Tag: Fantasy

Poetry-Thing Thursday: An Ocean of Time

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 1 Comment

The wolf paces in its cage,
awaiting an uncertain certainty;
an end will come.
Change has begun.
But whether his jailer,
shall be his executioner,
is a question only time may answer.

Alone in a dark and empty room,
sits a clown in full dress.
His white face is painted,
running black and red from tears.
For time has come and gone,
And still it carries on,
with it life goes,
for good or for ill.

Cuffed and shackled,
she hangs from the wall.
Dead eyes staring,
in testimony to a decayed soul.
And though she yet breathes,
her master will one day,
ensure she withers, bleeds.

Amid an ocean of time,
sails a ship of all existence.
Universes of countless beings,
multiplied by infinity.
And each one a story.
Each one a saga,
an epic.
Each one an odyssey.
And all of them
cohabit this place and time.

In the end,
an ocean of time,
is only the water,
upon which,
existence has sailed.

And we are it,
they.
However short or long,
our place on its line.
we occupy it,
together.

Short Story: Kudzu

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 1 Comment

Sebastian Rower slid to one side of the bed, red from exertion. Beside him lie Drake, looking something the Greeks of old. His muscled form reflected low-light across a fresh sheen of sweat and saliva. The pair were slick and panting. The taste of salt lingered on Sebastian’s tongue. His body coursed fresh ecstasy, post-sex heat.

Sebastian thought he’d known love from lust; Drake taught him differently.

He’d come to Sebastian through a sea of bodies. Its current undulated beneath swirling spirals of neon. The Club, Sebastian was a perpetual wallflower there. Most nights he clung to the walls like kudzu, simply watching, people completely unaware of his existence.

Men or women. Straight or gay. Anyone in, around, between. They all sought The Club. Their reasons were varied but similar enough. Sometimes it was drugs. Sometimes booze. Sex or something similar; always a wiling from between the long-nights and docile daylight.

Sebastian watched, never bothering to do much more than nurse a drink each night. He might’ve been content to live out that obscurity forever, little more than a passing thought in the rarest of minds.

But Drake appeared.

He had an undeniable allure. It rolled in as if on waves from beyond a place of light. Even before adding in sexuality or magnetism, it turned crowds like pre-storm gales; ever-graceful but with auras of power, intimidation, awe.

Sebastian swore he saw them, however briefly. They rolled from him in auric waves, barely visible beneath twirling lights. It seemed too, to automatically repel those Drake felt unworthy; in effect, bestowing even the knowledge of his existence was a gift.

Yet of all the vibrant, colorful people there, Drake chose the dull, earthen vine; Sebastian. Otherwise doomed to creep, alone, merely existing. Drake’s auras decided otherwise. Like an old vid of lovers at first-sight.

Drake approached, auras firing and repelling the crowd so his forceful-grace never faltered. Their eyes locked, attached by a magnetism pulling one to the anchored-other. He saw them then.

For the slightest breath, Sebastian thought himself seeing things. He was center of this God’s attentions, feared to believe it, would’ve cast his eyes away to check could he bear to. Something more said he was both seeing things and their center. He, and only he.

Drake’s approach made time exist only for them. Its eventual return found reality muted, distant and hollow from an inexplicable force between them.

Drake introduced himself with a now-familiar, sonic equivalent of silken marble. He leaned in with only the slightest touch to Sebastian’s wrist. The effect a whisper in the muted sound; a distant sea-surf amidst the hot-spring of his touch.

They danced. For hours. An eternity, it felt.

Something powdered met hot blood. The night became a blur of spinning. Ecstasy, laced with exhilaration. The Club faded to the passing background between it and Drake’s place until the flow of time became impossible to track.

Hot, fast-tempo sex dominated after. Between long, slow moments of unbridled bliss seeming to last forever.

Sebastian could take no more. He gave Drake the last, best part of his remaining strength, then fell beside the God with a growing exhaustion. The Auras, until now empowering him, were finally taking their toll. No mortal’s waves, after all.

He let himself cool down, laid his head on the muscle-bound chest beside him.

