense the incoming clouds, especially those coming from the inner part of the system, and it sprayed mass ejections to deflect them. But then larger fragments came, objects that no mass ejection could deflect, and the Lifekiller changed its tactics; it needed to replace the mass that it used in defending itself.

The Lifekiller tried to absorb the objects instead; but that forced it to adjust its structure to do so, softening its surface and sub-surface, and the incoming fragments tore deeper, threatening the blue planet’s vital core. It hardened its surface again and maintained its course.

Preserver calculated the Lifekiller’s trajectory. It would miss the lifebearer by a wide margin, and its sensor nodes were blinded, so it would not be able to set an accurate interception course, even though it could sense the lifebearer’s gravity field. But the Lifekiller’s own gravity could affect the lifebearer, possibly throwing it from a stable orbit.

There was only one course of action left. Preserver activated its drives, hurling itself from the debris field across the system towards the Lifekiller. It felt no regret; its purpose had always included the possibility of self-destruction.

In the skies above the lifebearer, it was as if a new star had blazed into life for a brief moment as Preserver and Lifekiller both ceased to exist. Sentient eyes looked up, and marvelled.

***

Lifekiller and Preserver are fix-fics, after a fashion.

Lifekiller was a response to perceived flaws in Lars von Trier's film Melancholia, if which Earth is destroyed when the eponymous planet collides with it; in particular, to this line spoken by the main protagonist Justine (Kirsten Dunst): "...there’s no life anywhere else in the Universe. We’re all alone. And when I say we’re alone, we’re alone. Life is only on Earth, and not for long." The events of the film leading up to Melancholia's collision with Earth only make sense if the planet in intelligently guided, which of course means that Justine is wrong.

Preserver is a little bit more upbeat, in that the Lifekiller has a counter; a force that defends intelligent life. I had written a coda in which Preserver rebuilds itself to continue is task, and there is a moment of introspection from Preserver that reveals how its builders wiped out the race that built the Lifekillers, providing a nasty sting in the tail; but I decided to omit that.

« Last Edit: January 08, 2023, 03:46:33 PM by Yastreb »
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

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Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #303 on: March 27, 2020, 07:57:16 AM »
THE WAY BACK

The guards at the scan-grid reacted pretty much as I had expected.
“Please step over here, sir.”
I’d seen the surprised looks from the console operators and the tensing up of the supervisor. I did as she instructed, noticing as I did that the restraint nodes were armed and tracking me, and placed my right hand palm down on the ID reader.
I knew what the display would tell her.

BRECKENRIDGE, JASON CHARLES
DOB 12/08/112
POB CHEIRON BELLATRIX
*** SPECIAL MEDICAL HISTORY***

She took her time reading the medical history, though the restraint nodes had gone offline.
“I understand,” she said finally, and smiled a professional smile. “Welcome home, Mr Breckenridge.”
I didn’t return the smile, but just nodded. My smile can be misunderstood.
And I wasn’t home yet.

Outside the starport, I paused and look up at the night sky, with Aphrodite shining bright just like the Moon over Earth, and to take in the fresh air.
For all that had been done over the past two centuries the air on Earth was still polluted in a way that had stung my nostrils. We hadn’t stunk up Bellatrix.
It would take a little while to get used to the gravity. 1.12Gs may not seem a big difference, but think about it – for the average 70-kilo (at 1G) human, that’s more than eight kilos on you even before you put on your clothes and pick up your shopping.

“Jason?”
It was Carlos Browne, one of the EMTs who’d dragged me out that day.
“Hi, Chuck. You’re looking OK.”
He seemed to be about to reply, paused for a second, and then said, “Debbie asked me to pick you up. Let’s get your luggage and get you home.”
I just nodded.

Home had once been Debbie and me in a house we had put up together, and then where Cammy and Barbie had started to grow up. They were still there, but four years had gone by and… well, I was changed.

“We got reports every six months,” Carlos said as we left the starport. “They said you’d taken the implants well.”
Well, they would say that. All the expense of sending me to Earth for treatment – no-one would admit that there had been any problems.
He hit auto-drive and turned to look at me. His face was anxious.
“Is that true?”
I didn’t look at him.
“That depends… they worked. They repaired me.”
My voice was flat, showing no emotion.
“They said that I’d broken new ground. Forty-four percent implants is a record. Seventy million elmonits, that’s a record too. But there’s always IRS, in one form or another.”
Implant Rejection Syndrome; even when implants – cyber or biosynth or any other replacements – take hold, there’s always a psychological effect; the sense that you’re no longer the same person. Flattened effect was a common symptom. It got worse after that.
“Some repairs – need a different touch.”
I could tell that Carlos was choosing his words carefully.
“We’ll see.”
He hit manual and didn’t say anything else.

