The Visitor and the Lady

Posted on January 5, 2015 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Julia flew into the mansion, all marble floors and walls full of windows. She looked left and right, quickly feeling out which way to go next. She needed to find the next Doorway before the owner of the house found her. They weren’t always welcoming to Visitors.

Choosing the left only out of a sense of no special feeling either way, she glided into the receiving room (or was it a dining hall?) on her bare feet. She came to a banister and looked over and down into the sunlit dining room. It was there that she saw the Lady of the house, eating breakfast alone at a table big enough for twenty. The dishes were empty of all but crumbs and the air was damp with the soft sounds of sobs.

She was plump, this Lady, as most were, perhaps a little more than most. Her hair was dark, not yet streaked with gray. Julia marked her to be in her early 30s at most. Young, for a Lady.

It was then that the Lady looked up, and her tear-filled eyes became huge with fright. This Lady wasn’t used to Visitors, but more so, she wasn’t used to naked ones.

Julia had made a faster getaway from the last Room then she would’ve liked, and was clad in just her birthday best and a huge smile. She was grateful for the banister she was behind because it afforded a measure of modesty. She decided to make a go of it and take the high road. Sometimes you can win the first encounter, and thus the relationship, if you lead the way as to how it should go, her Gran always said. Her Gran wasn’t a Visitor, and she was rarely naked before strangers, but the idea was the same.

Calling out in as cheery a voice as she could muster, Julia greeted the Lady.

“A fine day isn’t it, good gentlewoman? Greetings to you and this House. If you would be so kind as to inform me of the location of the nearest Door, I would be through it and bothering you no longer.”

The Lady was a Lady in the best possible way, unlike many who carry that title but not the qualities. She sniffed a little to gather back her tears, and reaching to her right, picked up her changing robe and tossed it to Julia.

A gift. From a Lady.

Fine linen, hand tailored with an eye for detail. This was no casual thing to be given away. The Lady knew the Rules, same as Julia. No gift given to a Visitor could be returned. Not just because of the difficulty in finding that Room again, but also because of the Rules. Visitors were untouchables, street urchins, lepers, in the eyes of Quality.

Julia put on the robe quickly, fiddling with the unfamiliar tiny pearl buttons. Real buttons! She didn’t have much time to admire the robe other than to notice it was cream and red striped before the Lady’s consort came in.

Julia turned away to continue dressing. A dangerous move to be sure, for no one shows her back to a potential adversary. But no woman shows her bare front, even if half of it is covered, to a strange man either.

The man was flustered. This is a good start. Julia still had the lead. Was he the Lord of the house? Was he maneuvering to set himself up to be? This could be a self-made Lady. Judging by her hunched shoulders and sobs when Julia first saw her, she doubted it. Loveless marriage, breaking up, it seemed. The Lady would lose her home and her title. She wouldn’t be demoted so far to the status of Visitor, that was for sure. That is a chosen life.

Julia took the opportunity of surprise. She wasn’t one for running, and she still needed to learn the location of the next Door. A Door once exited cannot be reentered soon, so she’d have to leave another way from how she arrived. It would be best if one of them could tell her, rather than her trying to find it. There was no chance for stealth now.

Finishing the last button, Julia turned to the Lady – another dangerous move. One always addressed the Lord first around Quality, but Julia felt some wrong needed to be righted. She took another chance.

“Thank you, Madam, for your kind company this morning!” she said, with a winning smile to the Lady and a sparkling wink in her eyes. She kept both long enough to see if the Lady caught the second meaning under the words.

She did. Excellent. The plan was working.

Turning to the man, smile and wink dimmed just a bit, she half bowed as a courtesan would, not a commoner. She was playing a dangerous game, and she knew it, pretending to be above her class, but it was a calculated game and her figures were adding up well for her.

The man was stunned. He couldn’t tell if this new person was an intruder or a guest, or a lover of his Lady. If the latter, he could not call the authorities for fear of scandal. The Lady’s eyes confirmed his suspicions. She was aglow with delight by now. Little did he realize it was only because she saw, along with Julia, that this game would lever the balance of power in her favor. This formerly desireless woman was desired by another, which made her desirable again. Julia had just upped her value, and thus preserved her standing in society, through her actions.

“You want to go up the stairs and take the first left Dearie.” The lady said with a soft smile.