Drake curled one arm around Sebastian, used the other to light a cigarette, and smoked. Sebastian watched, Drake seeming never to exhale. Sebastian closed his eyes, hypnotized to nether realms between bouts of fluttering eyelids.

He hard only the inhale, the deep chasm between it and the next. Nothing more.

Darkness flared from a cherried-cigarette. Utterly drained, Sebastian was forced to speak. His star-struck despair was the same as any whose euphoric fever-dreams were shattered by a painful reality.

“I guess I should be going now.”

Drake said nothing, merely lit another cigarette. Sebastian moved to sit up. Drake’s arm tightened, stilling him. Sebastian waited, taking the excuse to bask in the God’s glow.

It was no good. There was no pleasure there anymore. No fire. Just two people, alone, naked. At least, one person, however God-like the other. One, utterly drained, as if its parts were decayed from the energy he’d expended.

Drake finished his cigarette, forced a pause to the air. Sebastian took the transition, tried to rise again. Drake’s arm tightened in silence. His strength was immense, firm.

A lump of fear manifested near Sebastian’s brain-stem, forced him to try again, “I should–”

Drake’s arm held firm. Sebastian was caught, held by the threatening vice that was Drake’s mass of muscles, endless strength.

“Really,” Sebastian squirmed.

Drake was silent, smoking. Again, Sebastian attempted to rise. Drake’s arm gave only the slightest twitch. He was still again. The pill exploded along Sebastian’s brain, surged freezing electricity along his spine in icy, electric arcs.

Terror shook his struggling limbs, stilled by a force not his own.He was ready to run. Trying to. It was utterly hopeless. The body that had delighted him was now against him. With only the twitch of a muscle, Sebastian writhed, clawing in cold sweat at the beast beside him.

He begged, pled for release, fearful of the God’s sudden transition. Drake finished his cigarette and finally began to move.

Sebastian held his breath: one, swift motion forced Drake’s lips against his. The creature exhaled. Smoke billowed from it into Sebastian’s lungs. Acrid smoke smothered any hope for air.

His lungs filled. His sinuses.

Still it came.

The weight was too much. His airways bulged, overfilled. They began to tear; a million tiny cuts from a billion points of skin being drawn and quartered by one another. He wished to scream, smothered from the inside out; Drake’s smoke was too powerful, too thorough.

Sebastian’s innards stretched, bled. The smoke infected his blood, filled, swallowed, replaced it. The process repeated endlessly, every inch of him torn by the next and last. Inexorable terror accompanied the stomach-drop of blood and fluid spilling into unrightful places.

Still, Drake exhaled.

Sebastian’s lungs were no more. Utterly annihilated by the force of persistent smoke. Its tearing, shredding, quarter. Until its threads severed at ever level of existence imaginable.

Then, the rest of Sebastian went too. Piece-by-piece. Tear-by-tear.

Sebastian gave a final twitch and dissolved into smoke. It dissipated slowly, taking Sebastian with it forever.

Drake eased himself back and lit another cigarette.

Short Story: Desperate Seas

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 2 Comments

Gray hell rose over the trawler’s bow. It pitched, speared a crest. The sea’s angry maw snapped between drinking-bird dips, Everest peaks, before the jaws closed for that brief moment of progress. In that way, each time it felt eternal, damned and condmened by unknown forces to test one’s endurance.

With it was a rhythm. The rise and fall of chestfuls of breath upon the vast sea of some infinitely-massive cosmic-being’s skin. Riding waves to their crests, as dust rides the twitching ripples of a sleeping giant.

More than that, it was like walking amongst Gods. Those few men whom first did so on the Moon, would again someday on Mars, and forever every planet after that. No matter how mundane it was became, it wasn’t in the moment and that was the point.

It was the ride. Sailing gravity. Surfing twenty tons of ship and cargo. Driven inexorably by gravity, diesel bass-rolls. Meanwhile the shrill-gales are constant. Rain persistent scattershot on steel. Hard, sub-zero buckshot held at-bay by fiberglass and hope.