The day it all changed, I’d acted as I’d been trained. When the alarm sounded, I suited up and activated emergency protocols.
The problem was, of course, that it was not a standard emergency. The blend of chemicals that resulted from the containment breach was violent in a way that overwhelmed the automatic systems. I had to go to manual control to fight the outbreak and allow evacuation.
When they got me clear, the suit had been breached from my pelvis down, and everything in that area largely burned away. The helmet had been breached too and part of my face had been burned off too, including my left eye.  And then my skeleton began to give way; a synergistic effect of the chemical cocktail.
In other times, other places, they’d have given me a peaceful and dignified death.
But with over a thousand people not dying that day – with no-one dying that day – there was a decision taken; I had to live. So…
Titanium and carbon fibre skeleton with biosynth inlay; biosynth replacements for my stomach, spleen, bladder and urethra, and one kidney; full tissue regrowth for my legs – but my eye, not so lucky. For some reason biosynth didn’t take with the eye. So they replaced with a cyber-optic. Problem is, they haven’t developed a suitably miniaturised version, even now, so the left side of my face is weirdly swollen from eye ridge to cheekbone, and the eye itself doesn’t look real at all.
All that, and I activate alarms in scan-grids everywhere.

Carlos didn’t stay once we arrived at the house. He just said, “Call me when you’ve settled back. A lot of the guys want to hear from you.”
Inside, all was quiet. I could smell fresh coffee. The lights were on in the living room.
Debbie was standing by the couch, where Cammy and Barbie were sitting. They’d been eight and six the day of the accident.
“Jason,” said Debbie, “I’m so glad…”
Her voice tailed off, with a slight sob.
“Daddy?” Cammy said.
Barbie was blinking back tears.
“Did they tell you everything about what they did for me on Earth?”
Debbie whispered, “Yes”. The girls just nodded.
I didn’t say anything.
Then Debbie said, “I love you, Jason.”
Cammy said, “I love you, Daddy.” 
And Barbie said, “We all love you, Daddy.”
I stumbled across the room to seize them all in a hug as I began to cry tears of joy from my one good eye.
In what mattered, I was still fully human.
And I had come home.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2021, 02:38:20 AM by Yastreb »
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

Ruler of Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport.

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #304 on: March 28, 2020, 12:30:57 PM »
Here's the other story that I promised...

I liked it, Yastreb. A lot. It's rare to see a story that takes in account the difference in perception between other life forms and ours. Both entities in your stories "live" for spans of time completely apart from our (so) short years. Well done! And it could be the start point for a more complex novel, if you wish to venture in that. (Your perspective reminded me of "The Sentinel" by Arthur C. Clarke, that later became the basis for "2001").
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Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #305 on: April 01, 2020, 04:46:33 AM »
A writing group had set a short story challenge: The Monster. This was my attempt.

THE ENEMY

For what seemed like the hundredth time Paul Stepola read over his findings, and set his teeth with a frustrated sigh.
“Two hundred plus case files and almost nothing in common,” he said caustically. “Except two hundred expectant couples with everything to live for.”
From the next workstation, Candace Deveraux gave him a pitying look. “You think your headache is worse than mine? And FYI they had a lot in common, just nothing that would make them vanish. It hasn’t stopped the likes of Jim Garrow and Alex Jones from blaming aliens or al-Qaida, though. And don’t forget, ‘Who is John Galt?’”
“What?”
Atlas Shrugged. Seriously, there’s been speculation about people sneaking away to a secret enclave somewhere to live free from governments.”