Julia quickly left before the man could recover, and found the Door. This time, it was a cabinet. The opening wasn’t very large, but it would have to do.

Island adventure (with stamps)

Posted on October 20, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

My friend Kate and I decided that we wanted to go explore the Island across from us. We live on the mainland, and going to the Island has always been our dream. Nobody that we knew had been, so we wanted to be the first in our group of friends.

It isn’t something that is done casually, we discovered. It turns out that you have to apply for permission to go there. We didn’t know this and almost got into a lot of trouble.

We set sail on a sunny morning in September. We paid our fare to ride on a sailboat out to the Island. The captain must have thought that we had all of our papers in order because he didn’t ask us any questions. He could have saved us a lot of trouble.

There were many different kinds of sailboats in the water between the mainland and the island. When we got closer, we noticed that there were actually two islands. From the mainland, it looked like there was only one. We sailed for about an hour, enjoying the salt air and the sound of seagulls. The captain offered us tea and cookies but we declined. Having never sailed before, we were a bit queasy. Also, we’d packed a lunch for later that we were looking forward to.

The captain expertly steered his sailboat right up to a dock and waves us off. We thanked him and started to look around. There wasn’t much activity going on here. This must not be the commercial area. Perhaps this side of the island was just for tourists like us. It looked like we were the only ones today. This was surprising, since it was such a beautiful day and school was out. Where were the families? Where were the young couples?

Then these guards came up to us.

It was hard to take them seriously with their huge coconut helmets. They must be twins too. Look at all those awards! They have to be wearing these for show. No real soldier who means business would wear all of that nonsense on duty. We relax. Maybe everything is going to be fine.

He takes us to the guard booth and makes us wait. We can’t go further on the island until he can confirm our story, and he can’t do that until he can get a translator. He picks up a phone and tries it.

No signal. He picks up an older one. He has the same result. He picks up the oldest style and it works.

After about ten minutes another guard comes.

He looks at us suspiciously and speaks to us in a language we’ve never heard. When he sees that we don’t understand it, he tries another. And yet another. It is just like with the phones – no connection. By the fourth try we have something that will work. It isn’t a first language for any of us, but it will do.

He interrogated us for about thirty minutes. Somehow we managed to say all the right things and we are free to wander the island without an escort. This is the best possible outcome. We were afraid we’d be sent back home. Maybe he thought we weren’t a security risk because we were school age. Whatever the reason, we were grateful that our adventure could continue.

They had a few rules we weren’t aware of. We weren’t allowed to take pictures. They took away our cameras while we were on the Island, only letting the captain of the ship give them back to us when we were back at sea. We weren’t even allowed to draw pictures of what we saw. They are sure secretive! They didn’t exactly swear us to secrecy, but they sure didn’t want us talking too much about what we saw. Maybe some of our friends had been here, but just had been too afraid to tell us.

I decided to write letters back to myself on the mainland, and use their stamps to illustrate what we saw. They are certainly different about keeping in touch here! They don’t use phones very often. Nobody has a computer. They communicate in person or by mail. They are really thrifty too – they use stamps from all over. They don’t make their own. There is probably something about security in this idea too, but I haven’t thought about it much.

There are no maps for this island. It isn’t very big so you can’t get lost for long. We decided that we wanted to see as much variety as possible, so we went wandering. We went walking into the forest first.

There certainly was no fear of getting lost in this forest. It was composed entirely of bonsai trees. These beautiful old trees only reached to our knees. After about ten minutes walk the trees started to get bigger, but still not so tall that we couldn’t see our way through. There were wide easy paths to walk on as well. It was beautifully laid out and made for an easy stroll.

While walking in the tiny forest, I noticed this huge blue dragonfly.

He sat calmly on an immense fern and let me get really close to him. I marveled at how shiny he was and how he sparkled. He looked like he was made of gemstones, but he was alive. Maybe this was why this island is so well guarded.

Shortly afterwards I saw a lovely box turtle.

He was walking away from an unusual orange flower. I think he was trying to eat it, but didn’t like the taste. The turtle reminded me when I was a child. I used to rescue turtles who were crossing the road. Sometimes they didn’t make it to the other side. Sometimes they made it to my house instead. Boy, were they surprised! I left this one where he was. If they didn’t want me taking pictures, I’m pretty sure they didn’t want me taking wildlife.

