It Was Late, the Diner Was Empty
July 22, 2012
I didn’t know him when I sat down, but by the time I got up I’m pretty sure I did.
I came in around midnight, I’d been driving all night with my boyfriend to get to Seattle in time for a convention we were working at. He was passed out in the passenger seat and I was starving, so when I saw the lit sign just off of the freeway, I pulled off to grab a burger.
At the bar, facing the cook and eating a single piece of pumpkin pie was a man. He was small, broad, and slumped over his plate. Dressed in a pair of slacks, running shoes, and a wool coat with long, knotted hair splayed down his back. I sat a few seats down from him and ordered by burger, than said hi.
He smiled, a weak and soft smile. A heavy smile. I asked him about why he was so sad.
“I’m not sad.” He said, slowly and carefully, as if each word were brand new and still had sharp edges on them. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long, hard road.”
A New Chapter 7 for Notes From the Abyss P2
July 15, 2012
So this is getting placed in the middle of NFTAP2 to establish a history for a few things I want to work with later. This isn’t the only large scale edit I’m going to be doing to NFTAP2.
So, here we go!
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Flashback! Notes From the Abyss Part 3 Chapter 1
June 28, 2012
So, today I’m posting the beginning of the first draft of part 3 of Notes From the Abyss. This one’s a flashback about the thing that caused the Cataclysm and set up the Macguffin that the whole series so far rests on. So.
Anyway. I hope you like it!
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Words and Vice, Reyik’s End Cylinders, Part 1
June 28, 2012
This is a story written in the Cattlepunk universe I started creating yesterday, and it’s written by a good friend of mine.
Reposted with permission
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“You may begin speaking now.”
“And this thing’ll save whatever I say, so’s other folks can hear our story?”
“Academics and future generations will benefit from the stories you tell today. Pretend I’m not even here, if you like. I’ll sit and listen, and ask you to pause when I need to change the cylinders. The day’s long and the drink is ready, so take your time – this is for posterity.”
“Posterity. I wish I could be so certain that someone’d be there to remember me tomorrow, if I were taken today. I could get used to a society that’ll still dream big in the face of all this. But somewhere along the way, someone decided who gets to share the meat and the water, and who don’t. You mighta noticed, doc, that there aren’t so many old folks like you around, all soft and clean and learned. You mighta noticed what folks we do got, they’re all young and strong and mean. You templers, you wheelers, you Thirteen – not you particular, doc, but your people – they’re in love with their own story, crammin’ it in everyone’s ears even as the story keeps changing. They love to tell you that they survive because every single one of them is tough, and every single one is needed, and everyone has a skill.
“But that ain’t strictly true, or, no offense, you wouldn’t be here putting my voice into a hunk of Nester’s Wax. Someone had the time to figure that out ‘cause you’ve all got civilization, and there’s room for people like you, who can go and learn and make new things because they’ve got other people worrying about where the water comes from, or when the cows come home. You might know how to swing a rifle, doc, but I can see that you never hauled buckets or butchered an animal or any kinda thing that folk around here do for themselves every day. Anything needs doing around here, you do it yourself, or you go without. Not a one of us is free of that, not even Baron Saans.
“There’s some who’ll lay food and arms at his feet, sure, but that’s respect. The man made do for himself on top of pulling towns like this together, and without his like, a lot of us’d be food for the flitters. That name, ‘Baron,’ ain’t our doing. It was the templers bestowed that honor, calling him a Robber Baron and declaring us all outa the law, declaring that folk like us ‘shall not take of their bounty, under pain of death.’ They call themselves united, but see fit to leave anyone they don’t like for the bugs. They call us ‘Tweeners, ‘cause we fall through the cracks and settle where they don’t see fit to. They’ll say that anything we got we stole from them, but that’s only because they never let us have anything in the first place. Our whole being is cobbled together from their leavings and the rather dubious kindness of folk like you.
