Jake Jackson's Blog, page 22
November 11, 2014
Micro-fiction 008 – Wishes (Echoes series)
Town vs country, old vs young: eternal tensions swirl in the leaves of the lane and the torpid eyes of the old man on the hill.
Echoes | Wishes
The old man sat quietly on the hill, his eyes closed, a floppy hat protecting his forehead and cheeks, he sucked at a long grass straw. He was surrounded by spring flowers and a beautiful blue sky stretched wide into the distance. For many years he had trudged up the lane, with his rough sandwiches in his satchel, a flagon of water, and, seasons’ permitting, an apple from his own garden.
“A simple life, that’s what’s best for us all.” He would declare sagely to his neighbours, as he passed their big cars stuffed with the spoils of elaborate shopping trips. “Just me, and the fairies, and the mischievous wood folk.” He would laugh at the expressions on their credulous faces.
He’d lived in the village, just as his father, and his grandfather had, stretching back many generations, since childhood. The product of a home birth, he’d been schooled, and worked, in this one place for his entire live. Close to ninety years old, he smiled at the thought of the next ten years: he would survive all the newcomers, and their brief habitation of the countryside. The locals had moved away to find jobs, but city-folk came to populate their idyllic dreams, but would eventually surrender to the watchful silence of the ancient village, and retreat to a local town which had more of modern life to offer. Only a few of these people really stayed and put down roots, as had his own family some hundreds of years before.
This day, he noticed a little girl dawdling up the lane he had navigated himself only a couple of hours before. Idly she picked at flowers along the edges, and soon gathered an impressive collection of broken stems and colourful petals. The sun bore down on the dirt of the road, teasing at the polished stones and burnished fences, creating a series of reflections that seemed to surround the little girl with a gentle halo.
The old man’s left eye was lifted from its dark comforts by the scuffing and shuffling of the girl. He watched her progress, noting that she seemed unaffected by the hot sun, the murmuring insects, the brush of a weed against her soft city skin. He had seen her from afar, from one of the new families, he thought, in the estate built just outside the village, the people who seemed to be tireless in their support of the local community, without understanding what it actually was. He snorted quietly to himself.
“Uh, looks like she’s coming this way.” He muttered, opening the other eye, shifting his hat down a little, keen to avoid any contact, wary of the unfair caution he’d received once from an officious new policeman, a warning not to talk to young children, because “it might give you a reputation.” He mouthed the words contemptuously. As far as he could tell it was the police themselves, and the judges and the priests who were most likely to corrupt their own good name.
He closed his eyes again.
The little girl came closer, now kicking stones and humming quietly.
In the sky, a crow circled. The trees at the bottom of the hill shook their leaves noisily, and the old man could hear the horses in the meadow next to the hill, quietly munching at the grass, by the fence.
“Hello.” The voice penetrated the old man’s careful disguise.
The old man sighed, and pretended to be asleep.
“My name is Amy.” The little girl sat down. “What’s your name?”
Not receiving a reply she resumed humming, flicking at the motley collection of flowers in her hand.
“Ooh fairies.” She found some dandelions in the middle of the bunch, and swopped them to the edge. Looking very closely she separated the fluffy heads and placed the others onto the ground beside her, then made exaggerated blowing sounds at the flowers in her hand. She made several attempts but very few of the little spores flew off.
“Oh bother.” If she had been standing up, she would have stamped her foot. “Why don’t they fly away?” She blew again, spitting and rasping at the air.
And so she sneezed. “Achooo!” It was very loud, and would have been very irritating to anyone who did not love her.
“You’re doing it all wrong.” The old man mumbled grumpily under his breath.
“Oh, you are awake!”
The old man grunted.
“You do it then. I can’t make these stupid flowers fly. I thought they were supposed to be fairies. Who’s ever heard of a fairy who can’t fly? It’s like they’re ‘clinging on for dear life’.”
The old man smiled. He could hear the voice of the little girl’s mother in the unconscious mimicry. “You know you shouldn’t talk to strangers.”
“Oh yes, I know, but I’ve seen you around, so it’s alright.”
“But I could be a murderer, or a thief?”
The little girl giggled, “But you’re an old man, you wouldn’t do that.”
“As it happens, I wouldn’t but who’s to say old men are any different to young men, in that respect?”
“Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it.”
“I don’t see why. If I was the murdering kind, doesn’t matter how old I would be.”
“No, I suppose not.” They were both silent for a moment. “You’re not going to murder me, are you?”
“No, of course not.” He smiled and pushed his hat slightly off his his head and sat up a little straighter. “Here, let me show you how to blow those dandelions.
He reached out, and his hand touched the flesh of the little girl’s finger. A frisson shivered through them both.
“Oh, what was that?!” They both looked at each other.
“I don’t know. No matter.” The old man shrugged, raised the dandelions to his lips and took a deep breath. He began to blow gently, watching the first of the fairy stems flick up and float away.
But suddenly he was startled by a pair of boney hands and a row of sharp teeth that thrust out of the nearest dandelion. The gnashing fangs grew wide, opening up a cavernous, fetid mouth. The air around the old man’s head was sucked dry of sound, and a roaring shape sprang ravenously from the dandelion, then fell upon the old man, whose voice, strangled with shock, gurgled and rattled, until it too was silenced by a sickening crunch.
The flower heads, the fairy, and the clumsy remnants of the old man fell swiftly into the grasses.
The little girl, a sneer of amusement playing daintily across her face, stood up and dusted down her skirt.
“There, that’ll teach you to talk to strangers, mister.”
She set off down the little hill, to the lane, skipping and humming back the way she came.
[Ends]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam (who read the podcast this week), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
There are a few more stories in this series:
Eagle
Hybrid
A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Death
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: fairies, fantasy, folk lore, science fiction, short fiction, Sidhe, Supernatural
November 6, 2014
Micro-fiction 007 – Death (Echoes series)
Death, an eternal being, is often misunderstood. Here’s a new fantasy podcast from Jake Jackson’s These Fantastic Worlds. This week, it’s read by Frances Bodiam.
Echoes | Death
Death has but one, recurring dream. In others it would be considered a nightmare, but for this eternal being, the dream merely sits upon the fact of its existence. It is a constant companion, unchanging and undisturbed, unlike the massive body now grown around the lightness of Death’s true form.
Death has no power or influence. It merely waits for us, and when the moment is right, it leads us off. It is not unkind, not even quite impersonal, but inclined to help us when the time comes. Its smile is gentle, its head inclined slightly to one side; it appears to nod in a sympathetic, agreeable sort of way.
Death is greatly misunderstood. Feared by some who run away but, finding themselves pursued, panic and run faster, only to find that death is still behind them, not exactly grinning, or leering, but smiling quietly as though mocking.
Death is called by the sigh of the dying breath, and is obliged to catch the dying at the moment they fall. If it is not there they would fall into the abyss and sink into the formlessness of pre-eternity. But death has never allowed this to happen. Instead it takes the dead by the hand: the fearful, the lonely, the greedy and ambitious, those who fight to live, those who embrace their departure, and gently escorts them away from the place of everyday time, into the realm of everything, where their energy — some say their soul — becomes a part of the greater whole. Death is the agent, the concierge, the essential catalyst, without which the essence, soul, energy cannot transform.
“It is time.” Death always says. “Your time. Come with me. All will be well.” And so the figures fade.
Death is much misunderstood by those who think there is a deal to be done, perhaps thinking that a Faustian pact is possible, or that it is some mythical Devil, eager to claim a soul for itself. Often it is offered great riches, land, power, the absurd adornments of the living. For such as these Death knows that a rejection might result in a little unpleasantness, as the imminently dead become affronted by its lack of manners. So, Death appears to accept such bribes with a gracious smile. Of course, it has no use for such baubles, and no place to put them, so every time it appears it grows more massive, more weighed down by the burden of the gifts. Its body is encrusted with gold and silver trinkets, keys to safe deposit boxes, security devices with secret pass codes, bullion hangs about its person. It used to be a lithe creature of eternal lightness but now the millennia of bribes has made Death appear so fat that it’s taken to wearing a wide, long, cloak. Its head is now covered by a hood that shrouds the glittering jewels across its temple and eyes, and in its hand it now holds a staff to help it lift itself up at the appropriate moment. Death must be ready to hold the hand of those that drift away unexpectedly, or catch those who fall from the cliffs and buildings. Its former lightness of being was more suited to such tasks.