We came upon a hillside covered with castles.

Normally hillsides are covered with flowers. These weren’t anywhere near as welcoming as flowers. Maybe this is what they were trying to protect. There were five huge stone castles, stacked almost on top of each other. We turned away, sure that we’d not be welcome here.

By this point, we were getting very hungry. We sat on the hillside that had the castles, but not in view of them. I put down my poncho so Kate and I could have a sort of a picnic. She took out our peanut butter and jam sandwiches from her satchel and we quietly ate them, thinking about how unusual our trip had gone. Our lemonade had gotten warm, and it wasn’t that sweet anymore. We looked around and saw just over the hill a large field of strawberries –

and blueberries.

We ate ourselves sick on them, and curled under a normal-sized tree for a nap.

When we woke, we were being stared at by a bunch of black birds.

They were all the same, and all chirping animatedly at us. They looked a little ominous, with their sharp beaks and shiny black feathers. More started coming so we left the area and kept on exploring. We were concerned that their cries would draw attention to us and we’d not be allowed to stay all day.

Soon we found another tree to sit under. This one had three birds sitting on the same branch.

We liked the fact that they were all different and all getting along. We thought maybe this was the nicer part of the island.

Then we went to the shoreline and looked at the fish. We saw some large fish that looked like they were fencing with each other. I wonder how they decide who won, with three of the fencing at the same time?

Then we saw a huge school of fish, all swimming in the same direction.

We wandered on a little further and found a cove with only pink sea life.

Well, they all looked pink. Maybe it was just the light at that time of day. The sun was starting to go down, so we knew it was time to leave. We were told when we arrived that we had to leave before the sun set – no exceptions. There were no hotels on the island, and they didn’t like the idea of putting us up in a private house. We wondered how (or why) anybody moved here.

As the sun’s light was fading, we sailed back to our home. We loved the fact that the island was so large that it took two stamps to illustrate it.

One day wasn’t enough to explore all of this island. I’m sure there were more curious parts to it. If only we had more time. If only we were allowed to stay. If only never gets you anywhere, though. I’m just grateful there was a way to show you what we’d seen that honored their requests.

Austrian stamp story

Posted on June 26, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

My friend and I went on a trip to Austria. And we went on a trip in Austria. Confused? Keep reading.

Tom and I spent the day wandering around old churches. There is something about the architecture, the reverence, the style of them that we like. And, well, we like the ritual.

We’d already been to three churches that day before we found one that was celebrating Mass. But this wasn’t any ordinary Mass. It looked like something special was going on because a guy with a crozier was there. We guessed he was a bishop.

Sadly we hadn’t learned any words to understand what was going on. Our phrase books didn’t venture into religion. We could order our food and get directions, but we couldn’t follow along with the service.

Well, we could, sort of. We both had been to a lot of Catholic services, and they are all pretty much the same. Catholic means “universal”, after all. And it isn’t like we were going to be asked to speak. Church isn’t exactly equal in terms of the speaking parts. If the congregation gets to speak, it is given lines to say from a book.

Usually a guy dressed up like this and with this kind of accessory is a bishop. They only show up for special occasions, like a baptism, confirmation, or ordination. The average, everyday stuff they leave to the priests.

We watched what was going on, but we didn’t see anything special. It looked like a regular service. Tom and I stared at each other, shrugging a little. Who knows? Surely something different will happen.

And it did, but not what either of us could have ever expected.

The Bishop was celebrating Communion, as is normal if the Bishop is there. He outranks everybody except the Pope, so he gets to do this part of the service if he wants to.

We were pretty far away, but it seemed like something different happened when he picked up the chalice to bless the wine. It kind of looked like a snake rose from it. And then it kind of looked like he smiled.

We went up to take Communion and as usual, the Bishop administered the wafer. The priest of that church came by with the chalice.

Everything was normal when I took the wafer, but I felt a little weird when I sipped the wine. I felt a little dizzy, so I grabbed the altar rail to steady myself. I looked at Tom and he was doing the same thing.

Then we looked and saw the craziest thing. The Bishop was being chased by a skeleton!

