Gus tilted his head back all the way, looking up to the top of the wall spreading up in front of him. Ben rubbed his palm against its smooth, flat surface, his brow furrowed. Tess leaned her back against it and closed her eyes, smiling to herself. Martha sat down and dropped her pack next to her, sighing and taking her bare feet into her hands to rub them back to life.
“You know, this reminds me of an old children’s story someone back in Medias told me about a while back,” Gus said. “It was about a world where there were four nations; Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. For a long time, the four Nations lived together in harmony. There were ‘benders’ from each nation who were capable of harnessing the elemental energy of the nation they were from and manipulating that element to their will. Each type of ‘bending’ had its own specific style, which helped organize and characterize the energy the benders used. For instance, earth benders mold the hard, unforgiving element of rocks and dirt, so their bending style was representative of the uncompromising nature of their element, and air is a peaceful, negotiating element, so its benders did not use it for offense, but for defense and evasion, as well as the furthering of joy and culture.”
“So they were basically pushovers?” Martha stated more than asked.
“Peacemakers. Please,” Gus clarified. “Anyway, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. They were a strong, ambitious nation made stronger by the presence of a comet that added to their bending abilities. By the time their war for conquest began, no one in any of the other nations was prepared to stand strong enough against them. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.”
“What do you mean, he vanished?” Martha asked.
“Well, everyone thought he had left them, gone into hiding to save his own skin, too scared to pick a fight with the most powerful nation in the history of the world. But a hundred years after his mysterious disappearance, two children from the southern water tribe, a small, broken community, mostly destroyed by raids from the Fire Nation earlier in the war, discovered the new Avatar. He had died as a Fire bender and been reincarnated into the form of a young Air bender boy named Aang."
“Reincarnated?” Martha asked. “You mean he came back to life?”
“Yeah,” Gus said. “The Avatar is a soul that passes through one human body and into another after the first one dies. And there is a cycle, so the new avatar is always from a different nation than the last. Water, Earth, Fire, and then Air.”
“How does this wall remind you of that story, Gus?” Martha asked.
“Well, as it was described to me, in the Earth Kingdom, it was natural that they should build enormous walls with no gates, using only powerful Earth benders to open holes in the walls. When I saw this wall, I immediately imagined that kind of gate opening to allow us entry.”
“You’re actually not that far off,” Guido said. “That is almost how these gates work; the towns don’t want those laying them under siege to know where they are, as they are the weakest part of the city’s defenses, but they need a way to let regular traveler’s in. Once you’ve been around these parts long enough, you get to memorize where all the entrances are. I happen to know that we’re on the correct side of the wall for this particular town. What I don’t know is where exactly along the wall it is.”
Ben looked down the expanse of the wall to his right. It had to be at least one or two miles across. “How do we find out?” he asked wearily.
“How about you fly up there and check it out, Guido,” Martha said. “You know, give those old wings some exercise, after all that abysmal sitting around you had to do all day. How uncomfortable that must have been for you.”
“I’m sorry to displease you,” Guido said, obviously not sorry at all, “but I’m afraid that security is so tight in Rachel that even a lone Raven can’t fly over the wall without fearing for his life.”
“So how do we find the gate, Guido?” Gus asked, his tone more serious now. “We’ve walked all morning; I’d like to find a place to sit down, maybe eat non-dried fruit, perhaps even sleep in a bed...”
“We’ll simply have to walk this side, asking for entrance until it is given to us.”
Ben gave a short sarcastic laugh. “Who exactly is going to hear us asking from all the way down here?”
“I swear to you, the gate will open, wherever it is,” Guido said. His tone was getting increasingly annoyed as they got increasingly subversive. “So, if you would please,” he said, speaking pointedly to Martha, “we need to start moving with haste.”
Martha leaned further back into her reclined position. “Just five more minutes,” she said. “My feet are so swollen, it’s like wearing bags of rocks around my ankles.”
“The path is smooth here,” Gus said, putting his hand out for her to take. “You can probably walk barefoot so you don’t have to worry about putting your shoes back on.”
She made a face at him, but put her hand in his and allowed him to help her up. They all started walking along the wall. They had gone a whole three feet before Guido croaked, telling them all to stop.
“Ben,” he said, “if you would be so kind as to please knock against that wall.”
Ben looked confused as he turned and banged a fist against the wall. Nothing happened. They waited a few moments, and then Guido flew on, prompting them all to follow. Every five feet or so, Guido would signal to Ben to rap his knuckles against the wall, and he would hang back as the rest of the group walked on, waiting and watching for something.
After Ben had knocked for the tenth time and Guido had waited fruitlessly for some unknown event, Gus laughed. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Does anybody else wonder what kind of high-tech security system involves walking along a wall and knocking? Does anybody else feel a bit... Podunk about this whole ordeal?”
“I swear to you,” Guido said obstinately, the taste of stubbornness in his tone, “this wall will open; it takes merely patience and persistence to do so. You asked me to guide you, and I promised not to lead you astray. Stop being so frustrating.”
Gus looked a bit nonplussed by this reaction, but said nothing, and they continued on. It was silent except for the occasional raven croak and single knock on the smooth wall face. Ben felt a repeating rhythm in the slow parade they were marching, and he was beginning to lose himself in that rhythm when his knock returned a hollow sound, and Guido croaked loudly in triumph.
“Aha!” he declared. “You see? I told you there would come a response. And to think you doubted me.”
Gus raised one eyebrow. “I’m still doubting you, Excitable Evan,” he said. “So there’s a hollow behind that wall. That’s not a response; that’s a resonance.”
Before Guido could respond, there came a loud “kachunk” from inside the giant wall, followed immediately by several identical “kachunks,” each sound seeming to come from higher on the wall. Then a hole opened up at the base of the wall as large bricks appeared and curled themselves inside what appeared to be a hollow portion of the wall. The hole stayed dark, suggesting that the other side was not yet open, but the top scaled higher and higher until it reached halfway to the top.
Out of the dark, enclosed portion of missing wall came a low, booming, female voice. “What is your business in the town of Rachel?” it asked.
“Weary from travel, we seek asylum and the restoration of our rations. We will be on our way again soon, if that is what the citizens wish,” Guido said.
There came a drawn-out moment of silence before the voice spoke again. “You sound honorable. You may enter our walls; do not overstay your welcome.”
_______
I claim no ownership of "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Just a whole lot of fandom. I would have taken it out here, as it was mostly for word count and only minimally to describe the appearance of the wall, but it was too tightly entwined in the actual narration to be easily extricated. Los siento. I did take out all the wikipedia articles I used to boost word count, though. You can thank me later.
