Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Kentville

Kent is a native to these lands. He is nomadic, but this region alone is his home. Here we find the finished limb of a ancient growth: the evolution of man. Kent stands beneath a long-rooted tree, his kind a key affinity to the mother giant.

She has rejected a persistent stone, by the looks of him, from the thick jungle brush. He is scarred, and resilient -- unnecessary for the harmonized. He does not belong here, persay --Kent knows that-- but the winds of time blow sideways just as they do forwards and back. Here these two men stand facing each other, and something will come of it.

They look into each other’s eyes and then stranger speaks, but who can know what he says.

“Sometimes I find that I have reached the peak of another mountain, and all the ones I’ve climbed before, unknowingly, lie back before me. I can see them, just like the ones further along in my path. It is such a beautiful place up there. So much potential in the sky...the land. Then, I start to head back down, and I wonder: why does it have to work this way? Why can’t I live up here? As I descend closer to the earth, and the cracks in my brain, that’s when I forget where I am, and I stumble around, lost. I am hungry, I am alone. At night I dream of being up there, breathing the fresh air. It’s not supposed to be like this, you know. I could have a wife, kids, I guess. I chose to be here, all that time ago.”

Kent cannot help this man, but this approaching night they will sleep in the same tribe. Kent will show him their customs, and while their music is largely misunderstood, the strange man will dance before sleeping.

The Ebon Encounter

The humans know him as Ebon. A simple enough name, easy to pronounce. He stands at the front of the classroom, behind him is a nano-particle board --as requested-- which he controls by telekinesis. Mathematical formulas, general diagrams, detailed pictures. A nano-particle board is the bare minimum with a species that is largely non-telepathic.

Ebon, of course, doesn’t speak. This isn’t the arts, or anything like that. The humans bark out questions for each other, and then they all listen.

Rules:

1. The armed men outside of this room are not to come in.
2. For those of you in this room, do not approach me.
3. What I am about to say, while negotiated upon, and subsequently inherent with certain political subjectifications, is correct. Do not let your emotions cloud that.
4.Keep rules 1-3 in mind at all times.

***

It’s just one extraterrestrial alpha, unarmed. It is a science lecture.

Joseph grips his gun carefully. He grips it, carefully. He is usually one with a weapon --seamless-- but this weapon is different. It does not fire bullets, it fires energy. This shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is. To this end, and being the diligent soldier that he is, he tried to obtain the specs on his particular equip. He could not find any. He wasn’t classified to know that information. Not classified? Unquestioned were the microchips, or any of the strange shots --not even his assignment to a station frequented by alphas-- but when it comes to a soldier’s weapon, you have to know how it works. You have to harmonize with it; this soldier is far from harmonized. He and the other soldiers are in the hallway outside one of the larger viewing rooms in at Del Croix base, Antarctica.

Walking amongst the honed instruments in the hallway is Mr. Daak. He is a large man with a strange stare. A thousand voices, the unthinkable at his command. He wields a cellphone, but Joseph has battled worse. “...He's watching...” He rasps into the phone. Dark laughter at his own comment. A contorted face.

There are a lot of different people in the military, just like any organization, but there is something about it --especially this deep black stuff-- that seems to attract people who are, for all intensive purposes, utterly alien themselves.


***


Ebon begins with some preliminary basics like the answers to a couple of mathematical equations, illustrations of famous historical figures, and Tomorrow’s lottery numbers. In this environment, one has to earth the trust of the creature. Once trust is established, original thought can ensue. Standard tactics so as to get onto the main point, as there always is one.

...Your actions here affect other places.


***


Special Agent Cardinal got to practice with the weapon of course. They allowed him that much. It produces a small counterclockwise spiral of a color he had never seen before. It slices through steel like it wasn’t even there. One of the scientists he talked to about the weapon explained it: “...because for that instant it isn’t there.” Joe’s memory fired at the scientist’s explanation, something a drill instructor had screamed it into his face one time.

“Son, there is more than one of everything!”

***

Mr. Daak continues to pace amongst the soldiers. They remain quiet professionals as he rambles on into the phone: “We don’t need anyone’s help. Fuck it. Look at where we’ve come: from the dawn of the last age, we travelled through the corridors of Gaf, up the back of the peak and down the front. We know how to waltz with the planets; to bear the burden of the sky -- we are the brightest, the sun! We make the sirens cry of heartbreak. Our craft is forever the flexing arm, forged of Titansteel, of gleaming metal feather. Born witnessed was the birth of this flood, us, Leviathan. We verge of becoming gods, the King to kings creation. Precipice gazing, we are affixed with Father’s watch, surely this is the final hour before awakening!”

***

Questions.

“What is the magnitude of these effects?”

Ebon clears the board. He blinks, trying to think of a way to express the thought succinctly. He illustrates an atomic blast. It pulsates slowly, like the Devil’s heavy breathing.

Unimaginably large.

Now, I will show you what your governments have been up to, at present day, with your work. I do not have permission to do it psychically.


***

The Secretary’s stare moves with the elevator’s doors as they spread. She steps out into the 42nd sub-basement.

“Secretary.” Daak simply says the word, staring through her sharp frame.

“Where is it?”

“Door C.”

The present soldiers cannot help but watch as the Secretary slides past, gripping her pantsuit and everything else around her. Her attractiveness is one that breaks the rules somehow. As the mistress approaches Joe looks up and their eyes lock. Hers are large watery eyes, parted by the gravity of a mysterious moon, a place where the sun cannot shine. It is so cold, such a hopeless place.

***

...when such a thing as your ego is reborn it retains a fear: knowledge of the death of what came prior. This is its purpose: not to die. It remembers that doorway to always, because that is home.

It is nearly time to go home.

***


Ebon watches as the Secretary enters the room, for she is different. She is dangerous.

I see you. I will give you one warning: change your intentions towards me immediately. You are outmatched here.

Ebon watches as the Secretary attempts to mount an attack. She falls to the floor dead with a psychic scream that rips through the surrounding minds. The scientists momentarily see the laughing face of insanity and shift into a fight or flight state of excitement. Most yell. A soldier rushes through the door after a few scientists flee; he is dead and his gun hits the floor. Seeing this, two more soldiers rush through the door; they die and their guns hit the floor. A scientist, unable to get out of the room now, charges forward toward Ebon with a primal yell. He is killed instantly.

Thirty-six people die in total. The encounter is scrubbed from all records. The treaty is burned.

Friday, May 08, 2009

Muting

One of these houses is the same
One of these songs is the cane,
One of these rules in my brain
Looking to cement what’s mine...my mind
One of these days it will end
And all of these times that I pretend
Trying to care, to sew, to mend

The dreams inside me mute
Just whispers of the coming fail
My sail is limp, this boat
This liquid fucking bucket pail

Clouds of a blackened sun
Begun