It made no sense. I mean, this is an old church and all, and there are people buried in niches in the walls, but they are dead, definitely dead. This skeleton-guy wasn’t an accident. He wasn’t somebody who got interred recently and by mistake. I could see through him, for goodness sakes.

The bishop ran screaming down the aisle out of the church’s front door, all the while being chased by this skeleton.

We thought this would cause a panic, but nobody else seemed to notice anything. Now, sure, there are people who don’t move when a fire alarm goes off. They need to actually see a reason to run, like seeing actual fire, before they will take the alarm seriously.

But a skeleton. Chasing a guy. Who ran out.

Surely that is enough to rally the whole room.

Nope. It seemed like just Tom and I noticed all of this. We stuck close together after that, constantly looking at each other to check if the other one saw the same thing.

We walked around the church after that and came across this stained glass window.

Mary and Jesus were all sharp, and everything else looked like it was warping in time and space. None of the other stained glass windows had done that, but they didn’t have Mary and Jesus. Perhaps that was the difference.
Perhaps there was something that warped time and space when Mary had God contained within her. It is pretty trippy, if you think about it. We date time from when Jesus was born, after all. Things changed, so yeah, I can understand the fabric of reality warping around them. I just didn’t expect to see it.

We stumbled out of the church. The parishioners looked at us like we were drunk. Hopefully they just thought we were ignorant tourists and wouldn’t call the police. A night in a foreign jail wasn’t tops on my list. Actually, a night in any jail wasn’t even on the list.

We wandered around, getting further and further away from the church. Our hope was that if they did call the police, we’d be long gone.

Everything looked fine until the parade came around the corner. We saw a woman being led by these strange men. She was dressed like a queen, and it looked like she was wringing her hands. She looked so sad.

Were the men holding her up in her grief, or were they dragging her along to her demise? There was no way of knowing. Once again our tourist phrase book was failing us.

Then the heavens opened up and we saw an angel.

By this point we had given up trying to make sense of any of it.

(Notes. This is what happens when I have a lot of stamps. These are all Austrian stamps and they are all odd. They looked like they told a story that hadn’t been written, so I wrote it. I like the idea that stamps illustrate the story – in fact, the stamps are the reason for the story.)

“Still waters” meditation – part one.

Posted on May 8, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

My still waters aren’t that still.

I’m trying a meditation at the retreat. We are supposed to be led to the “still waters” of Psalm 23 by Jesus, but I’m not liking the still waters that I see in the picture I was given to focus on. They are too still. The water looks dead. There is nothing to look at. The color is autumn and not spring. I need the green of spring, the promise of it.

I change the meditation to somewhere I think I’m going to like. I change it to a mountain stream, or a brook. Something like that. Surrounded by trees, not an open lake. Maybe twenty feet across, but I’m not concentrating on the distance. I’m looking at the shore. I’m looking at the rocks and the shells buried in the mud. There are clam shells here, and a little evidence of humans. Soda cans. Coke bottle caps. A little, not much, but enough to remind me that other people have been here. The metal is interesting in a casual way.

The light catches in the pools of water, sparkling. A fish swims by, scales flashing. There are bubbles and swirls in the water and dappled light from the sun filtering through the leaves. I thought I would like it here but I’m a little ill at ease. There is a little too much of everything and I’m a little overwhelmed. Everything I see is beautiful and everything I see is special and I want to take it all home with me. There is a just too much and yet not enough at the same time.

We sit down, Jesus and I, by the side of the water. We sit down on a large dry rock, warm from the sun. There are bits of green moss clinging to the side that edges the water. It is plenty large enough. No worry about falling off, and there are plenty of flat places to put our things down without worrying about them falling over and spilling.

Jesus hands me a sandwich. The bread is homemade and brown and warm. It’s warm out like an afternoon that stretches out forever, an afternoon of naps, an afternoon of no appointments, of nothing to do. Nothing to do except just be.

There’s hummus on the bread and spinach leaves and there’s cucumbers that have been sliced. There’s no skin on them so there’s no bitterness. The sandwiches are wrapped in wax paper that has been folded carefully and mindfully. It is sealed with a tiny bit of masking tape. It is a delight to unwrap. I enjoy the sound and the feel of the paper. I bite into the sandwich and it is everything I need. I didn’t expect it, and I wouldn’t have thought of it on my own but it’s just what I need and he knows that. We sit together, eating our sandwiches.