Showing posts with label procrastinations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label procrastinations. Show all posts
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Chapter Twenty
“That’s a town, isn’t it?” Tess asked, pointing to the large dark line on the horizon, silhouetted by the breaking dawn.
“It is indeed,” Guido said, stretching his wings. “That will be the town of Rachel. They have a flourishing textile economy, and one of the largest libraries in this country.”
Martha was stuffing a blanket back into her pack and Gus was struggling to retie his own. They had slept the night on the edge of the woods, where the unshielded trees had given them the first cold wind they’d ever felt. The whole company was shaken from having spent the night huddled together in fits of shivers.
“How far do you think it is, Guido?” Gen asked.
“If we start immediately, we should be there before noon, I wouldn’t wonder.”
They each took a breakfast to eat while they walked, and then shouldered their packs and started out. Martha and Gus had gotten beyond complaining and taking rests every half hour, but the group’s traveling days were shortened by at least two hours, as their stamina was still abnormally low.
It had taken them two days of traveling to make it out of the forest. The traveling was quiet, except for Gus choosing random intervals at which to ask Guido for a trivial piece of information about There—”How long are each of the four seasons,” “Is it true there are babies and old people?” “What is ‘school’?” — and Ben questioning the edibility of the new, strange plants they found along the path. Tess had been particularly silent, keeping mostly to herself and avoiding contact with anyone but Ben. Ben supposed her timidity had something to do with the scathing look Gus often had on his face when he looked at her or spoke about her or to her. Ben wanted to chastise him for this, but under the circumstances, he didn’t think picking a fight would help matters any, not to mention he didn’t understand Tess himself anymore. It was if she had grown an extra pair of arms, or worse, like she’d been hiding them throughout all the years he’d known her.
“Guido,” Gus said, breaking the travelers’ tired silence, “could you explain... yesterday you said something briefly about ‘marriage.’ What is it?”
Guido often flew about Ben and Tess’ head, but for this early mornings, when his wings were still wet with dew from the night before, he was perched on top of Ben’s pack, bobbing along in the rhythm of Ben’s walk, clutching the clasp with his feet. “What do you want to know?” he asked.
“You said it’s between two adults who’ve decided to live together and share lives,” Gus said, still looking straight ahead, a look of concentration on his face. “But how is that different from lashing?”
“Lashing doesn’t exist outside of Medias,” Guido said. “You see, lashing is the marriage of Medians. Outside of Medias, when two adults decide to become married, it’s because they’re in love with each other, because they want to start a family together, or because they each have something to personally gain from a union with the other. In a lash, you become like siblings, almost like twins, just born from different families. In a marriage, you become husband and wife, which is a different bond completely. You support one another, are interested in what the other is interested in, and often you buy each other arbitrary gifts to annually celebrate something so asinine as the passing of time.”
Gus and Martha looked at each other. “Wait,” Martha said, “if lashing doesn’t exist outside of Medias, does that mean that Gus and I aren’t technically related anymore? Does that mean we won’t be allowed to live in the same home?”
Ben felt his face grow hot. So, not only had he failed to mention to them that they would most likely never return to the only home they could ever remember having, and not only had he convinced Gus, through Tess, that he could never leave their side for fear for Ben’s life, but he had now surreptitiously torn Gus and Martha asunder. He could see the looks of both terror and longing in their eyes, and immediately wished he could turn all of them back and run back to Medias. He knew what it felt like to be denied a closeness that felt deserved and necessary. He looked over at Tess, and he saw deep worry carved into her features as well.
“You can always just tell people that you’re brother and sister. No one can prove otherwise, can they?” Guido said.
But somehow, all four children knew it wouldn’t be the same. Just the name, the societal recognition of a bond... it meant something and without it, the relationship felt more distant.
Ben felt Tess tug lightly on the sleeve of his shirt. He looked over at her to see, through a mask of indifference in her features, a glint of... happiness? in her eyes. He furrowed his brow, and she blushed and looked back down at her feet.
Then he understood. If lashing didn’t exist, and if time really did move by with a recognizable pace, then it no longer mattered that he and she were separate. No one would tell them that there wasn’t a chance anymore that they could ever be together. No one could say that since it hadn’t already happened, it was bound to never happen. They could pretend to everyone here that they were related, and no one would try to keep them apart, like people had been doing all their lives.
The town of Rachel was getting ever closer, and since the sun had long since pulled its heft over the horizon line, Ben could better make out the details of the town’s appearance. That is, he could have, if there had been any details to make out. All he could see was a massive granite wall, probably tens of feet tall.
“Is Rachel a warring village?” Martha asked. “Why does it need such strong protection?”
“It’s customary to build fortifications around a town,” Guido said dismissively, nibbling on some piece of something stuck to his wing tip. “It’s a precaution, but still, it is likely to prove necessary or at least helpful in the future.”
“Do towns often battle each other, then?” Gus asked.
“I wouldn’t say ‘often,’” Guido said. “But warfare is not an unseen presence in most towns, Rachel least of all.”
“We aren’t,” Ben said with some hesitation, “we aren’t walking into a battlefield, are we?”
“Unless one has cropped up in the past few weeks that I’ve been gone, no, I don’t believe we are.”
No one spoke. Ben thought he heard Gus gulp anxiously. Ben examined the wall as they got closer and closer, just a few hundred yards off now. He searched for archers’ turrets or any guards, or even a gate, things he’d seen in the few books he’d read in Medias, the ones that showed large towns and settlements in There, without much description, only pictures and a few labels. But the walls faces were completely bare except for a large banner hanging over the top with a deep green insignia that, at this distance, looked like a rounded maple leaf or a poorly drawn hand with only three fingers.
“Is there an entrance on this side of the town, or are we going to have to walk around a bit to find one?”
Guido croaked shortly. “Oh, we’ll be able to enter from whatever direction we approach, don’t worry about that.”
________
As I publish more of these excerpts, I'm realizing that there are times when I forgot a few details that I was waiting to divulge, and now I'm screwed because parts of my story aren't going to match other parts.
Forgive me. Bitte.
“It is indeed,” Guido said, stretching his wings. “That will be the town of Rachel. They have a flourishing textile economy, and one of the largest libraries in this country.”
Martha was stuffing a blanket back into her pack and Gus was struggling to retie his own. They had slept the night on the edge of the woods, where the unshielded trees had given them the first cold wind they’d ever felt. The whole company was shaken from having spent the night huddled together in fits of shivers.
“How far do you think it is, Guido?” Gen asked.
“If we start immediately, we should be there before noon, I wouldn’t wonder.”
They each took a breakfast to eat while they walked, and then shouldered their packs and started out. Martha and Gus had gotten beyond complaining and taking rests every half hour, but the group’s traveling days were shortened by at least two hours, as their stamina was still abnormally low.