“You keep a quiet face but I can read your eyes, doc. You’re out here bringing goodness to the little people, sure, but you carry yourself like you know you’re better. You said yourself, you come through to make study of the lot of us. We don’t have what comforts you know, but we’re not stupid. You’re here trying to learn ‘cause there’s not a one of you behind your walls that’ll both remember true and tell it straight. You know there’s no one old enough here, but if you pick up all the pieces you can find, that’ll get your picture started. I got a question outa that, though: Why go to the trouble? Can’t go on those trails of yours without worrying about a lead breakfast. What’s the point?”
“I’ll get to that, but have a drink first. We’re coming up on the end of this cylinder.”
Gulch of Fire
June 27, 2012
I don’t know what else to call it yet. Anyway, here goes.
Eighty years ago, things changed.
Eighty years ago, the Great Kingdoms were attacked by the Famine and people died. Civilization died. Things changed.
Eighty years ago, the mountains shook and shuddered and rumbled. Down from the peaks came whole clouds of the Famine-Flyers. Insects as big as a fist that’d eat anything. Especially steel. Especially the flesh and armor of the great Knights, our Heroes, our Kings. They ate up all of the defenses and all of our food until we adapted. Until things changed.
Eighty years ago, the Famine started. It lasted for five years and killed nine in ten. If not from the Famine-Flyers, from the starvation. From the cold. From the fear. Now things have changed and the world’s moved on. The knights and soldiers carry hard iron now. The wizards and will-workers use science and genius to supplement their magics, since the world is weak and faithless. Clerics have taken up The Black and the serve the Saints in their own ways, burying the dead and healing the sick. Trappers, Trackers, and Scouts have taken up the Rifle to claim the land back from the Famine-Flyers – even if it is just a desert now. The common people have had to become hard-bitten and competent, honing their skills to razors. And over them all are the Marshals, keeping the peace and serving the Righteous Law since the Temple Knights all died fighting the Famine.
Things changed, the world’s harder now. But we get along.
Read the rest of this entry »
A Dark Mirror, Shattered
June 18, 2012
Not entirely sure what I want to do with this yet, but I’m enjoying the character.
I don’t know where to fit this in, but this is what our Dr. Richard Washington looks like.
He is a taller man, nearly six feet in height, and built broadly and strongly. He is in good shape, having studied wrestling, boxing, and fencing in college alongside his adoptive brothers. He dresses in an understated manner that was common of his father, pressed black or brown slacks and light-colored collared shirts of good cut with a rich colored vest over it. He is not frequently seen outside of his heavy brown coat, a gift from his father before he died when Richard was a child, and still carries a pocketwatch despite wrist watches being the current style. He has taken up the wearing of a fedora, like many fashionable men, and keeps his normally unruly hair pulled tightly back into a braid to ensure his hair is not mussed too badly by dry air or the humid environment under the hat. Due to his dark skin, many styles of jewelry look garish in his eyes when he wears them. The only adornment he has is a simple white gold wedding band on his left hand. His face is gentle and stern, clearly creased with his experience as a professor of anthropology, but his hazel eyes glint with a sense of adventure and intelligence.
So, here’s the beginning of Dr. Washington’s story…
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Taking Back the Future
June 14, 2012
Humanity was born out of the blood, the mud, and the beer of nature. As it were. We are creatures of the environment we find ourselves in and much of our presumptions about the world, much of nature, is formed of emergent systems. The fact that we’re social animals is an emergent system. However, we’ve risen above our natural organization, our natural programming, and we’ve moved past living purely on instinct and survival. Our primate ancestors figured out tools and society, and our ancestors laid down the foundations of our world. They did this using one very powerful technology that we, the progressive people of the world, need to take back and make our own. It’s a technology that’s been instrumental in all of us becoming part of the progressive, radical, and liberal movements that we come from.
That technology is the power of the story. That technology is narrative.
Making Up for Yesterday
June 7, 2012
I totally missed posting yesterday and that’s my fault.
So here’s more Out of Thyme! Technically this is a followup to the last chapter posted, and after this I’ll be writing a new chapter for Out of Thyme. Between the last post and this one, as well, is probably going to be more fighting. Because I like writing fight scenes but I just couldn’t wrap my head around this one.
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