We drink lemonade that he made. It is a little tart and a little sweet. Perhaps he used a lime or two in with the lemons. We drink out of glasses he brought along with him. The lemonade is cool but not cold. It is a simple lunch but it is enough and I am thankful. I’m thankful he thought to bring lunch, and thankful that it was handmade.

He keeps showing me these kindnesses, these bits of thoughtfulness. I’ve never known anyone to love me this much. They are usually so wrapped up in their own busyness and their own problems that they don’t have time to think of me. He is always as near or as far as I need. He’s never too much.

We’ve finished lunch and while it was soothing, the place where I am isn’t quite what I need. It was what I thought I wanted. It was where I thought I should be. I allow Jesus to take me somewhere else. I can’t imagine there is anywhere else, but he knows the way.

He leads me a little further along and I see a way out. I see there is an island in the distance, across a wide expanse of water.

It looks something like this –

There are steppingstones to it. They are sort of like this –

Or maybe this –

Or kind of this –

I don’t really want to work that hard. So we look to the left and there’s a small rowboat just big enough for two. It is wooden, grey, weathered.

It is facing out, ready to go.

It looks sturdy. We get in.

He rows out in the sunny day. It is bright, and there’s a little bit of a wind. He’s rowing and it’s hard work, and he’s doing it all. I smile into the sun and I enjoy how I can hear the sound of the gulls and the wind out here.

We are rowing alongside the steppingstones. There’s not a path like in Marazion. It isn’t solid –

But it also doesn’t disappear with the tide twice a day.

These stepping stones are always there, he says, even when the tide is high. Boats don’t come through this way this way because it is too shallow for them. I could wade in these waters and be safe.

We get to the other side and I enjoy the walk through the woods. It’s a small island with a lot of trees and shade. While I’m there I think it would be nice to rest here and we go looking for a place. There’s a cabin with a stone base but there’s also wood to it. It isn’t quite a stone cabin or a log cabin. It is a bit of both.

There’s a fireplace, and the cabin is just big enough for two. It is cozy and welcoming.

There’s food there. It’s already stocked, and there is even tea ready for us.

I want to stay here but I can’t. There are other responsibilities, so I’ll stay here as long as I am allowed.

(No pictures are original – all are from Image search on Google. Ideally, I’ll paint this, but I needed some reference points.)

Six categories – story

Posted on March 24, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Jamilla and Dante’s podcraft was hurtling towards the surface of the planet at an unhealthy rate. Their honeymoon was about to be cut short due to a terminal case of gravity. Little did they know that they had a lot more detective work to do. They simply thought they were about to provide a lot more work for their office.
They had headed to Altair 5 as a cover anyway. Too many other podcrafts had gone down unexpectedly in the past month to be a coincidence. They knew from their many years of working for the office of Judge Jones Malone that sometimes the best way to solve a crime was to become part of it.
They were peacekeepers, both of them, but they were also in love. Dante had noticed Jamilla first. She’d sashayed into Judge Malone’s office that dusty August afternoon, plaspapers in hand, looking for a job as a detective. Her mechanical horse Rusty Nut was tethered up just outside, refueling at the energy trough. Dante thought she sure filled out her crimson chaps well. The fringe swayed in a way that made him look at her a bit longer than he thought he was supposed to.
But there wasn’t time for such memories now. The planet that they had looked forward to spending some quality time on was coming up far faster than they liked, and there wasn’t anybody else on board to help. It was up to them.
And the angels.
In the middle of the cramped podcraft, filled with everything they’d need for a vacation that also was a cover for an investigation, Jamilla put her hands together. She prayed like she always prayed, out loud, unscripted. She prayed to God, the Creator, the Source of all. She prayed to the same God who parted the sea so the Israelites could escape from their enemies. Even though there was no sea this time, the danger was the same. She had no idea what God could do in this situation, but she knew that God could do anything, and hey, it couldn’t hurt to ask.
And the angels came, four hundred of them strong. They came out of nowhere and they surrounded the craft, lifting, buoying it up. Some of them held it on their winged shoulders. Some of them fluttered their wings nearby to keep the ship cool from the reentry. They came, gloriously, triumphantly, majestically.
They were invisible as always to everybody but Jamilla. She could see them from the podcraft’s port window, crowding together. The spaceport tower controllers were oblivious to what was going on. They just thought that the ship had suddenly righted itself. All they knew was that they were going to have a lot less paperwork to fill out now.
————————
(This is what happened when I tried to combine as many categories as I could. I ended up with African American, Mystery, Romance, Christian, Western, and Science Fiction. If you tried to put all those stickers on the spine of one book, you’d never see the author or title. )