It had taken them two days of traveling to make it out of the forest. The traveling was quiet, except for Gus choosing random intervals at which to ask Guido for a trivial piece of information about There—”How long are each of the four seasons,” “Is it true there are babies and old people?” “What is ‘school’?” — and Ben questioning the edibility of the new, strange plants they found along the path. Tess had been particularly silent, keeping mostly to herself and avoiding contact with anyone but Ben. Ben supposed her timidity had something to do with the scathing look Gus often had on his face when he looked at her or spoke about her or to her. Ben wanted to chastise him for this, but under the circumstances, he didn’t think picking a fight would help matters any, not to mention he didn’t understand Tess himself anymore. It was if she had grown an extra pair of arms, or worse, like she’d been hiding them throughout all the years he’d known her.
“Guido,” Gus said, breaking the travelers’ tired silence, “could you explain... yesterday you said something briefly about ‘marriage.’ What is it?”
Guido often flew about Ben and Tess’ head, but for this early mornings, when his wings were still wet with dew from the night before, he was perched on top of Ben’s pack, bobbing along in the rhythm of Ben’s walk, clutching the clasp with his feet. “What do you want to know?” he asked.
“You said it’s between two adults who’ve decided to live together and share lives,” Gus said, still looking straight ahead, a look of concentration on his face. “But how is that different from lashing?”
“Lashing doesn’t exist outside of Medias,” Guido said. “You see, lashing is the marriage of Medians. Outside of Medias, when two adults decide to become married, it’s because they’re in love with each other, because they want to start a family together, or because they each have something to personally gain from a union with the other. In a lash, you become like siblings, almost like twins, just born from different families. In a marriage, you become husband and wife, which is a different bond completely. You support one another, are interested in what the other is interested in, and often you buy each other arbitrary gifts to annually celebrate something so asinine as the passing of time.”
Gus and Martha looked at each other. “Wait,” Martha said, “if lashing doesn’t exist outside of Medias, does that mean that Gus and I aren’t technically related anymore? Does that mean we won’t be allowed to live in the same home?”
Ben felt his face grow hot. So, not only had he failed to mention to them that they would most likely never return to the only home they could ever remember having, and not only had he convinced Gus, through Tess, that he could never leave their side for fear for Ben’s life, but he had now surreptitiously torn Gus and Martha asunder. He could see the looks of both terror and longing in their eyes, and immediately wished he could turn all of them back and run back to Medias. He knew what it felt like to be denied a closeness that felt deserved and necessary. He looked over at Tess, and he saw deep worry carved into her features as well.
“You can always just tell people that you’re brother and sister. No one can prove otherwise, can they?” Guido said.
But somehow, all four children knew it wouldn’t be the same. Just the name, the societal recognition of a bond... it meant something and without it, the relationship felt more distant.
Ben felt Tess tug lightly on the sleeve of his shirt. He looked over at her to see, through a mask of indifference in her features, a glint of... happiness? in her eyes. He furrowed his brow, and she blushed and looked back down at her feet.
Then he understood. If lashing didn’t exist, and if time really did move by with a recognizable pace, then it no longer mattered that he and she were separate. No one would tell them that there wasn’t a chance anymore that they could ever be together. No one could say that since it hadn’t already happened, it was bound to never happen. They could pretend to everyone here that they were related, and no one would try to keep them apart, like people had been doing all their lives.
The town of Rachel was getting ever closer, and since the sun had long since pulled its heft over the horizon line, Ben could better make out the details of the town’s appearance. That is, he could have, if there had been any details to make out. All he could see was a massive granite wall, probably tens of feet tall.
“Is Rachel a warring village?” Martha asked. “Why does it need such strong protection?”
“It’s customary to build fortifications around a town,” Guido said dismissively, nibbling on some piece of something stuck to his wing tip. “It’s a precaution, but still, it is likely to prove necessary or at least helpful in the future.”
“Do towns often battle each other, then?” Gus asked.
“I wouldn’t say ‘often,’” Guido said. “But warfare is not an unseen presence in most towns, Rachel least of all.”
“We aren’t,” Ben said with some hesitation, “we aren’t walking into a battlefield, are we?”
“Unless one has cropped up in the past few weeks that I’ve been gone, no, I don’t believe we are.”
No one spoke. Ben thought he heard Gus gulp anxiously. Ben examined the wall as they got closer and closer, just a few hundred yards off now. He searched for archers’ turrets or any guards, or even a gate, things he’d seen in the few books he’d read in Medias, the ones that showed large towns and settlements in There, without much description, only pictures and a few labels. But the walls faces were completely bare except for a large banner hanging over the top with a deep green insignia that, at this distance, looked like a rounded maple leaf or a poorly drawn hand with only three fingers.
“Is there an entrance on this side of the town, or are we going to have to walk around a bit to find one?”
Guido croaked shortly. “Oh, we’ll be able to enter from whatever direction we approach, don’t worry about that.”
________
As I publish more of these excerpts, I'm realizing that there are times when I forgot a few details that I was waiting to divulge, and now I'm screwed because parts of my story aren't going to match other parts.
Forgive me. Bitte.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Chapter Eighteen
“I don’t like those pills, Mond,” the boy said. “I don’t know what they do, really, but I know they’re not... not good for me.”
“Don’t they help with your headaches?” she asked.
“Yeah, they stop the pain, but they stop everything.”
“But the headaches were really bad for you. Remember how you used to scream at night because they hurt so badly? You don’t do that anymore, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I guess you’re right.”
Tamara leaned away from the door with a smile. Mond was defending her. The boy couldn’t stop her now that Mond was on her side; he wouldn’t dare try. He wouldn’t want to.
She crept down the hall into her own room and closed the door behind her before turning on the light. She crossed to the desk and pulled out the chair to sit. The little brown book in the top drawer had a red ribbon sticking out the bottom of it; she opened it to that page — a blank one — and pulled the fountain pen out of its holder next to the notepad.
She recounted her day minute for minute, detailing the mundane without attempting to romanticize it. She described the unforeseeable progress Mond was making in her chess game, how she’d mastered the Sicilian defense, Dragon Variation and how, without cheating and telling Mond that there were better moves she could make, even Tamara was having a hard time escaping her traps. They played the games verbally and Mond had surprisingly little trouble keeping mental track of what the board looked like. One day, she would wise up and they would have to stop playing; Tamara would have nothing further to teach her.
