Wow, no updates for a month. Blame that on my deep obsession with NaNoWriMo this year.
With a bit over a week to go I'm almost done, and should hit the 60,000 word mark by the end of November. Then it's back to editing Weathermen, and letting this new novel simmer for a while with Schneider helping out. If I get really lucky, I can get the first chapters of Weathermen in a fit state before uni begins again. Maybe. Maybe maybe.
---------------
They sat in the house together, holding hands, and watched two spaniels worry at a corpse in the gutter through the living room window.
The older was Donnie, and he squeezed his brothers hand tight every time the dogs growled and tore a new strip free. “Is he okay?” he asked, sounding close to tears.
“He’s dead,” Terry replied, his eyes never wavering. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Soon, more dogs arrived, and in a few hours there was little left of the man at all.
They moved on after sunset, Terry’s pack heavy with what they had found in the larder. Three cans of peaches and a packet of corn chips, two soft drink bottles filled with water from the gutters after being boiled over a campfire and a dead rat. In his waistband was a pistol, cold and black and uncomfortable. It was not loaded – they had yet to find any ammunition. Donnie carried a baseball bat notched with his name so all would know to whom it belonged. They had bandannas tied tight over their noses, and every time Donnie reached up to tug his down Terry would slap at his hand. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he said, and Donnie would always draw back, eyes surly under his tangled mop.
They stayed in the shadows of the eaves of businesses with front windows shattered inwards over empty displays, all the televisions and wedding dresses long pilfered. The cars parked in the gutters had not moved in many months, a thick patina of dust settling over their windshields, dashboards cracked in the sun. There were eyes hiding in the darkness underneath. The neons proclaiming cheap haircuts or all night opening hours had been broken with stones or left to burn out. Trees along the median strip had been cut off at the knees by a station wagon that had come to rest against the wall of a video rental store. Once there had been music jaunting and jiving in every store to entice passers by, but now the air was still and silent.
A supermarket had been gutted, every shelf empty and the linoleum melted into gasoline swirls. Terry stepped over the threshold regardless, his fingers hovering near the butt of the pistol. “Stay,” he told his brother, who looked at him blankly. “Stay here for a bit. Right there. Get down behind that counter there.”
“Don’t want to. I don’t like this place.”
“You’ll stay the fuck down there or I’ll smack you one.” With that, Donnie curled into a ball behind the counter and stayed very still while Terry made his way down the aisles, his sneakers squeaking on the plastic. At the back end of the supermarket was a door marked STAFF, and behind it a staircase that led upwards to a staffroom, all white-walled with a table crammed into the middle so tight there was barely room to move. The fridge was empty, but in the cupboard overhead there was a small tin of coffee that Terry lay down in his pack. They had left nothing else.
When he returned to the front counter, Donnie had fallen asleep where he sat. Terry looked at him a while, and then crouched down beside him and cried behind his mask.
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
NaNoWriMo
NaNoWriMo will soon be upon us, and I'm gonna try to win it this year. For anyone who has never visited www.nanowrimo.org, it's a once-a-year community activity in which people try and bust out 50,000 words of a novel within the month of November. Doesn't matter if it's shit, the point is to just get it all out.
Hopefully Schneider will be collabing with me on a post-apoc story, so we'll see how it goes and keep updating here.
Till then!
Ruz
Hopefully Schneider will be collabing with me on a post-apoc story, so we'll see how it goes and keep updating here.
Till then!
Ruz
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Another burgershop short:
It's the beginning of something...
-------------------------------------------
She stops, tongs in one hand, half full bag of chips in the other.
“Why?”
She’s new, but new is no excuse for idiocy. I’m elbow deep in burger mince and the customers are rowdy. I don’t have time to tutor the girl on probation. “Just bag them.” I roll and knead. Two more patties are ready to go.
She stares at the bag, the paper beginning to shine oily and translucent. Her hands are rock-steady. “But why?”
I flip the patties in the grill. I placate a customer, who turns to tell everyone behind him that the store has gone to shit since I took over. “Because the guy’s been waiting for ten minutes. Bag them and hand them over.”
She stares a moment longer, and then fills the bag. “It’s not like he’s going to eat them.” She passes the chips over the counter and a young man with a goatee and leather jacket snatches it and vanishes. The bell on the door rings as he leaves; for a moment air rushes in, cool and moist from the rain. Then it closes, and all I can smell is vinegar and burnt beef, the sweat and frustration of hungry men. It’s like Singapore, so humid that the breeze drips down your face.
New girl is packing more chips. I can’t remember her name, but at this rate I won’t need to. Three strikes policy. “Two more bags for the Arnold order.” I assemble burgers with sculptural precision, knead the raw meat.
The chips are held in front of me before I can react. She looks at me with eyes glazed, a slack jawed junkie expression. There is salt trapped in her long, heavy lashes.
“It’s a waste,” she says. “He’ll be dead before he gets home. He doesn’t stop at the intersection. Back wheel gets clipped. The car keeps going. Chips get cold. Sign says Monday.”
“What?” My hands have gone numb, buried in bleeding mince, ears buzzing with the roar of the deep fryer. I must have misheard. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” she says, and her eyes go bright and clear. She blinks, as if waking up. “I’m fine. Those burgers are burning.”
I swear, shake off the mince, turn to the grill. Flip, flip, flip. I forget the girl. She’s only a cog on a great churning machine of bacon and chickensalt.
The morning paper spouts political rhetoric. I check my stocks in the business section, relaxing when I can see none have fallen below panic levels. I have two coffees with breakfast – one decaf, one strong. In my bowl are oats for fibre, tree nuts and dried fruit, a sliced banana, soy milk, a dab of honey. Midday passes. I do fifty pushups, fifty situps, another fifty pushups. Check the bathroom mirror – no change from last week. I shower for the second time.
The clock says I have to open the store in half an hour.
I change my shirt, affix my nametag, gel my hair. Throw a book in the bag for the tram ride – Tess of the D’Urbervilles, parking ticket for a bookmark. I lock the back door, double check the sliding bolts. Out the front door, lock the deadbolt, rattle the door to make sure it’s secure. Adjust my nametag; it reads MARK, SUPERVISOR. My shoes are polished to a mirror shine. I shave with a straight blade to baby softness. If it wasn’t against uniform policy I’d wear a tie.
The tram comes in five minutes, so I run.
The tram is late.
The tramstop is on the sidewalk, a faded pine bench with no sun shelter. The early afternoon is achingly hot, like sitting in a rotisserie. Even the flowers have given up, hiding their wilting petals. There is nobody on the street; everybody is sheltering in the air conditioning.
I take out Tess, but I can’t keep track of her misfortunes. A stack of local newspapers have been left by the bench, still cabletied, yellowing and curling in the heat. I pry one free, flip through. Somewhere down the street is the rumble of the tram, trundling through the suburbs. The lack of punctuality is infuriating.
The cover story is on the redevelopment of local parkland. I don’t care. On the second page is a tragedy. There is always a tragedy on page two. Child tips boiling water, house fire, drowning at the beach. Today’s tragedy is a motorbike collision, one dead. Young male, unidentified as of printing. Deemed to be an accident. The man was sober. Injuries to spine. Corner of Welsh and Monday.
There is something I remember. Something I overheard, or an echo of a dream.
The tram pulls up and I step on. All the seats are free. Normally I punch my ticket, but today I don’t see the need to reward tardiness.
The tram passes identical houses of red brick and slate tiles, well manicured gardens collapsing under the weight of summer. University Road swings by, and then Roulade. Monday Road is next. I open the newspaper.
The crash occurred around 7:20 pm.
We pass Monday Road, and I see the streetsign. Black on green, bold square lettering. Then it is gone.
I remember.
Friday, September 7, 2007
The first of many.
After 3 years (almost to the day) I have finished the first draft of Weathermen.
It's crazy, how little it resembles the idea that woke me up that morning and kept growing as I had my shower, the first scenes I tapped out on Zuul while working at ActewAGL or sitting up atop the Woden bus interchange while waiting for my ride home. I spent the first year chopping and changing, removing characters, removing complete scenes and twists, busting out the first three chapters. The second year was spent scrapping everything and starting yet again. Then, in the third year, I rethought my approach entirely, doubled my output and finished it all off.
Now I have to step back and rewrite it yet again, making the first chapters equivalent to the last four, making characters more real, turning it from a story into a real novel. But I've managed the first step, the biggest step.
One day I'll be published. Maybe it'll be this book, maybe the next. But I've taken the big leap.
Thanks for all the folk who've supported me during the writing; I need your help more than ever now, to edit it into something awesome. Who wants a book to read?
It's crazy, how little it resembles the idea that woke me up that morning and kept growing as I had my shower, the first scenes I tapped out on Zuul while working at ActewAGL or sitting up atop the Woden bus interchange while waiting for my ride home. I spent the first year chopping and changing, removing characters, removing complete scenes and twists, busting out the first three chapters. The second year was spent scrapping everything and starting yet again. Then, in the third year, I rethought my approach entirely, doubled my output and finished it all off.
Now I have to step back and rewrite it yet again, making the first chapters equivalent to the last four, making characters more real, turning it from a story into a real novel. But I've managed the first step, the biggest step.
One day I'll be published. Maybe it'll be this book, maybe the next. But I've taken the big leap.
Thanks for all the folk who've supported me during the writing; I need your help more than ever now, to edit it into something awesome. Who wants a book to read?
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Old stories, associations
I've been writing for as long as I can recall. I just haven't always been writing particularly well.
While googling about today I stumbled on an excerpt from a Stephen King story, as yet unpublished: "The Gingerbread Girl." I have zero interest in the story, but the title suddenly sparked off memories of year 2 at Fadden Primary. I was just getting into R.L. Stine, and was planning a horror series of my own, all based around bad horror puns. The first title was "More Fun than a Hole in the Head," being a story about a man who kills with a drill, the cover featuring a terrible sketch of a man screaming with a gaping wound opened in his forehead. My teacher called them disgusting and told my parents. It didn't go down too well.
I can't remember what the other story titles are, but one of them must have had something to do with gingerbread men. Why else would I have made the association?
I've been writing since I was four. I just wish to God I'd kept all those stories.
While googling about today I stumbled on an excerpt from a Stephen King story, as yet unpublished: "The Gingerbread Girl." I have zero interest in the story, but the title suddenly sparked off memories of year 2 at Fadden Primary. I was just getting into R.L. Stine, and was planning a horror series of my own, all based around bad horror puns. The first title was "More Fun than a Hole in the Head," being a story about a man who kills with a drill, the cover featuring a terrible sketch of a man screaming with a gaping wound opened in his forehead. My teacher called them disgusting and told my parents. It didn't go down too well.
I can't remember what the other story titles are, but one of them must have had something to do with gingerbread men. Why else would I have made the association?
I've been writing since I was four. I just wish to God I'd kept all those stories.
Monday, August 6, 2007
A strange image;
The restaurant is Chinatown chic, red lanterns standing sentinel at the entrance and a chinadoll waitress with her black bob cut straight standing behind the counter asking Lobe whether he has a reservation. He waves her off and steps over the rope, over to the buffet.
The man behind the buffet is one of the tech fashionista, buzzcut sprinkled with flecks of gold, mirror-finish goggles pulled up tight over his forehead. He wears a silk shirt hanging open to his waist, embroidered with dragons and lotus leaves. There is a slit running across his bellybutton, like an old surgical scar.