Paul gave a non-committal grunt and made a note. With all the pressure from Director Parker, who was in turn under increasing pressure from Washington, everything had to be considered.
“A lot of sites are blaming Satanists,” said Bill Chester in a weary tone. “Bryan Fisher is leading that charge. Something about abortion rituals to please the Devil.”
Candace groaned. “So how do they explain how come when the couples already had children the kids didn’t get taken as well? That’s over half.”
“Sixty-two percent,” Paul said. He had just finished adding up the figures.
The room fell silent for a time, until Candace asked, “Paul? How’s Jane getting on?”
“Pretty well,” Paul said. “The apartment manager’s been a real help. I just…”
He looked away from the screen, from the entry that noted in the depressingly short list of common features; All females in third trimester (212-260 days). Jane was now 216 days into her pregnancy.
“First kid worries getting you?” Bill chuckled. “Been there, done that.”
“Yeah,” Paul muttered.
Suddenly Candace did a double-take, and peered closely at her screen. “Wait a moment…”
“What is it?” Paul queried.
“Do me a favour, will you? And you, Bob. Look up l’Enemi on your lists. L-apostrophe-e-n-e-m-i.”
Paul flinched. “What is it?”
“Just something hiding in plain sight. Let me know what you find, I’m checking something…”
Paul typed l’enemi into the search window; three results. The chill down his back was stronger.
“I’ve got six hits, Candace,” Bill said. “What is it?”
“Wait one,” she replied. “That’s fourteen hits between us. Not much out of six hundred, but… Here it is. Some kind of, um, gentleman’s club in New Orleans…” She sat back, and her expression was suddenly grim. “I don’t want to have to admit that the conspiracy nuts were on to something! Okay, what do you guys have on your lists about l’Enemi?”

L’Enemi had been a strange place to meet a confidential informant, and it had turned out to be a bust; a paranoid ex-state trooper with wild stories about a Santeria cult terror network. The club was okay, and not cheap. The sex show might have been fine for those who liked woman-on-woman action, but nothing had prepared him for the final act; a woman wearing only high heels with a tarantula as big as a hand crawling over her, shaking it off to skewer it with a heel. Paul, like many people, found spiders scary, even frightening, and it had been an ordeal to stay until he could shake off the informant.

“Jane, honey, are you OK?”
“Nothing’s changed in the last couple of hours,” she replied, with a weak laugh. “What about you?”
“I should be home about six.” He looked over at Candace, who shrugged and mouthed, I checked, it’s OK to go. “Anything I can get for you?”
“Just yourself, hon. Love you.”
“Love you.”

Paul chambered a round in his Sig-Sauer, though keeping the safety on, before leaving the elevator. He could not shake off feeling slightly foolish, but the worry had kept at him ever since Candace had spoken up. You fit the victim profile. Why not be cautious?
He entered the apartment and called out, “I’m back.”
“Good, good.” She sounded a little wheezy. “I dozed off… Can you help me up?”
He walked quickly to the bedroom, and stopped in surprise at the sight of Jane standing by the bed, stark naked, looking blankly at him.
“What’s going…”
Terror struck him like knives in the heart and gut, ripping the breath from his throat, and the roaring in his ears was like a scream as eight jet black eyes stared coldly into his, as the thing that had been Jane and now all but filled the room moved towards him…

The spider loomed over Paul as he lay unconscious, lowering its forebody to sink its fangs into his exposed throat, holding them there as he convulsed weakly and went still.
It waited as his body began to sag within his clothing, as if losing all firmness.
Carefully, it began to feed.
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

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Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #306 on: April 07, 2020, 08:39:26 AM »
And now, a tale that came about because of a throwaway comment during a light-hearted discussion about the Anti-Christ as portrayed by End-Times authors.