At this point, her pen stopped, poised over a new line. Tamara pondered the unsettling truth of the last sentence. So many of the things Tamara was teaching Mond were having to end too quickly, as Mond was learning them too quickly and at too advanced a level for Tamara to keep up her role as instructor. Would there eventually come a time when Mond would have to leave, go to some sort of academy so more learned people could give her more sophisticated lessons? Tamara shuddered and put the thought out of her mind. Their tutoring sessions were going so well, and they meant everything to Tamara. She couldn’t imagine giving her daughter up to let some strangers fill her mind with things she didn’t herself know.
She continued writing. She included a dry list of all the ingredients she had put in the dinner salad, the new dosage she had parceled out for the boy, and then came to the conversation she had eavesdropped on just a few moments before.
Then she came to the bottom of the page. She couldn’t think of anything further to write, elaborating on her day. So she added the line, “Tomorrow, Mond will learn to dance.”
“Don’t they help with your headaches?” she asked.
“Yeah, they stop the pain, but they stop everything.”
“But the headaches were really bad for you. Remember how you used to scream at night because they hurt so badly? You don’t do that anymore, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I guess you’re right.”
Tamara leaned away from the door with a smile. Mond was defending her. The boy couldn’t stop her now that Mond was on her side; he wouldn’t dare try. He wouldn’t want to.
She crept down the hall into her own room and closed the door behind her before turning on the light. She crossed to the desk and pulled out the chair to sit. The little brown book in the top drawer had a red ribbon sticking out the bottom of it; she opened it to that page — a blank one — and pulled the fountain pen out of its holder next to the notepad.
She recounted her day minute for minute, detailing the mundane without attempting to romanticize it. She described the unforeseeable progress Mond was making in her chess game, how she’d mastered the Sicilian defense, Dragon Variation and how, without cheating and telling Mond that there were better moves she could make, even Tamara was having a hard time escaping her traps. They played the games verbally and Mond had surprisingly little trouble keeping mental track of what the board looked like. One day, she would wise up and they would have to stop playing; Tamara would have nothing further to teach her.
At this point, her pen stopped, poised over a new line. Tamara pondered the unsettling truth of the last sentence. So many of the things Tamara was teaching Mond were having to end too quickly, as Mond was learning them too quickly and at too advanced a level for Tamara to keep up her role as instructor. Would there eventually come a time when Mond would have to leave, go to some sort of academy so more learned people could give her more sophisticated lessons? Tamara shuddered and put the thought out of her mind. Their tutoring sessions were going so well, and they meant everything to Tamara. She couldn’t imagine giving her daughter up to let some strangers fill her mind with things she didn’t herself know.
She continued writing. She included a dry list of all the ingredients she had put in the dinner salad, the new dosage she had parceled out for the boy, and then came to the conversation she had eavesdropped on just a few moments before.
Then she came to the bottom of the page. She couldn’t think of anything further to write, elaborating on her day. So she added the line, “Tomorrow, Mond will learn to dance.”
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Chapter Fourteen
The sun poured through the thick leaves of the forest of Medias, shining directly overhead. Ben, Gus, and Martha walked abreast along the paths that lead to the outskirts of the forest. With the knowledge Ben now possessed of the forces at work in the ground beneath him, he felt more acutely aware of the magic that tugged at him, urging him to return to the center of the hills. In his awareness, he felt more fiercely called to fight the feeling. He only prayed that Tess shared that feeling and was somewhere nearby in the woods, just waiting to join up with them along an adjacent path.
“I’ve definitely got a better one than that,” Martha was saying to Gus. “I heard this from one of the conference center janitorial staff guys. Evidently, Richard—I’m sure you know him from the pond guild, since his brother is in charge of it—well, evidently, Richard has a friend who says he’s been There and came back with all these amazing and pretty horrific stories. I think his name was Sallus or something.”
“Okay, intro done, I hope and pray?” Gus said mockingly.
“So Sallus was staying with a family that lived a good distance outside of Medias,” Martha said, plowing over Gus’ interjection. “There was a mother a father and two children, Sam and Sarah. Sam was older, and didn’t live at home anymore, but he visited the family often and Sallus got to know him pretty well. He was a construction worker, you know, like the guys who repair houses and things.”
“I don’t ever remember a time when any houses needed repair,” Gus said innocently.
“Oh shut up,” Ben said with a laugh.
“Anyway. One day, the mother’s uncle came to visit. He was a big shot Sir-gent Major in something called an Arm Force or a Terry Mill or something. Anyway, he was a famous guy for some reason and he had traveled all over the world with his Arm.”
“He only had one?”
“No, that was the name of his group, the ‘Arm Force’ and when you’re a leader they give you control over one or more Arms,” Martha struggled to explain. “I don’t really get where they come up with names for things in There, but it is what it is, I guess.”
“Back to the story,” Ben said.
“So the Sir-gent’s name was Morris, and he had picked up this weird talisman in some foreign country, this thing called a Monk E. Paw.”
“Are monks animals There?” Ben asked.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gus said. “How can animals practice religious rites and traditions?”
“I think it’s more that the original monks got their name because they wore fur off an animal named the Monk E,” Martha clarified. “I think I read that in a book somewhere.”
“Why is it called the Monk E, then?” Gus asked. “Are there different kinds of Monk animals? Like Monk A and Monk B and Monk C?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that and get on with the story,” Martha said, shooting him a look that was meant to be something of a spurn on his sudden and uncharacteristic curiosity. “So Sir-gent Major Morris brought Sallus’ foster family the Monk E paw as a gift. He told them that it was given to him by a friend in the Arm Force who had gotten it from a foreign medicine man whose name was Faker. Faker had said that the paw would grant the head of any family three wishes, but Morris suggested that they used them carefully and only one at a time, so that they wouldn’t waste them.
“Richard said then that Sallus and Morris had a private talk in the front garden while the rest of the family was inside discussing what they were going to do with the three wishes the Monk E paw would grant them. Evidently Morris told Sallus that he had actually been bequeathed the talisman in the will of his friend from the Arm Force, and that the will had expressly stated that Morris was supposed to destroy the talisman. Morris said that his friend had used his third wish to take his own life. But Morris explained to Sallus that he didn’t think it was fair that his Arm Force friend should be the last to benefit from such a rare item, and he wrote off the suicide by describing a horrible illness his friend had been suffering from for years, something that would cause Morris himself to wish for death, especially after the first two obviously life-altering wishes had already been granted.”
“Uh, Martha,” Ben said warily, “this story is getting…I don’t know…do we want to hear the end?” They were nearly to the catfish pond my this time, and both the story and the Tess’ unmistakable absence were starting to eat away at Ben’s level of comfort with his situation.
“It’s a good story,” she assured them both, because Gus was looking leery as well. “I mean, it’s different from most Median stories. That’s why I’m telling it: so we can get a better idea of what There is like in comparison to Medias.”