Lobe takes a plate. "Help yourself, sir," the man says, and bows. As he bends over, the skin of his belly slit bends and folds, and Lobe has the slightest twinge of nausea as he catches a glimpse of what seemed like the mans guts.
No, not guts. Noodles. Egg noodles. The man is an android. In his stomach cavity is a swirling stir-fry of mushrooms, bok choy and ba mee. It's like throwing your dinner into a washing machine. "Any chicken?" Lobe asks. The more he watches the tumbling, the more his own organs want to do the same.
The 'droid reaches down, digs both hands into his stomach and stretches it wide open. The noodles whirl. "Take what you'd like, sir," he says. "The serving tongs are by your left hand."
Lobe runs for the toilet.
The man behind the buffet is one of the tech fashionista, buzzcut sprinkled with flecks of gold, mirror-finish goggles pulled up tight over his forehead. He wears a silk shirt hanging open to his waist, embroidered with dragons and lotus leaves. There is a slit running across his bellybutton, like an old surgical scar.
Lobe takes a plate. "Help yourself, sir," the man says, and bows. As he bends over, the skin of his belly slit bends and folds, and Lobe has the slightest twinge of nausea as he catches a glimpse of what seemed like the mans guts.
No, not guts. Noodles. Egg noodles. The man is an android. In his stomach cavity is a swirling stir-fry of mushrooms, bok choy and ba mee. It's like throwing your dinner into a washing machine. "Any chicken?" Lobe asks. The more he watches the tumbling, the more his own organs want to do the same.
The 'droid reaches down, digs both hands into his stomach and stretches it wide open. The noodles whirl. "Take what you'd like, sir," he says. "The serving tongs are by your left hand."
Lobe runs for the toilet.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Chapter 6 done, halfway through Chap 7... shit.
Okay, I'm getting scared now.
I'm very nearly done with my final chapter. Yeah, first draft only, I know. It's still scary. A novel is a big thing to finish. What do I do when it's all over? (besides start the next one).
One of my teachers for an Industrial Design elective is a short story author, so I'm hoping she can give me some advice on the editing and publishing process. Gahd, now I need a new goal. Second draft finished by 2009?
Also, Boilerboys should be going to print soon in the PAX Steampunk magazine. My first published (kinda) short story. I'm reigning in the anxiety by drinking a lot of tea.
--------------------------- Weathermen, Ch 6 ------------------
Aus mumbled as he walked. The others kept their distance, as if his grief was contagious and fatal. Only Alix stuck by his side through the days, speaking to him in hopeful tones of times to come. They could not avoid him at night, so they spoke to him as much as he spoke to them, which was very little.
He was often the first to fall asleep, so Marissa would lead Pal and Rei off a distance and they would whisper to one another of their plans. Sometimes Alix would join them, and sometimes not. Many nights she chose to curl up beside Aus, brushing his hair from his eyes or offering him her tummy as a pillow. They kissed every night and every morning, and as far as the others knew that was as far as they went in expressing their love. Marissa had used to raise an eyebrow or drop a snide comment when they brushed lips; now she simply looked away.
“How much longer?” Pal asked every night. Marissa always gave the same answer: “I don’t know. Not too long now.” After the fourth or fifth rebuttal, he began to press. “We should be able to see it by now, right?”
“Perhaps. We couldn’t see Seventeen until we were right on top of it.”
“Yeah, because it had fallen down. And we were in a forest. And it was foggy.”
“You’ll see it soon.”
Pal rolled onto his side, trying to find the most comfortable position in which to sleep. “You keep saying that. Maybe we’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m not going the wrong way,” Marissa insisted. “I’ve done all the calculations.”
“Still,” said Rei, leaping to Pal’s defense. “We got pretty turned around going through the hills… the city. What if that threw us off course? You said, sometimes…”
“We’d still be able to see it,” Pal muttered. “If we were going the right way.” He curled up and closed his eyes, trying to ignore how the midnight wind raised hairs along his forearms. “I really hope we are. I really do.”
They all slept restlessly, but only Marissa awoke in the early hours, blinking away nightmares of being buried in maps upon maps upon maps. She held herself tight, scraping away layers of dirt and terrified sweat, rocking back and forth until the skies lightened and the sun rose to keep watch over her dreams.
Two more days they walked, and two more nights Marissa woke with her throat so tight she could barely breathe, flailing in the darkness for her blankets or the lamp beside her bed. Every time she had to remind herself that they were long gone, and she would sit and think on all the things and people she had lost. She listed the names of Gods she had never believed in, and prayed to them all.
Please let me be going the right way. Please don’t let us be lost. Please.
I'm very nearly done with my final chapter. Yeah, first draft only, I know. It's still scary. A novel is a big thing to finish. What do I do when it's all over? (besides start the next one).
One of my teachers for an Industrial Design elective is a short story author, so I'm hoping she can give me some advice on the editing and publishing process. Gahd, now I need a new goal. Second draft finished by 2009?
Also, Boilerboys should be going to print soon in the PAX Steampunk magazine. My first published (kinda) short story. I'm reigning in the anxiety by drinking a lot of tea.
--------------------------- Weathermen, Ch 6 ------------------
Aus mumbled as he walked. The others kept their distance, as if his grief was contagious and fatal. Only Alix stuck by his side through the days, speaking to him in hopeful tones of times to come. They could not avoid him at night, so they spoke to him as much as he spoke to them, which was very little.
He was often the first to fall asleep, so Marissa would lead Pal and Rei off a distance and they would whisper to one another of their plans. Sometimes Alix would join them, and sometimes not. Many nights she chose to curl up beside Aus, brushing his hair from his eyes or offering him her tummy as a pillow. They kissed every night and every morning, and as far as the others knew that was as far as they went in expressing their love. Marissa had used to raise an eyebrow or drop a snide comment when they brushed lips; now she simply looked away.
“How much longer?” Pal asked every night. Marissa always gave the same answer: “I don’t know. Not too long now.” After the fourth or fifth rebuttal, he began to press. “We should be able to see it by now, right?”
“Perhaps. We couldn’t see Seventeen until we were right on top of it.”
“Yeah, because it had fallen down. And we were in a forest. And it was foggy.”
“You’ll see it soon.”
Pal rolled onto his side, trying to find the most comfortable position in which to sleep. “You keep saying that. Maybe we’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m not going the wrong way,” Marissa insisted. “I’ve done all the calculations.”
“Still,” said Rei, leaping to Pal’s defense. “We got pretty turned around going through the hills… the city. What if that threw us off course? You said, sometimes…”
“We’d still be able to see it,” Pal muttered. “If we were going the right way.” He curled up and closed his eyes, trying to ignore how the midnight wind raised hairs along his forearms. “I really hope we are. I really do.”
They all slept restlessly, but only Marissa awoke in the early hours, blinking away nightmares of being buried in maps upon maps upon maps. She held herself tight, scraping away layers of dirt and terrified sweat, rocking back and forth until the skies lightened and the sun rose to keep watch over her dreams.
Two more days they walked, and two more nights Marissa woke with her throat so tight she could barely breathe, flailing in the darkness for her blankets or the lamp beside her bed. Every time she had to remind herself that they were long gone, and she would sit and think on all the things and people she had lost. She listed the names of Gods she had never believed in, and prayed to them all.
Please let me be going the right way. Please don’t let us be lost. Please.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
The joy's of editing.
My wordcount per day has slowed, but that's because I've already done the bulk of the chapter and am now embroiled in that much easier part, the first edit. Funny how scenes that seemed so genius and pivotal when I wrote them appear tacky and clunky a week later.
This is the fastest I've ever written any section of Weathermen. Hopefully I can maintain this sort of pace for the 2nd draft edit (and then my 2nd novel... and my third... ah, dreams.)
To you folk whom I promised the manuscript of Chapter 6 when it's done... gimme two weeks, tops. I promise.
This is the fastest I've ever written any section of Weathermen. Hopefully I can maintain this sort of pace for the 2nd draft edit (and then my 2nd novel... and my third... ah, dreams.)
To you folk whom I promised the manuscript of Chapter 6 when it's done... gimme two weeks, tops. I promise.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Zuh?
Another post? So soon? Writing is going well, aided by Milo and Earl Grey tea every night. If I keep up this rate, I should be done with the chapter within a month, which is scarysoon for my usual speed.
Just hoping to get some feedback on my dialogue. First draft dialogue always sound incredibly hammy and forced, so if anyone reads this, help me tidy it up, huh?
--------------------
Aus jumped up onto the rock. “Mind if I steal your place for a while?”
“No.” Pal looked over to where the girls were resting on the far side of the lake. It would be nice to talk to Rei, he thought, but pushing himself into the middle of their girl talk would be awkward. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Aus smiled. “Good. I want to talk to you about something.”
“Something?”
“Nothing bad. Just ideas.”
Pal sat with his back against the stone, Aus hanging overhead. “We… um… don’t talk much.”
“I know. And it’s my fault. Are any of those peaches still alright?” He took the tin from Pal and inspected it. “Still good. It’s only grass.”
“You had ideas?”
Aus squeezed a piece of peach between his front teeth, and juice ran down his chin in a sticky river. He licked around his lips, thinking. “Yeah. Pal… lying is wrong, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’ve lied, yeah?”
He shrugged. “I guess. Everyone has. Why?”
“Just thinking. Sometimes, you have to lie, even though it’s wrong. It’s better for everyone if you don’t tell the truth. So is it really wrong?”
“It depends, doesn’t it?”
“It does. But sometimes, it would hurt someone more to tell them the truth than to lie and let them find out the truth later. For a while, you need to hide things. And then later, you can make up for what you did wrong, and it’s all okay, yeah?”
Pal felt hairs on his neck beginning to stand. “Like you said, sometimes. What’s this about?”
“Nothing important.” Aus coughed. “Just trying to get things straight in my head, I guess. Sometimes you need to bounce ideas off someone else to make them work. So, is it sometimes okay to do wrong things if you know that they’ll help people in the end, if you absolutely know it? I think it is. What do you think?”
Pal stood, suddenly feeling stiff and uncomfortable. “I guess. But there are some things that are too wrong. You can’t… have an excuse for everything.”
“What if you need to do it to survive? What would you do if you needed to?”
He knew now what Aus was talking about. The memory of his dream crashed back, fingernails like claws tearing through his flesh. “I think…” He stopped and turned his face to the ground. “I think you could have pulled him up.”
“No,” said Aus, and his voice was unusually calm. “I don’t want to die. I can’t die. And you wouldn’t have held him for a second. You would have just dropped him and watched him sink, but I held on until I couldn’t anymore. So you understand now?”
Pal baulked, expecting the swing of a fist at any moment. “I don’t.”
“We need to survive, “ Aus said, “and sometimes, to do that, you need to do wrong things, or let wrong things happen. Because if we don’t, you’ll die. We’ll all die. Do you understand now?”
“I do,” said Pal, his mouth dry. “Can I go?”
Aus nodded and patted him on the head. “You can. Good kid. You’re a good kid.”
Pal shook to his core and ran.
Just hoping to get some feedback on my dialogue. First draft dialogue always sound incredibly hammy and forced, so if anyone reads this, help me tidy it up, huh?
--------------------
Aus jumped up onto the rock. “Mind if I steal your place for a while?”
“No.” Pal looked over to where the girls were resting on the far side of the lake. It would be nice to talk to Rei, he thought, but pushing himself into the middle of their girl talk would be awkward. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Aus smiled. “Good. I want to talk to you about something.”