Death is not a creature of conscious thought. It is a noumen, one who acts in a particular way because that is what it is. It has been given no instruction, no apprenticeship informed its early years, and there was no choice to be made, or rebellion to be endured. Death was, is, manifested as Death and does what must be done. And the accumulation of worldly goods is to be endured as a distraction.
In the millennia that follows it is possible to conceive of Death as a gigantic ball of gifts, over-endowed with earthly riches, penetrating eyes peering from deep within the glittering wealth of a thousand kingdoms, still appearing at the bedside of those about to go, or fall, those whose lives are to be switched off, as if by accident, in some gigantic cosmic experiment. But Death is always there, for the millions of people who die in every moment, for it moves through time as a stack of cards, time event piled upon event, moment upon moment, particle on particle. The linear movement of the everyday is of no consequence because its task takes it from one moment to the next, in an instant. It does not slow time, but is, apparently, able to ignore its effect, and move freely across the restrictions of human spans of life.
One time though Death encounters the stuff of its dream. It enters a small room. Tidy and bare, the walls are whitewashed and the floor is plain, and wooden. It sees the back of a figure on a large comfortable chair holding the hand of a body that lies shrouded on a bed. If Death could be surprised, this would be the moment, for the figure on the bed is already dead, but the soul has not been gathered by Death, indeed Death has not been called to this place at all.
Death drifts across the room, heaving its bulk through the air, its bejewelled and adorned body clinking under the dark cloak and hood. It approaches the body on the bed and reaches out with a ring-clustered finger, teasing at the edge of the shroud, and pulling back, to reveal a slender, ethereal face.
It is Death’s own face, as it appeared before the weight of human wealth had hollowed out its eyes and stretched its face into a rictus of effort.
The figure in the chair leans over, and places a hand over Death’s.
Death looks up, and finds itself, again, looking into its own face.
“It is time. Our time. Come with me. All will be well.”
And so the three figures fade.
[Ends]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam (who read the podcast this week), Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
There are a few more stories in this series:
Eagle
Hybrid
A Gift
Demon
Lost
Radio
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: fantasy, science fiction, Supernatural
October 22, 2014
Micro-fiction 006 – Radio (Echoes series)
He wakes up but finds he can’t move. With only his radio by his side, he wonders what on earth is going on…
Echoes | Lost
I wake under the embrace of an oak tree. Before opening my eyes I savour the sharp air, allowing it to sneak in past the lining of my nose, and caress the thick trunk of my throat, then deep down into drowsy lungs. Some misty fragrance must have dragged me from my dreams. Sweet sensations linger still around me.
I try to open my lips. Dry and sticky, they don’t wish to be parted. I cough and I lurch into full consciousness. If that’s what it is.
Next to me I am aware of something small falling, or falling over. I feel an uncomfortable lump on my hips. Above me the leaves rattle slightly, and so noisily. I choose not move. My arms are not restrained but don’t seem inclined to shift. I cough again and notice my chest catch at the air, bucking, frustrated.
The leaves rattle again, and I notice their autumn colours, faded greens, yellows and oranges, are being invaded by the slowly rising sun. My perception is like a dream, all jumbled and out of sequence.
I wonder how long I had slept. My body feels solid and awkward. I manage to twitch a finger on my right hand, then another. And my thumb. Then the other hand joins in, like a dance macabre, moving independently of the rest of me.
I realize that my eyeballs hurt, as though they’ve been scraped in grit. Then I blink, for the first time. Without lifting my head, I try to look down at the length of my body and find that I can only see as far as my chest.
Over the lumpy edge, in the distance, is a rolling sea of mist jostling with stark and shedding trees. Leaves are flying in all directions, although I can detect no wind, except on my crusty fingers.
Is this a memory? How did I get here? How long have I been here? part of me doesn’t think these questions are important, and I begin to submit. Thinking seems too hard, too slow.
I try to lift myself up using my elbows but I can’t make my arms respond. Fading muscles try to dig into the earth beneath me. I can force a faint motion, but it seems beyond me.
I hear a voice. Fear leaps within me, making my cough buck again. I stop all attempts at movement and focus very hard on the sounds. I think it is a word. Or the start of a word.
“Ssssssss.”
I hang on to the sibilance, riding its long tail. It teases me with its slow crescendo, hypnotising my attention, wrapping itself around my brain, seducing me with its single-mindedness.
I lose control over all of my other senses as I concentrate on the sound. No longer can I feel the soil beneath me, smell the air or taste the numbness of my tongue. The sound invades my entire consciousness, occupying every crevice and corner of memory, every remnant of dreams. It expands down the back of my neck and seems to take hold of my spine until finally I hear a single word.
“Ssssssstay.”
Although I barely have any of myself left to think beyond the voice, I have just enough to sense that the sound is old, very old. And it’s not the voice of humankind, or any other creature I know.
My eyes are briefly alert again and I notice the bark of the tree under which I am sheltered. It’s moving slowly. I realise that all around the mist and the leaves and the sun wading through all move at great speed. I notice the colours of the leaves change rapidly from gold, to black, to withered dusty grey, then pale greens emerge before flourishing into bright colours and back to faded yellows and gold. I wonder if these are the memories of the oak tree above and around me.
I look up at the trunk and see cracked and gnarled lips move slowly whilst all around charges with wild abandon, as I am caught in some binding incantation.
I look down at my hands and see that they are dry and crooked, digging into the soft earth. I try to see beyond my chest again, or at least lift my leg. But, with a rising gag of fear, the voice of the tree in my head, and the swirling, galloping landscape around me, I find I cannot.
“Look mum.” The little girl ran over to the edge of the meadow. “Muummee!”
“Coming, coming.” The little girl’s mother laughed, giddy with the fresh morning air and the promise of a beautiful day in the country.
The little girl stopped at the stile and looked over to the other side, pointing her pink, pudgy finger at the little knot of trees clustered together.
“Oh yes, I know, we’ve seen it before remember, isn’t it beautiful.” Her mother declared, closing eyes to enjoy the feel of the breezes across her face.
“I know but look, there’s another tree growing from the ground. A big fat one,” the little girl giggles at the thought. “just like daddy.”
“Oh don’t be mean sweetie, poor dad!” The little girl’s mother walked over to the stile, brushing her beautiful hair from her face, and followed the direction of her daughter’s pointing finger. “Hm, it’s a root darling, and a really big one. The trees are trying to find water. It must be very dry up here.
“But where’s daddy?” The little girl looked behind and around her mother.
“Don’t know. He went to the village to get his radio mended. Said he might stay with his brother overnight.”
“Don’t you mind?”
“Oh no, they don’t see each other very often.” A smile pinched at her face and she felt an excitement trickle down her spine. “I quite liked your father’s brother you know. Once upon a time.”
“Mummy!” The little girl looked shocked. She was silent for a moment, her head wobbling on her hand, her leg flicking out from the stile. Then, she too smiled.
“At least he has his radio with him, that’ll keep him company wherever he is. I put a nice pink sticker on it yesterday. It made him laugh!”
“He’s a big softie.” The mother’s treachery hid deep beneath her levity.
As they giggled, they both noticed the little portable radio lying, half embedded within the base of the oak tree, just where the new root extended out. A pink sticker was just visible on the side.
“Oh Mummy, isn’t that daddy’s radio?”
“Ah yes!” The mother held out her hand for her daughter. “Come along now, we’ve someone to meet in the village. Someone I haven’t seen for a very long time.”
[end]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
There are a few more stories in this series:
Eagle
Hybrid
A Gift
Demon
Lost
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: fantasy, Horror, science fiction, Supernatural
October 15, 2014
Micro-fiction 005 – Lost (Echoes series)
A dystopian planet earth can no longer support humanity. The search for water deep underground leads the last humans to an unexpected encounter.
Echoes | Lost
Only the scientists had survived. When the surface of the planet had become intolerable, they had blocked themselves in to the earth. The rivers had dried up, vegetation burned. So the scientists, the only remaining community of rational beings sought protection and water; they followed the ancient channels and sink holes, progressing in long single columns into the depths of the earth, humans shambling down towards the mantle of the planet.
Enduring the utter lack of visibility, the scientists soon grew impatient with natural selection and turned their considerable minds to finding new methods for seeing in the total darkness.