Gus and Ben looked at each other with uncertainty. Martha rolled her eyes and continued. “Anyway, after the meeting with Sallus in the front garden, Sir-gent Major Morris said he had to be going, that he’d just stopped by for a short visit, and that he’d be sure to come again in the coming months, whenever his worldly travels guided him back that way. So Sallus went back inside and sat down with the family, listening to them come to a final decision about how to use their first wish.
“The father, being the head of the family, decided that the best thing to do would be to ask for money to pay off some debts the family had, so that Sarah’s schooling could be paid for more easily when that time came. After some discussion, the other family members agreed and the father said he’d make the with the next morning, giving him time to go over the family books to find out exactly how much money they’d need; they didn’t want to over indulge, but they didn’t want to sell themselves too short, either.
“So the next morning, after Sam had left for his home and Sarah had left for her preparatory school, the mother and the father sat down at the table with Sallus to make the wish. The father held the shriveled little paw in his hands and said, ‘I wish our family came into possession of £359 of extra money that we could use to pay off our debts.’ The three waited for about a half hour without any sign of £359 showing up anywhere. Then the phone rang.”
“The phone?” Gus asked.
“Evidently it’s some wiring device that people There use to contact each other over long distances. It’s too hard to explain, and it doesn’t really matter in this story, except that someone from Sam’s construction company used one to call Sam’s parents and tell them that Sam had died due to someone else’s mishandling of a company machine.”
Gus and Ben’s eyes widened with fear, disgust, and sadness.
“The construction company man asked if Sam’s father could come and identify the body for insurance purposes, since the company was going to have to pay £359 as compensation for the loss of their son.”
“What?” Ben and Gus said together, mouths open and aghast.
“That’s…that’s disgusting,” Ben said.
“Sallus thought so, too,” Martha said, plowing on, though her face was considerably harder than it had been when she started. “He said that when the father came back from the sight, he went up to his study and locked himself in there for three days. The mother was absolutely disconsolate; she was catatonic the whole week, so Sallus and Sarah were left to fend for themselves, and poor Sarah was beside herself with grief and misplaced guilt, thinking that it was her need for school money that had killed her brother.”
“Martha, this is a horrible story,” Gus said. “I don’t care about ‘better understanding the differences between There and Medias; I don’t want to hear the rest of it.”
Martha’s eyes went downcast. “I know,” she said quietly. “I mean, it’s awful. But it’s the kind of things people from There are always worried about—the consequences of their actions and their need to accept things as they are. ‘The natural order of things’ is a concept Sallus mentioned in every story he told.”
“There’s no way Sallus actually went There and came back,” Ben said, more angrily than he had meant to. “I mean,” he said, bringing his tone back up, “Medias told Tess and I yesterday that no one is allowed to return to Medias after going There.”
Now Gus and Martha looked at each other uncertainly. “Why not?” they asked, almost in unison.
“It said there’s a fundamental difference between people from There and Medians, something about ‘outlying emotions.’ I didn’t really understand it, but it said that people born and raised in Medius had better control of themselves than people from There, but that leaving Medias, even for a few days, would break up too much of that control for them to be…” He looked at the fear on Gus and Martha’s faces, and realized too late that he should have told them all of this before.
“Ben?” The soft, nearly whispered word came from a clearing just beyond where the three were standing. Ben heard it and felt his stomach lurch up into his chest before he could clearly articulate why.
“…Tess?” he said, his voice turned quiet by his sudden heedless anxiety. It felt to him as though Gus and Martha had sunk into the earth around them as be began to run, dodging between thinning trees and coming into the light of the catfish pond clearing. There, standing on the other side of the water with traveling clothes he’d never seen before and a knapsack made out of many unmatched napkins and throw-pillow cases stitched together, was Tess.
____________________
P.S. Yeah, the Curse of the Monkey Paw is not my story. Los siento. Originally, it was just a word count thing, but now I'm thinking of leaving it in legit, so I didn't think it made sense to censor it here. But yeah, not my story; fan-fiction-esque disclaimer.
“I’ve definitely got a better one than that,” Martha was saying to Gus. “I heard this from one of the conference center janitorial staff guys. Evidently, Richard—I’m sure you know him from the pond guild, since his brother is in charge of it—well, evidently, Richard has a friend who says he’s been There and came back with all these amazing and pretty horrific stories. I think his name was Sallus or something.”
“Okay, intro done, I hope and pray?” Gus said mockingly.
“So Sallus was staying with a family that lived a good distance outside of Medias,” Martha said, plowing over Gus’ interjection. “There was a mother a father and two children, Sam and Sarah. Sam was older, and didn’t live at home anymore, but he visited the family often and Sallus got to know him pretty well. He was a construction worker, you know, like the guys who repair houses and things.”
“I don’t ever remember a time when any houses needed repair,” Gus said innocently.
“Oh shut up,” Ben said with a laugh.
“Anyway. One day, the mother’s uncle came to visit. He was a big shot Sir-gent Major in something called an Arm Force or a Terry Mill or something. Anyway, he was a famous guy for some reason and he had traveled all over the world with his Arm.”
“He only had one?”
“No, that was the name of his group, the ‘Arm Force’ and when you’re a leader they give you control over one or more Arms,” Martha struggled to explain. “I don’t really get where they come up with names for things in There, but it is what it is, I guess.”
“Back to the story,” Ben said.
“So the Sir-gent’s name was Morris, and he had picked up this weird talisman in some foreign country, this thing called a Monk E. Paw.”
“Are monks animals There?” Ben asked.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gus said. “How can animals practice religious rites and traditions?”
“I think it’s more that the original monks got their name because they wore fur off an animal named the Monk E,” Martha clarified. “I think I read that in a book somewhere.”
“Why is it called the Monk E, then?” Gus asked. “Are there different kinds of Monk animals? Like Monk A and Monk B and Monk C?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that and get on with the story,” Martha said, shooting him a look that was meant to be something of a spurn on his sudden and uncharacteristic curiosity. “So Sir-gent Major Morris brought Sallus’ foster family the Monk E paw as a gift. He told them that it was given to him by a friend in the Arm Force who had gotten it from a foreign medicine man whose name was Faker. Faker had said that the paw would grant the head of any family three wishes, but Morris suggested that they used them carefully and only one at a time, so that they wouldn’t waste them.