“Something?”
“Nothing bad. Just ideas.”
Pal sat with his back against the stone, Aus hanging overhead. “We… um… don’t talk much.”
“I know. And it’s my fault. Are any of those peaches still alright?” He took the tin from Pal and inspected it. “Still good. It’s only grass.”
“You had ideas?”
Aus squeezed a piece of peach between his front teeth, and juice ran down his chin in a sticky river. He licked around his lips, thinking. “Yeah. Pal… lying is wrong, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’ve lied, yeah?”
He shrugged. “I guess. Everyone has. Why?”
“Just thinking. Sometimes, you have to lie, even though it’s wrong. It’s better for everyone if you don’t tell the truth. So is it really wrong?”
“It depends, doesn’t it?”
“It does. But sometimes, it would hurt someone more to tell them the truth than to lie and let them find out the truth later. For a while, you need to hide things. And then later, you can make up for what you did wrong, and it’s all okay, yeah?”
Pal felt hairs on his neck beginning to stand. “Like you said, sometimes. What’s this about?”
“Nothing important.” Aus coughed. “Just trying to get things straight in my head, I guess. Sometimes you need to bounce ideas off someone else to make them work. So, is it sometimes okay to do wrong things if you know that they’ll help people in the end, if you absolutely know it? I think it is. What do you think?”
Pal stood, suddenly feeling stiff and uncomfortable. “I guess. But there are some things that are too wrong. You can’t… have an excuse for everything.”
“What if you need to do it to survive? What would you do if you needed to?”
He knew now what Aus was talking about. The memory of his dream crashed back, fingernails like claws tearing through his flesh. “I think…” He stopped and turned his face to the ground. “I think you could have pulled him up.”
“No,” said Aus, and his voice was unusually calm. “I don’t want to die. I can’t die. And you wouldn’t have held him for a second. You would have just dropped him and watched him sink, but I held on until I couldn’t anymore. So you understand now?”
Pal baulked, expecting the swing of a fist at any moment. “I don’t.”
“We need to survive, “ Aus said, “and sometimes, to do that, you need to do wrong things, or let wrong things happen. Because if we don’t, you’ll die. We’ll all die. Do you understand now?”
“I do,” said Pal, his mouth dry. “Can I go?”
Aus nodded and patted him on the head. “You can. Good kid. You’re a good kid.”
Pal shook to his core and ran.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Writing more than I expected
Doubled my word count for this week. I've discovered that my muse comes much more easily with pen and paper.
--------------------------------
There had been something wrong with the horizon since the night before. It had been too dark to make out, but there was something curious about the night sky, as if there was more of it than usual. Rei commented on it, “There are more stars than yesterday!” but Marissa laughed at her curiosity and that was the last they spoke of it that night, although she dwelled on it more than she let the others know.
By morning the sun was rising fast through a cloudless sky, and Marissa conceded that Rei had been right, in a sense; in the distance was a huge lake, mirroring the blue above. It stretched so far that the land beyond was invisible, lost behind the glare of sun on water. The wind blew Pal’s empty plastic bags out behind him like streamers, flapping about his head no matter how he tied them to his bundle. He batted them away and licked his lips, dry and chapped against his tongue.
Finally, he thought, a clean drink. Beside him Alix smiled. “Finally, a good bath.”
After an hours march, the lake had grown again. They could see now that it extended far off to the east, and almost certainly wound off to the west as well. “Maybe it’s a river?” Rei suggested.
Marissa shook her head. “I don’t remember any river this big,” she said. “Then again, I don’t really know this land at all.”
“Is it in our way?”
“There’s always something in our way.”
--------------------------------
There had been something wrong with the horizon since the night before. It had been too dark to make out, but there was something curious about the night sky, as if there was more of it than usual. Rei commented on it, “There are more stars than yesterday!” but Marissa laughed at her curiosity and that was the last they spoke of it that night, although she dwelled on it more than she let the others know.
By morning the sun was rising fast through a cloudless sky, and Marissa conceded that Rei had been right, in a sense; in the distance was a huge lake, mirroring the blue above. It stretched so far that the land beyond was invisible, lost behind the glare of sun on water. The wind blew Pal’s empty plastic bags out behind him like streamers, flapping about his head no matter how he tied them to his bundle. He batted them away and licked his lips, dry and chapped against his tongue.
Finally, he thought, a clean drink. Beside him Alix smiled. “Finally, a good bath.”
After an hours march, the lake had grown again. They could see now that it extended far off to the east, and almost certainly wound off to the west as well. “Maybe it’s a river?” Rei suggested.
Marissa shook her head. “I don’t remember any river this big,” she said. “Then again, I don’t really know this land at all.”
“Is it in our way?”
“There’s always something in our way.”
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Run Down & Onwards Chapter Six!
Finally got off my arse and REALLY started work on chapter 6 of Weathermen today. I find I get so much more done writing by hand in my little notebook and typing it up later; all my best dialogue is written down in there. The most powerful moments seem to come to me on the tram.
For extra viewing pleasure, here is the short film I did for my Media and Meaning class, in Industrial Design. Tis an experiment in product placement with parkour thrown in for giggles. Enjoy!
For extra viewing pleasure, here is the short film I did for my Media and Meaning class, in Industrial Design. Tis an experiment in product placement with parkour thrown in for giggles. Enjoy!
Monday, June 11, 2007
Boilerboy - first draft
To take a break from Weathermen, I've been working on a short story in the Steampunk vein for an indie zine. It's called Boilerboy, just over 4000 words. Any ideas, feedback, shenanigans? This is just a first draft, hoping to polish it up over a few weeks.
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The taskmaster slapped at them with the end of his cane, shunting them into groups. “All you, ginger boys. Your name is now Jack. You, darkies. You’re all Jimmy. You three, blondies. Your name is Billy.”
The smallest of the three held his chin proud and defiant. “M’ names not Billy,” he said, and suddenly the cane cracked against his head, the world pinwheeling. He dropped to his knees and tried to hold his skull together. He screamed, and then the cane came down again against his neck and he couldn’t scream any more.
“Your name is Billy,” the taskmaster said again. His cane vanished inside his cloak, he screwed down his topper and turned away. “Set them to the bellows.”
The boy dryretched, yanked to his feet before his vision could clear. “Keep up, Billy,” said the boilerman, his overalls soot-stained to match his skin. His remaining teeth shone behind dark lips. “You gunna grab a shovel, get you some muscles on you!”
“Yessir,” he said, keeping his head down. There was a lump rising above his ear that gave wetly when he pressed on it. “I’m never had a shovel ‘fore, sir.”
“You dunna be calling me sir,” the man said. “I’m just Jimmy.”
The first trade was the hardest.
There were friends he had made at the glassblowers, boys he had worked alongside for almost a year. But their faces were always changing, new boys arriving while others were carted away. The furnaces had a habit of backdrafting, and if you weren’t quick on your toes you were liable to get caught in the face. But he had always been nimble and alert. He had seen many friends come and go, and he would miss them all.
The taskmaster bartered him for two spinning girls and a cart of coal. They checked his arms and his eyes, and the man buying him clucked appreciatively when he counted the boys fingers and arrived at ten. His new master was dressed in bright yellow velvet, and when it brushed against his skin the boy shivered. He had never felt anything so smooth.
The master mumbled to himself in foreign tongue, and then turned to the boy. “Name?”
“Billy,” the boy replied.
He was twelve now, which was two hands and three. His left ring finger had been spat out the back end of a turbine a year earlier, torn off when a gear had jumped. He had taken the bandages off early and showed the stump to the other boys in his dorm, and they had all touched it for luck. They had called him Tough-Boy Billy for a while, and then Billy Lucky, and finally just Lucky; a ginger haired child they called Smoke had lost his whole arm to the same machine only two days before. He had shrieked for a while, as the new ones sometimes did, and then he had gone very quiet, and died before they were able to drag him off the factory floor. So Billy had earned his nickname, and he wore it with pride, until he had been traded again to a fat gentleman who did not speak, only motioned and spat.
The fat mans factory had made dirigibles to ferry the aristocracy between counties. Billy had learned this from one of the older girls who threaded the silk balloons. “They hang a little cart underneath, ya? Put big bands around the balloon, steel ones, rivets thick like your arm. They float off ‘cross the country.”
“Y’ can’ make metal float,” Billy had protested. “That’s stories.”
“It’s true!” the girl had insisted. “I’ve seen!”
“Liar,” said Billy. “Liar, y’ can’t!” It hadn’t mattered. A week later the girl had been traded, and Billy followed soon after. He never saw the dirigibles. He was always the boilerboy, and the boilerboys never got to see anything that wasn’t coal, furnaces or boilers.
He handled a shovel well enough, with nine fingers. Others managed with less. He had been in the lower levels of the same factory for half a year now, as best he could guess, and the furnaces banged up alright, so long as you were careful. So he shovelled and primed and shovelled and tightened pipes and shovelled, and soon he forgot the sun.
A new group arrived every few weeks. Some of them huddled together in the dorms and cried at night; they were the freshies, sold by their parents or shunted on by orphanages running low on beds. Others were veterans. Skins was one of those, traded a half-dozen times or more. He had started in the coal mines themselves, and his stories made Billy feel both blessed and envious of his adventures in the darkness. Rattling carts, plucking stones from jammed gears as they strained and threatened to take off your hand, the constant threat of an explosion deep within the mine rolling and roaring up through the tunnels…
“Things blow here though,” Skins protested. “Alla time!”
“Yeah, but that’s normal.”
Skins was a lanky child, upturned freckled nose hiding beneath the soot. His eyes darted about as if he was always afraid of attack. He sat on an upturned coal cart, his work forgotten for the moment. Billy stood by his side, surveying a set of new arrivals handle their shovels for the first time.
“These skags aren’t gunna last a week,” he spat. The new boys stood too close to the boilers when they swung, freezing up at every harmless pop.
“’s cause they haven’ seen a blow yet.” Billy picked something from his hair and crushed it between his fingernails. “One good blow, they’ll know when to duck.”
“Which’um gets a rest first?”
Billy scanned the room, surveying faces by the light of the fires. “That ‘un. Skagger wi’ the blue eyes.”
“Bluey boy?” The child couldn’t have been older than nine; a year older than Billy had been when he had begun tending the boilers. They watched him shuffle between the coal piles, soot stained and chubby cheeked. He always held an expression of quiet surprise, as if disbelieving where he was. His sky-blue eyes were puffy, as if he had been crying.
Skins nodded. “Bet you a rat?”
“I got rats. But I could always pop one.”
A week later boiler eleven blew. Billy recognised the noises early and called out to duck. Blue-eyes either didn’t hear or didn’t understand, and had the left side of his face neatly sheared off by debris. It was the first death in nearly a month.
Skins paid up the next day. The rat was still squirming, biting at his knuckles. “Still gunna pop it?”
“I got ‘nuff for th’ week. All gamey anyway.”
He pried open the hatch on the closest furnace with a rail spike, took the rat from Skins and tossed it inside. It squealed, high pitched and keening, and then there was nothing as it blackened and crisped in the flames.
“Huh,” said Skins. He scratched his head. “No pop.”
“All gamey,” Billy replied. “’nuther bet?”
“I’ll go double. Who?”
“Blondie with the joshy leg.”
“Yer on.”
