Tonya R. Moore's Blog: Tonya R. Moore, page 28
July 8, 2017
Strangestar
The flowers that thrived, deep in the valley had been blooming non-stop for over one hundred years. The redolent profusion of colors and deep tropical scents were rumored to have driven many pilgrims who visited the mountains, stark mad. At least, that was the legend in the lowlands beyond the misty mountain range.
Elissa Dardo, Inspector General for the great metropolis across the sea, made such a pilgrimage during the course of performing her duty. She returned to her homeland after a solitary cycle of the sun, dressed as a beggar with strange whorls and dotted patterns carved into her skin by the blade of a knife. Self-inflicted she had proclaimed–and joyfully so because mapped across every inch of her skin, were the greatest secrets of the universe.
Sadly, for the now ostracized Inspector, street walking prophets had been outlawed five decades earlier. No one in the citadel took her seriously, of course. She was summarily imprisoned within the asylum reserved for all the other creatures blighted with her supposed affliction.
Despite the efforts of the citadel’s officials, stories and rumors spread across continents like raging fire. There was a hermit, it was said, who lived in the valley and claimed to be over five hundred years old. He had seen a strange star fall there when he was a child–no bigger than a cherry but brighter than a million fireflies.
It had dug deep down into the earth there and made the valley its home.
Harlequin
A clock-work doll sits atop a wobbly mountain of rubble. He has dry, empty sockets where his eyes should be. His smile is wide and full of teeth. A fat tear hangs in suspended animation, mid-dribble down one dirty cheek. The aging sun goes down on the distant horizon, casting its purple gaze across the broken remains of a barren metropolis.
There’s a tentative click, then the sound of slowly grinding gears. Suddenly, a sharp melody explodes into the air, a relentless one-man merry-go-round of a carnival. It’s that kind of song; the kind of song that spins you round and around in your nightmares before grabbing you by the throat and squeezing the breath out of your lungs.
Suddenly, a sharp melody explodes into the air, a relentless one-man merry-go-round of a carnival. It’s that kind of song; the kind of song that spins you round and around in your nightmares before grabbing you by the throat and squeezing the breath out of your lungs.
How many times has he played this tune?
He has no one left to applaud his remarkable musical wit; no comrades, no culture.
The ones who built and broke this continent have long since been forgotten by the insects that buzz there. Even the scum clawing its way up out of the ocean knows little of its sordid origin. Nothing animal moves in this derelict town without first, listening intently for the distant sound of thunder.
The sky rumbles, heralding the flapping of many gargantuan wings. They arrive, hawkish cries drowning out the mechanical man’s tune. A seething cloud of arcuated eyes and rapacious beaks, they darken the sky. They descend in droves, adopting the military precision of the freight-trains and torpedoes of an era, long gone. In the heat of the hunt, they stir up chunks of history mingled with gritty particles from bones they already picked clean a hundred years ago.
One majestic crow swoops down upon a crumbling spire and regards his sagging kingdom from the dusty perch. His menacing gaze fixes upon the blind harlequin, the jerky motions of its wiry hands; the pneumatic, spinning mechanism lodged in its skeletal chest. His head tilts, one black eye reflecting the rising moon and the stirring stars. The crow contemplates the faint, alien sound threaded into the cacophony of winged beasts. It spreads its massive arms and dives down into the rising dark for the kill.
The earth shakes. The music stops. The massive bird takes flight once again. The doll’s iron bones stick in the crow’s craw. The red wetness raining from the sky goes unseen. Darkness has filled the whole, wide world. The great beast plummets awkwardly to the stony ground, a multitude of bones cracking.
The winged emperor knows he won’t live to see another ghostly dawn. He utters one long, mournful cry. The eager swarm hovers overhead, a pulsating mess of gleaming eyes and snapping beaks. They know no remorse, the voracious giants feasting on the flesh of their kin. They haven’t changed since they first dominated the earth millions of years ago. This world was made for these birds.
They’ve known that since the dawn of time.
Tribute
Rastaman gone somewhat astray, the devout artist had adopted flesh for his canvas. Everything about him was dark, the curl of his brows, his countenance when he eased back and stood, studying his handiwork.
The silent woman in the claw-toed tub sat leaning forward. The thick braid of her hair was twisted into a samurai’s knot. Like his hand, the bathwater was muddy with her blood and neat little slivers of her skin. The pattern three quarter ways carved into her back was Yggdrasil with gnarly roots coiling deep down into the core of the earth, knotty canopy cradling nine heavenly blossoms.