“Richard said then that Sallus and Morris had a private talk in the front garden while the rest of the family was inside discussing what they were going to do with the three wishes the Monk E paw would grant them. Evidently Morris told Sallus that he had actually been bequeathed the talisman in the will of his friend from the Arm Force, and that the will had expressly stated that Morris was supposed to destroy the talisman. Morris said that his friend had used his third wish to take his own life. But Morris explained to Sallus that he didn’t think it was fair that his Arm Force friend should be the last to benefit from such a rare item, and he wrote off the suicide by describing a horrible illness his friend had been suffering from for years, something that would cause Morris himself to wish for death, especially after the first two obviously life-altering wishes had already been granted.”
“Uh, Martha,” Ben said warily, “this story is getting…I don’t know…do we want to hear the end?” They were nearly to the catfish pond my this time, and both the story and the Tess’ unmistakable absence were starting to eat away at Ben’s level of comfort with his situation.
“It’s a good story,” she assured them both, because Gus was looking leery as well. “I mean, it’s different from most Median stories. That’s why I’m telling it: so we can get a better idea of what There is like in comparison to Medias.”
Gus and Ben looked at each other with uncertainty. Martha rolled her eyes and continued. “Anyway, after the meeting with Sallus in the front garden, Sir-gent Major Morris said he had to be going, that he’d just stopped by for a short visit, and that he’d be sure to come again in the coming months, whenever his worldly travels guided him back that way. So Sallus went back inside and sat down with the family, listening to them come to a final decision about how to use their first wish.
“The father, being the head of the family, decided that the best thing to do would be to ask for money to pay off some debts the family had, so that Sarah’s schooling could be paid for more easily when that time came. After some discussion, the other family members agreed and the father said he’d make the with the next morning, giving him time to go over the family books to find out exactly how much money they’d need; they didn’t want to over indulge, but they didn’t want to sell themselves too short, either.
“So the next morning, after Sam had left for his home and Sarah had left for her preparatory school, the mother and the father sat down at the table with Sallus to make the wish. The father held the shriveled little paw in his hands and said, ‘I wish our family came into possession of £359 of extra money that we could use to pay off our debts.’ The three waited for about a half hour without any sign of £359 showing up anywhere. Then the phone rang.”
“The phone?” Gus asked.
“Evidently it’s some wiring device that people There use to contact each other over long distances. It’s too hard to explain, and it doesn’t really matter in this story, except that someone from Sam’s construction company used one to call Sam’s parents and tell them that Sam had died due to someone else’s mishandling of a company machine.”
Gus and Ben’s eyes widened with fear, disgust, and sadness.
“The construction company man asked if Sam’s father could come and identify the body for insurance purposes, since the company was going to have to pay £359 as compensation for the loss of their son.”
“What?” Ben and Gus said together, mouths open and aghast.
“That’s…that’s disgusting,” Ben said.
“Sallus thought so, too,” Martha said, plowing on, though her face was considerably harder than it had been when she started. “He said that when the father came back from the sight, he went up to his study and locked himself in there for three days. The mother was absolutely disconsolate; she was catatonic the whole week, so Sallus and Sarah were left to fend for themselves, and poor Sarah was beside herself with grief and misplaced guilt, thinking that it was her need for school money that had killed her brother.”
“Martha, this is a horrible story,” Gus said. “I don’t care about ‘better understanding the differences between There and Medias; I don’t want to hear the rest of it.”
Martha’s eyes went downcast. “I know,” she said quietly. “I mean, it’s awful. But it’s the kind of things people from There are always worried about—the consequences of their actions and their need to accept things as they are. ‘The natural order of things’ is a concept Sallus mentioned in every story he told.”
“There’s no way Sallus actually went There and came back,” Ben said, more angrily than he had meant to. “I mean,” he said, bringing his tone back up, “Medias told Tess and I yesterday that no one is allowed to return to Medias after going There.”
Now Gus and Martha looked at each other uncertainly. “Why not?” they asked, almost in unison.
“It said there’s a fundamental difference between people from There and Medians, something about ‘outlying emotions.’ I didn’t really understand it, but it said that people born and raised in Medius had better control of themselves than people from There, but that leaving Medias, even for a few days, would break up too much of that control for them to be…” He looked at the fear on Gus and Martha’s faces, and realized too late that he should have told them all of this before.
“Ben?” The soft, nearly whispered word came from a clearing just beyond where the three were standing. Ben heard it and felt his stomach lurch up into his chest before he could clearly articulate why.
“…Tess?” he said, his voice turned quiet by his sudden heedless anxiety. It felt to him as though Gus and Martha had sunk into the earth around them as be began to run, dodging between thinning trees and coming into the light of the catfish pond clearing. There, standing on the other side of the water with traveling clothes he’d never seen before and a knapsack made out of many unmatched napkins and throw-pillow cases stitched together, was Tess.
____________________
P.S. Yeah, the Curse of the Monkey Paw is not my story. Los siento. Originally, it was just a word count thing, but now I'm thinking of leaving it in legit, so I didn't think it made sense to censor it here. But yeah, not my story; fan-fiction-esque disclaimer.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chapter Three
Dinner with Geneva’s lashlings was worse than what Ben had prepared himself for. The food, though somewhat dry for his taste, wasn’t the worst part of the meal. The worst part of the meal was that he was reminded that, wherever he went, he experienced the same chasm of loneliness that it seemed others had found a way to cross.
Living with Gus and Martha wasn’t always painful—Martha was his sister and Gus had told Ben on several occasions that he felt lashed just as much to Ben as he was to Martha. But going to dinner with lashed couples, watching the way they interacted with each other under the full and safe assumption that the strength of the relationship could not fade no matter the actions of either side…something about that unsettled Ben and always made him feel inadequate.
Living in Medias, he had grown accustomed to not remembering the beginnings of things. The same darkness that clouded his past—When did he first come to live with Martha and Gus or was it they who came to live with him? Why was Tess not his sister when he felt so much closer to her than to Martha? Was he really related to anyone? Who and where are their parents?—clouded everyone around him as well, so he could get no answers from anyone if he ever asked why he didn’t have a lash.
Everyone at the dinner party was lashed, most of them, like Gus and Martha, had been together for years, but the two couples throwing the party hadn’t been lashed for very long. But neither of those time spans meant anything. The lashlings couldn’t remember a time before they were lashed any more than Gus and Martha could. Time was not an object, which was both the answer and the question of why Ben could never be lashed.
After the party, Ben told his family he was going to go catfish fishing on the edge of the hills and wandered his separate way, knowing that he wasn’t fooling either of them. He did walk to the edge of the hills and sit by the catfish pond, but instead of fishing, he lay back and watched the darkening clouds pass overhead, covering and uncovering the stars as they opened bleary eyes to the night.
“Ben?”
He blinked, sighed, smiled. “Yeah.”
“Fancy seeing you here,” Tess said quietly, coming to stand over him and let her curly hair hang around her face and frame her against the sky.