Morris was built like a brick wall, broad shouldered and biceps like football bladders. There were rumours that, in his younger years, he had taken a knife to the chest in a barfight. Instead of dying as men were supposed to, he killed both his attackers with the shards of a pint mug. His hair was thinning up top, but his beard was still full, a tawny bush trimmed short to keep it from catching in the machines. He hammered and folded blades in the foundry, a long stone chamber with vaulted ceilings leading to smoke stacks. Every fire was manned, and all conversation was lost underneath the ringing of steel on steel.
Billy watched silently as Morris hammered out the first of his blades for the day. His forge roared and leaped, fed through pipes by children one level below. He shook sweat from his brow and it hissed in the fire.
‘This, son,” he said as he finished, “is going to make a fine sword. Shame.”
“Y’ din like swords?”
“Oh no, son,” he said. “But they’ll be ruining this with decoration and nonsense. Swords are best as swords.”
He rested the blade in the fire, watching it heat. When he lifted it out it stood as tall as a man and almost a foot wide. Veins popped as he struggled with the weight.
“Whysum so big?”
“It’s a parade blade. For a captain to wave about when he’s in his armour. Make a show of it.” He cooled the blade in a trough. “Many types of blades. Ye got swords to kill men, swords to kill horses, swords to cut open other armour. Though the way they make them nowadays, best to just cave in the pipes with a rock. You should see a suit blow when its boiler gets blocked! That’s a sight.”
“Y’ seen that?” Billy sat wide-eyed and attentive.
“Aye. I’ve seen.” He paused. “Seen some things… armour wars are nasty wars, son. Not something anyone should see. Better when it was just men.”
“I seen a kid, ‘is ‘ead was off,” said Billy proudly.
“So ye have,” mused Morris. He took up his hammer once more. “Shouldn’t spend too long up here. Not good for ye. Make ye cough. Can’t get a wife with hackthroat.”
Billy brushed off his trousers. “Where’d I keep a wife anyway?”
Morris nodded gravely, dipped the sword into the trough once more, lost in the steam.
They ate twice a day in a long, dim hall. At morning meal, sun would break in through the windows, patchy and scattered by the filth that caked the glass. At supper there was no light at all, and they navigated by stubby candles set in along the tables. The benches were worn smooth and seated twelve if they pressed in tight. They ate from metal bowls pressed from scrap. They had never seen cutlery.
Skins and Billy sat side by side, scooping out the remains of dinner with their fingers. It was potatoday, which was cause for excitement because it was usually (but not always) followed by meatday. They shovelled their meal, knowing that if they were not back by the boilers soon, there would be a beating to follow.
Skins belched as he finished. “Eh Billy. Do yuh think’ll ever get a baby?”
“Nuh. Y’ need a whore for a baby, dinye?”
“Me mamma weren’t a whore. Me Pa though… he was a man. Was him that sold me. Ma didn’ want him to, but he said would make me a man too.”
“I din’ have a Pa.”
“Yuh dunna have a Pa?”
Billy set his bowl down, licked clean. “Just Ma. Never had a Pa.”
“Was it her’n sold you?”
“I wasn’ sold.”
“I bet she did! Yer Ma sold you, I bet.”
“I din’ remember.”
He had been sent to deliver a message, and he had done so. Now he dawdled by where Morris hammered, mindful of the taskmaster passing by with his cane.
“Do they give y’ better vit’s than us?” asked Billy, dribbling a piece of scrap back and forth across the floor.
“I don’t work for food,” said Morris. The blade took shape under his hammer. “Got a wife to cook.”
“D’ye got a home?”
“A small one.” The man smiled, flashing as many gaps as teeth. “But it’s mine.”
“Why din y’ live with us? Dorm’s big enough.”
“I don’t think I’d do too well there, son. I’m the sort of man that needs his own space.”
Billy launched a bolt, bouncing it between two upright stacks, which he regarded as a goal and worthy of celebration. “D’ye think I could have me a house, some day?”
The sword sizzled. “Course ye can! I won’t lie to ye, son… it’s not easy. Costs money and time! Ye’ll be working ever’ day of yer life for it.”
“’m used to work.”
“It’s different, when you’re older.”
There was a piece of scrap on the floor shaped like a face, and Billy pocketed it for luck. “They din’ pay me any for being boilerboy.”
“You won’t be doing boilerboy and running errands forever, you know.”
“Skin’s said I’m t’ best boilerboy inna factory.”
“Still…” Morris set his sword down. He stretched, cracked his knuckles, inspected the space between his fingers and picked out the grit. “A house and a wife… good things to have, one day.”
“There’s a girl who works the Jennies…”
“Dangerous, those. They say they have Jennies over in New England that spin themselves, would you believe? Hands that move themselves, like the hands on suits… Do ye fancy her?”
Billy shook his head. “Jes’ a girl. But she could be m’ wife.”
“When ye grow up a bit, son. When you’re out of here.”
“Wi’ the dirigibles and the armour?”
“Aye. And the cities and clockwork parrots and all. Lot to see. One day.”
“I’d like t’ see it.” Billy paused. “I din’ know I could leave.”
“Hmm.” Morris took up the blade once more. “Do ye even understand why yer here, son?”
The boy flinched, ducking his head. “Yessir,” he said in monotone. He spoke as if reciting a bible verse. “Everyone works for their keep. People what din work are lazy, they steal from hard workin’ men, worse’n deserters. ‘m no deserter, no sir.”
“No,” said Morris quietly. “Yer not, son.”
Supper was done and the dorms had been locked. The boys crowded two to a bed, some sleeping, others talking by candlelight. They hushed when footsteps passed the dorm, hoping that it would not be an inspection, relaxing when the noises faded down the hall.
There was a jingle of keys, and the boys pulled one another out of bed in a tangled rush, kicking their chamberpots out of sight. The door creaked open and the taskmaster entered.
He was short and stocky, monocle screwed in tight and watch chain shining from his pocket, but what drew the boys attention most was his cane, polished oak tipped with bronze. No matter what the country, what the factory produced, or whether the taskmaster even spoke Billy’s language, he would carry a cane. The crack of wood against his knees or spine spoke clearly enough.
He walked the length of the dorm, frowning over the state of the beds. “Filthy,” he said. “You two. Fetch scrubbers.”
The two boys rushed off as the taskmaster settled into a wooden chair. “Head boys. How many sick? Any off resting?”
Billy watched as the three eldest children in the dorm went forward to give their reports. He stood straight backed, silent, waiting, hoping.
The taskmaster stood, leaning on his cane. “Good lads,” he said. “Now, quickly. Any other reports from you boys? Any questions?”
It was this that Billy had been hoping for. It was rare that the taskmaster himself would undertake an inspection, but rarer still that he would answer their questions. Perhaps once a month or less would a boy be able to ask for a new shovel, a different bed to share. Sometimes these requests would even be fulfilled.
Two boys came up: Billy and a scruffy child who stank of grease. “Sir, would I be allowed to write a letter home, to me maam, sir?”
The taskmaster nodded slowly. “You may. I will bring some paper, next time I visit. Do you know how to write?”
The boy shook his head. “Well,” said the taskmaster, “you’ll have to find someone who can, to help you. And you?”
“M’ names Billy, sir.” His knees shook like a freshie skags. “Sir, I’d like to go.”
“Go?”
“Yessir. I’d like t’ see th’ dirigibles, sir.”
“We don’t make dirigibles.”
“Nossir. Other dirigibles. I’d like t’ leave and get married.”
The taskmaster chuckled, his lips curling into a grin. “You can’t get married, boy. You live here.”
“Yessir. I’d like to leave the factory, sir. Din’ wan’ be a boiler boy anymore.”
The taskmaster stopped laughing. He stood sharply, his grip tightening around his cane. “You can’t leave. You live here. You live here and work for me.”
“Sir.” The room had fallen silent, boys inching away from the taskmaster to stand by their beds and huddle. “I’d like to go and buy a house…”
The cane swung down in a lazy arc and banged against Billy’s collarbone. It was a warning smack. “Quiet. You are my ward and you cannot leave. You will work here until you are a man, and then you may find a house and I will pay you money instead of food, but until then you will not leave.”
“When’ll I be a man, sir?”
“When you are sixteen. Old enough to join the His Majesty’s Army, old enough to go.”
“’s too long, sir. Can I leave now?”
The first blow landed above his temple and he dropped, his eyes rolling into his head. The second cracked across his teeth and he tasted blood. Something came loose and he swallowed it as the cane came down again, again, again. The taskmaster roared above him. “You are my ward, you are mine! Be quiet! You will be quiet!”
His eyelids filled with blood and he let himself drift into unconsciousness.
He dreamed for a while, waking fitfully and remembering nothing but screams. Soon he realised that there was screaming all about him even when he was awake, and by the third night he could no longer tell the difference between dreaming and reality.
On the fifth morning they ejected him from the sick ward with his arm in a sling and the four fingers of his left hand splinted tight. “Lucky kid,” the matron barked at him as he left. “We wanted to chop it off. Would have saved us a lot of time.” He said nothing, taking the stairs cautiously. He had not walked them since losing his finger, and then he had been proud of his injury, rushing down the stairs and tearing off the bandages. Now he shuffled down step by step, keeping count until he reached the bottom. One hundred and twenty stairs put him back in the boiler room.
He shovelled as best he could until it felt as if his other arm were ready to break, and then hid in the dorms, shivering underneath a blanket. Skins found him there after supper.
“I was gunna bring yer bowl. They wouldn’ let me.”
“’s okay.”
“He banged you up good, huh?”
Billy nodded towards his hand. “Won’t be t’ best boilerboy no more.”
“You weren’t really the best anyway. I jus’ said that.”
They sat together without speaking. Billy chewed on the edge of his blanket, watching how the boys would avert their eyes as they entered the room. He hid his face.
“T’ master said I can leave when ‘m sixteen. That’s four year off.”
“Long time.”
“’m gonna run away.”
Skins spasmed and grabbed Billy’s wrist. “No! Skag tried that once, they fixed ‘m so they dunna run no more! Broke ‘is knees and set ‘im to oiling pins!”
“’m not scared.”
“Yer an idiot.”
“Not staying here.”
Skins stood, his eyes fearful. “They’ll catch you and you won’ run again. I bet.”
“I won’ get caught.”
Skins took a step back. “You din’ tell me nothin’,” he said, and turned away. Billy watched him retreat, then curled in upon himself and waited for sleep.
Billy ate morning meal alone. He left his gruel half finished, his stomach turning tricks. He shovelled till the afternoon, noting how the skags avoided his gaze. He overheard two of them talking by the coalcarts; “If’’n the master sees you talkin’ wif Billy Lucky he’ll have yer ‘ead!” He burned with shame, wanting at that moment to throw himself into the furnace and be done. But then he would be dead without a chance to see what Morris had seen, and especially the chance to prove Skins wrong…
There was an adult voice shouting above the roar of the boilers – a coalhand waving for attention. “Messageboy! Whose the messageboy?”
Billy threw down his shovel. “’m the messageboy,” he said, and the coalhand dropped down to whisper in his ear.