“What you crave,” he hummed along with the radio absently. “What makes a body move…?”
He twirled the scalpel between his sticky fingers. The floor boards creaked as he slowly left the center of the studio. He went to the far end. Something thin and metal clattered around inside a stainless steel sink. The tap spluttered and began to flow. He spent nearly a full minute there, carefully washing his hands. From the counter by the sink he selected a shinier, sharper new blade.
“… electric marionette.”
He turned the volume all the way down. He went back to his subject, sank down onto his haunches before her. “Miss Ingrid.” He studied her odd posture intently for a while before asking. “Feel any closer to your ancestors yet?”
The woman’s face turned upward. She frowned over at him, irises darkening to a sugary shade of brown. Cocoa, he thought. Hot and rich. No milk. Her voice was thick and scratchy from the effort of not crying. Her eyes were salty-rimmed, whites bloodshot from failing as well as the sting of incense and ganja smoke clouding the air. “Didn’t your mama teach you not to mock your elders, Tobias?”
He shrugged, made a non-committal sound in the back of his throat. The spliff hanging from his lips tilted. “Hurts, yeah?”
“Like a mother–”
Tobias smiled, revealing a pearly row of teeth. “This is the part where I’m supposed to ask if you’re sure you want me to continue.”
She fidgeted restlessly, reached up to fuss with the silver widow’s peak stemming from the whites of her roots. A nervous habit, now a refuge for limbs that didn’t quite know what to do with themselves, when every inch of her was smarting from the wounds weeping in those tricky spots they couldn’t reach. She could feel it on her back, the slowly clotting warmth that trickled out of her and slid down into the water.
“Yeah.” The bold glitter in her eyes wavered just a little but she nodded. “Absolutely. Finish it.”
He went back to work. Just as the blade was about to connect with her flesh again she twisted, craning her neck uselessly trying to see. “Wait. Can I see how it looks first?”
“Miss Ingrid!” He barely managed to draw the blade away in time to avoid sinking in at an odd angle. He let out a sharp breath. “This is turning into my best work yet. If you make me spoil it, I’ll stab you. Seriously.”
Unintimidated by the not-so-subtle threat, Ingrid faced forward. “Oh, so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” she sighed. “Getting a little antsy now, you know?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled grudgingly then amended, “no, you can’t see it until I’m done. You’ll freak out. Probably never let me finish.”
“How long is it going to take to heal?”
Tobias looked up sharply. “Isn’t that something you should have asked before I started cutting into you?”
Ingrid shrugged. “Then you’d have asked why I didn’t read the pamphlet.”
“Yeah,” he agreed darkly. “Why didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t really need to. Ingrid stretched one arm backward, twitchy fingers silently demanding. The dark one leaned forward obediently let her filch the spliff from between his lips. Hell, who was he to quibble if this was what it would take to make her settle down? She took a long drag. He dipped his gaze and went back to cutting.
She broke the silence again a while later. “You know, Tobias. I never imagined that the introverted kid I remember from my sixth grade Literature class would turn out like this. Growing dreads and… all this.”
The blade wobbled, slid in quite a bit deeper than he intended. “Sorry,” he muttered when she sucked in a pained breath. “You can scream if you want to.”
His cheeky grin fell at her sharp look. It was that look, the disapproving glare that still struck terror in the hearts of even the most stalwart of thirteen year-olds.
“Sorry,” he mumbled again.
She casually flicked ash away from the tip of the joint before putting it out in the water. She let the soggy butt fall to the ground beside them.
“It will be beautiful, won’t it?”
“Yes ma’am.” Tobias assured meekly, hiding his tiny grin.
“Very good,” she sighed. “Carry on, then.”
She tilted forward and waited for him to begin cutting again.
Fear
Twelve thousand feet above ground level, I suddenly remember my fear of heights.
I flinch as the skydiving instructor opens the door above the clouds. The wind comes screaming into the airplane.
Oh, holy crap.
The instructor pats my shoulder, then checks our gear again.
“Good to go!” He yells. “You ready?”
Hell no, I’m not ready!
I swallow hard and nod jerkily. “Sure!” I yell loud enough to be heard over the screaming wind.
I’m shaking. I squeeze my eyes shut as we leap from the airplane. Next thing I know, we’re mid-air, the instructor strapped to my back. We’re like a clumsy turtle plummeting from the sky. Fear rushes up into my mouth from my throat like bile but I can’t even hear myself scream.