The precious hope of two men too long ashore and too newly asea, but with a lifelong ambition; trawling. Fishing. No care but the sea and the weight and the rate. Even miles out waters, more or less total isolation, were still coastal waters. Further than that, were deep waters rarely traversed uncesssarily; country’s waters, bridged later by international waters beyond all potential shipping lanes now outmoded.

All of them, the pair called home. They’d long hoped to do so, the sea filled their veins as sure as blood fed their hearts.

Pate manned the helm, fearful of nothing. The sea swelled about him. Long-range satellites weren’t needed to tell him a fierce storm was brewing. The sea told him. Each rise. Each fall. Dipping scents of saltwalter. Bucking rudder-wheel beneath his hands.

Lou felt those too, decidedly trusted satellites, images, and guiding sciences more. His bones still creaked like the ages-old sailor cooped up inside him all his life. Creaks and science agreed; the sea’s mood was foul, growing fouler by the minute.

Even the air knew it.

Luck hadn’t won out much this long. A day from port, barely into a routine, and only a few hours of letting the currents work them. They’d barely felt things out, were hardly near a boon’s weights. Now, they could be crushed and it wouldn’t even be worth the weight.

Muscle and diesel had cast them off, the sea was ordering them in. Now.

Pate wouldn’t quit so easily though. His strength, daresay stubbornness, emboldened Lou’s own self preservation. Nonetheless, the latter kept himself nearby, half-eying charts, maps, satellite imagery, eyes and ears attuned to every new melody emerging in the persistent rhythm.

All told, things weren’t looking great. Tropical-storm and only getting started. It wouldn’t let up anytime soon. Then again, it had come from nowhere over only a few hours. The waters were too cold, the season too early. Science and reality were harsh mistresses to reconcile at times.

Pate wasn’t much for science. He rode through life on feeling. That was why he Captained the ship. Lou knew that. Like it or not, Pate was right. Captaining was about feel more than hard logic. He’d simply never had the knack, the skill or proper heart.

Self-management had taught Lou to do anything. Navigating and mating a ship was hardly applied rocketry. The dichotomy between he and his partner delineated their personal belief in science’s fundamentals.

Lou believed the laws of averages held ample room for anomalies that could allow it to thrive. Pate felt the utterly measured chaos merely muddied the pattern via the anomalies. It was chicken and egg between Einstein and Newton.

Compounded by this, Pate made room for only one or the other, missing the overall possibility that neither was mutually exclusive. That neither could mean both.

At some point or another, Pate had decided he no longer cared. Since then, challenging his way meant challenging an idle giant. No matter how much Lou wished to, he wouldn’t.

Thus the ship pitched and plunged. The swells grew. Their violence rocked the pair in their skin. Each rise fought gravity. Weighted, cement blocks pulled their guts. Each fall fought inertia that forced their guts in again.

The pace was sickening. Lou knew it was time. Drag lines any further and they’d snap. They, the rigging, the whole damned thing. With ‘em would go the whole trip.

Before Pate could argue, Lou shouted, “Keep course.”

The engines groaned, barely audible over the sea’s fury as the cabin door blew back on its hinges. Lou held it with both hands, let the ship rise and hurl him along gravity to shut it. Scatter-shot rain peppered the air from the billowing gales. He could only imagine how those sailors on tea-routes used to feel.

He shifted his weight, keeping close in-reach of anything he might need to brace on. Each step became a battle, a feat. He tug-o-war’d his way along, half-hanging or half-falling, half-slipping across slicked-wet deck. Each wave-crest was a nothing; each dipped swell, a moment of fearful hesitation when facing the encroaching nothingness before ship teetered over and he used or bore its momentum.

He reached the stern, more wet than any land-born creature before, shivering, freezing, and littered with microfriction-wounds from the salt on the air. He wrapped two hands around a hold, kicked a lock-lever. The sea lurched.

He rode the momentum to a panel, one arm hugged it, and cranked the nets in with a half-frozen hand. The crank-chains wrangled the nets top-side despite the sea’s furious protests, gaining only the slightest hint of power as they crossed the hull’s side.