Ben patted the ground next to him, and she took the cue to lie down at his side. “What brings you all the way out here?”
“The loosening,” he said. “You?”
“The same. It got to the point where I couldn’t remember a time where I wasn’t cleaning house, even though I knew there had to have been one.”
“There was one. I remember it,” Ben assured her. “That time when I saw you in the market and you told me that you didn’t have anything to do and that you’d just left the house because you could.”
“Oh right. I remember that. Thanks.” He heard her hair rub against the grass and felt her breath against his ear when she spoke again. “What was wrong with you?”
“Dinner party,” he said. “Couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t eat poorly seasoned food for dinner every night.”
She laughed lightly and turned her face back to the sky. “You’re lying.”
“Yeah.”
“I was in a shop today where some musicians were playing what they called ‘cloud music,’” Tess said.
Ben laughed once loudly. “What did it sound like?”
She pointed to three wisps that caught the gray-blue of twilight. “It’s hard to describe, but it really sounded like them.”
Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I want to leave Medias, Tess.”
She let her hand fall into her lap. They sat in silence for a few minutes before she rolled onto her knees and brushed the dead leaves off of her back. Ben closed his eyes and bit his lip as he listened to her walk off.
He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t wish that she wouldn’t have been able to walk away.
Living with Gus and Martha wasn’t always painful—Martha was his sister and Gus had told Ben on several occasions that he felt lashed just as much to Ben as he was to Martha. But going to dinner with lashed couples, watching the way they interacted with each other under the full and safe assumption that the strength of the relationship could not fade no matter the actions of either side…something about that unsettled Ben and always made him feel inadequate.
Living in Medias, he had grown accustomed to not remembering the beginnings of things. The same darkness that clouded his past—When did he first come to live with Martha and Gus or was it they who came to live with him? Why was Tess not his sister when he felt so much closer to her than to Martha? Was he really related to anyone? Who and where are their parents?—clouded everyone around him as well, so he could get no answers from anyone if he ever asked why he didn’t have a lash.
Everyone at the dinner party was lashed, most of them, like Gus and Martha, had been together for years, but the two couples throwing the party hadn’t been lashed for very long. But neither of those time spans meant anything. The lashlings couldn’t remember a time before they were lashed any more than Gus and Martha could. Time was not an object, which was both the answer and the question of why Ben could never be lashed.
After the party, Ben told his family he was going to go catfish fishing on the edge of the hills and wandered his separate way, knowing that he wasn’t fooling either of them. He did walk to the edge of the hills and sit by the catfish pond, but instead of fishing, he lay back and watched the darkening clouds pass overhead, covering and uncovering the stars as they opened bleary eyes to the night.
“Ben?”
He blinked, sighed, smiled. “Yeah.”
“Fancy seeing you here,” Tess said quietly, coming to stand over him and let her curly hair hang around her face and frame her against the sky.
Ben patted the ground next to him, and she took the cue to lie down at his side. “What brings you all the way out here?”
“The loosening,” he said. “You?”
“The same. It got to the point where I couldn’t remember a time where I wasn’t cleaning house, even though I knew there had to have been one.”
“There was one. I remember it,” Ben assured her. “That time when I saw you in the market and you told me that you didn’t have anything to do and that you’d just left the house because you could.”
“Oh right. I remember that. Thanks.” He heard her hair rub against the grass and felt her breath against his ear when she spoke again. “What was wrong with you?”
“Dinner party,” he said. “Couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t eat poorly seasoned food for dinner every night.”
She laughed lightly and turned her face back to the sky. “You’re lying.”
“Yeah.”
“I was in a shop today where some musicians were playing what they called ‘cloud music,’” Tess said.
Ben laughed once loudly. “What did it sound like?”
She pointed to three wisps that caught the gray-blue of twilight. “It’s hard to describe, but it really sounded like them.”
Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I want to leave Medias, Tess.”
She let her hand fall into her lap. They sat in silence for a few minutes before she rolled onto her knees and brushed the dead leaves off of her back. Ben closed his eyes and bit his lip as he listened to her walk off.
He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t wish that she wouldn’t have been able to walk away.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Preface
Preface
It’s not something you’re born for. It’s not something your parents dream up as they coo each other to sleep at night, envisioning your life unfurling in front of them like ribbons. It’s what happens when things have gone wrong. When the possible event that you assure yourself you’re not expecting, even though really it has been considered several thousand times, happens and you finally realize that it’s not something you can run from.
It’s not something you’re born for. It’s something that just becomes. Unfurls itself like ribbons around you.
On the good days those ribbons can seem more like satin bits to tie back the springy curls of young girls’ hairs, and less like the rough and chafing cords they actually are.
But most days, you just sit in a corner and cry. Because you’re tied. You know you are, and you know you always have been. You like to imagine that there is a way out, but you haven’t found one yet.
It’s not something you’re born for. It’s not something your parents dream up as they coo each other to sleep at night, envisioning your life unfurling in front of them like ribbons. It’s what happens when things have gone wrong. When the possible event that you assure yourself you’re not expecting, even though really it has been considered several thousand times, happens and you finally realize that it’s not something you can run from.
It’s not something you’re born for. It’s something that just becomes. Unfurls itself like ribbons around you.
On the good days those ribbons can seem more like satin bits to tie back the springy curls of young girls’ hairs, and less like the rough and chafing cords they actually are.
But most days, you just sit in a corner and cry. Because you’re tied. You know you are, and you know you always have been. You like to imagine that there is a way out, but you haven’t found one yet.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Preliminaries (Installment Four)
Dear Ben,
Don’t tell your friends (or siblings, or whatever they are) but I like you the best. You were the first one to talk to me. I saw you first out of everyone. You’re someone I want to keep with me always. If I could have a dæmon, I think I would want him to be like you. Which I guess means I must see part of myself in you.
You’re childish, Ben. Inescapably immature, but not naïve. You’re well aware of what is out there that can hurt you, and you do your best to not seek it out, to not react to it, to not let it affect you in the slightest. You know it’s only a matter of time, but you also know that as long as people just think you’re a child, they won’t expect you to accept what you’re trying to postpone accepting. You’re where I am when I can be, and I like that about you.
You’re favorite color is red. Your favorite pastime is drawing. You don’t like using pencil first because, and you like the way crayons get smaller when you press hard against the paper. You don’t like television or movies because looking at screens gives you headaches. You once found a steel ring lying on the floor of the library—it had engravings of the Chinese Zodiac and you wear it everywhere. You tried to give it to a girl once, but she said it was too big for her and she didn’t want you to stop wearing it. Her name was Tess.