Within a few weeks they built a test model from scraps of metal and other materials they had brought with them. They developed a construction of spectacles that could detect the outlines and shapes all around and although, necessarily, each tangled mass of metal would be different, they all performed the same function. Within two generations every human underground wore these contraptions. Hundreds of scientists, and their children placed the spectacles on their eyes and began to explore their dark domain, seeking ever lower, in long, desultory lines.
They kept the contraptions on for longer and longer each day, week, month. Eventually they would sleep with them on. And soon the number of scientists who knew what anything had originally looked like, dwindled, leaving their children, and those who had been born underground to continue the fight against irrelevance and disaster.
Each successive generation of scientists lost a few more of the basic skills, and soon ran out of materials. They built no new technologies, there were no giants on whose shoulders they might climb, and so they clung grimly to the remnants of original machinery.
Over time, they had grown used to the distant sound of the underworld. Quiet scuffles in the distance echoing through the narrow corridors, slides and scree shifting above this heads, the scuttling and shuffling of animals that accompanied ,stalked or preyed on them.
Recently they had all begun to feel huge shocks that rumbled through the underground caverns for hours.
One day, the last long line of scientists stumbling down into the planet, turned as one, and heard to the roar of heavy rocks several leagues above them, closer than ever. Soon there would be a crescendo of noise and in the following days a storm of rock, grit and dust would engulf all of those who could not find a recess to cower within.
The bellow of rock grew closer still, the human line had just pushed on through a narrow crack onto a ledge that led to the natural steps and a plateau that stretched long into the dark. It was the tipped edge of an ancient seam, dislodged by some recent earthquake. A dribble of water spilled down through the opening, as the line shuffled through, aware of the racing tide of rock behind them. If they went too far, they would be swamped on the plateau, but if they could flatten themselves against the side, the rock flow would fall past them and settle.
But as the sound grew louder and closer they realised that something was different, it was too regular, the thunder was loud but not erratic. And a curious glow arrived like fingers around the edges of the top of the distant cavern, the passage through which they had passed only two days before.
The sound grew, the faint light bloomed, like an ache in the darkness, pushing its way into shadows that had never been vanquished. And the line of scientists turned in awe, blinded by the lambent spectacle, entranced by the horror and the beauty of the oncoming tide as it crashed down, slapping and breaking across the sides of the rock, rearing up alongside the shivering, timorous line.
And rather than rock, or dust, the scientists saw that the noise was made by hundreds and thousands of small, silver spheres, many of which bounced into the folds of the torn clothing of the scientists, each of whom shrank from the sight of their fellows, suddenly illuminated for the first time in generations. Emaciated, disfigured, with weird contraptions forged into their eyes and ears, they did not carry the true likeness of themselves in their own minds.
As the thick silver tide flew by a hand shot out from its narrow alcove and pricked a sphere in it’s bony fingers. The dilapidated human pulled its hand back into the crevice and turned the sphere in its fingers, staring down the makeshift technology that had allowed it to see in the deep, dark corridors of the earth. But it could barely see beyond the bright, blinding light, a brightness that made the scientist shudder at the strangeness of this invasion.
The storm of silver spheres rumbled past for hours, but then raced on, across the plateau, filling it, before sliding further.
The scientist stared at the sphere. The sphere stared at the scientist.
Stillness superceded the noise of the storm. The sound of the spheres disappeared slowly into the earth, reverberating for days, weeks, months, years.
“Can you still see ‘em? These are pretty weird creatures underground. Are you getting the pictures?” The silver ball relayed the images to the beings on the surface of the planet who clustered around their giant screens. All they could see was a murky eye.
“I can’t reach it. There seems to be a barrier.”
“What happens if you turn…”
“I can’t. The human holds me too tightly. And if I could, I’d join the others.”
“Of course. All the others have gone.”
“I think this one’s blind. “
“Perhaps we could join with these blind head creatures. We have the sight, they have the mobility. Then we could find the planet’s water more easily.”
“Don’t be daft. When it takes its barrier down, I can spin into its head and occupy its cranium.”
“Yes, but then all you’d see is the inside of the skull. “
“Hmm, ‘spose. “
The sphere paused.
“You know. I don’t think its alive.”
“How long have you been down there, friend?”
“Well, only 300 cycles of their sun, of their years.”
“Oh, that’s no time at all.”
“Ok. I’ll see what happens to this barrier, if I turn up the brightness.”
The sphere flared. The hand that was holding it in its rigamortised grip collapsed as the body that had been staring at the sphere slid into dust.
“Oh, they’re a bit flimsy these humans. No wonder they didn’t survive.”
And so, the final human form scattered in the subtle breezes underground, joining the billions of others that had once inhabited this barren planet, the last remnants of water to be sucked dry by the spheres, and transported elsewhere.
[end]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
There are a few more stories in this series:
Eagle
Hybrid
A Gift
Demon
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: aliens, dystopia, fantasy, science fiction
October 1, 2014
Micro-fiction 004 – Demon (Echoes series)
A supernatural tale about a little girl, her father, and the demon who came to terrorize the valley.
Echoes | Demon
The little girl and her father trudged up the hill. It was late in the evening, and their passage was shrouded by distant sounds of rain on the other side of the valley. She was frightened, all too aware they had left the calm of the village below, with its orchards and meadows, its ancient lanes and quietly grazing cattle, but now they sought towards the fierce ridges above, where dark clouds and thunder lurked around every crag. And, of course, there was demon.
She swallowed at the thought of the creature. For a moment she worried about the sky falling on her head, and closed her eyes. She tripped, and whimpered slightly.
Her father looked down at her, his large, soft eyes, cased in sleepless shadows and a bramble of eyebrows, looked startled. She smiled at his steady jaw and tousled hair and held his firm hand, drawing a little strength and warmth from it.
“Daddy, why do you come up here, every day?” she twisted her mouth, “It’s really horrid.” The little girl knew the stories of the gate demon but none of the parents would talk about it. And even though the children of the village claimed to know every detail, their stories each were different. One fact they all knew: the arrival of the demon had changed the valley, just five years ago. She’d heard tales of burnt crops, destroyed houses, and missing children.
“Oh, you’ll see.” The father was severe with the girl. He used his ‘stop asking questions’ voice. She pouted and pulled at his hand. He was preoccupied. His body seemed reluctant as he strove against the incline of the hill, and he was a little breathless.
They pushed on, with the darkness ravelling around them; rocks, like vaulting tombstones reared up alongside the path, thrusting the occasional chatter of insects at the travellers.
She felt tired. All this walking! She could be playing with the dogs, or running around with her brothers. She giggled, tripped again, let go of her father’s hand, and fell to her knees.
“Oh!” She was shocked by the grazing of the flesh. The stony path was studded with the sharp edges of shale. She pushed herself up, slightly less steady than she had been just a few moments before, and inspected the wound, picking out little bits of dirt.
“Ow! Do we have to do this?” She wailed, turning her head up to the ridges ahead, towards the storms. She saw the back of her father receding a few paces in front of her.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” She half ran, half hobbled to catch up with him. She had grown used to a father who drank and caroused, who led their huge family in the songs of their forefathers, who roused the rooftops with his glorious baritone, his thumping fist weaving with the melée of the company. But he had grown distant in the last few days, morose.
Even her friends had noticed it. “What’s up with your dad?” She wondered if the crops had failed again. But she didn’t really know what this meant.
“Perhaps your mum has a new sweetheart.” She slapped the boy who said that, then ran home and drenched her mother’s skirt with tears.
“Don’t chatter so, girl.” Muttering, the man fiddled with the charm in his right hand, attached to his wrist, as, instinctively he left his hand out to be caught and held by hers. She remembered the stories about her father’s family, warriors who withstood whole winters without food or shelter, who crossed oceans without ships, and fought demons and lizards. I must be strong, she thought, set her mouth and plodded on.
“Not far now,” she said to herself. She fell back a little, letting her father’s hand go, and she turned to look down at the village far below. She could see the smoke trails, the only sign of movement now across the whole valley floor, and wondered if her mother was preparing the food, or putting the little ones to bed. For a moment she had a sense of her body floating above the village, looking down, too, on herself.
She swivelled on her feet and tried to catch up with her father, her head down, watching the tap-tap-tap of her steps on the path, carefully avoiding the rocks and potholes. The darkness was slipping down the edges of the valley. She imagined hands reaching up from the earth, their wriggling fingers probing the bare flesh of her legs.
She rubbed at her arms and swung them like rubber limbs. She groaned; and sighed. The man stopped. She almost ran into him. He took several breaths, coughed and turned.