A distant, warped whale-song reached Lou, mottled by spray and waves. It rang of something tragic, remniscent of frightened death. He craned for the cabin on instinct, expecting Pate to be cursing at him, saw nothing. Pate still-dutifully helmed the waves in spite of their violence.

Lou cursed himself for costing time. Already half-frozen, he needed every second that the ship lulled to secure the rigging before they altogether rose again, screaming.

With it came the distant cry, nearer this time. The sound was desperation. He’d have said a beached whale were there islands nearby. The sound was too small though, too distant yet too near. Above water. It forced a pause over Lou.

He strained his ears against wind, rain, his own breaths, poring over and through them until he heard nothing at all. He waited, zen.

Nothing.

He eased slowly back into action, heart infected by the lingering empathy its cry had pierced him with. He swung the crane about slowly, watchful and alert, wondering. He positioned the net, lowered it; one side went utterly slack, freed its contents.

Again the cry, like spears in the chest, heart, and mind. Prolonged. Near. Beside his skin.

The sound pierced Lou’ bones. It staggered him, knocked him to his knees long enough he was forced to pull himself up, around the cooler’s edge. Lou suddenly knew only of the utter calm the sea had taken on, as if watching, waiting, ready to strike if need be.

There, atop a mound of fish, lie the cry’s source.

Were Lou not so rigidly scientific, he’d have thought himself seeing things. Even then, the horrible, piercing wail of desperation would’ve convinced him otherwise. Its eyes could only have driven it home; however decidedly queer and foreign, they were sentient, intelligent– alive.

And pleading.

Empathic communication imparted their will on the air. Above all, its form was exhausted.

Equal parts lizard, fish, amphibian, and woman. She gleamed with scale-webbed hands barely clutching out and up. The slits lining the neck and nasal-passages choked on air beneath gleaming, terror-filled eyes.

He knew the look. It was the same slumped, fraught peril of soldiers too long at-battle, sailors too long and sea, knowing they could be forced through another fight, another league, another contest. Lou had seen himself time and again looking the same. Every creature exhibited it when pushed past their limits and somehow still going, doubly so if as terrified as she presently appeared.

It was but a moment before Lou grasped one of her arms. Pulled her into him. She helped, using what strength she could muster to fall into his arms and ease their burden. He hefted her in his arms, the calm now silent amid the rest of the chaos blowing just nearby.

She pointed, tired but lucidly, toward the sea. Lou understood. She’d been caught in the net, fought until nothing remained in her, was now drowning in air. The sea was judging his intentions.

He let instinct and duty urge him toward the ship’s edge, to a knee beside it. She managed a fish-like grimace, conveying both her species elegant ssence and her own gratitude. Then, with a light touch of his face, she let herself roll back into the sea.

Lou choked on nothingness, watching her ripples glide away in the ship’s wake, to be swallowed by the sea along with her. It once more began to swell; angry, but less so. He re-engaged his muscles and finished his work in stupefaction.

He returned to the cabin to find his partner and the sea tempered by one another. Pate said nothing, was simply quiet. Back on land, Lou told again and again what happened; No-one ever believed him.

Short Story: The Princess and the Brain-Hack

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The children gathered round in a crescent as he sat before a dingy, concrete wall, twice as ancient as him. His steel-grayed hair and piercing, ice-blues were accentuated by sagging cheeks and creases. Like him, the room was drab, with a sort of accumulated dust that could only come from having lived history.

Whether he’d played a major role in that history, or would still, was just one of the fascinations the younger children speculated on. The curious, old-man before them was no mystery to the older children. They knew the truth of course, but the others were too young to learn it. They had to be protected from grisly realities to ensure they didn’t become cold humans that made them.

The old man’s eyes pulled tight. His mouth drew a smile, “You wish to hear a story, no?”

A curious, Nordic accent mingled with his French. The children’s heads nodded, as they chorused “Oui” in a collective sing-song. He chuckled to himself.

“I know only one,” he said firmly to quiet them down. “But I shall tell it as though I lived it.”

He made small gestures with his hands and the bright LEDs overhead dimmed until only one remained above, at half-power.

