Archive for the ‘Series’ Category
One Green Hill
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
A picture (a blue sky, a green hill) was found among her belongings.
She was the first of the first generation to die. The generation who knew Earth as home, not as story. The picture became the goal and they began to build the hill.
There was a poetic rightness to it, a commemoration, a remembering together. Their remains, turned to soil, building a patch of nature in the heart of the GreatShip’s endless metal and glass. For those who followed after, everything, always, was recycled.
The hill was their past and future, until they reached their destination, and then there was a planet with green hills by the million. There was talk of transporting the hill down to the surface, to a park in the middle of the first settlement. By now, however, the hill was its own ecosystem, a living thing that wouldn’t survive uprooting and transport.
So they went down without it, and it became a stop on the historical tours. Then history took a turn — disease, strife, struggle against a not-yet-domesticated alien world. A forgetting followed by a slow return. Societies re-formed, cities rebuilt, sciences reverse-engineered from artifacts.
When they were ready, they went up, into the sky, to the Star that Never Moves. They found an entire ship, larger than their largest city, empty and apparently devoted to sustaining a mound of soil covered in grass that didn’t look nearly blue enough.
A Truer Story
Monday, June 30th, 2008
This is a true story. How true is a true story? You could hear “eye-witness” accounts or reverse time to camcord events, but how true is that? You’d bypass the motivations of the players. Besides, you’d probably accidentally drop the timeportal in the bathtub and electrocute dear old Granny, and then where would you be?
By all eyes and camcorders, I assure you, this story is far truer than Lucian’s or any Samosatan’s. Three out of four dental hygienists agree. Everyone knows what big fat liars Samosatans are. They imbibe too much cheap Dionysian and would as soon sign a hex on your kinsman if you didn’t buy their story. Such fabricators of truth are unworthy of your trust.
***
So my brood of brigands and I were sailing the seven seas of castaway, backyard bathtubs (about which Mum nags Da fortnightly) when–Lo!–we espied the next-door neighbor boys, fording a stream unto strange new territories. “Lo!” we cried, “wherefore art thou next-door neighbor boys going?” They replied, “Huh?” but one of the lads, brighter than a half-watt light bulb, said, “We wage war against the hoards of Bullylanders who hath flunked three grades, beat us up and thieved our lunch money, and who ride upon scorpions and eat tarantulas for breakfast. Will you not join our worthy cause?” My brood and I gazed upon one another. Ought we to risk blood and guts to aid the distressed? Dare we stir the hive of Bullylanders whose vileness we had just rid ourselves of the year before?
But of course!
We moored our ships and, after saddling up our galloping dogsteeds and securing alleycats to swing at enemies, we joined the fiercesome warriors on their journey through treacherous marshlands, nomanslands, wastelands, and tseliotlands, battling pterodactyls and bogmonsters along the way. We flew on raven’s wings across the oceanspace to the floating island of Bullyland, berthing at dusk. Crouching in bushes–so excited we could’ve peed our britches–we stripped to scibbies and pasted our skins in the red moon mud as camouflage.
Alas, that dastardly Lucian lounged amidst Samosatan hoards, imbibing Dionysian and bragging of conquests: literary exploits and many a betrothed lady to our comrades (that is, as soon as our manly beards sprouted). We unleashed, by their tails, the alleycats, which let loose their mighty war-whoop, outstretched claws, and madly scratched the air. Our dogsteeds and we, makeshift clubs aloft, charged after…!
***
Thus we vanquished our foes. Believe not in Lucian’s tale. If you buy his over ours, may your grandmother’s warts beget a plague of horny toads.