THE UNDERGROUND ANTICHRIST

So, we meet at last.
I know what you’re thinking; terrible cliché. I’ll be serious from now on. You deserve it. My people didn’t hurt you? Oh, good.
In a way, I’m sorry we had to meet at all. You have something quite rare – a keen and questioning mind, combined with a desire for the truth, and a determination to find it. And now you’re here.
Wait, what? No, no, I’m not the servant. I’m the Antichrist.
I know, I’m not what you expected. I don’t look like Michael York, or Sam Neill, or… sorry, it always make me laugh – a young Robert Redford. Just think, if I left you here, for a day, and someone asked you to draw me, or describe me for a police artist – could you? Exactly. I truly applaud your honesty. My Lord knows, it’s become a rare things these days.
The fact is, I’m the… Underground Antichrist. I’m not the charismatic leader who takes over the world by force of will and forces everyone to worship him or die by the guillotine! Sheol, that is so pathetic. So many have combined to create that… that legend. Lindsey, Kirban, the Van Impes, the Hagees, and, bless their hearts, Lahaye and Jenkins – they all drank the Scofield Bible Kool-Aid and thought that I would be bound by their fantasies.
I ask you, who kind of fool would I be if I slavishly followed the plan my enemies mapped out for me? Do they really think that I’m that stupid? 
Oh, before I go on, I’m not going to tell you my Master Plan in detail while twirling my moustache and doing the Evil Laugh. No moustache, for one thing, and… I have more respect for you than to play silly games.
I will tell a little bit though, about my past.
I’m not a demon. I’m human in every way. I was born quite normally. No in vitro miracles or being the son of two homosexuals. But My Lord saw fit to choose me as his… instrument. You could say I woke up – fully woke up – in the nineteen-thirties. I had the opportunity to witness two individuals who showed me what I could be, what I could do. I fought for both sides, carried out their evil, as you would call it. Vinnitsa, Babi Yar, the Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka. The Holodomor and the Yezhovshchina, and the Shoah. That was my education.
After the war, I rested for a time. But not for long. I realised that I had much to do. Stalin died, Khrushchev told all, that was a setback. But it had taken just a tiny nudge for McCarthy to set Americans into paranoia. Tailgunner Joe would believe anything. Then came the Missile Race, the Space Race…
Oh, I can see the question almost bursting from you. Yes, I had President Kennedy shot. And there was no man on the Grassy Knoll; just a deluded ex-Marine on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository. He almost blew it by trying to shoot Walker. Oswald… not the best I could get, but he did the job. Isn’t that the whole point? It’s about what works! Lee Harvey, so well done!
Now that was the start of the paranoia and distrust that I didn’t have to encourage too much. Nixon? That was nothing to do with me! Tony Blair, on the other hand…
I’ll skip ahead a little and say that Gorbachev and Mandela and Obama and were moments when I’d taken my eye off the ball. But the current incumbents… oh yes, they are just what I wanted. Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Orban, Xi…
Yes, yes, I’d better stop. I did promise you. Sorry.
Oh, I wish I’d noticed you earlier, when you began your search. I could have diverted you, as I diverted so many others. You could have lived a productive life, and had the chance to really say “I told you so!” when the End Times arrive. But, I failed, and now, well…
Don’t worry. I won’t torture you, or have you tortured. You’ll die easily and painlessly. Natural causes will be the finding.
And I really hope that Yahweh will be merciful to you, and take you to him. You deserve it.
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

Ruler of Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport.

Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #307 on: April 11, 2020, 11:15:12 PM »
This story was written for a writing challenge; the topic was "Repetition."

WAR CRY

“Death to Fascism!”
Vassili Mikoyan added his voice to the chant. It had inspired him through two years of bloody and violent war; kept him going through hunger and cold and sickness.
Sergeant Resnov turned his weather-beaten face towards Vassili, and grinned almost happily.
“Ready, Vasya? Ready to crush those German dogs?”
Vassili returned the smile with almost savage glee. “Death to Fascism!”
Resnov slapped him on the shoulder. “My young wolf!”

Vassili checked his rifle again; the same trusty Mosin-Nagant that he had carried since the battle before Moscow. There were twenty-three notches in the stock and carefully carved letters above them; Death to Fascism!
Five rounds loaded, seventy more in five-round clips in his bandolier; a fully loaded Nagant revolver in his belt; three grenades in his harness; he was ready to fight.

The battalion was waiting in its trenches, ready to go forward against the German positions in the forests before them. There was perhaps a company there, with its backs to a river. If the attack succeeded, they would cut the enemy forces on this side in half.
It was almost sunrise. Vassili saw Lieutenant Klimov, the platoon commander, check his watch, and hold up three fingers.
One minute to go.
There would be a sudden and savage bombardment, and they would go in even as the shells and Katyusha rockets were falling. If all went well they would cross three hundred metres of open ground and fall upon on the enemy before they could raise their heads and man their machineguns. Captain Strugatsky had dubbed it ‘going for the throat.’
Of course they ran the risk of shells and rockets dropping short, but that was the lesser evil compared with charging into manned and ready Spandau machine guns.