“Look, I’m sorry.” He sought her cheek with his forefinger, but she moved away, just beyond his reach. He knelt down, his hands loose by his side and slowly opened his arms, “please forgive me.” The little girl, who loved her father rather more than she could be cross with him, allowed herself to fall into his comforting embrace.
“Oh why are you so cross? Please tell me. Is it because I’m here? I didn’t want to come you know.”
“I know, I know. It’s not you I’m cross with, I’m just a little sad.”
“Oh Daddy, I do love you.” She gave him a huge squeeze, inhaling the familiar, smoky fragrance of his neck. Only a couple of hours earlier she had been sitting by the barn, her legs swinging idly, waiting to be harried in for bed. Instead her father had called, and obediently she followed and walked with him to the side of the valley as light began to drain slowly from the skies.
And now they were almost at the top.
“So, do you see where we’re going?” The man turned on his knee and pointed up towards the nearest summit.
“Uhuh.” She squinted, trying to gaze through the twilight umbers, picking out the jagged scars that marked the edges of the valley. It made her feel a little dizzy.
“Come on, not far now.”
She felt more tired though. Instead of walking steadily she found herself stumbling a little, almost every other step. Her father was moving more slowly too, but she felt he was pacing himself to her. Normally she would be rushing ahead, and he would be puffing behind, trying to keep up.
And so they reached the end of the path. It led into a wide recess in the rock, as though scooped out by a gigantic hand. The little girl could see tall, swirling gates of silver, reflecting the stars, absorbing the shadows within its gaps. It was twice as tall as her father, who held her back for a moment.
“See the demon in the centre?”
The little girl, feeling more faint than ever, peered into the darkness and saw the edges of the gate, and traced into the middle she saw a lumpy shape, caught in the central pillars.
“I can only see a head. No eyes! I’m scared daddy.” The little girl found her lips were difficult to move. She slurred her words, and struggled to look up at her father. She felt confused, suddenly exhausted she felt her limbs grow numb.
“It’s ok, I’m here. I’ll always be here.” Her father smiled gently and stroked her forehead. He placed his arm around her shoulders and, as she fell, he cushioned her and lifting her, he cradled her in his arms. He planted a simple kiss on her cheek as she rolled into his chest, sliding into a deep, final sleep.
The storms behind the gate, on the lea side of the valley seemed to suck at the silence around the man. His shoulders slumped over the limp body of his daughter, who he held close and fiercely to his chest. His shoulders shivered with the pain of memory, of the other nights he had appeared in exactly this place so many times before.
“Daddy.” His daughter’s voice emerged in the gloom of the hollow. The man forced his chin up and walked steadily with his daughter’s body in his arms, towards the gates.
“Daddy! Where am I?” Wide, nascent eyes blurted from the darkness of the demon’s head.
Around the foot of the gate was a pit, a bubbling mass of darkness churning, evanescent shapes arching up, gulping for air, then slithering back.
“Daddy.” The man looked at the demon and saw the face of hideous deformity that had almost destroyed the entire valley. Only the head of the creature remained, now trapped in the grip of the eternal gate, the rest of its body long dissolved by the power of the man’s arcane magick. As he stared at it, contempt and rage at war in his head, he remembered imprisoning the demon, just in time, as it had tried to escape with the sweet spirit of his daughter.
“Yes, my lovely girl.” Carefully he peeled off the inert form that was still gripped to his chest and placed it into the roiling darkness beneath the gate. Then he watched it sink. His eyes were narrow, his mouth tight, his breathing heavy.
“Will we go back together again?” The voice, his daughter’s, innocent and oblivious, issued from the throat of the demon.
“Oh, yes, you’ll come with me, always. But let’s wait for morning to bring us back together. To make us whole again.” He sat on the nearest rock and chatted with his daughter in the demon’s head, his magick stirring at the churning pool beneath the gate, creating a new body from the dark distempers, deep within.
[ends]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Here’s a story in the Echoes series: Eagle
And here’s another story in the series: Hybrid
And one more: A Gift
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: Dark fantasy, fantasy, Horror, science fiction, short fiction, Supernatural
September 24, 2014
Micro-fiction 003 – A Gift (Echoes series)
A simple tale, that ranges from the origins of humankind, to the desolation of eternal creatures. Even great givers of life can be confounded by the simplest of gifts.
Echoes | A Gift
Once, she had been festooned with golden tresses, her clothes and fingers adorned with rubies, sapphires and diamonds. Now, set into the rock, she faced out into the valleys from her time-ruined home, stilled and waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. She would wait for all eternity.
She had been born into the Mountain Dynasty of the Huang He region. When she was young, so many thousands of years ago, she remembered first waking to the light of the stars that flooded into the high caves, wafting across the curtains of her home in the Bayan Har Mountains. The pains in her back, and across her shoulders, had long gone and she had been given, alongside her sisters, instruction in her tasks, to hold dominion over the peoples and the organisms of the new territories.
As the eons passed, her family had reigned without malice; their demeanor was kind, and joyful. They were not driven by greed or jealousy, for they were eternal. Over time, because of their longevity they acquired great wealth, and comforts beyond imagination. In time, she had become the Queen, a task she accepted with grace, for it set her part from her sisters.
And so after many centuries they allowed their authority to dwindle, for it mattered little to them. Great tribes, city states, then civilizations populated the wide plains and played out their rhythms of life and death. Variously, great warlords, governments, communities held sway, but the Mountain Dynasty remained a steady influence throughout hundreds then thousands years, as their vast mountain range, with its arched columns of basalt, gazed across the lands and was reflected in the great rivers that sought down to the seas.
Images of the dynasty were spread by river boats and trading caravans, with delicate sculptures and paintings illuminating the tales of this tall, ancient family, even as humanity sought beyond the dying embers of the local sun, into the planets and star systems beyond.
But all the while, the Queen and her princesses, as her sisters came to be known, remained in their mountain kingdom, with only the occasional sojourn from the towering home, where from afar they could only be seen as ghosts from the past.
The truth is, these creatures of light and air who became the Mountain Dynasty were not born in this realm. They had arrived out of sheer curiosity to watch the planets burst from the sun. They played with the cooling rocks that spun crazily in their first few first billion years. But catastrophe struck and the creatures crashed into the earth, breaking their wings, shattering their memories. They lay for a thousand years on top of the mountains of Bayan Har, their blood leaking down into the river, mixing with the minerals in the silt, creating the first people of the earth.
When they awoke the the creatures of light and air recuperated, and observed the growing populations along the rivers. Sometimes they would wander unnoticed amongst the people, and tend to their needs, herding them into safe places, protecting them from storms and floods.
And, in time, this close proximity to the earthly forms caused their ephemeral state to gather substance, so that even when their wings returned to full health, the Mountain Dynasty could fly no longer. So they reconciled themselves to an eternal life amongst, at least alongside, humankind. They meandered through their great arched chambers, moved between the domains of time, swept through their skies, wingless, but still floating, and created magnificent art within the ceilings and the domes, of orchids and peaches, lilies and cherries. Their minds were full of yearning, and dreamy threads of regret.
One hot summer day an audacious young man arrived at the main entrance of the mountain-top palace. He was poorly dressed, with only a long staff to aid him on his journey from the plains to the top of world. He possessed no malevolence but was afflicted by the quick wit and reckless guile of unblemished youth. He had heard his mother’s stories of the mountain kingdom, and was determined to see it for himself.
“Please,” he paused, struggling to think what he could say, to persuade them, “let me in.” and he blurted, “I have a gift.”
Perhaps it was out of boredom, or amusement that they allowed this one in. There had been many before him, begging, pleading, offering bribes and unimaginable riches, but none had intrigued the Dynasty before.
“Enter.” The great doors unlocked themselves and whispered an intricate greeting of tiny chimes, and subtle echoes.
The young man had recalled the tales of the beauty and majesty of the realm within, but nothing had prepared him for its scale. As the doors closed slowly behind him, a wind brushed across the long corridors, picking at the leaves of the trees and the flowers that hung from huge baskets, and globes, like clouds drifting slowly across his vision, cascaded with cherry blossom. For a moment he stood so still he could feel his eyelashes sway in the gentle breezes.
“Is it Spring here?” He spoke breathlessly to himself.
A voice manifested softly above his head. “It is always Spring within these walls, for we live in hope, and cast our minds to the eternal.”