“Get upstairs, tell the Shippingsmaster that there’s not much left, we’ll be out by night. If he don’t get a hundred carts worth of coal in here by tomorrow then the furnaces are off, and that won’t sit well with the Taskmaster. Got it?” The coalhand patted him on the shoulder. “Get to. What’re you doing, working with an arm like that anyway? Kids…”
Billy ran, taking the stairs by twos and threes. On the upper level the men were at work banging armour plates from sheets of steel; he saw Morris silhouetted against a leaping flame and hid his face with his good hand. Then he was through the forge, sprinting down a wide corridor where sunlight stole in through peeling ceiling boards. The Shippingsmasters door came up on his left; he couldn’t read the inscription, but there was a cart carved into the wood that was clear enough. He slowed, reached up to knock and stopped.
He had been this far through the factory only twice before. Past the Shippingsmasters office were the dumbwaiters that dropped coalcarts down to the boilerrooms. Past that, he had never seen; no skag was allowed through the double doors at the end of the corridor. But he had been told that there were docks for the coal to arrive and armours to leave; a door out of the factory to wherever in the world he was. He looked around, checking that the hall was empty. There was no sound besides his breathing. He moved past the Shippingsmasters office as quietly as he could and pushed through the doors.
The light was a knife in his eyes, brighter than he knew, far more brilliant than he ever remembered, a thousand furnaces in one. He covered his face, feeling tears run hot down his cheeks, and slowly focussed. He looked up and gasped.
He stood in a long display chamber, white marble floor gleaming and stone serpents winding up columns to the vaulted glass ceiling, the sun reflected over and over in perfectly clear panes. Every facet of the chamber was polished to mirror finish, so vivid that he had to blink to know it was not a dream.
A raised platform ran the length of the hall. Upon it stood the armours in rows, each sprung wide with guts bared, bronze piping gleaming in the light. They each towered over his head, polished to mirror sheen, gauntleted fingers tensed as if ready to take up arms. The inside hatches were padded down, ready for a man to climb inside and take control of an intricate array of levers and faucets. Panels on the side of each leg had been left open; inside were a maze of springs and cogs, some no larger than his fingernails, oiled and slick.
He imagined the line of armours charging into battle, each with a soldier inside roaring and blood hungry, swords raised as the pistolshots of the enemy bounced away like insect bites. Armours are nasty wars, Morris had said, but he couldn’t believe it. They were magnificent, the most fantastic and intricate boilers he had ever seen.
His face was reflected in the breastplate, and he examined his own features for the first time in many months. He had not changed. Thin faced and grubby, eyes puffy with lack of sleep. His hair had once been blonde, he thought, or maybe red, like the Scot boys. Now it was black through with coal and filth.
Billy spat. “Skags,” he said, and smeared over his reflection.
Footsteps behind him, quick and heavy, hobnailed boots on stone. Hands came down on his shoulders, squeezing his broken collarbone. He wailed as he was spun about, and suddenly he was looking Morris in the eyes.
“Caught ye, son,” the man said. “Ye fool.”
“Lemme go! ‘m running away!” Billy protested, slapping. Morris frowned and clamped down tight, and Billy screamed once more.
“They saw ye run,” said Morris. “So yer an escapee. A ward running away, never good… ye don’t know the trouble yer in.”
“Wanted… to see… dirigibles…”
“I got told.” The man sighed, relaxed his grip and stroked his beard. ‘For what I told ye, I’m sorry. Put ideas in yer head you weren’t old enough to have. Leave and get married, ye silly young fool?”
“Y’ said…”
“I filled ye with dreams. I’m sorry.”
Billy burst into tears, and Morris watched dispassionately. “Yer a runaway. So ye got a choice. I can let ye go to try yer luck. Don’t fancy yer chances though, even though ye got close. Did ye know the back docks were here, or did ye just guess? No matter… Or I can turn ye in, and see what happens. It won’t go well, but better than one of them catches ye. They don’t take kind to runaways.”
“Will they kill me?”
“They won’t kill ye.” Morris wiped the boys eyes. “But you’ll wish for it.”
“Let m’ go.”
Morris stepped back. “Good luck to ye then, son. But when they ask, ye didn’ see me and I didn’ see ye. Understand?”
“I do.” Billy turned away. “Y’ just like Skins.”
Morris grunted. “I din know any Skins.”
“’es a skag.”
He ran past the armours, each looming and accusing. Deserter! Deserter! He held his hands over his ears and turned the corner. Morris waited until he vanished and then turned, walked away. There were two shouts, “Here!” and “Got ‘im!” Then there were screams, and then nothing.
Morris did not break his stride.
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The taskmaster slapped at them with the end of his cane, shunting them into groups. “All you, ginger boys. Your name is now Jack. You, darkies. You’re all Jimmy. You three, blondies. Your name is Billy.”
The smallest of the three held his chin proud and defiant. “M’ names not Billy,” he said, and suddenly the cane cracked against his head, the world pinwheeling. He dropped to his knees and tried to hold his skull together. He screamed, and then the cane came down again against his neck and he couldn’t scream any more.
“Your name is Billy,” the taskmaster said again. His cane vanished inside his cloak, he screwed down his topper and turned away. “Set them to the bellows.”
The boy dryretched, yanked to his feet before his vision could clear. “Keep up, Billy,” said the boilerman, his overalls soot-stained to match his skin. His remaining teeth shone behind dark lips. “You gunna grab a shovel, get you some muscles on you!”
“Yessir,” he said, keeping his head down. There was a lump rising above his ear that gave wetly when he pressed on it. “I’m never had a shovel ‘fore, sir.”
“You dunna be calling me sir,” the man said. “I’m just Jimmy.”
The first trade was the hardest.
There were friends he had made at the glassblowers, boys he had worked alongside for almost a year. But their faces were always changing, new boys arriving while others were carted away. The furnaces had a habit of backdrafting, and if you weren’t quick on your toes you were liable to get caught in the face. But he had always been nimble and alert. He had seen many friends come and go, and he would miss them all.
The taskmaster bartered him for two spinning girls and a cart of coal. They checked his arms and his eyes, and the man buying him clucked appreciatively when he counted the boys fingers and arrived at ten. His new master was dressed in bright yellow velvet, and when it brushed against his skin the boy shivered. He had never felt anything so smooth.
The master mumbled to himself in foreign tongue, and then turned to the boy. “Name?”
“Billy,” the boy replied.
He was twelve now, which was two hands and three. His left ring finger had been spat out the back end of a turbine a year earlier, torn off when a gear had jumped. He had taken the bandages off early and showed the stump to the other boys in his dorm, and they had all touched it for luck. They had called him Tough-Boy Billy for a while, and then Billy Lucky, and finally just Lucky; a ginger haired child they called Smoke had lost his whole arm to the same machine only two days before. He had shrieked for a while, as the new ones sometimes did, and then he had gone very quiet, and died before they were able to drag him off the factory floor. So Billy had earned his nickname, and he wore it with pride, until he had been traded again to a fat gentleman who did not speak, only motioned and spat.
The fat mans factory had made dirigibles to ferry the aristocracy between counties. Billy had learned this from one of the older girls who threaded the silk balloons. “They hang a little cart underneath, ya? Put big bands around the balloon, steel ones, rivets thick like your arm. They float off ‘cross the country.”
“Y’ can’ make metal float,” Billy had protested. “That’s stories.”
“It’s true!” the girl had insisted. “I’ve seen!”
“Liar,” said Billy. “Liar, y’ can’t!” It hadn’t mattered. A week later the girl had been traded, and Billy followed soon after. He never saw the dirigibles. He was always the boilerboy, and the boilerboys never got to see anything that wasn’t coal, furnaces or boilers.
He handled a shovel well enough, with nine fingers. Others managed with less. He had been in the lower levels of the same factory for half a year now, as best he could guess, and the furnaces banged up alright, so long as you were careful. So he shovelled and primed and shovelled and tightened pipes and shovelled, and soon he forgot the sun.
A new group arrived every few weeks. Some of them huddled together in the dorms and cried at night; they were the freshies, sold by their parents or shunted on by orphanages running low on beds. Others were veterans. Skins was one of those, traded a half-dozen times or more. He had started in the coal mines themselves, and his stories made Billy feel both blessed and envious of his adventures in the darkness. Rattling carts, plucking stones from jammed gears as they strained and threatened to take off your hand, the constant threat of an explosion deep within the mine rolling and roaring up through the tunnels…
“Things blow here though,” Skins protested. “Alla time!”
“Yeah, but that’s normal.”
Skins was a lanky child, upturned freckled nose hiding beneath the soot. His eyes darted about as if he was always afraid of attack. He sat on an upturned coal cart, his work forgotten for the moment. Billy stood by his side, surveying a set of new arrivals handle their shovels for the first time.
“These skags aren’t gunna last a week,” he spat. The new boys stood too close to the boilers when they swung, freezing up at every harmless pop.
“’s cause they haven’ seen a blow yet.” Billy picked something from his hair and crushed it between his fingernails. “One good blow, they’ll know when to duck.”
“Which’um gets a rest first?”
Billy scanned the room, surveying faces by the light of the fires. “That ‘un. Skagger wi’ the blue eyes.”
“Bluey boy?” The child couldn’t have been older than nine; a year older than Billy had been when he had begun tending the boilers. They watched him shuffle between the coal piles, soot stained and chubby cheeked. He always held an expression of quiet surprise, as if disbelieving where he was. His sky-blue eyes were puffy, as if he had been crying.
Skins nodded. “Bet you a rat?”
“I got rats. But I could always pop one.”
A week later boiler eleven blew. Billy recognised the noises early and called out to duck. Blue-eyes either didn’t hear or didn’t understand, and had the left side of his face neatly sheared off by debris. It was the first death in nearly a month.
Skins paid up the next day. The rat was still squirming, biting at his knuckles. “Still gunna pop it?”
“I got ‘nuff for th’ week. All gamey anyway.”
He pried open the hatch on the closest furnace with a rail spike, took the rat from Skins and tossed it inside. It squealed, high pitched and keening, and then there was nothing as it blackened and crisped in the flames.
“Huh,” said Skins. He scratched his head. “No pop.”
“All gamey,” Billy replied. “’nuther bet?”
“I’ll go double. Who?”
“Blondie with the joshy leg.”
“Yer on.”
Morris was built like a brick wall, broad shouldered and biceps like football bladders. There were rumours that, in his younger years, he had taken a knife to the chest in a barfight. Instead of dying as men were supposed to, he killed both his attackers with the shards of a pint mug. His hair was thinning up top, but his beard was still full, a tawny bush trimmed short to keep it from catching in the machines. He hammered and folded blades in the foundry, a long stone chamber with vaulted ceilings leading to smoke stacks. Every fire was manned, and all conversation was lost underneath the ringing of steel on steel.
Billy watched silently as Morris hammered out the first of his blades for the day. His forge roared and leaped, fed through pipes by children one level below. He shook sweat from his brow and it hissed in the fire.
‘This, son,” he said as he finished, “is going to make a fine sword. Shame.”
“Y’ din like swords?”
“Oh no, son,” he said. “But they’ll be ruining this with decoration and nonsense. Swords are best as swords.”
He rested the blade in the fire, watching it heat. When he lifted it out it stood as tall as a man and almost a foot wide. Veins popped as he struggled with the weight.
“Whysum so big?”
“It’s a parade blade. For a captain to wave about when he’s in his armour. Make a show of it.” He cooled the blade in a trough. “Many types of blades. Ye got swords to kill men, swords to kill horses, swords to cut open other armour. Though the way they make them nowadays, best to just cave in the pipes with a rock. You should see a suit blow when its boiler gets blocked! That’s a sight.”
“Y’ seen that?” Billy sat wide-eyed and attentive.