That’s who Tess is. She’s your best friend. You want her to always be your best friend, but she is growing up too quickly for you. The thing you’re most afraid of in the world is that Tess will find someone to replace you, someone who wants to marry her and take her away from you.
It’s a complicated relationship between you and Tess, isn’t it? You love her absolutely, more than you love yourself. You don’t listen to what people say about crushes and infatuation; the way they describe it, none of it sounds like what you feel for Tess. But it doesn’t feel like she’s your sister, either. You have a sister, and you love her too, but it’s not the same. Martha. She’s your sister.
Which means Gus is like your brother, because he’s always over at your…house? You don't live in a house, do you? But wherever you live, Gus is always there, and he’s not there for you, although you can’t believe he’s there for Martha either, because they can’t even look at each other without it registering on the Richter scale.
Do you have parents, Ben? I don’t feel like you do, but then again, I feel so much like I want to be your mother that maybe your real mother just doesn’t register in my head. If she is there, she’s not much of a mother.
Or is she? I don't know, Ben. I want to meet your parents if you have them. You don’t feel like an orphan, but I guess maybe you are. I don't want you to be an orphan, though.
How old are you, Ben?
Love,
Mommy
Monday, October 19, 2009
Preliminaries (Installment Three)
This is on the NaNoWriMo homepage, and I'm supposed to be writing an Essay about dæmons in The Golden Compass, but I wanted to share this with people (not real people who would give me funny looks when I smiled uncontrollably and cried a little bit) so here you are. Enjoy.
Q: Cylithria, you managed to participate in NaNoWriMo while serving in Iraq. What is it like to write a novel while on duty? How did you get your novel validated to win?Happy writing!
A: What is writing while serving in Iraq like? The short answer is: crazy. The long answer, is as vast and various as our world's military forces. During my first NaNoWriMo Iraq Novel, I was embedded in a forward observation team of United States Marines. (OORAH!) I was an experienced NaNoWriMo participant and as is my typical style, by October 31 I had nothing but the goal itself. No plot, no characters, no world - just the goal of 50K in 30 days.We were still at a Northern Iraqi Base, preparing for forward Ops when November 1 rolled around. For the first week, after 18 hour training days, I went back to my rack and started typing what I hoped would be an ever growing story. By the time we moved out, I had written barely 3,000 words in seven days. I knew it would only get worse as we left the comforts of a base and headed into the northern-most regions of Iraq. I was right. Within 24 hours of our moving out, I realized my laptop was useless. Bright screens at night draw attention. Plus there were no currant bushes staggered in the mountains for me to plug into. Not good. Writing on paper was an option, but it held many, many drawbacks. Most of my "off hours" were at night, thus leaving me with no light. Writing by Night Vision Goggles is difficult, but somehow I wrote onward.
Two days before Thanksgiving it was the Commanding Officer who inquired as to what I was doing. He'd caught me crying. (I'd just killed off my main character; it was a heavy moment okay?) I will never forget the look on his face.
"You're doing what? National book writing month?"
"National Novel Writing Month Sir....it's NaNoWriMo, I can't miss it. I haven't missed one yet!"
I lost two hours of precious writing time that evening as I explained what in the world NaNoWriMo was and why I kept after the goal. It was another Marine who asked how I "won". When I extracted the massive sheets of paper from my pack and explained I had to transcribe all I'd written into digital txt file and upload it to the NaNoWriMo validater, they all looked ... well mad! We didn't have wi-fi access where we were and while they may not have understood the point of NaNoWriMo, they could look at a calendar and where we were and know the final validation would never be done from our local. I think that one thing, being unable to officially win because we were so far from home bothered us all. I know it hung like an albatross in the cool night air. But still, I wrote on.
Three days later I am sitting down, finishing my final page of my draft. I am at 50,279 words, most hand written. I still had more of the story to write, but once I tallied my word count, I announced it to our unit. My Commanding Officer addressed my small victory for all of them. Extending his hand towards me, he gave me my orders for the night along with a CD.
"We've transcribed everything except todays batch. It's all here. We changed nothing and you spell awful. Sit down and finish transcribing the rest. We meet a supply bird at zero three hundred hours. You get it done, we send it back to your liaison at HQ - That's the best shot we can give you Dubois."
I stared at the CD and struggled with tears. "Sir, yes Sir" was my only reply. I sat and did as ordered. In a moving vehicle, I transcribed the last of my words and then burned it all to the CD. We stuffed it, along with my user name and password, into one of the many courier bags addressed to my unit in the United States. At zero three hundred hours, at a mobile Landing Zone I watched as my Commanding Officer asked, not ordered, the pilot and crew to try and get that CD to where it needed to be, and get it there in time.
As the helicopter lifted off, my Commanding Officer placed a hand on my shoulder. "That's a win Dubois. If these Nano's don't agree, you send 'em to me. I'll set 'em straight even if that CD gets lost."
Time isn't something easily found when you are on duty in a combat zone. There was nothing more for me then those words and that Oorah, and as quickly as we could we moved on once more. While I figured I'd never be ale to legally claim that year as a victory, I knew it was in my heart. It was almost midnight of November 30th, on the east coast of the United States of America when my Commanding Officer came running to find me. In his hand he waved a small, handheld computer. "Dubois, hot damn! Ya did it!" He held the screen to my face.
There, in an email from my Liaison in the United States was a screenshot image of the validation of my novel. 32 minutes before midnight. The message from my Liaison was this: "Ma'am your novel flew on three helicopters, three transport planes, rode one ship and was driven via hummer to my office where I used your login to validate it. Be advised, you are a winner! Congrats! Now, can you please forward the reports you *should* have been writing?"
As I read those words to my fellow Marines, OORAH rang out. My Commanding Officer was as thrilled as any of us. With a great many fist pumps and hand gestures he shouted out, "That's right, That's right.... she a wrimo from the region of Iraq::Northern Province::OORAH"
Being the National Novel Writing Month enthusiast I am, I did the only thing I knew to do to celebrate my victory. Using the sound system of one of our vehicles I blasted the song "Time Warp", and danced. Writing while actively serving your country in the military is a very difficult thing. Time, climates, duties and orders often get in the way. But there are no finer win's in National Novel Writing Month then winning the challenge while serving your country. OORAH!
Cylithria Dubois has been participating in National Novel Writing Month since she first heard of it over nine years ago. This year she will attempt to complete her tenth National Novel Writing Month Novel from the Michigan :: Flint Region. Three of her nine NaNo-novels have been written from various hot spots around the world. Although not currently stationed with her Marines, they actively email her for novel updates when duty allows. She still does the Time Warp after every win - no matter where she is! She can be found telling stories of her life at www.whynotright.com, on Twitter, and via email or by NaNoMail at eensybeensyspider.
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