The young man made himself breathe. He wasn’t used to such fancy talk. He faltered slightly
“What on earth am I doing here?” He groaned to himself
“You are not really on earth young man, not here.” The floating voice curled around his head.
A flurry of air brought five flowing shapes: they were beautiful princesses of the realm, powerful and playful, their hands flicking at the air, their bodies turning sideways and disappearing, their laughter cast across the pathways, while their bodies landed softly near the young man.
“So you have a gift.” One giggled, the others followed in a wave of laughter like tinkling chimes in the wind.
The young man, stammered, “Uh, yes.”
“We so love gifts.” The princesses swirled around him, their rippling, gossamer capes unfurling pinks and purples, greys and teals, that caressed the air and danced slowly around each other. “So, are you going to give it to us?”
He stared at these dazzling creatures and wondered what to do. They were so enchanting, and yet so demanding. Something made him hold back.
“Well, that I should render it so swiftly, it would hardly be a gift, but a paltry trade.” He surprised himself with his bravado, but held his chin high.
The princesses giggled again, and disappeared.
“So, I’ll keep on.” Cautiously he strolled along the pathway, quickly emerged into a wide sweep of marble floors, with alabaster columns and whirls of pearl clustering mightily like a forest around him.
And soon he arrived at a huge chamber, that held a single, vaulting throne at the back. The seat was embedded within the rock of the mountain, luxurious and golden, with the tiny carvings of animals set within its arms and a back that reared high before folding its scrolled edges into the rough-hewn rock.
As he looked around he noticed, for the first time, a feast was laid out on long, curved tables, in front of the throne. Food from every corner of the world fell cross silver platters, copper bowls, with wine and juices and effervescent mead in jars at every station.
“Is it just me here?” He spoke into the air, assuming the presence of hidden ears in the silence.
“Oh no.” A weazly voice appeared from behind him, forcing him spin round, to find nobody there. “But you cannot see us, for we inhabit a different space, a world that sits alongside your own.
“But the princesses…”
“…are so delightful, are they not? Yes, they like to flit between the worlds.” The voice moved towards the table and the young man noticed that food and the drink was reducing, as though a horde of other guests were sweeping through the banquet.
“Eat!” A gust of voices welled around him. So he sat, and consumed, for what seemed an age.
“Sleep!” And soon he felt himself carried to a bed.
He awoke, eventually, rubbing his eyes and yawning with great exaggeration. He realised that he was not alone, for on the throne, opposite, sat a magnificent creature, the Queen herself.
“So, we have entertained you. And you have entertained us. We thank you.” The young man stared at her flowing gowns, of white and gold, made of silk that reflected the subtle starlight from the roof above.
“Have I entertained you?”
“Indeed, for none has dared to dine with us before.” The queen smiled graciously, beautifully. “But now you must go, for if you remain much longer you will not be able to leave, and not being one of us, you will become so lonely, you will surely die even sooner than your given years.”
“But must I go?” His mouth was dry, and he found his limbs a little slower than usual.
“Yes, but our thanks again.” A silence stretched.
“You mentioned a gift.” The wizened, weasly voice emerged again from behind the young man.
“Oh!” The young man swallowed. He had hoped this might been forgotten. The silence plucked at the panic in his eyes. He caught sight of the staff by his bed.
“Er, I brought you something that will remind you of your people below, something so simple, you could not imagine its power. ” he paused, choosing his words. “And you must wait for the ultimate surprise to reveal itself.”
With a studied subservience he approached the throne, held out the staff, and knelt.
The resplendent figure on the throne, the Queen of the Mountain Dynasty of Huang He, reached out. She who had everything, whose sisters, their companions and consorts could ask for anything they wished, was intrigued by the rude simplicity of the offering.
And she touched its earth-hewn surface, drawing it towards her. She gripped it and dwelt on the lack of elegance, absorbed by the promise of a puzzle within, of something as yet unattained.
As she sat back into the golden throne the young man saw her determined intention. He retreated, the winds of his return chasing at his heels, the front gates opened and he fled down the mountain side.
Indeed the Queen did not let go. From that moment on she did not move from her throne. She was ever-hopeful of a surprise from this simple staff. She would wait for as long as it would take, ignoring all around her as, in time, all was worn away. The years, the centuries, the millennia passed by, the lives of the people below passed so swiftly through their patterns of life to death, so too though, eventually her sisters and their children faded into the winds and the sand.
But she endured, sinking back into the rock of the Mountain, exposed to the bright light of day and sharp cold of night, as the basalt wore down around her, leaving her to face into the skies, gripping, forever, the simple staff, waiting for the gift of its surprise.
And still, she waits, in the Mountains of Huang He.
[ends]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Here’s a story in the Echoes series: Eagle
And here’s another story in the series: Hybrid
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: chinese, fantasy, myth, science fiction, short fiction
Micro-fiction 003 A Gift (Echoes series)
A simple tale, that ranges from the origins of humankind, to the desolation of eternal creatures. Even great givers of life can be confounded by the simplest of gifts.
Echoes | A Gift
Once, she had been festooned with golden tresses, her clothes and fingers adorned with rubies, sapphires and diamonds. Now, set into the rock, she faced out into the valleys from her time-ruined home, stilled and waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. She would wait for all eternity.
She had been born into the Mountain Dynasty of the Huang He region. When she was young, so many thousands of years ago, she remembered first waking to the light of the stars that flooded into the high caves, wafting across the curtains of her home in the Bayan Har Mountains. The pains in her back, and across her shoulders, had long gone and she had been given, alongside her sisters, instruction in her tasks, to hold dominion over the peoples and the organisms of the new territories.
As the eons passed, her family had reigned without malice; their demeanor was kind, and joyful. They were not driven by greed or jealousy, for they were eternal. Over time, because of their longevity they acquired great wealth, and comforts beyond imagination. In time, she had become the Queen, a task she accepted with grace, for it set her part from her sisters.
And so after many centuries they allowed their authority to dwindle, for it mattered little to them. Great tribes, city states, then civilizations populated the wide plains and played out their rhythms of life and death. Variously, great warlords, governments, communities held sway, but the Mountain Dynasty remained a steady influence throughout hundreds then thousands years, as their vast mountain range, with its arched columns of basalt, gazed across the lands and was reflected in the great rivers that sought down to the seas.
Images of the dynasty were spread by river boats and trading caravans, with delicate sculptures and paintings illuminating the tales of this tall, ancient family, even as humanity sought beyond the dying embers of the local sun, into the planets and star systems beyond.
But all the while, the Queen and her princesses, as her sisters came to be known, remained in their mountain kingdom, with only the occasional sojourn from the towering home, where from afar they could only be seen as ghosts from the past.
The truth is, these creatures of light and air who became the Mountain Dynasty were not born in this realm. They had arrived out of sheer curiosity to watch the planets burst from the sun. They played with the cooling rocks that spun crazily in their first few first billion years. But catastrophe struck and the creatures crashed into the earth, breaking their wings, shattering their memories. They lay for a thousand years on top of the mountains of Bayan Har, their blood leaking down into the river, mixing with the minerals in the silt, creating the first people of the earth.
When they awoke the the creatures of light and air recuperated, and observed the growing populations along the rivers. Sometimes they would wander unnoticed amongst the people, and tend to their needs, herding them into safe places, protecting them from storms and floods.
And, in time, this close proximity to the earthly forms caused their ephemeral state to gather substance, so that even when their wings returned to full health, the Mountain Dynasty could fly no longer. So they reconciled themselves to an eternal life amongst, at least alongside, humankind. They meandered through their great arched chambers, moved between the domains of time, swept through their skies, wingless, but still floating, and created magnificent art within the ceilings and the domes, of orchids and peaches, lilies and cherries. Their minds were full of yearning, and dreamy threads of regret.
One hot summer day an audacious young man arrived at the main entrance of the mountain-top palace. He was poorly dressed, with only a long staff to aid him on his journey from the plains to the top of world. He possessed no malevolence but was afflicted by the quick wit and reckless guile of unblemished youth. He had heard his mother’s stories of the mountain kingdom, and was determined to see it for himself.
“Please,” he paused, struggling to think what he could say, to persuade them, “let me in.” and he blurted, “I have a gift.”
Perhaps it was out of boredom, or amusement that they allowed this one in. There had been many before him, begging, pleading, offering bribes and unimaginable riches, but none had intrigued the Dynasty before.
“Enter.” The great doors unlocked themselves and whispered an intricate greeting of tiny chimes, and subtle echoes.