Vassili looked around at the other nine members of his squad.
Apart from Corporal Yashin, he had known them for no more than a month. For two, it was their first battle, and none of them had seen as much action as he had. He had taught them what he had learned, and they called him Grandfather, even though he was barely twenty-one.
“Bayonets!” Yashin rasped.
Vassili and the five other riflemen extended their folding bayonets and locked them into place just as the first shells shrieked overhead and slammed into the forest. Even in the Russian trenches the ground shook as fountains of earth and shattered timber sprayed upwards.
“Eat dirt, German pigs!” Resnov’s roar somehow carried over the roars of exploding shells. “Death to fascism, comrades!”
Then there was a louder noise, a wailing sound that set the teeth on edge, and the fiery streaks of descending Katyushas blasted the forest in a fresh wave of destruction.
Klimov jumped to his feet, submachinegun raised above his head and a whistle between his lips. At the first blast every man was scrambling from the trench.
“URRAH!”
It was a single roar from nearly a thousand throats.
The shells were still falling as they rushed forward. Pulverised timber and torn-up soil began to rain down, and mixed with them was other debris; shattered bodies and shards of broken weapons.
“Death to Fascism!” Vassili shouted exultantly.
A final salvo slammed into the forest as the Russians were just fifty yards away, and shrapnel and stones and splinters tore into the Russian ranks. At Vassili’s side Corporal Yashin staggered forward and fell headlong, his helmet torn away and half his head missing.
Then they were in the edge of the forest, among the smoking craters and turn-up trees, and their task had just begun.
There was the tearing-cloth sound of a Spandau machine gun off to the right, and then the crash of bursting grenades, the rapid beat of machine pistols and the sharp cracks of rifles.
Vassili focussed on the way ahead, scrambling through the broken ground, and then dropped to a crouch, bringing his rifle up to aim at a half-wrecked position maybe fifty metres ahead, where four Germans were scrambling to bring up a machine-gun into operation. As he took aim at the gunner reaching for the grip, the other Germans grabbed for their weapons – two rifles and a submachinegun – but Vassili ignored them, squeezed the trigger, and saw the gunner slump back, dragging the gun with him.
Vassili worked the bolt calmly, not hurrying as a novice might and risk a fatal stoppage, as all around him the other squad members opened fire on the position. It was over in seconds, but in those seconds two of his squad fell before the last German died.
“Death to Fascism!” Vassili shouted, and waved to the squad to follow him. He could hear Sergeant Resnov’s bellows off to the left, and smiled faintly.
The old wolf would never quit until he reached Berlin and strangled Hitler and Goebbels with his own hands!

Vassili lost two more men before he reached the communications trench.
“There’ll be a command post near here.” He looked around and saw another squad closing in. “Go right! We’ll take the left! Death to Fascism!”
He plucked a grenade from his harness just as Dimitri Mikhailovich the machine-gunner yelled “Look out!” and unleashed a long burst into the trench. A German soldier spun and fell. Vassili tore out the pin and hurled the grenade just past where the German had fallen, where the trench zig-zagged sharply, and dropped flat. There was a sharp roar, a single scream, and Vassili sprang to his feet. With a cry of “Follow me!” he leaped into the trench.
At the corner, Vassili gestured to Dimitri and one of the riflemen. Without a word needed, the rifleman – the youngest of the squad – moved up, prepared a grenade, and hurled it around the corner; as the blast was still ringing in their ears, Dimitri emptied a drum down the trench.

Through the smoke and dust of the grenade explosion, Vassili saw the sandbagged bulk of the command post. “This is it!” he snapped, and set off at a run down the trench.
A German soldier stepped out from the rear entrance, machine pistol at the ready. Vassili slammed his bayonet into the man’s gut, driving him back into the doorway, and they both hit the ground hard. The German screamed, dropping his weapon to claw at the rifle, and Vassili pulled the trigger to free the rifle and silence the scream.
A grenade flew past him into the command post even as muzzle flash from a machine pistol briefly lit up the darkness, there was a cry of pain from behind him, and the roar of the grenade, and everything went dark…

“Come on, Vassili! There’s still work to do!”
Vassili opened his eyes to see Resnov smiling down at him.
“A few shrapnel gashes won’t stop my young wolves for long!” the sergeant went on. “We’re holding out well. Another step on the road to victory, eh?”
Vassili smiled painfully. He could feel pain in his scalp and left arm. He had had worse.
“Another step,” he replied. “Death to Fascism!”
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

Ruler of Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport.

Róisín

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #308 on: April 12, 2020, 02:51:46 AM »
Hadn’t seen some of these and finally got a chance to reread them at leisure. Chilling good. That spider one must have been so hard to write, knowing how you feel about the creatures. Do keep writing!
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Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #309 on: April 12, 2020, 06:48:50 AM »
That spider one must have been so hard to write, knowing how you feel about the creatures.