“Aye. I’ve seen.” He paused. “Seen some things… armour wars are nasty wars, son. Not something anyone should see. Better when it was just men.”
“I seen a kid, ‘is ‘ead was off,” said Billy proudly.
“So ye have,” mused Morris. He took up his hammer once more. “Shouldn’t spend too long up here. Not good for ye. Make ye cough. Can’t get a wife with hackthroat.”
Billy brushed off his trousers. “Where’d I keep a wife anyway?”
Morris nodded gravely, dipped the sword into the trough once more, lost in the steam.
They ate twice a day in a long, dim hall. At morning meal, sun would break in through the windows, patchy and scattered by the filth that caked the glass. At supper there was no light at all, and they navigated by stubby candles set in along the tables. The benches were worn smooth and seated twelve if they pressed in tight. They ate from metal bowls pressed from scrap. They had never seen cutlery.
Skins and Billy sat side by side, scooping out the remains of dinner with their fingers. It was potatoday, which was cause for excitement because it was usually (but not always) followed by meatday. They shovelled their meal, knowing that if they were not back by the boilers soon, there would be a beating to follow.
Skins belched as he finished. “Eh Billy. Do yuh think’ll ever get a baby?”
“Nuh. Y’ need a whore for a baby, dinye?”
“Me mamma weren’t a whore. Me Pa though… he was a man. Was him that sold me. Ma didn’ want him to, but he said would make me a man too.”
“I din’ have a Pa.”
“Yuh dunna have a Pa?”
Billy set his bowl down, licked clean. “Just Ma. Never had a Pa.”
“Was it her’n sold you?”
“I wasn’ sold.”
“I bet she did! Yer Ma sold you, I bet.”
“I din’ remember.”
He had been sent to deliver a message, and he had done so. Now he dawdled by where Morris hammered, mindful of the taskmaster passing by with his cane.
“Do they give y’ better vit’s than us?” asked Billy, dribbling a piece of scrap back and forth across the floor.
“I don’t work for food,” said Morris. The blade took shape under his hammer. “Got a wife to cook.”
“D’ye got a home?”
“A small one.” The man smiled, flashing as many gaps as teeth. “But it’s mine.”
“Why din y’ live with us? Dorm’s big enough.”
“I don’t think I’d do too well there, son. I’m the sort of man that needs his own space.”
Billy launched a bolt, bouncing it between two upright stacks, which he regarded as a goal and worthy of celebration. “D’ye think I could have me a house, some day?”
The sword sizzled. “Course ye can! I won’t lie to ye, son… it’s not easy. Costs money and time! Ye’ll be working ever’ day of yer life for it.”
“’m used to work.”
“It’s different, when you’re older.”
There was a piece of scrap on the floor shaped like a face, and Billy pocketed it for luck. “They din’ pay me any for being boilerboy.”
“You won’t be doing boilerboy and running errands forever, you know.”
“Skin’s said I’m t’ best boilerboy inna factory.”
“Still…” Morris set his sword down. He stretched, cracked his knuckles, inspected the space between his fingers and picked out the grit. “A house and a wife… good things to have, one day.”
“There’s a girl who works the Jennies…”
“Dangerous, those. They say they have Jennies over in New England that spin themselves, would you believe? Hands that move themselves, like the hands on suits… Do ye fancy her?”
Billy shook his head. “Jes’ a girl. But she could be m’ wife.”
“When ye grow up a bit, son. When you’re out of here.”
“Wi’ the dirigibles and the armour?”
“Aye. And the cities and clockwork parrots and all. Lot to see. One day.”
“I’d like t’ see it.” Billy paused. “I din’ know I could leave.”
“Hmm.” Morris took up the blade once more. “Do ye even understand why yer here, son?”
The boy flinched, ducking his head. “Yessir,” he said in monotone. He spoke as if reciting a bible verse. “Everyone works for their keep. People what din work are lazy, they steal from hard workin’ men, worse’n deserters. ‘m no deserter, no sir.”
“No,” said Morris quietly. “Yer not, son.”
Supper was done and the dorms had been locked. The boys crowded two to a bed, some sleeping, others talking by candlelight. They hushed when footsteps passed the dorm, hoping that it would not be an inspection, relaxing when the noises faded down the hall.
There was a jingle of keys, and the boys pulled one another out of bed in a tangled rush, kicking their chamberpots out of sight. The door creaked open and the taskmaster entered.
He was short and stocky, monocle screwed in tight and watch chain shining from his pocket, but what drew the boys attention most was his cane, polished oak tipped with bronze. No matter what the country, what the factory produced, or whether the taskmaster even spoke Billy’s language, he would carry a cane. The crack of wood against his knees or spine spoke clearly enough.
He walked the length of the dorm, frowning over the state of the beds. “Filthy,” he said. “You two. Fetch scrubbers.”
The two boys rushed off as the taskmaster settled into a wooden chair. “Head boys. How many sick? Any off resting?”
Billy watched as the three eldest children in the dorm went forward to give their reports. He stood straight backed, silent, waiting, hoping.
The taskmaster stood, leaning on his cane. “Good lads,” he said. “Now, quickly. Any other reports from you boys? Any questions?”
It was this that Billy had been hoping for. It was rare that the taskmaster himself would undertake an inspection, but rarer still that he would answer their questions. Perhaps once a month or less would a boy be able to ask for a new shovel, a different bed to share. Sometimes these requests would even be fulfilled.
Two boys came up: Billy and a scruffy child who stank of grease. “Sir, would I be allowed to write a letter home, to me maam, sir?”
The taskmaster nodded slowly. “You may. I will bring some paper, next time I visit. Do you know how to write?”
The boy shook his head. “Well,” said the taskmaster, “you’ll have to find someone who can, to help you. And you?”
“M’ names Billy, sir.” His knees shook like a freshie skags. “Sir, I’d like to go.”
“Go?”
“Yessir. I’d like t’ see th’ dirigibles, sir.”
“We don’t make dirigibles.”
“Nossir. Other dirigibles. I’d like t’ leave and get married.”
The taskmaster chuckled, his lips curling into a grin. “You can’t get married, boy. You live here.”
“Yessir. I’d like to leave the factory, sir. Din’ wan’ be a boiler boy anymore.”
The taskmaster stopped laughing. He stood sharply, his grip tightening around his cane. “You can’t leave. You live here. You live here and work for me.”
“Sir.” The room had fallen silent, boys inching away from the taskmaster to stand by their beds and huddle. “I’d like to go and buy a house…”
The cane swung down in a lazy arc and banged against Billy’s collarbone. It was a warning smack. “Quiet. You are my ward and you cannot leave. You will work here until you are a man, and then you may find a house and I will pay you money instead of food, but until then you will not leave.”
“When’ll I be a man, sir?”
“When you are sixteen. Old enough to join the His Majesty’s Army, old enough to go.”
“’s too long, sir. Can I leave now?”
The first blow landed above his temple and he dropped, his eyes rolling into his head. The second cracked across his teeth and he tasted blood. Something came loose and he swallowed it as the cane came down again, again, again. The taskmaster roared above him. “You are my ward, you are mine! Be quiet! You will be quiet!”
His eyelids filled with blood and he let himself drift into unconsciousness.
He dreamed for a while, waking fitfully and remembering nothing but screams. Soon he realised that there was screaming all about him even when he was awake, and by the third night he could no longer tell the difference between dreaming and reality.
On the fifth morning they ejected him from the sick ward with his arm in a sling and the four fingers of his left hand splinted tight. “Lucky kid,” the matron barked at him as he left. “We wanted to chop it off. Would have saved us a lot of time.” He said nothing, taking the stairs cautiously. He had not walked them since losing his finger, and then he had been proud of his injury, rushing down the stairs and tearing off the bandages. Now he shuffled down step by step, keeping count until he reached the bottom. One hundred and twenty stairs put him back in the boiler room.
He shovelled as best he could until it felt as if his other arm were ready to break, and then hid in the dorms, shivering underneath a blanket. Skins found him there after supper.
“I was gunna bring yer bowl. They wouldn’ let me.”
“’s okay.”
“He banged you up good, huh?”
Billy nodded towards his hand. “Won’t be t’ best boilerboy no more.”
“You weren’t really the best anyway. I jus’ said that.”
They sat together without speaking. Billy chewed on the edge of his blanket, watching how the boys would avert their eyes as they entered the room. He hid his face.
“T’ master said I can leave when ‘m sixteen. That’s four year off.”
“Long time.”
“’m gonna run away.”
Skins spasmed and grabbed Billy’s wrist. “No! Skag tried that once, they fixed ‘m so they dunna run no more! Broke ‘is knees and set ‘im to oiling pins!”
“’m not scared.”
“Yer an idiot.”
“Not staying here.”
Skins stood, his eyes fearful. “They’ll catch you and you won’ run again. I bet.”
“I won’ get caught.”
Skins took a step back. “You din’ tell me nothin’,” he said, and turned away. Billy watched him retreat, then curled in upon himself and waited for sleep.
Billy ate morning meal alone. He left his gruel half finished, his stomach turning tricks. He shovelled till the afternoon, noting how the skags avoided his gaze. He overheard two of them talking by the coalcarts; “If’’n the master sees you talkin’ wif Billy Lucky he’ll have yer ‘ead!” He burned with shame, wanting at that moment to throw himself into the furnace and be done. But then he would be dead without a chance to see what Morris had seen, and especially the chance to prove Skins wrong…
There was an adult voice shouting above the roar of the boilers – a coalhand waving for attention. “Messageboy! Whose the messageboy?”
Billy threw down his shovel. “’m the messageboy,” he said, and the coalhand dropped down to whisper in his ear.
“Get upstairs, tell the Shippingsmaster that there’s not much left, we’ll be out by night. If he don’t get a hundred carts worth of coal in here by tomorrow then the furnaces are off, and that won’t sit well with the Taskmaster. Got it?” The coalhand patted him on the shoulder. “Get to. What’re you doing, working with an arm like that anyway? Kids…”
Billy ran, taking the stairs by twos and threes. On the upper level the men were at work banging armour plates from sheets of steel; he saw Morris silhouetted against a leaping flame and hid his face with his good hand. Then he was through the forge, sprinting down a wide corridor where sunlight stole in through peeling ceiling boards. The Shippingsmasters door came up on his left; he couldn’t read the inscription, but there was a cart carved into the wood that was clear enough. He slowed, reached up to knock and stopped.
He had been this far through the factory only twice before. Past the Shippingsmasters office were the dumbwaiters that dropped coalcarts down to the boilerrooms. Past that, he had never seen; no skag was allowed through the double doors at the end of the corridor. But he had been told that there were docks for the coal to arrive and armours to leave; a door out of the factory to wherever in the world he was. He looked around, checking that the hall was empty. There was no sound besides his breathing. He moved past the Shippingsmasters office as quietly as he could and pushed through the doors.
The light was a knife in his eyes, brighter than he knew, far more brilliant than he ever remembered, a thousand furnaces in one. He covered his face, feeling tears run hot down his cheeks, and slowly focussed. He looked up and gasped.
He stood in a long display chamber, white marble floor gleaming and stone serpents winding up columns to the vaulted glass ceiling, the sun reflected over and over in perfectly clear panes. Every facet of the chamber was polished to mirror finish, so vivid that he had to blink to know it was not a dream.