The young man had recalled the tales of the beauty and majesty of the realm within, but nothing had prepared him for its scale. As the doors closed slowly behind him, a wind brushed across the long corridors, picking at the leaves of the trees and the flowers that hung from huge baskets, and globes, like clouds drifting slowly across his vision, cascaded with cherry blossom. For a moment he stood so still he could feel his eyelashes sway in the gentle breezes.
“Is it Spring here?” He spoke breathlessly to himself.
A voice manifested softly above his head. “It is always Spring within these walls, for we live in hope, and cast our minds to the eternal.”
The young man made himself breathe. He wasn’t used to such fancy talk. He faltered slightly
“What on earth am I doing here?” He groaned to himself
“You are not really on earth young man, not here.” The floating voice curled around his head.
A flurry of air brought five flowing shapes: they were beautiful princesses of the realm, powerful and playful, their hands flicking at the air, their bodies turning sideways and disappearing, their laughter cast across the pathways, while their bodies landed softly near the young man.
“So you have a gift.” One giggled, the others followed in a wave of laughter like tinkling chimes in the wind.
The young man, stammered, “Uh, yes.”
“We so love gifts.” The princesses swirled around him, their rippling, gossamer capes unfurling pinks and purples, greys and teals, that caressed the air and danced slowly around each other. “So, are you going to give it to us?”
He stared at these dazzling creatures and wondered what to do. They were so enchanting, and yet so demanding. Something made him hold back.
“Well, that I should render it so swiftly, it would hardly be a gift, but a paltry trade.” He surprised himself with his bravado, but held his chin high.
The princesses giggled again, and disappeared.
“So, I’ll keep on.” Cautiously he strolled along the pathway, quickly emerged into a wide sweep of marble floors, with alabaster columns and whirls of pearl clustering mightily like a forest around him.
And soon he arrived at a huge chamber, that held a single, vaulting throne at the back. The seat was embedded within the rock of the mountain, luxurious and golden, with the tiny carvings of animals set within its arms and a back that reared high before folding its scrolled edges into the rough-hewn rock.
As he looked around he noticed, for the first time, a feast was laid out on long, curved tables, in front of the throne. Food from every corner of the world fell cross silver platters, copper bowls, with wine and juices and effervescent mead in jars at every station.
“Is it just me here?” He spoke into the air, assuming the presence of hidden ears in the silence.
“Oh no.” A weazly voice appeared from behind him, forcing him spin round, to find nobody there. “But you cannot see us, for we inhabit a different space, a world that sits alongside your own.
“But the princesses…”
“…are so delightful, are they not? Yes, they like to flit between the worlds.” The voice moved towards the table and the young man noticed that food and the drink was reducing, as though a horde of other guests were sweeping through the banquet.
“Eat!” A gust of voices welled around him. So he sat, and consumed, for what seemed an age.
“Sleep!” And soon he felt himself carried to a bed.
He awoke, eventually, rubbing his eyes and yawning with great exaggeration. He realised that he was not alone, for on the throne, opposite, sat a magnificent creature, the Queen herself.
“So, we have entertained you. And you have entertained us. We thank you.” The young man stared at her flowing gowns, of white and gold, made of silk that reflected the subtle starlight from the roof above.
“Have I entertained you?”
“Indeed, for none has dared to dine with us before.” The queen smiled graciously, beautifully. “But now you must go, for if you remain much longer you will not be able to leave, and not being one of us, you will become so lonely, you will surely die even sooner than your given years.”
“But must I go?” His mouth was dry, and he found his limbs a little slower than usual.
“Yes, but our thanks again.” A silence stretched.
“You mentioned a gift.” The wizened, weasly voice emerged again from behind the young man.
“Oh!” The young man swallowed. He had hoped this might been forgotten. The silence plucked at the panic in his eyes. He caught sight of the staff by his bed.
“Er, I brought you something that will remind you of your people below, something so simple, you could not imagine its power. ” he paused, choosing his words. “And you must wait for the ultimate surprise to reveal itself.”
With a studied subservience he approached the throne, held out the staff, and knelt.
The resplendent figure on the throne, the Queen of the Mountain Dynasty of Huang He, reached out. She who had everything, whose sisters, their companions and consorts could ask for anything they wished, was intrigued by the rude simplicity of the offering.
And she touched its earth-hewn surface, drawing it towards her. She gripped it and dwelt on the lack of elegance, absorbed by the promise of a puzzle within, of something as yet unattained.
As she sat back into the golden throne the young man saw her determined intention. He retreated, the winds of his return chasing at his heels, the front gates opened and he fled down the mountain side.
Indeed the Queen did not let go. From that moment on she did not move from her throne. She was ever-hopeful of a surprise from this simple staff. She would wait for as long as it would take, ignoring all around her as, in time, all was worn away. The years, the centuries, the millennia passed by, the lives of the people below passed so swiftly through their patterns of life to death, so too though, eventually her sisters and their children faded into the winds and the sand.
But she endured, sinking back into the rock of the Mountain, exposed to the bright light of day and sharp cold of night, as the basalt wore down around her, leaving her to face into the skies, gripping, forever, the simple staff, waiting for the gift of its surprise.
And still, she waits, in the Mountains of Huang He.
[ends]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction blogs, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Here’s a story in the Echoes series: Eagle
And here’s another story in the series: Hybrid
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: chinese, fantasy, myth, science fiction, short fiction
September 16, 2014
Micro-fiction 002 – Hybrid (Echoes series)
A twisting tale that teases at notions of humanity, and identity. A high-functioning robot wanders alone in the forests of a terra-formed planet, fearing for its life.
Echoes | Hybrid
A few hours earlier he had left what should have been the human city behind. His fellow hybrids had destroyed it. And if they knew about his desertion, they’d destroy him too, so he kept on, plunging awkwardly through the forest, jumping at every creak and rustle.
It was night time, dark, at least: he hadn’t realized the sun would disappear so quickly in the forest. This long strip of woodland had been created as a critical part of the new ecology. It was one of the many green regions on an artificial planet, terra-formed to provide a balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide, not intended for travel or habitation.
He looked behind him. He thought he heard something. He had been travelling since dawn, stumbling through the shadows, avoiding open spaces. And now, he had begun to doubt his sanity. A hybrid, out in the wild, hiding in the trees. How his creators would laugh! It made him angry to think of it.
He stopped suddenly and allowed his shoulders to sag. “Oh, this is ridiculous” His voice rattled around the bare trees.
Unsurprisingly, no response was returned from the slender trunks around him.
He shook his head. He had been given a name when he’d arrived with the other service droids tasked to prepare for human colonization: Pytr. Some attempt at anthropomorphization he guessed, although it was probably a long-lost acronym. Robot Central, where he had first become aware of this life, had carried out its function as efficiently as ever, providing a wave of fabricated entities for the service of the Interplanetary Corporation. A production line of the finest, most sophisticated technology known to the universe rolled out from vast space stations, and were then shipped across the galaxy to perform their programmed tasks. His own was restricted to a second phase when all the heavy lifting had been completed. He would prepare the documents, create a history of the planet and help organize the welcome for the human colonists.
Not that it mattered any more. With an unexpected turn of rebelliousness most of the droids had rejected their given names as soon as they had arrived on the planet. Left alone to refine the terra-forming they reverted instead to a feral, metal state. They set about replacing their standard issue humanoid forms with chaotic, mangled abominations, performing self-surgery in the hyper-clean streets of every city, and began to re-engineer their landscape too.
Perhaps it was the carbon-photon bridge, thought Pytr. Centuries earlier Robot Central had developed a new compound that allowed humans to communicate synthetically with androids. It had led to swift advances in communication: robots, androids and humans conversing, with ease, across huge tracts of space, without the aid of physical devices. And that led to great leaps in the transference of energy: if thought could travel, then so could almost anything else. Starships, the size of planets were built, and travelled between galaxies. And so the vast shipments of robots to the artificial planets began.
Pytr wondered when it had started to go wrong. He knew that human tribalism had led to the destruction of the original Earth; its toxic presence must have leaked into every product made by humans, spread by the now mutual gene pool. So, the robot hybrids, inheritors of the human project, were infected by such dangerous human aberrations.
He tripped over the tortured finger of a root. “Ah! Stupid man-feet!” He let the words clink around the sterile forest air, and fall unheard onto the ground. “Perhaps I should get rid of them at least?” The stillness seemed to grow deeper. He was more agitated now, and muttered grumpily, “it was already too quiet, now its even worse.”