Picture-story part four – introduction

Posted on February 17, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m sorry – I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Torii Jane. My friends call me Jane. I can’t tell you when America adopted the family name first practice like the Japanese do. Somewhen with all the computer files and doctor’s offices it seemed more sensible. We were sorted by family name first anyway. Somebody decided it would just be easier to make it all the same.

Torii? Yeah. That sounds Japanese too. It is. My family name means gate, but it isn’t like a gate anybody uses anymore. It’s a gate without a lock. It’s a simple thing really. It doesn’t keep anybody out. It just lets people know they’ve arrived.

Turns out the Inuit had something similar, in their inuksuit. They made stone structures to point the way. My name’s kind of like that. My family was full of people like that, people who knew where the line was between “here” and “there,” and how to get “there” in a really good way.

I sure miss them.

I started selling survival kits door to door to try to find people who saw things like me, but I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know that was why I felt so different. I didn’t know that was why I’d fallen out with so many friends. I was becoming invisible.

Maybe this is why they’ve not sent a search party for me. I’m not missed. I’ve spent so long moving away from them and their drama and their parties that they don’t even notice I’m gone.

Maybe here I can find a new home for myself.

What am I thinking? I’ve got an apartment back home. I’ve got bills to pay. I’ve got a Book of the Month club membership. I can’t just give all of that up. How will I survive?

All right. Get a hold of yourself, Jane. You’ve survived this long without those things. You sell survival gear, remember? You’ve lived on your own for what, twenty years?

Good Lord. Now I’m talking to myself.

Picture-story part three – gold

Posted on February 17, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’ve finally met some people. They tell me they call this planet Graille. I didn’t see them at first because nobody sees them at first. They’ve become invisible. Well, not really invisible, but nobody notices them.

They came here because they could actually see each other. The closer you get to being awake, the more visible you become to each other, and the more invisible you become to everybody else.

Everyone else is so busy watching reality TV that they have stopped noticing what reality even looks like anymore. They are so used to artificial colors and flavors that they don’t know what real food looks like or tastes like anymore either. No wonder the real people have become invisible.

That field of stars I saw? That’s gold. It isn’t a field of stars at all. It’s a compost pile of sorts.

There was a hoarding of it around the turn of the century, a century ago. Every street corner and every abandoned building became a place to buy up gold. “Cash for gold”, they said. “Best prices!”

Some of these invisible people set up these shops, alongside the end-of-the-world doom mongers. They did it to collect more gold. They knew that money wouldn’t do them any good where they were going, but gold would.

It wasn’t for a profit. It was for the planet. This planet.

The gold feeds the soil. They use it with their compost, their kitchen scraps. The gold cancels out the acidic soil here, makes it come alive again.

They discovered that digging up all the gold was why the Earth’s soils stopped producing food, why they had to start 3D printing it out of plastics and polymers. That food fills you up, same as eating Styrofoam. It just leaves you hungry for more because you never got filled up with food in the first place.

The soil needed the gold under it all along. That’s why the Creator put it down there in the first place. Funny people, digging up the wrong thing. They thought if they dug up more gold, they could buy more food. Turns out if you leave it where it is, you get more of what you were looking for.

(After a long amount of wrestling with this, I’ve decided that if the words come without the picture, to let them. And if they are not 1000 words a section, that is OK. Rules cannot get in the way of the goal.)

Thousand-word story, part two

Posted on February 3, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I have wandered further on this isolated planet. It has been three weeks now and there’s not been any sign of a rescue party. I might as well see if there’s something else to this planet other than the wild forest and the crashing waves. I think I’ve wandered along the beach enough. There has to be something more.

The more time I spend away from the sea, the more I think the strange dark skies aren’t the norm here. The further I get, the brighter it gets. Maybe there’s something to the violence of the waves that makes the skies there seem so dark. Or maybe it was just a season. Maybe the sunlight was less over there and brighter over here. Maybe it is just like winter in the northern parts of Canada back home. Sunlight there isn’t as long as elsewhere. I just didn’t think I’d walked far enough to see a difference.