“Fear,” I choked, desperately channeling Frank Herbert, “is the mind-killer. I will face my fear. I will. I will—”
My breath starts coming in short, rapids gasps. my heart is hammering hard enough to burst out of my chest. What was that about a bucket list? God, help me. I should have just gone to France instead. Wait. I don’t believe in god, do I? I offer up a quick, silent prayer to the heavens. Somebody up here’s gotta be listening, right?
“Open your eyes!” Yells the instructor. “Trust me!”
I open my eyes. They go wide. The universe tilts on its axis.
We’re falling, falling. The clouds dash by. The ground is rushing up to meet us from so far, far away. The sky is blue. The sea is green. The earth is a kaleidoscope.
What was that about fear?
Screw you, fear.
I’m on fire now. I’m a rocket. I’m a meteor. I’m a seabird dive-bombing the green.
Web Serial Works
Web Serial Works is slated to be a weekly showcase of authors, comics artists, and their awesome web serialized works.
A new author or artist (or team) will be featured every Wednesday.
The first installment of this weekly feature is scheduled to go live on Wednesday July 19, 2017.
If you happen to be a web serial author or artist and would like to be featured, please use the Contact Me page to introduce yourself.
Don’t forget to include a link to either your website/blog or at least one of the serialized works that you would like me to showcase.
Come across some great serialized works that you think ought to be featured? reply to this post with links and I’ll see what I can do!
July 7, 2017
The Poem That Inspired the Novella
I wrote this poem years ago; forgot about it for a while; then one day, it got stuck in my head again and the result was the plot for an entire novella.
What the Bones Say
Mother
My father ancestor
I didn’t ask you for
These trophies of your
Passing
In the distant
River I caught
Those city skeletons
In their netted caravans
Rising
And so I ran and cowered
Away
Into the mountain’s
Berry vines
I heard your wither wind
Coming
All too cold and eager
To tell your children
What the bones
Say.
July 5, 2017
Chapter 1
Night fell while Niara and Hati stood watch over the pyre. For the occasion, the Niara wore her best clothing, a handwoven organdy tunic and bush walker sandals with laces that climbed up her calves. Hati also wore her finest, the blood-orange-colored sarong that had been a gift from Niara for surviving her first hunt. Both glowing in the firelight, the pale hunter and the dark priestess watched their foster mother burn. Villagers had already come, sang their respects, and gone leaving the grieving sisters to tend to the corpse.
As Baba Gen’s body went up in flames, cicadas swelled the air with their tuneless song. The warm breath of the earth danced between the tongues of the flames and tugged at the hemline of Niara’s tunic. The moon was slow to rise but the firelight kept the thick blanket of darkness that enveloped the outskirts of the compound at bay. The lonesome pair silently endured the indescribably unnerving smells. Bubbling flesh. Burning sinew. Charring bone.
Niara inhaled sensi smoke from her pipe, remembered, and contemplated the inheritance Baba Gen had left behind; her bones, her pipe and the most enigmatic of all, a black, rectangular relic small enough to fit in the palm of Niara’s hand. The relic had been wrapped in a piece of parchment. On the parchment, Baba Gen had scrawled a crude map to the village east of Boabab with a message written in the script of their ancestors. Niara had no idea what the note said, since she couldn’t read the ancient text. Common sense suggested someone at the eastern village could.
“You’re thinking of going. Aren’t you?” Hati broke the silence, her voice low and filled with anxiety. “The village needs you. Let’s send someone else.”
Niara glanced sideways at her foster sister. She exhaled slowly, sensi smoke curling up into the air between them. The village had more pressing needs than a religious figurehead to bless the hunt and offer up prayers for the dead. Their water supply was dwindling and in the bush, predators far outnumbered the game. The village was on the verge of collapse. At this rate, her people would be lucky to last another year. No amount of belief in the bones was going to save Niara’s people but venturing east might. She didn’t know what answers were waiting out there. Her decision was based more on a gut feeling about Baba Gen’s clue than anything else.
“I’m going, Hati,” she declared at length. “It’s not as if my presence is necessary for the hunt and while I’m gone, someone else can shake the bones and burn the dead for a change.”
The elder sister’s mouth twisted as she gestured for Niara to hand over her pipe and share the sensi.
“You’ve never been much of a believer. I know that much. Never quite took you for a complete heretic though.”
Niara merely grunted and handed over the pipe.
As the fire died down, Niara closed her eyes. She offered up a final prayer for her dead mentor and she and Hati scraped up the hot ashes into a massive clay jar. When their work was done, they placed the cover on the jar and carried it to the burial mound nearby. They buried the jar before returning to the village.