A raised platform ran the length of the hall. Upon it stood the armours in rows, each sprung wide with guts bared, bronze piping gleaming in the light. They each towered over his head, polished to mirror sheen, gauntleted fingers tensed as if ready to take up arms. The inside hatches were padded down, ready for a man to climb inside and take control of an intricate array of levers and faucets. Panels on the side of each leg had been left open; inside were a maze of springs and cogs, some no larger than his fingernails, oiled and slick.
He imagined the line of armours charging into battle, each with a soldier inside roaring and blood hungry, swords raised as the pistolshots of the enemy bounced away like insect bites. Armours are nasty wars, Morris had said, but he couldn’t believe it. They were magnificent, the most fantastic and intricate boilers he had ever seen.
His face was reflected in the breastplate, and he examined his own features for the first time in many months. He had not changed. Thin faced and grubby, eyes puffy with lack of sleep. His hair had once been blonde, he thought, or maybe red, like the Scot boys. Now it was black through with coal and filth.
Billy spat. “Skags,” he said, and smeared over his reflection.
Footsteps behind him, quick and heavy, hobnailed boots on stone. Hands came down on his shoulders, squeezing his broken collarbone. He wailed as he was spun about, and suddenly he was looking Morris in the eyes.
“Caught ye, son,” the man said. “Ye fool.”
“Lemme go! ‘m running away!” Billy protested, slapping. Morris frowned and clamped down tight, and Billy screamed once more.
“They saw ye run,” said Morris. “So yer an escapee. A ward running away, never good… ye don’t know the trouble yer in.”
“Wanted… to see… dirigibles…”
“I got told.” The man sighed, relaxed his grip and stroked his beard. ‘For what I told ye, I’m sorry. Put ideas in yer head you weren’t old enough to have. Leave and get married, ye silly young fool?”
“Y’ said…”
“I filled ye with dreams. I’m sorry.”
Billy burst into tears, and Morris watched dispassionately. “Yer a runaway. So ye got a choice. I can let ye go to try yer luck. Don’t fancy yer chances though, even though ye got close. Did ye know the back docks were here, or did ye just guess? No matter… Or I can turn ye in, and see what happens. It won’t go well, but better than one of them catches ye. They don’t take kind to runaways.”
“Will they kill me?”
“They won’t kill ye.” Morris wiped the boys eyes. “But you’ll wish for it.”
“Let m’ go.”
Morris stepped back. “Good luck to ye then, son. But when they ask, ye didn’ see me and I didn’ see ye. Understand?”
“I do.” Billy turned away. “Y’ just like Skins.”
Morris grunted. “I din know any Skins.”
“’es a skag.”
He ran past the armours, each looming and accusing. Deserter! Deserter! He held his hands over his ears and turned the corner. Morris waited until he vanished and then turned, walked away. There were two shouts, “Here!” and “Got ‘im!” Then there were screams, and then nothing.
Morris did not break his stride.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Chapter 5 finished, and the results are in...
I finished the chapter, I mailed it off to a few friends, I waited for their reaction.
One: "FUCK YOU RUZ."
...I guess that's good.
Two: *gapes silently, tears prickling her eyes*
...that's bad, but also good.
I never thought I could write anything powerful.
One: "FUCK YOU RUZ."
...I guess that's good.
Two: *gapes silently, tears prickling her eyes*
...that's bad, but also good.
I never thought I could write anything powerful.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Chapter 5 nears the end...
Getting to a real tough point. Something I've debated over and over. I don't know if doing this to my story is the right thing to do.
Got a lot of editing ahead. Gonna try and get in contact with my old English teacher when I finish the draft, see if she can help.
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“How deep does this place go?” Pal called, walking beside the boys.
“Till we hit L-A, I guess,” said Aus. “What’re you thinking?”
“Just that these are a lot of rooms just for storage.”
“Not at all. You never really want exploring back home, did you? Lots of places we weren’t supposed to be. But these can’t be storage chambers, not a chance. Doors too small, and you couldn’t fit any size container down this hall. No, I’ve got no idea what this place is for.”
L-B 1-30 went past without fanfare, as did L-A 1-30. The lighter sputtered and shook, and Alix watched it closely. She licked a finger and held it in the air, nodding. “Air somewhere ahead.” The corridor was coming to an end, and beyond it they could see an open chamber, the ceiling still awkwardly low, the furthest walls stretching out beyond the reach of the light. They entered and clustered together like chicks in a nest, turning in circles in search of the edges.
“Where to?” asked Alix, clinging tight to Aus. She was barely able to make out her companions face; the doorway through which they had come was already gone. “Shouldn’t we go back and follow the wall?”
“I’ll find the way,” Foster said. “Just stick by me.” He advanced through the chamber with unusual care, reaching up at times to run his hands along the ceiling, playing with the light fittings. He held the lighter beside one, inspecting the curved tube underneath the plastic. It all seemed intact, and when he rapped with his knuckles nothing inside rattled or shook apart. He pondered without slowing.
They reached the far wall, mottled with moss and red dust. Aus drew a circle with his fingertips, digging through to the concrete underneath. “How long has it been since anyone was here?” he asked. Nobody replied. He wiped his hand on his pants. “Before our time.”
Rei stepped up to the wall. “Long before,” she said, prodding at the wall inside the circle Aus had drawn. She added a final curved line at the bottom, making a comical smiling face. Aus looked at what she had left and chuckled. ”Where now?” she asked.
“There.” Foster pointed to a nearby doorway cut from the stone. “Or…” He looked in the other direction. There was another opening on the very limits of his vision, and he jogged over to have a look inside. “This one,” he decided. “Take a look. Up or down?”
They crowded around and looked through; behind the doorway was a stone stairwell leading off into darkness both above and below. Rei rapped at the wall, and tried to gauge the echo. “We could split?” she suggested.
“No, no, no.” Alix waved her down. “One lighter, remember? I say up, see if it comes out on top. Right Aus?”
Aus nodded and smiled, pulling her in to his side. “Going up’s a good idea.”
“We don’t need to find another way out,” said Foster. “Lets head down, find out how deep this goes. Get an idea of what it is. Hell, the answers always seem to be at the bottom, right?”
“Once, not always. This place could be huge, we could be here all night. We decided, we’d be back out tonight.”
Foster looked at him sideways. “Can’t settle your mind on anything, eh? Come down, go back out, stay, run… fix on something, alright? Shit, you’re worse than me.” He watched his friends eyes slip to Alix and back, and knew the problem.
“You know what?” Foster continued. “You choose.” He closed the lighter and fumbled it into Aus’s hand, listening to everybody shuffle around him. “You know where to go? Take us, I’m sitting out.”
Aus said nothing, opening the lighter and clicking it on. The flame rolled in his hands. “We’ll go down,” he said, toneless, and walked through the doorway.
----------------------------
Got a lot of editing ahead. Gonna try and get in contact with my old English teacher when I finish the draft, see if she can help.
-------------------------------------
“How deep does this place go?” Pal called, walking beside the boys.
“Till we hit L-A, I guess,” said Aus. “What’re you thinking?”
“Just that these are a lot of rooms just for storage.”
“Not at all. You never really want exploring back home, did you? Lots of places we weren’t supposed to be. But these can’t be storage chambers, not a chance. Doors too small, and you couldn’t fit any size container down this hall. No, I’ve got no idea what this place is for.”
L-B 1-30 went past without fanfare, as did L-A 1-30. The lighter sputtered and shook, and Alix watched it closely. She licked a finger and held it in the air, nodding. “Air somewhere ahead.” The corridor was coming to an end, and beyond it they could see an open chamber, the ceiling still awkwardly low, the furthest walls stretching out beyond the reach of the light. They entered and clustered together like chicks in a nest, turning in circles in search of the edges.
“Where to?” asked Alix, clinging tight to Aus. She was barely able to make out her companions face; the doorway through which they had come was already gone. “Shouldn’t we go back and follow the wall?”
“I’ll find the way,” Foster said. “Just stick by me.” He advanced through the chamber with unusual care, reaching up at times to run his hands along the ceiling, playing with the light fittings. He held the lighter beside one, inspecting the curved tube underneath the plastic. It all seemed intact, and when he rapped with his knuckles nothing inside rattled or shook apart. He pondered without slowing.
They reached the far wall, mottled with moss and red dust. Aus drew a circle with his fingertips, digging through to the concrete underneath. “How long has it been since anyone was here?” he asked. Nobody replied. He wiped his hand on his pants. “Before our time.”
Rei stepped up to the wall. “Long before,” she said, prodding at the wall inside the circle Aus had drawn. She added a final curved line at the bottom, making a comical smiling face. Aus looked at what she had left and chuckled. ”Where now?” she asked.
“There.” Foster pointed to a nearby doorway cut from the stone. “Or…” He looked in the other direction. There was another opening on the very limits of his vision, and he jogged over to have a look inside. “This one,” he decided. “Take a look. Up or down?”
They crowded around and looked through; behind the doorway was a stone stairwell leading off into darkness both above and below. Rei rapped at the wall, and tried to gauge the echo. “We could split?” she suggested.
“No, no, no.” Alix waved her down. “One lighter, remember? I say up, see if it comes out on top. Right Aus?”
Aus nodded and smiled, pulling her in to his side. “Going up’s a good idea.”
“We don’t need to find another way out,” said Foster. “Lets head down, find out how deep this goes. Get an idea of what it is. Hell, the answers always seem to be at the bottom, right?”
“Once, not always. This place could be huge, we could be here all night. We decided, we’d be back out tonight.”
Foster looked at him sideways. “Can’t settle your mind on anything, eh? Come down, go back out, stay, run… fix on something, alright? Shit, you’re worse than me.” He watched his friends eyes slip to Alix and back, and knew the problem.
“You know what?” Foster continued. “You choose.” He closed the lighter and fumbled it into Aus’s hand, listening to everybody shuffle around him. “You know where to go? Take us, I’m sitting out.”
Aus said nothing, opening the lighter and clicking it on. The flame rolled in his hands. “We’ll go down,” he said, toneless, and walked through the doorway.
----------------------------
Friday, May 4, 2007
Quick intro & Weathermen Ch4 snippet
Hey all. I have too many journals online, but I think I'll keep this one as a writing/art post area. A more professional blog, if you will. I'm working on a story at the moment called Weathermen, which has been moving very slowly for the past few years. I'm aiming to finish the draft this year, huzzah!
Just finished chapter 4 of Weathermen, working on ch5 already. Hoping for some critical feedback on a snippet. Italics and punctuation have all vanished :(
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The lip of the crater grew wider as they approached and the hills on each side fell away. Perspective reasserted itself – no longer just a big hole, the crater stretched half a kilometre across. Its edges were steeper up close, as if physically scooped from the earth. If it had been situated anywhere else it would have been easy to ignore, but set in the middle of the vast grid of hills it demanded attention. Even Marissa stood silent at the edge until everyone had joined her. She put her sack down beside her and rubbed her eyes.
“Nice pick,” she admitted to Alix.
“I didn’t know about that,” Alix replied. “Too far away to see… call it luck?”
“Hard lucky,” said Marissa. “Just keeps coming your way.”
The crater was carpeted with the same brown grass and bushes that covered the hills, clinging to the sheer edges with all the typical tenaciousness of weeds. There was a sheen spread all across the funnel, the remains of the runoff from the previous night. But despite Aus’s hopes, there was no lake at the bottom. They had been unable to see the very bottom of the pit until they stood at the edge. Now, in the daylight, it was no longer just a dark patch. At the bottom of the dish there was, quite clearly, a tunnel.