Maybe this planet is smaller. Maybe it is further from the Sun. Maybe I should have paid attention back in Mx. Griggsby’s science class. I sure didn’t think I’d need that information now. Not like I really need it. Knowing what size the planet is isn’t going to save me. Knowing how to find food and water, and maybe other people, will do the trick nicely now.

Good thing I was a Girl Scout. That, I paid attention to. I know how to set up a tent and set a broken bone. I know how to open a can with a knife and how to start a fire without a lighter. Maybe soon I’ll need to use those skills.

Mx. Griggsby told me to always pay attention, but Grams told me what I wanted to pay attention to. I guess I should call Grams Mx. Grams, out of respect, but it doesn’t seem sensical.

I’m glad that a few years ago somebody came up with the gender-neutral term Mx. to show respect. When you become an adult, it is nice to have something to add to your name so everybody knows it. Sometimes you need the prefix so you know yourself.

None of that matters now. I’ve not found anybody else, adult or child, to exchange names with at all, much less polite prefixes. But up here, on this ridge, I can see signs that humans have been here. Down in the valley I see lines in the red soil. Looks like somebody has been farming. I wonder what they can grow in this iron-rich soil. It sure looks like Mars down there. I wonder if all the soil is like that.

The mountains in the distance look inviting, but I can hear from here the calls of the animals. Fortunately it isn’t that loud from this far away. I wonder why they live in the forest and not anywhere else? Is the soil too dry for them? Too acidic? I’ve not tested it yet to see how different it is from Earth’s. I’m glad I brought my kit with me. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the information, but information is power, right?

The purple rocks and waves below are interesting. The rock I’m standing on is the same purple. It seems sturdy enough. That looks like a tidal pool down there too. So strange to have a pool right next to a barren plain, but there I go assuming this place is like Earth. Every place is different in some ways, and the same in others. Kinda like how England is almost the same as America. Or is it the other way around? I forget.

Are those stars in those rocks? That can’t be. Stars, down there? Why aren’t they up in the sky like they should be? Maybe that’s just the glint of some mineral. I’ll have to go down and check tomorrow.

As for now, I’m tired. It’s taken me two days to get up this rock to see this view. I’m glad I went to the gym all those years. I sure didn’t think I’d need the exercise like this. Most people scoffed at me for actually exercising my own body. They take pills for that, or hire surrogates to do their heavy lifting for them. One person too many said “Hey, why don’t you exercise for me!” and darned if somebody didn’t figure out a way to do it.

Nobody here would have surrogates working for them. Anybody who lived here would have to do it all themselves. They’d have to figure out how to make their own tools too. Nobody is supposed to live here, but it sure looks like somebody does. Or at least did. The only way that somebody could get here was accidentally on purpose. That’s the way to do anything off the books and out of the way. You just happen to end up having an accident. You kind of plan it, but you can’t look like you’ve planned it. So you sure can’t take any big tools with you. They’d be noticed. Then you’d be challenged, and challenged is the last thing you’d want if you were planning on defecting to some off-the-charts planet.

Now I’m starting to think about this. Do I really want to meet people here? Would that be safe? Would they be sane or scary? Would they be like squatters in abandoned houses or hippies from two centuries ago? Sometimes people drop out of society because they never fit in. Sometimes they reject society, sometimes society rejects them. They might not take kindly to somebody dropping in unannounced.

Fortunately Grams taught me how to “Hello the house”. Back in the mountains of Appalachia when her own Grams was a girl, she learned to yell out “Hello” to a house she was approaching. This prevented unfortunate encounters in the days before telephones were common to announce you were a’visiting. Unfortunate encounters like having your head blown clear off.

I sure hope that any people left here are friendly.

Waves. (A picture is worth a thousand words)

Posted on January 24, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

It’s early morning. 3 a.m. probably. The waves keep coming. The storm was bigger than usual last night. The waves are slowly wearing down to their normal ferocity. They are never calm, not here.