I confess that writing the final scene of The Enemy was a little bit tricky, but the inspiration for it was a massive jump-scare at the end of the Denis Villeneuve movie Enemy. I found out about it on a WhatCulture program about films with twist endings, or films that had to be watched again to understand them - I can't recall which - and fortunately I wasn't looking directly at the screen when the scene was shown. Since writing the story, I've also run a role-playing game scenario based on it, and one of the players is as much an arachnophobe as I am. I certainly got some mileage out of the idea!

Edited to fix font size.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2020, 08:33:04 AM by Yastreb »
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Róisín

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #310 on: April 12, 2020, 08:03:00 AM »
Heh, I remember being at Fey’s old place with you lot, and Fey and I (and Anna when she was about) being the only members of the company who were not serious arachnophobes.
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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #311 on: April 14, 2020, 07:57:25 PM »
For a change of pace... a Skype chat turned suddenly to an exchange of doggerel, which turned out to be rather diverting. I thought that I'd share a couple of my verses.

It would seem that your muse
Made you captive to booze
So it seems from your verse
Though I have seen worse
In metre and in rhyme
You didn't take the time
To make sure that each line
Matched all others just fine
That's indeed a great pity
For one who strives to be witty
But was too cool in school
As a philosophical fool
And I do know the cause
You put Descartes before the whores


A sharp response in defence of the muse I mentioned prompted this...

I notice that you incline a great deal to the clerihew
Trying to be among an honoured few
But sadly short of the mark you fall
Indeed more of the style of the "great" McGonagall
Or mayhap Marzials, whose rhyme were stuck in "flop"
And "drop" and "plop" - man, he wouldn't stop
But sadly you have caught his style
And just as sadly a tendency to revile
Your rivals in the realm of the muse Erato
But it's not like being crushed under IJN
Nagato
(A Japanese dreadnought that survived the last conflict
But was among the vessels that the Americans chose to inflict
The power of the H-Bomb on, at Bikini Atoll
So that over on her side she did roll
And sink; but that is not really the story
Rather it's about your poor sad attempts at glory)
To hear your doggerel, so cruel upon the ear
Truly you deserve a boot up the rear
So unless you desire more such pain in your arse
Get you back now to your poetry class
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #312 on: April 14, 2020, 10:41:08 PM »
Giggling at those. William Mc Gonagall was so awful as to be worth reading. The Tay Bridge, uuurrgh! And I am delighted to see that you have been reading Myles na gCopaleen/Flann O’Brien/Brian O’Nolan! Such humour. And the Keats and Shelley jokes. Have you yet read ‘The Poor Mouth’?
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Yastreb

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #313 on: April 17, 2020, 01:17:56 AM »
There was a writing challenge - write a story in which the main character is a villain.

DEAD MAN OUT

How are you today, District Attorney Parker? Are you happy in your work? Are you feeling secure about re-election? How’s your family?
Do you remember me? Do you remember any of the people you worked so hard to get placed on Death Row? Does it matter to you that you put innocent men here to get the needle?
I bet I’m not the only one, not that anyone listens or cares. We’re all guilty here. guilty of being pawns in the game of re-election, of being tough on crime. Hey, sacrifices have to be made, right?


Alik-Jay finished what passed for morning prayers and looked at the calendar. It was Day 718. By Death Row standards, his wait had barely started.
From what he could hear, it was early; maybe six am. Breakfast would be another hour.
He began to exercise. They rated him low-risk for suicide, high-risk for violence against inmates and staff. If that was how they thought, Alik-Jay had no reason to prove them wrong. They had called him a hard man in the barrio; he’d be a hard man wherever he was.

An hour after breakfast there were sounds outside the cell.
“Inmate Hidell, stand clear of the door.”
Alik-Jay moved to the far side of the cell, facing the door as it slid back. Two guards were looking at him; a third was behind them.
“Turn around.”
Another search maybe, just another petty exercise of authority.
There was the rattle of chains, and cuffs were being placed around his wrists. So, no search.
“Turn around, start walking.”
No ankle chains. That was odd.
With one guard following and one gripping each elbow, he was led to the block exit. Alik-Jay glanced at the guards at his side, and saw only blank indifference, as was normal. But when they passed through the door out of Death Row, the guard watching them looked at Alik-Jay with open contempt.
“I don’t remember banging his wife,” Alik-Jay said.
There was a laugh from behind him, a short derisive bark.
He ruled out a commutation. Governor Buchanan would never do that for a convicted cop killer, a convicted double cop killer at that. Did they expect him to inform? They knew better. A visitor? He would have been told first.

