It is the day after the ritual sacrifice of the fowl. Now, we are at the mall. We must be at the mall. There is no choice. It is required. No one knows why.
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Black Friday Gothic
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One Thing Left to Do
The ship has fallen. The monsters that used to be the crew are at the door. There is only one thing left to do.
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Loophole
There are loopholes in every set of laws. Even those involving Time Travel.
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Welcome Aboard
Ian and I were working on the irrigation units on the north wall when we saw the trader pass overhead. Just the contrail of re-entry, but we knew it meant they would be landing soon. We left the pump half-disassembled and headed down and across the Gash. We knew the rest of the town would be heading for the pad as well. It would be several days before things returned to their routine so no one would be paying attention to the lower water pressure for a while. The lifts were already up so we had to take the Thousand Steps to the top of the south rim and by the time we finished the climb the trader had already settled onto the flat expanse of compacted dirt that served as our starport, though the only real way to distinguish it from the rest of the plain was the array of antenna and sensor domes surrounding it. Most of the population was already there, watching as the automs brought the scheduled cargoes out of the hold and carried them to the lifts that would lower them to the valley floor. Then came the market goods, the things that everyone had come to see and trade for. I watched the crowd as they moved among the tables the trader’s crew had put out. We mostly had items of glass to trade; when you live on a world of sand your manufacturing options are limited. The crew took what we had, carefully
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Ruins
It was early afternoon when I got to the ruins. I still come here every now and then, though not as often as I used to. Not much point to it, really. But I still come here to think. To ask myself if there was anything else we could have done. That I could have done. I found the remains of a campfire in what had been the lobby. It bothered me somehow. The building had been consumed by fire all those years ago and there is nothing left for it to harm, but I still didn’t like seeing it there. Or maybe I was upset that someone else was in what I still thought of as my place. It didn’t matter. I scattered the ashes and kicked the half-burned branches out through what had once been the window. Gone now of course. We had been lucky, I suppose. Not many people got to do research even then. Few companies were willing to waste resources on something that didn’t immediately improve their bottom line and of course the taxpayers had gotten tired of the government funding anything that didn’t directly benefit them. Even for us there was pressure to create something. Anything. But the people in charge knew the importance of what we were doing. What we thought we were doing. So they gave us time. Had they known, I wonder if they would have killed the project themselves? It was an idea. An insane idea. An idea that broke
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The Dreaming City
I stood at the tall windows and looked out upon the towers of glass and steel that made up the city. It was night and the city seemed deserted, the broad streets empty and the pavilions silent and only the occasional lighted window showed where the few inhabitants had gone for the evening. I felt her hand on my shoulder and turned to find her waiting. We embraced without words, though we had been apart for so long, for words were not needed between us. We stood there in the room with the tall windows and the white walls and held each other. Later we continued to hold each other as we lay there in bed. I felt her soft breath and knew that she was asleep but I resisted, lying there in the near darkness. I knew that when I slept I would wander again and it would be long before I returned. So many of us had learned to wander and each night fewer of us returned and so soon the city would fall dark and none would return to look upon its towers of glass and steel. And so I lay there in the darkness of the room with the white walls and the tall windows from which I had been gone for so long and wondered when I would ever return.
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Night Beach
I stood on the beach for a while, looking out over the sea. It was night and the sky was partially overcast, the undersides of the clouds illuminated by the light of the city behind me and blurring out all but the brightest of the stars. They were more visible near the horizon, beyond the long rolling of the waves. There seemed to be no one beyond me on the beach so I watched in silence for a while then turned and climbed up the wooden steps to the boardwalk. I had only taken a few steps along it when a nearby door burst open and a laughing trio emerged, two men and a woman. One of them staggered almost into me and I put out a hand to steady him. I don’t think he noticed, but his companion mumbled an apology in my direction then the three of them set off along the boardwalk. I glanced into the noisy bar they had just vacated but let the door swing shut. I was looking for a quieter evening. I continued on to the main street and stopped on the sidewalk. Crowds of people walked past me; groups of individuals, couples and families walked along the road past brightly lit shops, restaurants and entertainments. Children ran from a nearby arcade and a couple stopped to buy candied treats from a vendor’s window. I briefly looked at a brightly colored jacket displayed in a window before making my way down the street.
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The Ship
I had come to the Port on the Ship. I had stood with my fellow passengers upon her bow, rising high and white above the water as we entered the harbor; then at mid-day I, like the other passengers, wasted no time in descending the broad gangways where we were met by the welcoming locals who greeted us by placing garlands of flowers on our heads and toasting us with spiced drinks of local creation. For hours I had wandered the streets of that magnificent port. Once it had been the vanguard of a mighty empire now long forgotten but today it was a place of exotic beauty, a place where all the ships of the world came to trade and to mingle and to exchange stories of the myriad sights they had seen and the many novelties they had encountered so that all the world would know the secrets beyond their own horizon. I became enraptured of the Port. All day I had explored its myriad winding streets, engrossed by the aromas of exotic spices, the tastes of unknown languages, the colors of foods I had never seen and the touch and taste of alien but strangely beautiful woman. So when it was time for us to return to the Ship for the evening I remained behind in the port, for the Ship was not due to depart until long after the next sunrise and thus I knew that I would have time to continue to sample the novel
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Patterns
I awaken on the floor, cold linoleum against my flesh, surrounded by the smudged ink marks that mark my latest attempts at understanding. For a long time I lie there, patterns running through my mind, until the needs of my body are able to intrude upon the ever closer to perfect arrangements I am making. I am hungry, and the physical needs exceeds the mental. I regret losing the pattern I have created but I let it fade back into my mind and stand up. I stumble to the kitchen but am unable to find the nourishment I need. Empty packages and unwashed eating implements are scattered about, their surfaces mottled with the odd, semi-random patterns of mold and decay. I ignore them; I have examined their patterns long ago and find them lacking. I briefly consider the trails of the ants streaming across the counter, watching as they morph and wander in predictable but still random motion but they too I have previously considered and found unable to produce the true patterning I need. I realize that I must leave my place of safety and venture again into the world of others. Into that realm where man has forced existence into plain, orderly patterns that inhibit the growth of true beauty. I stumble into my long-ignored bedroom in search of appropriate clothing. I ponder long over my choice in what to wear, searching for those items which will exist in the necessarily exquisite harmony with one another. Of course
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Return to the Sea
I had come down to the sea. Why I no longer remember. What I do remember is that I swam out away from the shore, far enough out that the sea stretched to the horizon and the swells blocked the shore from my sight so that I was alone in the blue-green waters. I dove beneath the surface and saw that there was the surface of another sea beneath me, waves crashing on the rocks of an underwater shoreline. I somehow perceived that this was the surface of an ancient sea from long ago and that I was above its ancient shoreline. I was swimming through the air above that ancient sea and this air was different from the air above me. It was newer air, air that had not been breathed by countless generations of creatures and so still retained all of its vitality. Though I was beneath my own sea I could breath the air of this ancient time and so swam out to explore this ancient sea. For a long time I swam along this shoreline, watching the waves break against the rocks of a strangely barren land. Then, I reached a point where I could see objects far out to sea and I, desiring a change from the endless rocks, breaking waves and empty beach, swam towards them to see what they were. I discovered the towers of a city, rising from the ancient sea which broke with increasing ferocity about them. The towers were of
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