They walked in silence. For Hati, it was a habit brought about by her vocation. Never a fan of useless chatter, Niara was quite comfortable with the silence between them though. Rather than talking, she preferred to think about what she would do next and how she would survive on her own in the bush. She’d joined the group hunt countless times but unlike Hati, Niara had never braved the wilderness alone. Plus, she knew there was more than lions and the crocodiles to be feared. It was said that in the deeper heart of the bush, everything was trying to kill you, even the flowers. Everything was to be feared.
Still, Niara couldn’t let go of that gnawing feeling, the feeling that somewhere out there was a chance for her people to survive and perhaps even thrive. That feeling, that hope was stronger than her fear. Maybe even stranger than her trust in the sensi, which Niara believed in more than the bones. Baba Gen had clearly thought that chance for survival lay in the eastern village, so to the east Niara would go.
West of the burial grounds, the village seemed dormant. Boabab, the ancient craft that had brought Niara’s people to this world, jutted out center of the village. The top of the partially skeletonized monument pierced the sky, pointing to the place from which Niara’s people had come. The village constructed with parts of the cannibalized ship, splayed out in its shadow, surrounded by a metal enclosure meant to keep out predatory wildlife and human attackers. Haphazard wooden ramparts cradled the village’s creaky gate. Beyond the gate was the wilderness. Beyond the vast wilderness was the gigantic wall separating humans from the territory of the Doan, the original denizens of this world.
Over a hundred years had passed since the early landers brokered a deal with the Doan, ensuring humanity’s continued survival on the alien planet. Humans were welcome on the Doan planet as long as they remained within the confines of the wall. Every human child was taught that this world belonged to the Doan. The Doan didn’t interact with the humans. The ship’s records had been destroyed and Niara didn’t know of a single soul who even remembered what the Doan looked like. Still, no one questioned the Law. Inside this massive enclosure, humans were born, lived out their lives and died, never setting foot beyond the great barrier. It was the best a people without a world of their own could ask for. That was what Niara had been taught.
“When are you leaving?” Hati asked when they reached th entrance to Boabab.
“First light.”
“So soon?”
“The sooner the better,” Niara answered.
With a small wave, she retreated into the bowels of the broken down, vine-covered ship.
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July 2, 2017
Prologue
Woman, you see. The sensi. It’s a funny thing.
Niara inhaled just the right amount of the mystic herb and her brain went straight to mush. It sent her whooshing and spinning down some deep, dark dimensional hole. She saw things. Things that weren’t there. Things that happened. Things that hadn’t happened yet. Things that might have happened centuries before she was born. Hordes of okapi running circles around her. The slow procession of villagers ushering her into the priesthood. The rush of white water carrying her across a wild river. Falling from a place far beyond the sky.
Amid the whirlwind, she remembered. She was a hunter. She was hunting. So, she fought to focus, to tune the madness out. She heard a rumble. Indistinct at first but it grew louder and louder until she was floundering amid the thundering hooves of an okapi herd. Their black bellies glistened and their white-banded thighs blazed in the firelight. Her nostrils flared, filled with their furtive, animal scent. The frantic okapi ran circles around her like mad children on a merry-go-round. The herd shifted. The spectral beasts scattered, scampering one by one, west-south-west and into the dark. Her arm went up, pointed in the direction of the invisible animal trail.
“There,” she heard herself say. “That way.”
But the sensi, you see. It was a funny thing. It wasn’t done with her.
Niara squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, vertigo swooped down. She lost her balance and landed on her ass beside the fire. There was no wind but the edges of her tunic began to flap and flutter. The crocodile-teeth of her bangles clicked and clattered. The fabric of her leggings crawled across her thighs like centipede legs. It felt as if she’d grown eyes all over her skin. She tilted her head sideways but no matter what, the trees wouldn’t go right side up. The curved bowl of the earth undulated. Her belly churned and sensi flavored bile tickled the back of her throat.
Hunters came running. At first, Niara mistook them for her companions. She heard their footsteps drum-drum-drumming in her head. The hunters they came running, pale skins and dark skins covered in the red mud of the wilderness so that they were all one skin. They prostrated themselves before her. First, they offered up a bloody armband, then a freshly de-fleshed finger bone.
“Your mother,” the tallest and oldest hunter said, “was eaten by a lion.”