There were three people behind the table, just as there had been the day he arrived at Polunsky Unit, but only one that Alik-Jay knew; Warden Talbot, whose face was a cold mask revealing nothing. 
The other two were a well-dressed middle-aged man, balding and hard-featured, and a blonde woman maybe either side of forty who brought back memories of the cougars he used to meet in the singles bars; those had been good times…
“Good morning, Warden.”
Talbot simply nodded. “This is Deputy District Attorney Walter Briggs, and Ms Susan Lomax, for Governor Buchanan. Ms Lomax?”
She looked down at a piece of paper in front of her, and then at Alik-Jay, and spoke. “On the advice of the Department of Justice, the verdict of the court in the case of Hidell versus the State of Texas has been set aside. Governor Buchanan has therefore directed that Alik-Jay Hidell be released from lawful custody forthwith.” Her voice was quiet, measured, and almost sad.
Alik-Jay stared at her, the words seeming to echo forever, before he swung his eyes to Briggs as the man spoke. Briggs’ face was flushed and a vein was pulsing on his forehead.
“The decision has been taken… that there are no grounds for a retrial.”
Alik-Jay fought for the right words, but all he could say was, “What did DA Parker have to say?”
Briggs slammed a fist on the table. “What I’m going to say, Hidell. You should never get out unless it’s in a body bag! Goddamn Feds working to free you, with your record – felony assault, extortion, rape – thug and pimp and cop-killer!”
As Briggs drew breath, Alik-Jay said, “I’m an innocent man, sir, as far as the State of Texas is concerned. Now, Warden, are you going to do what Susan here told you to do?”
He allowed himself a smirk as Briggs fought down his temper.
Talbot said, “Get out of my prison, Hidell.”

Two hours later he stood by the outer gate, under a blue summer sky, looking cautiously at the road beyond, where two patrol cars were parked, and the four officers were standing, not even trying to look casual.
“Mr Hidell, it seems they didn’t get the memo.”
A man approached from the car park; tall, thin, in a smart dark suit despite the heat. Short dark hair was streaked with grey and his eyes were hidden by wrap-around shades.
“Anthony Barnard, FBI.” He held up his ID. “I thought you needed a way to avoid the good officers of the THP. They don’t care for what the State of Texas says about your innocence; in their eyes, you killed Officers Baker and Delmont and they’ll administer their justice.”
Alik-Jay looked Barnard up and down. Definitely looked like a Fed; and Briggs had spoken out about the Feds…
“Thanks for the warning, Agent Barnard… but why would you help me? What happened ain’t a Federal thing.”
Barnard smiled. “Talk on the move.”
Beckoning Alik-Jay to follow, Barnard set off for a standard issue dark Crown Vic parked not far from the gate. Alik-Jay followed, and noticed that the officers by their cars were watching with an hostility that carried clear across the car park.
“Just put your bag in the back, and don’t say a word until we’re clear.”
Outside the gate, one officer beckoned Barnard to stop.
“License and registration, sir,” the cop said, leaning in at the driver’s side. Another was standing near the passenger door, hand poised over his holster.
Alik-Jay sat still, hands steepled under his chin, and looked straight ahead. He wouldn’t give them an excuse…
The officer thrust Barnard’s wallet back without a word and stepped away.