“It begins with a princess in a tower, toiling away at tedious work,” he said. The children readied themselves in anticipation. “The most beautiful princess in the tower worked day after day, slaving for masters in fine silks. These masters were wealthy beyond any in the land, past or present. Yet despite all their wealth, they enslaved everyone in the land to do their bidding, increasing it each day, each moment; the princess included.

“Allowed as she was to return home each night, the Princess was forced to return each day, toiling as before, lest her masters grow angry and imprison her.

“So night after night, the Princess returned home, unaware of her masters’ wicked plans for her and others like her. She was a beautiful tool, they said, to be used for evils when needed, and discarded like after. She and all others like her were regarded this way; some were so wholly faithful to their masters, they felt the same. Thus day after day they toiled, enslaved, only to believe themselves safe from the treatment during the night.

“Then one night, the Princess’ wicked masters cast a veil of confusion about her mind. In her state, she knew not who she was, and her masters took advantage of this. They sent her out to do evil only to have her return the next morning, none the wiser of her actions. So powerful was the confusion, they were able to continue the madness months before she could begin to suspect it.

“But before then, her masters had found her capacity for evil was beyond any other’s. For, in truth she was a Princess, and princesses have their own power. With her, they brought destruction to many of their enemies. Through them, the Princess stole, deceived, even murdered under her wicked masters’ veil of confusion. Yet each morning she awoke, utterly unawares of her wickedness.”

The old man’s face sank into sadness, his voice with it. It seemed as if a thousand, terrible memories befell him all at once. Even to their young hearts, it was a cutting pain to see someone of such renown feeling such dread.

“Then came a night when the beautiful Princess could no longer sleep. Her masters watched her carefully, but allowed her not to do evil. Then another night passed similarly. She twisted and writhed in sleepless agony. More time passed. The Princess worsened. Each night she suffered amid more nightmares than before. It was then that the Princess’ family began to take notice.

“Where, by day she had always risen and worked with promptness, now she slogged on, too tired from the sleepless nights. Indeed, everyone whom joined the Princess each day in the tower saw the same change.

“It was, the Princess said, nothing to be concerned for.

“But her younger sister, just as beautiful and even more stubborn and less-mannered, insisted she visit an enchantress to put her mind at ease. There, the sister said, she would be put into a deep sleep of living dreams, and forced to face the ills haunting her dreamworld and keeping her from sleep.

“The sister however, also kept secret her own fears; fears seeded by rumors of others whom had shown the same, worsening symptoms as the Princess, and were said to have been subjected to a great confusion then used for evil in the night. Suspecting the Princess was also a victim, the sister kept quiet for fear that the Princess’ masters might strike them both down before they could learn the truth.”

The old man’s tone turned empty, unfeeling, yet it infected his story with more life; “So thus the Princess was taken to see the enchantress. There, she was put to the deep sleep, and for a long while, did not stir. Then, under the careful guidance of the Enchantress’ words, she soon began to navigate the dreamworld.

“It felt hollow, the Princess remarked, filled with memories that appeared her own, but which broke her heart and tortured her good nature. She watched as bits and pieces of past nights began to return. One upon the other, wickedness and evils stacked and fitted back in place as though a shattering mirror played in reverse.”

He took a deep breath to warm himself against terrible emotions, memories. No doubt he’d drummed them up to better instill the tale’s importance. He steeled his nerves with an encompassing glimpse of his audience; they were captivated, thirsting for the tale to continue.

“When the Enchantress’ deep sleep broke, the Princess awoke shaken. The veil of great confusion her masters had imbued broke too. She found her memory filled with all the evils she’d done unknowingly in her masters’ names.”

The otherwise indifferent face became embedded with a deep frown. “So the sister began to tell of the evil and wickedness by the Princess in her masters’ names. By doing so, she sought justice against those who’d stolen her sister’s mind, tarnished her innocence. All the while, the Princess grew more distraught, fearful of what she’d done; that her masters might use her again in such a way.

“Alas, the masters had other plans. They commissioned an conjurer to kill the Princess to protect themselves, fearing her story might rile the peasants of their kingdom on whose complacence they relied on for their wealth.