Here, on this unnamed planet, forgotten, alone, the waves are never calm. Nothing is. The days are better than the nights, with the weird calls from the jungle behind me. The shrieks are indescribably loud and strange. Perhaps it is the sound of a monkey’s yowls crossed with a lion’s roar? But the volume is unbelievable. How is it possible that the animals can sleep with all that racket?

I’m thankful for the waves for this alone. Their roars are enough to drown out the worst of the unearthly racket. And unearthly they are indeed.

It’s been fourteen days that I’ve been marooned here. My ship was headed on a routine trip to Beta Four. I’ve done this so often I didn’t even try to fly the scooter-pod this time. It knew the way, so I let it. But there’s something to be said for having semi-intelligent ships. Sometimes having a mind of one’s own means that they get distracted. That’s exactly what happened this time. Some flying thing – a bird? A mistake from a genetics lab? A dinosaur wanna-be? Something flew within half a click of my pod and off it went, like a big dumb puppy, dragging me along for the ride.

‘Cept this time I wasn’t walking my dog in a park. This time I was in a ship, going to visit a client. And this time, instead of just falling down and skinning my knee something fierce, I’ve fallen out of the sky and onto this Spirit-forsaken place.

Maybe they’ve noticed I’m missing. Maybe they’ve sent a rescue mission. I’ve seen some strange lights in the sky. They could be ships looking for me. They sure haven’t found me yet.

So I’m making do here. I don’t really want to go into that jungle. It’s too dark, and too loud. Those animals sound big. Nothing small could make a noise that loud, and it sounds like there are lots of them.

Fortunately there’s a bit of shelter to be had by this rock. The overhang is enough to protect me from the sun, for whatever it counts. The sun isn’t very strong here, not like on Earth. I didn’t make time to learn the name of it when I booked the scooter. It didn’t seem to matter. I certainly wasn’t going to need to know it.

The waves are huge here. The moons are larger than on Earth, and closer. There are three that brighten the night, and that helps. They are the best night-light that an inter-system door-to-door saleswoman could want. The light from them keeps me company.

Well, its’ three, and the sun is coming up just over my rock that I call home. Another murky day awaits. No wonder nobody settled here. The days are dark and thick, like a gumbo left for too long on a burner. Kind of smells like that too – but that could be all the sea-life that has washed up.

I’ve not had to want for food, at least. The seafood is amazing here, and I don’t have to go fishing for it. It just flings itself up onto the shore, gasping and flopping, and I pick it up like a child collects seashells. Thanks to my samples in my sales kit I’ve got all the supplies I could ever want to survive for quite a while here. I can clean a fish and cook it in no time flat with what I’ve got stowed away in my briefcase.

You see, I sell kits to “survivalists.” Preppers. You know, those end-of-the-Universe people. I don’t care what they fear or why, a girl’s got to make a living. Ovens in a can. Oxygen generators that look like necklaces. Water purification tablets by the bag. I’ve got them, and more.

I felt a little guilty about it to start off with. You know, there’s something about not feeding an addiction that my Grams taught me. But then, even she knew how to make do with almost nothing. These people have been pampered so long they’ve forgotten how to open a can without a can opener that isn’t electric. They’ve had everything done for them that they’ve become flabby, and I don’t just mean in their behinds.

So maybe this survivalist stuff will be a good kick in their blobby butts to get them going. Maybe they’ll think twice about the food they get from their vendors. I doubt they’ll grow it themselves – it’s kind of hard to grow anything in the silver sand of Beta Four. But maybe, just maybe, they’ll start taking everything seriously and paying attention for a change.

Meanwhile, I’m glad my Grams taught me something about how to make do with nothing, because nothing is all I’ve got right now. Well, nothing, and an unending supply of fish and a way to cook it. That’s something to be grateful for.

I just wish I could explore further. I know that nobody else lives here. This is one of the planets that Crom had written off as “unworthy of human habitation.” That doesn’t mean that nobody has snuck here and set up camp. Living out of the way has been the way of life for a small handful of people since people started making rules. The moment you say “you can’t do that” there’s always going to be somebody who says “you can’t tell me what to do” and they do it, quick as you please, just to show them they are wrong.

It isn’t so bad here. Maybe I’ll wander today. Maybe I’ll go along the beach instead of into the jungle. I’m sure to get lost if I go in there. If I get lost, there’s no chance of rescue. Maybe I’ll find something that will make me stay.