“I heard Deputy DA Briggs didn’t take the decision well,” Barnard said as Polunsky Unit faded behind them.
Alik-Jay shrugged. “I wasn’t paying attention to him. That Susan Lomax is a MILF. Anyhoo – you were going to tell me…”
“Fact is, Hidell, it was – should have been - a Federal case,” Barnard said brusquely. “All the talk was about two officers murdered in the line of duty, and the other two poor innocents were inconvenient witnesses. What no-one knew was that one of the victims was a Federal informant. Baker and Delmont were camouflage, just there to give a false motive. The last one was what they said, an inconvenient witness. And wouldn’t you know it, there just happens to be someone in the area who’s from out-of-state with a record for violence and a reputation for acts against penal code 920 that would disgust every decent citizen who watches Law and Order SVU. Gift from Heaven for DA Parker.”
Alik-Jay said nothing.
“And Parker made a slam-dunk, closed the case and got re-elected. Everyone wins… but not you, and not the Bureau. And no-one puts one over the Bureau. So we got you out.”
“No way,” Alik-Jay snapped. “You want something.”
Barnard grinned. “You’re not going to believe me when I tell you it was about justice, so I won’t try to convince you. That’s OK by me. The cops by the gate will have called their buddies in Dallas to watch the bus stations – you didn’t see that ticket on the dash? Officer Holcombe sure did when he was asking for my license. I saw him see it, and then try to make out he didn’t. And while they’re eye-balling the Greyhounds, too bad. There’s someone at the airport hotel with tickets for Los Angeles.”
Alik-Jay asked, “Who?”
“Darsi. She’s a sweet girl. Some would say too good for you. But she’s a determined little fighter. She’s there now, and she’s your way out. Be nice to her.”
Alik-Jay stared at the road ahead, grinning at the memories of Darsi; a mixture of joy and lust.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Barnard was no longer grinning. “Because you’re a bad man, Hidell. A lot of those stories are true. But they weren’t the reason you were at Polunsky. I just hope I haven’t let you go loose to hurt some unfortunate girl somewhere.”
Alik-Jay said softly, “You’re not going to believe me when I tell you that two years can change a man. One day I’ll show you.”
"Life is all we are. Life is what defines us. In the end, Life is the answer."

Ruler of Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport.

Keep Looking

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Re: The Forum's Scriptorium
« Reply #314 on: April 19, 2020, 10:08:04 PM »
This is a complete mess of a poem, but I think I needed to write it. It's been nearly two years - it'll be two years on may the eleventh.

It's under the spoiler because it deals with... an event. A death. A murder. Grief? Yeah. That.
Man, I'm not doing a good job at phrasing this. It's not particularly graphic but, well - it's not exactly light reading.

It's also rather long.

Spoiler: show
Gunshot

when I first read the headlines
Friday morning, down in the library -

I didn't think it could be you.

family massacred, they read
but massacres are things that happen to strangers - faceless names glimpsed in passing as you skim the week's news.

things that happen to strangers, like sirens and surgeries and the snap of bones as a body hits the asphalt -

after all, even strangers aren't strange to everyone.

whispers carry fast. pieces of a puzzle I was slowly assembling, bit by bit, as the tension rose and tightened around my chest.
by the time I got home, I knew.

it's taye's family, isn't it?

Dead. the coils tightened. Dead.


Bleedout

grief is a feeling, I thought
and feelings are in your head.
but the tightness around my chest suggested otherwise.

who knew how far pain could spill over?
like a snake, constricting my lungs
the hands of a ghost steal my breath

it filled a bottle I sent across the seas
writing my grief to a stranger
who else could I trust to keep it sealed?

I stuffed the rest into a box
kept it shut, kept it silent
but still it coloured my thoughts

as I twisted a wreath of wire
and painted with orange and blue
a silent symbol, a banner of mourning

as bright as the darkness isn’t.
I lay in bed at night
and whispered questions to a ghost

did you hide? did you fight?
or were your eyes still shut
Did he hold a gun to your sleeping head?

this is how it ended.
seven bodies bleed out
and one of them holds the gun


Bloodstain

a year and a half later, and all it took
was one lockdown drill (they’re always drills, here)

the box shattered, and everything spilled out.

trying to hide my ragged breaths
class after class, but nothing fades
until finally I break the veil of silence

and suddenly the tears come crashing down

you were only thirteen, and thirteen is too young
to be remembered for anything other than your death

and that is the real tragedy of it all.

that sometimes I think that your death has affected me
far, far more than your life did.

what are you now but a ghost?
but a bloodstain left on my walls.


Fingerprints

I promised a ghost
that I would hold her memories
close to my heart.

the brushes we washed
in a rickety sink
the questions we asked

art class discussions
clay-covered fingers
moisturized hands

stacks of books carried
and more books discussed
through tree-shaded land

cookies and corn-thins
chair swings and car rides
twigs and hot glue

bright coloured sharpies
and wrongly read recipes
the same kind of shoes

I will never forget
the day that you died
but with each word I write

I am writing a memory
that deserves to be known
I am writing your life.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 01:24:45 AM by Keep Looking »
I write poetry sometimes.

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