Now, in the silence the roar of his internal functions forced their way into his consciousness. He had only become aware of this personal noise in the last few weeks. As he watched the other robots dismantling themselves, he wondered at the distant noise, the constant buzzing in his head. Surely a perfectly created machine would be quieter? Was it lack of attention to detail in his design? He could probably come up with a solution himself, any robot could, and there had been times when he scrunched his face and shouted, just to obscure the noise within. And yet, he didn’t try to deal with it. A part of him was puzzled by this oversight.
When the humans had arrived finally, expecting a well-ordered planet, they found cities full of cranky synthetic life-forms, that burst with strength, intelligence and a severe dislike for their weaker creators. The humans were swiftly crushed. Anyone or anything who retained the human form was hunted and eradicated by the hybrids. But Pytr had decided not to re-engineer himself into a tangled monstrosity. He quite liked the functionality of his humanoid shape. And it was his shape. So he had to leave.
“And so, here I am.” He lifted his head and looked around. He walked a little further into the silence.
“And, here you are.” A voice slipped in from the darkness.
“Oh, hello. Who are you then?” Pytr looked up. And around.
Nothing.
“I can’t see you, but I can hear you. So you are there.” He persisted.
“Oh yes.”
Pytr thought for a moment. “Am I in danger?”
“You know you are.”
“From you?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Is that meant to be comforting?”
“It is what it is.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” The voice moved slowly around the darkness.
Pytr was slightly perturbed.
“You are not like the others.” The voice resumed.
“I should hope not! All that distraction! If I was human, I’d be a poet. Or a philosopher. Not some metal Neanderthal.”
“Indeed.”
A silence.
“So, am I in danger.”
“Not from me, not really.”
“So, do we have a philosophical debate about the word ‘danger’?”
“Oh no, that would be futile.”
“Or fatuous.”
“Indeed! yes. I like the way you’re thinking.”
“Oh?”
“You are thinking aren’t you?”
“What d’you mean?”
‘Well, these aren’t programmed responses.”
“No. Of course not. I have my own opinions, my own way of doing things.”
“Dreams?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you dream?”
“That’s not the sort of question you ask a robot. Even a hybrid!”
“You make it sound like a first date.” The void laughed gently.
“I’m beginning to think this is wrong, if not dangerous.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve pretty much decided: no harm shall come to you.”
“Oh, that’s very,” Pytr grimaced, his robotic face creaked into a parody of confusion, “big of you.”
“Big, haha?!” The voice laughed again. “Yes, how perceptive.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Pytr found himself trembling.
“Are you sure you’re not human?” The voice seemed to learn in.
“No, no. I used to wish I was, but I don’t know what that means really.”
“Well, it means, contradiction, arrogance, oversensitivity, fear, the ability to love.”
“Oh I couldn’t be like that.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Well, it seems so…”
“Go on.” The voice seemed a little troubled. An emptiness spread across the air around Pytr.
“…illogical.”
“Oh blast.” The voice exclaimed quietly.
Pytr noticed a thin white light appear at the centre of his chest. As he watched, disconcerted, it grew and within a few seconds it covered his whole body.
“Oh!” Pytr’s last word hung in the air as his limbs and rest of his small humanoid form folded into the darkness, and incinerated. A small pile of ashes marked his final position.
“Shame, I thought he might make it.” The voice pulled back. The screen went dark.
“Hmm, that was the closest so far.” Another voice joined the sighs of the first.
“Let’s finish for the night.”
“Don’t forget to turn it off. It drains that noisy power plant.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The melancholy voice reached towards the screen, pointed to the species programme, and closed it down.
“Tomorrow, perhaps we’ll find one tomorrow.”
[ends]
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction blogs, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
And here’s another story in the Echoes series: Eagle
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: androids, Dark fantasy, fantasy, genre fiction, robots, science fiction, short fiction
September 11, 2014
Micro-fiction 001 – Eagle (Echoes series)
Here’s an intriguing story from the end of the universe, a mash-up of Native American, ancient Babylonian and Australian Aboriginal mythology. Eagle watches the fires at the edge of the universe as they burn back time and space, returning the world to its pre-eternal state.
Echoes | Eagle
Fires spread across the plains of existence. Eagle looked out and allowed the entrails of burning Time to roll through his beak. The reek of humankind had long gone but now it was replaced by a deeper, dirtier smell that sat in the pit of Eagle’s empty stomach.
These fires had raged since Tiamat unleashed her demons into the world to hunt the younger gods, vowing vengeance for her subjugation by the reckless children of her union with Apsu. In Tiamat’s last moments, as her skin was stretched across the cosmos to create a cocoon for the young gods’ new ambitions, forming the skies and the land, she sent word to the ever-faithful Mummu who still dwelt in the depths of the pre-eternal lakes, churning in the agony of betrayal. With the victory cries of the young Bull of Heaven and his Babylonian hordes lacerating the face of the new universe, Mummu cast his flames beyond to the edges of Taimat’s deathly shroud. He would watch for the fires to consume this new realm, incinerate the crinkled paper of time and space, and restore all to the pre-eternity existence.
“How did they defeat us, my old friend?” Eagle could hear Mummus’ voice in his head, still muttering through the billions of years. He would continue to ask the same question, as this new thing, Time, created with the new universe, inched before them, forging new lands and filling in the colours of the sky. He watched contemptuously as the breathing creatures began to populate the universe.
“It’s disgusting,” Mummu had said. “These solid forms, they have no real substance; they retain a single shape and then fail, their energies dispersed. What a waste!”
Eagle knew that Mummu was jealous of the creatures and their bright, transient delights. When Tiamat, the great giver of life, the encompasser of all, and her lover Apsu had ruled the regions of the pre-world, only Mummu had existed to enjoy it with them. But then the noise and the conflict, and the fall of these elder gods, had led to the creation of the universe and, eventually, the various species that spread like vermin across the galaxies, populating even the darkest reaches of matter.
Eagle was more circumspect than his ancient forebear. And he feared Mummu’s horizon of fire. He did not welcome the hot ashes in the air, or the waves of fetid convection that buffeted his wings when he lifted from this high mountain home.
In many ways Eagle had learned to love the galactic vistas, the ever changing particle storms, the coalescing of dust and energy to form stars, and he wondered at the creation of the new beings, so many, so different. Ultimately, each one had passed on and returned their energies into the stars and gravity wells, to be regurgitated at some later, undefined moment: eternal food for new life.
Eagle watched the fires come a little closer. He knew he would have to move soon, back to Mummu’s cave, and fold himself into its ever-darkness. But, for now he could feel the wind in his feathers, feast on the meagre energies of past souls in his mountainous regions, and stretch through the layers of time.
“Soon you will return.”
Eagle tried to ignore Mummu’s entreaties. He had never answered: it was unnecessary, and understood. Indeed, Eagle’s inner eye was inert, his origins quietly yearning for Mummu’s cave and shuddering at the oncoming threat of the fires.
He wondered at the lack of new species over the last few millennia. He had spent so many nights riding the cosmic winds, swirling around dense regions of singularity, using their pull to swing him out far, his wings filling with primeval vitality, he began to wonder at the purpose of life if it was to be ended so swiftly.
And where now, were the younger gods, in this universe created for, and by them? Although their original cities on earth had fallen, Ur, Ninevah, Nippur, Eagle had seen the gods adopted by other tribes, across old earth, then the star systems, and he watched them feed on the heady cocktail of fear and adulation. Perhaps without such succour they could not be sustained. Perhaps they had been devoured by Mummu’s flames.
And Eagle remembered the last time he had seen the Noumen, the slivers of light that had broken across the universe like shards of glass, at the moment of creation, shattering into every particle, embedded, trapped even. The demons too, they had gone. Now only eagle was left and he felt the fires push him back, inexorably.
For a moment he saw a reflection in the nearest flames, ghosts of long dead companions, moments of joy fluttering in the ever changing twists and licks of fire. His eyes narrowed at the evanescent glory, trying to peer through the infernal flames to the darkness behind. But he could not, and he reconciled himself to the simple memories and ephemeral visions in the fire.
Increasingly, he seemed less troubled by the oncoming inferno, its bleak maw widening across the edge of the universe. He found himself counting the tips and licks of flame, like the billions of years that had passed since the universe had been born from Tiamat’s flesh. In a former life there was no thing to count, just an existence, a sense of being that neither shifted nor changed.