“So, what?” asked Pal. “We go have a look?”
Foster hiked his carrysack up on his shoulder. “Well, keeping with a tradition of sticking our noses where we shouldn’t… yeah, sure. I’ll go first.”
“Don’t volunteer till you’re down there,” Aus advised. “Might just be a weird ditch. Might be a cave. Remember that time we broke into the school vents?”
Foster nodded. “Yeah. Fun times, until we got lost. Thought we’d die in there. I get the idea. Okay, we’ll check it out carefully. Rei, got the lighter?”
“Always,” she said. “You want it?”
Foster shook his head. “In a while. I’d just lose it now. Let’s go.”
They walked as a group over the lip of the crater, Foster leading and picking the easiest path. It would be more embarrassing than dangerous to fall – the grass was sparse but the dirt gave under their feet. Still, they all remembered the food lost last time they had traversed down a steep slope, and they clutched their supplies tight to their chests.
“Wouldn’t it be great,” Rei huffed as they progressed, “if there’s a deep cave, and we go inside, and there are things living in there, like underground animals?”
“Worms?” someone suggested from the back. Rei pondered.
“Not quite worms,” she said. “Maybe like them. But bigger, and they’d be so used to the dark that I could just blind them, and it’d be easy food. Yeah?”
“Anything that lives in a cave,” Aus said between breaths, “I do not want to meet.” His foray with Foster into the airducts that bridged their school and the local library was a memory he found himself unable to dispel. They had spied a vent with a loose covering and gone in on a whim, but by the time they had found their way out neither of them had been able to remember why it had seemed like such a good idea. They had crawled on their bellies, torches in hand and snacks in their pockets, believing they were in an exciting maze. Within an hour their expedition had stopped being fun, and an hour after that they had begun to panic. It wasn’t claustrophobia, more a terrible sense of misdirection, a fear that came with every turn and every stretch of duct looking exactly the same. They believed that they would never get out because it was impossible to tell whether they were any closer to the exit, whether they were retracing their steps or trapped in a circle. They believed that they would starve long before their torches ran out.
But there was another fear that Aus had kept private. Foster had thought only of the hopelessness of being lost, of only being found when the stink of their bodies wafted through the pipes into classrooms. But Aus had heard something echoing deep in the vents, a thrumming like a heartbeat, a colossal heart that plugged the pipes and was attached to… what? He didn’t know, he couldn’t imagine. Few animals lived in the tower; his knowledge of the rest came from books and holofilms, unreal representations of bizarre creatures from a world Outside. It could have been any of them, living in the airducts. It could have been a hideous conglomeration of things that buzzed and bleated and gnawed with claws and teeth and suckers.
Foster had been scared of starving, while behind him Aus had feared being eaten alive.
It was a childish fear attached to an event long past, he knew. Aus bit his lip and cleared his thoughts. “We got out anyway,” he said to himself. He hop-skipped down the slope, watching the dark pit at the bottom grow every larger. “We got out in the end.”
The pit was only a few metres across, a dirt funnel shooting into the ground on a sharp decline. It was three or four body lengths deep, terminating in a tight black hole beyond which they could see nothing. Foster stepped down onto the slope and then jumped back as an avalanche of stones and soil rolled down the funnel, reaching the end and vanishing into darkness. They stood in a ring around the tunnel entrance, considering.
Rei dropped to her knees, peering down into the pit. “It has to go somewhere,” she said. “Probably a cave, right?” She shouted, “Hello!” and waited for an echo. There was none.
“Won’t work, it’s not rock,” Marissa lectured. “And we’re outside. And I’m not going down into that.”
Foster bent to retie his boots. “I will,” he said. “Like I said.”
“It’s a hole.”
“An interesting hole. I’ll be fine.”
“You should be good down there, Marissa” grinned Aus. “It’s the furthest you’re gonna get from height.” He ducked as she threw a clod of dirt at his head.
Foster dropped his supplies on the grass and once more stepped into the funnel, trying to balance with arms flailing. It didn’t work - he slipped, landed on his back and slid towards the bottom with almost comical slowness. He dug in his heels, stopping a few metres above the hole. “Still can’t see anything,” he said, squinting. “Rei, you should probably toss me the lighter now.”
Rei fished it out from her back pocket and obliged, Foster catching it neatly and tucking it into his pants. “Tell us what you see down there!” she called.
Marissa and Alix were less cheerful, standing together with arms crossed. “You don’t need to go down,” Alix reminded. “I mean, I’d like to know… but you don’t have to.”
“I’m going,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“Be safe then,” Marissa said. “And I’m still going to worry.”
“It’s just a hole,” Foster reminded. “I’ll be fine. I’m only taking a look.”
Pal opened his mouth to offer advice, like don’t breathe in if the air smells funny, or shout three times if you get stuck, or his fathers advice in contrast to his mothers laments: don’t worry, dirt is good for you. Good for worms, good for trees, won’t hurt you either. But before he could speak Foster had lifted his heels and was sliding once more; his feet dangled over the edge of the hole, then his legs, both taken by the shadows, then his bum passed over the dirt lip and it was very sudden, he had time to exclaim “Hoooop!” and then he was gone.
Just finished chapter 4 of Weathermen, working on ch5 already. Hoping for some critical feedback on a snippet. Italics and punctuation have all vanished :(
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The lip of the crater grew wider as they approached and the hills on each side fell away. Perspective reasserted itself – no longer just a big hole, the crater stretched half a kilometre across. Its edges were steeper up close, as if physically scooped from the earth. If it had been situated anywhere else it would have been easy to ignore, but set in the middle of the vast grid of hills it demanded attention. Even Marissa stood silent at the edge until everyone had joined her. She put her sack down beside her and rubbed her eyes.
“Nice pick,” she admitted to Alix.
“I didn’t know about that,” Alix replied. “Too far away to see… call it luck?”
“Hard lucky,” said Marissa. “Just keeps coming your way.”
The crater was carpeted with the same brown grass and bushes that covered the hills, clinging to the sheer edges with all the typical tenaciousness of weeds. There was a sheen spread all across the funnel, the remains of the runoff from the previous night. But despite Aus’s hopes, there was no lake at the bottom. They had been unable to see the very bottom of the pit until they stood at the edge. Now, in the daylight, it was no longer just a dark patch. At the bottom of the dish there was, quite clearly, a tunnel.
“So, what?” asked Pal. “We go have a look?”
Foster hiked his carrysack up on his shoulder. “Well, keeping with a tradition of sticking our noses where we shouldn’t… yeah, sure. I’ll go first.”
“Don’t volunteer till you’re down there,” Aus advised. “Might just be a weird ditch. Might be a cave. Remember that time we broke into the school vents?”
Foster nodded. “Yeah. Fun times, until we got lost. Thought we’d die in there. I get the idea. Okay, we’ll check it out carefully. Rei, got the lighter?”
“Always,” she said. “You want it?”
Foster shook his head. “In a while. I’d just lose it now. Let’s go.”
They walked as a group over the lip of the crater, Foster leading and picking the easiest path. It would be more embarrassing than dangerous to fall – the grass was sparse but the dirt gave under their feet. Still, they all remembered the food lost last time they had traversed down a steep slope, and they clutched their supplies tight to their chests.
“Wouldn’t it be great,” Rei huffed as they progressed, “if there’s a deep cave, and we go inside, and there are things living in there, like underground animals?”
“Worms?” someone suggested from the back. Rei pondered.
“Not quite worms,” she said. “Maybe like them. But bigger, and they’d be so used to the dark that I could just blind them, and it’d be easy food. Yeah?”
“Anything that lives in a cave,” Aus said between breaths, “I do not want to meet.” His foray with Foster into the airducts that bridged their school and the local library was a memory he found himself unable to dispel. They had spied a vent with a loose covering and gone in on a whim, but by the time they had found their way out neither of them had been able to remember why it had seemed like such a good idea. They had crawled on their bellies, torches in hand and snacks in their pockets, believing they were in an exciting maze. Within an hour their expedition had stopped being fun, and an hour after that they had begun to panic. It wasn’t claustrophobia, more a terrible sense of misdirection, a fear that came with every turn and every stretch of duct looking exactly the same. They believed that they would never get out because it was impossible to tell whether they were any closer to the exit, whether they were retracing their steps or trapped in a circle. They believed that they would starve long before their torches ran out.
But there was another fear that Aus had kept private. Foster had thought only of the hopelessness of being lost, of only being found when the stink of their bodies wafted through the pipes into classrooms. But Aus had heard something echoing deep in the vents, a thrumming like a heartbeat, a colossal heart that plugged the pipes and was attached to… what? He didn’t know, he couldn’t imagine. Few animals lived in the tower; his knowledge of the rest came from books and holofilms, unreal representations of bizarre creatures from a world Outside. It could have been any of them, living in the airducts. It could have been a hideous conglomeration of things that buzzed and bleated and gnawed with claws and teeth and suckers.
Foster had been scared of starving, while behind him Aus had feared being eaten alive.
It was a childish fear attached to an event long past, he knew. Aus bit his lip and cleared his thoughts. “We got out anyway,” he said to himself. He hop-skipped down the slope, watching the dark pit at the bottom grow every larger. “We got out in the end.”
The pit was only a few metres across, a dirt funnel shooting into the ground on a sharp decline. It was three or four body lengths deep, terminating in a tight black hole beyond which they could see nothing. Foster stepped down onto the slope and then jumped back as an avalanche of stones and soil rolled down the funnel, reaching the end and vanishing into darkness. They stood in a ring around the tunnel entrance, considering.
Rei dropped to her knees, peering down into the pit. “It has to go somewhere,” she said. “Probably a cave, right?” She shouted, “Hello!” and waited for an echo. There was none.
“Won’t work, it’s not rock,” Marissa lectured. “And we’re outside. And I’m not going down into that.”
Foster bent to retie his boots. “I will,” he said. “Like I said.”
“It’s a hole.”
“An interesting hole. I’ll be fine.”
“You should be good down there, Marissa” grinned Aus. “It’s the furthest you’re gonna get from height.” He ducked as she threw a clod of dirt at his head.
Foster dropped his supplies on the grass and once more stepped into the funnel, trying to balance with arms flailing. It didn’t work - he slipped, landed on his back and slid towards the bottom with almost comical slowness. He dug in his heels, stopping a few metres above the hole. “Still can’t see anything,” he said, squinting. “Rei, you should probably toss me the lighter now.”
Rei fished it out from her back pocket and obliged, Foster catching it neatly and tucking it into his pants. “Tell us what you see down there!” she called.
Marissa and Alix were less cheerful, standing together with arms crossed. “You don’t need to go down,” Alix reminded. “I mean, I’d like to know… but you don’t have to.”
“I’m going,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“Be safe then,” Marissa said. “And I’m still going to worry.”
“It’s just a hole,” Foster reminded. “I’ll be fine. I’m only taking a look.”
Pal opened his mouth to offer advice, like don’t breathe in if the air smells funny, or shout three times if you get stuck, or his fathers advice in contrast to his mothers laments: don’t worry, dirt is good for you. Good for worms, good for trees, won’t hurt you either. But before he could speak Foster had lifted his heels and was sliding once more; his feet dangled over the edge of the hole, then his legs, both taken by the shadows, then his bum passed over the dirt lip and it was very sudden, he had time to exclaim “Hoooop!” and then he was gone.
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