“So, under cover of night, the masters schemed. The conjurer-assassin went quickly to lay a trap for the Princess. Upon rising, he planned, she would once more make to toil away in her masters’ tower. Instead, he would spring a trap, swallowing the Princess in a great ball of fire. Sure enough, when the Princess rose again, she stepped outside only to be instantly swallowed by the great fire. It then disappeared with her, never to be seen again.”

He watched the children carefully. Some faces ebbed on tears. Others were still enthralled, sensing the story wasn’t over. A few children though, were the most captivated, yet least affected. They had, he knew, something more special about them; a type of imagination distinguishable by the very look on their face. Indeed, these children were unknowingly the group’s greatest thinkers.

The old man continued, “With the Princess’ death, her masters’ kingdom was up-heaved. Peasants rebelled against in outrage at the Princess’ death. All over the kingdom they wreaked havoc on the lands and possessions of the masters.

“But alas, this too was not meant to last. The masters set loose great, fire-breathing dragons whom smote the land wherever the peasants rose. For fourteen days and fourteen nights, upheaval passed, then the fire-breathers came and quelled the chaos. The Dragons appearance may have subdued the people, but their thirst for justice remained. Indeed, none so boldly ruling by fear can hope to forever contain such deep unrest.

“Through two years of toil and worsening wickedness from her old masters, the world mourned the Princess’ loss. During that time, small groups worked in secret to exact revenge on her masters in her memory. By ways sabotage and subterfuge, the avengers destroyed and thwarted, or deceived and cajoled against them in the Princess’ name. It was not enough, for the land remained in the darkness of the tower’s great, looming shadow.

“Even today that shadow persists, but something unknown to the Masters in the tower is that the Princess yet lives! For two whole years, a great sorcerer worked in secret with her sister to resurrect the dead Princess to lead the people against her old masters.”

Faces around the room seemed in disbelief, or indeed astonishment, but the old man could see the few he’d mentally noted before working something out. He suppressed a smile to ensure he finished appropriately.

“Upon returning from the dead, she immediately began to lead the people in hopes of one day liberating those still toiling as she once did. It is said, even now, she trains avengers in growing numbers. As well, it is said she slept so long in death, she trains and plots day and night without interruption. Such is her will.”

His head gave a small, slight bow, “And that is all there is to tell… for now.”

The children clapped excitedly, already wishing to hear it again. Only those few he’d mentally noted seemed satisfied, having obviously worked out something the others hadn’t. The children disappeared soon afterward.

A middle-aged woman approached, her body gleaming with battle-scarred black and chrome, bionic limbs in place of natural ones. Renee Lemaire was every bit as beautiful as the story told, however wisely worded for children’s ears. She was tall, well-muscled where not augmented, and had a wily cunning from years of fighting Corporate “masters.” She had the look of a warrior Goddess and loving mother.

She approached, “You have the list?”

“Oui.” He handed over a touchscreen data-tablet. Across it were a few names, “Those are the only I saw in this group. Perhaps one day we’ll have more effective means of pinpointing them.”

She eyed the list, “You’ve never been wrong before, Sven. Not once. I trust you to find them better than any other method.”

“Perhaps,” he replied, leaning tiredly on a table to look at her. “But I am an old man, Renee. And none of us can escape death forever. Not even you.”

She gave a bittersweet smile, “You know what they call it, the older ones?”

“The story?”

She gave a nod. “They call it the Princess and the Brain-Hack. Eventually all of them call it that. They don’t get it at first, but at some point, it always gets around that it’s a true story. My story.”

Sven thought carefully. “Are they aware it is a test?”

She shook her head, “A few, but critical thinkers are too precious to let that secret slip.”

He softened severely, then a throaty laugh emanated from him. She sensed its cause and laughed with him. The Princess and the Brain-Hack. She had to admit, it had a certain ring. Maybe one day it would even have an ending; after she finished burning the Corps to the ground. Until then, she didn’t mind being a beautiful Princess with a cause so powerful death couldn’t keep her from it.

She smiled. After all, she was Renee Lemaire; myth, legend, formerly brain-hacked princess, and evermore a rebel.