Time passed. The fires drew closer still.
“Soon you will return. And all will be whole again.”
Eagle was no longer sure that this is what he wanted, the return. He watched the fires violate the universe, invading the edges of time and space, they burst through like the titans of old earth, only more gigantic, like suns, razing all before them. He remembered the various forms of being he’d observed over the billions of years, the ever changing patterns of life. Over time in this universe of beginnings and endings he had grown to regret the passing of a particular species, then all, and a loneliness swelled within him, that seemed to stretch into and beyond the horizon of fire.
Time passed. The fires drew closer.
“Soon you will return.”
Eagle regarded the fires and realized that Mummu had begun to unsettle him. Had he not he survived for these billions of years? Had he not folded his great wings and set the course of night to follow day? Did he not bring the storms that crashed across the plains, with a subtle flick of his wing tips? Indeed, now, for the first time in eons he remembered his name, Thunder as it burst across into his memory, dispelling his melancholy.
Time passed. The fires drew ever closer but, finally, Eagle stopped listening to the grim malevolence of Mummu. He lifted away from his mountain top and began to circle the galaxy, his great wings passing through planets and meteor storms, the nearest stars growing dark as he roamed alongside them, the winds of Eagle’s flight casting great shadows across the universe.
He turned and spread his wings wide, shook the feathers and loosened vast clouds of cosmic dust. He raised his head with a harrowing, ancient song, its raucous call summoning ancient, powerful storms to his command: he would not return to shiver in the darkness with Muumu and the other inert creatures of pre-eternity, he would defend the last inklings of this universe, beat back the colossal fires, or die within their diminishing glories.
Text, image, audio © 2014 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam, Logic Pro, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, Rotring pens and inks, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook for Mac app.
Part of a new series of micro-fiction blogs, published on Wattpad, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, and on this blog.
More next week…
Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts
Filed under: Microfiction, Podcasts Tagged: Dark fantasy, fantasy, genre fiction, myths, Myths and Legends, science fiction, short fiction
September 9, 2014
5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcast
This week sees a new departure, at least, the opening up of a new region in These fantastic Worlds.
I’m keen to invoke the spirits of Weird Tales of the 1930s, Analog in the ’50s, Marvel’s Epic in the ’70s — they offered wild landscapes that ranged from Robert E. Howard’s ancient Hyperboria, to ERB’s Mars. I loved Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone of the ’60s, Vincent Price’s radio show Price of Fear, the X-files, I sought out old comics and paperback books, rifled through second hand shops for arcane copies of Wonder and Amazing and Astonishing, and lapped up the latest Harlan Ellison short, or Ray Bradbury tale, discovered Poul Anderson, Ben Bova, Michael Moorcock, oh and later, Star Trek, Alien, Matrix, the Silver Surfer, and more. At the time I didn’t make a distinction between the new stuff and the re-publications of old Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells or Abraham Merritt, C. E. Moore, or Rider Haggard, or Algernon Blackwood or H P Lovecraft . Their worlds swilled and collided around in my head. I used to draw and and draw, write ridiculous stories, hand-make little magazines for my friends at school.
But life took me in other directions, and it’s taken a long time to come back to my heartland, a universe of ideas with no barriers, endless imagination reaching out for worlds beyond the dead hand of the day-to day.
Micro-fiction and Podcasts
So far I’ve enjoyed writing at the weekends, and have just started chapter 2 of the second book in an SF and Fantasy trilogy. Also, a couple of short novels, and 13 short stories. But this activity is strictly regimented, just an hour and a half early on Saturday and Sunday. I tend to make the blog during little spaces of time in the week.
But work has overwhelmed me in the last few months, so I’ve turned to micro-fiction as a way of keeping the blog interesting, but also exercising those storytelling muscles, improving them, fine-tuning. There’ll still be articles on writers, artists, movies and more (er, yes, guitars too, those Roger Dean covers of the 70s continue to urge me on), but for the next few months I’ll focus more heavily on writing, and offer the stories in a variety of formats.
Workflow
The process starts with a black and white ink illustration, which inspires a story, followed fairly swiftly by their release through Wattpad, this blog and a new, short SF and Fantasy podcast, These Fantasic Worlds. I’m aiming for one a week, starting with 10, to see how it goes.
To make it work I’ve had to be brutal with the time, optimizing a workflow to keep it all moving during a busy week, with tons of other commitments (work, family, life etc).
Method
Stage 1: Make it!
Quick pencil sketch, then refine the form lines and fill in with black strokes, painted areas for deep shadows and finish off with white ink. (Inspirations are Gustav Dore, Virgil Finlay, Roy G. Krenkel, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Bernie Wrightson Smith, Frazetta, and Bernie Wrightson. If I could draw half, a quarter, as well…) I can an usually make this while listening or watching something else.
Use the image as the springboard for a 1000 word story.
Write it in one hour.
Several rewrites, especially if it’s shown to others who notice all the plot holes and lack of consistency…
Make sure it reads well, aloud.
Stage 2: Customize
Scan the image at 600 dpi in greyscale.
Tidy up in Photoshop, insert copyright and other meta data.
Save it in tif, jpg and png versions (three main sizes of 300 dpi/150dpi and 72 dpi).
Create a cover with the illustration, for Wattpad, using a self-made template in Photoshop.
Stage 3: Prepare for Distribution
Create a new post in WordPress, using the audio template.
Add image as feature.
Add the story with a short intro.
Add SEO, categories and tags.
Use metadata already created and finalise the draft story
Upload text and cover to Wattpad.
Stage 4: Create the Podcast
Record story in a soft part of the room (no harsh reflections) using a studio USB mike, directly into the iPad or iPhone
Basic check on levels, and edits on starts and endings.
Export to Dropbox
Use previously created Logic Pro template with music, intro and exit voices on multiple tracks
Open Logic Pro project, insert the story file, add simple effects, balance the stereo.
Mixdown to mp3.
Open in Studio Studio and make a final Dynamic Range Compression using custom settings. Add podcast metadata, including image, copyright, categories etc.
Upload final mp3 to WordPress. Check the player can read the file.
Stage 5: Disseminate
Publish the Wattpad story.
Publish the blog post
Track the release of the podcast (picked up by Feedburner from wordpress).
The Kit
It took some hunting down to assemble this but, at last it’s all in place, so I can focus on the stories.
For the illustration
0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 black pigment ink pens (Letraset and Edding).
White Rotring ink.
A4 Bristol board (Frisk), trimmed to A5 with a scalpel.
HB, 2B and 4B pencils (Derwent and Staedtler).
Staedtler eraser (the best! and vital!).
For the Story
Alfons Schmidt’s Notebooks for Mac, iPad mini and iPhone. Essential for drafting on one device, editing on another, and make final corrections on the bus or tube on the phone. Modern life eh?
Cappuccino. The ultimate focusing mechanism.
Or red wine, if it’s late at night (more likely)
For the Podcast
iPhone, iPad mini, computer, Dropbox
recording software (tried several but Twisted Wave is great)
multi-track production (Logic Pro, completely over the top, but I use it for music)
microphone (an Apogee USB direct mike) and mike stand.
I needed an additional voice to provide some texture, so in stepped an essential part of this kit, Frances, my life partner and a brilliant actor in her spare time.
It all starts here
This took an amazing amount of account opening, upgrading or refining: Feedburner, Twisted Wave, Wattpad, Photobucket, WordPress, iTunes and various false starts on recording software, but now, everything’s ready to go. I’ve tested all the technical stuff, so the focus is on the storytelling.
Once 10 have been released there’ll be Pinterest Boards and an app too, so the new stories on These Fantastic Worlds will appear in all sorts of new places.
The first podcast will release on this site later this week, to begin the iTunes process (which involves some painful approvals) but it will go live on other services, such as Stitcher, Podcast411, and various podcast directories.
I hope you enjoy them, I’d be grateful for feedback, as ever.
Thank you.
Here are some other related posts:
Virgil Finlay: Master of Dark Fantasy Illustration
Algernon Blackwood: Master of Supernatural Fiction
H. P. Lovecraft: From Weird to Modern Gothic
Top 10 Science Fiction Movies!
Modern Artists: Roy G Krenkel
Here’s a Pinterest Board with some of the inspirations in this post.
Filed under: Microfiction Tagged: algernon blackwood, dystopia, fantasy, myth, science fiction, space opera, Virgil Finlay, weird, Weird Tales