Before Niara could grieve again, before she could wallow, the memory was swept away. The trees were where the night sky was supposed to be, so she twisted her body to look backwards. The sky was spinning, spinning and she could hear it, the universe singing. It sang the same song as the cicadas and the breath of night. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She began to hum in tune with the strange night song.
Silence fell so abruptly Niara’s breath caught in her throat.
Baba Gen, the village’s elder priestess, appeared before the young priestess, her face lit up like the broken-toothed full moon. She was no longer the wrinkled old woman Niara knew. She was young and she was beautiful. Her dark skin glistened in the moonlight. Her dark eyes shimmered with unshed tears. Adorned like a blushing bride on her honeymoon night, Baba Gen wore a white, gold-lined veil. Niara watched the rising and falling of Baba Gen’s breath, the subtle shuddering of her heart in her chest. Baba Gen nodded solemnly.
Though she looked young, she sounded old when she spoke.
“I am dead, my daughter.”
Lying flat on her back, baking on the flat rock still hot from the afternoon sun, Niara stared up at the trees until her eyes filled up with tears. The tears. They kept coming in a stream, then a deluge, pooling into a river around her. The salty river swallowed her up and she was drowning. Drowning.
“What is it, Niara?”
A guttural male voice yanked the young priestess back to present, to the place and time where the stars looked down from above and the world was right side up. Chest heaving, she sat upright. Across from her, faces lit up by the firelight were the other members of her hunting party. They were waiting, she realized. They were patiently waiting for her to rattle the bag and tell them what the bones had to say.
Baba Gen’s voice bounced around in the young priestess’s head.
I am dead, my daughter.
Niara clutched the cloth bag tied to her waist and dutifully listened to the way the bones shook. Like her fellow hunters’ blind belief, she could still feel her necklace of wood and stone coiling around her neck, constricting like a hungry snake. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath before murmuring softly to the huntsmen and women.
“Kill the hunt. We need to go back to the village.”
“Why?” Hati, her foster sister, leaned forward, long, twisty ponytail swinging dangerously close to the fire.
“It’s Baba Gen,” Niara whispered into the swollen night air. “She’s dead.”
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July 1, 2017
What the Bones Say
What the Bones Say is the title of my web-serialized novella for this year’s Summer Writing Project. The 2017 Summer Writing Project is a collaborative effort by Jukepop and 1888.
Story Premise
Niara’s people inhabit a village within a walled enclosure on an alien planet. To carve out a future for humanity, she must disobey their alien benefactors and venture beyond the wall. She joins forces with Wendi, tribal queen of the eastern village. The two women forge a bond stronger than blood as they uncover the secrets of their buried history and incite the wrath of an advanced alien force.
Story Excerpt
Woman, you see. The sensi. It’s a funny thing.
Niara inhaled just the right amount of the mystic herb and her brain went straight to mush. It sent her whooshing and spinning down some deep, dark dimensional hole. She saw things. Things that weren’t there. Things that happened. Things that hadn’t happened yet. Things that might have happened centuries before she was born. Hordes of okapi running circles around her. The slow procession of villagers ushering her into the priesthood. The rush of white water carrying her across a wild river. Falling from a place far beyond the sky.
Amid the whirlwind, she remembered. She was a hunter. She was hunting. So, she fought to focus, to tune the madness out. She heard a rumble. Indistinct at first but it grew louder and louder until she was floundering amid the thundering hooves of an okapi herd. Their black bellies glistened and their white-banded thighs blazed in the firelight. Her nostrils flared, filled with their furtive, animal scent. The frantic okapi ran circles around her like mad children on a merry-go-round. The herd shifted. The spectral beasts scattered, scampering one by one, west-south-west and into the dark. Her arm went up, pointed in the direction of the invisible animal trail.
“There,” she heard herself say. “That way.”
But the sensi, you see. It was a funny thing. It wasn’t done with her.
Read at Jukepop Serials
The post What the Bones Say appeared first on Tonya R. Moore.
2017 Summer Writing Project
The 2017 Summer Writing Project brought to us by Jukepop and 1888 is underway.
This joint venture presents authors with the opportunity to craft their novellas one chapter at a time with immediate quantitative and qualitative feedback from their readers, while also broadcasting their words to an audience eager for the next great storyteller. ~ Jukepop
The submission period is July 1st – August 31st. Participants need to submit their novella chapters via Jukepop.com. For a work to be considered, at least 1 chapter must be submitted. The winner will be announced on September 5th.
To submit an entry or to learn more, go to http://jukepop.com/swp.
The post 2017 Summer Writing Project appeared first on Tonya R. Moore.
Tonya R. Moore
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