Blog 110: Map for Daughter of Disgrace.

 I’ve been building up a little series of short stories on Reedsy. This is the map I’ve sketched for them. At some point if it keeps going I’ll make a neat version but this is just to keep it clear for me where everything is for consistency.

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/graham-kinross/

109: The View of The Void

It watched ceaselessly for some company in the endless ebb of time. Some felt the gaze and looked back but never managed to find eye contact until Yusef Lee. Yusef stared up through the windscreen, through the night, through time and space to the bright mesmeric eyes and smile of The Void itself. Yusef saw the visage of existence, the mind that binds the darkness and the light. What the young man failed to see was the curve in the road which lead him straight to hospital.
  Comatose but content Yusef was carried off amongst the stars, leaving his body far behind. Thunderstorms amongst the gas clusters of distant galaxies fed the intrigue which held him in being and he did not look back until Yusef had forgotten his long distant source. At one with The Void, what had been Yusef became it's curiosity as it looked within itself. It was a journey of self discovery amongst all that is to be seen.

Blog 108: Dead Good Records

Welcome to Dead Good Records where the great and gone are reborn in all of their lost vocal glory. Instead of cloning dead vocalists, which proved so disastrous, we now grow their vocal organs from recovered genetic material. The organs are then hooked up to maintenance systems to ensure  profit from the investment. The organs are then conditioned in a process we call ‘realising’ which subjects them to the necessary substances and stresses to produce the dead artists true sound. Thanks to our work the legacy of the deceased can continue to grow even in their absence allowing for previously impossible collaborations. The ethics of our work have been criticised but who could argue with the beauty and value of Somewhere South of the Surface, the collaborative album by Ian Curtis and Jeff Buckley. The Once and Future King by Elvis is the fastest selling album of the Century, that statistic says it all. Thank you for listening and as we say here, good music never dies.

Blog 107: The Unborn Companion

This is an appendix from a larger piece I've been working on for a few days but encompasses the idea simply and quickly. This is from a fiction novelette so far called The Singular Soul which I want to publish through Blurb as I did with the books for my degree show but more in the format of my dissertation, playing with chronology and continuity. Here it is:

A man loved me more than half a century before I was born. He knew about my life; its highs and lows, they were his escape from his own tormented life and I've come love him back in my own way via the stories passed on by the man who helped free him from the confines of an asylum. I was the unborn companion of Nathaniel Cawdor who saw my life and me through reflections. He loved me and my life with a passion I could call obsessive a creepy but to be honest I could have done with a friend like him before now. He worked around the rules and made the best of a hard life in war torn times.

Each life might be considered a room with a door at either end. We walk through the first door into the room which might be bigger or smaller, full or empty and then we exit through the second door to a new life. This is reincarnation as best I can describe it. Most of us can't remember the last room. When I leave this room I'll enter the room that is Nathaniel Cawdor, I can't see his room but he can stare through the keyhole into mine. Maybe the rooms of our lives aren't in one long line, it seems impractical that they wouldn't twist back alongside or on top of and under themselves and have small skylights, windows or a glass floor here and there.

Maybe you’ve experienced the moment where you're feeling vulnerable and another person who still has to deal with their own problems offers you a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on. That's what it feels like when I read the story of the man who died so young so long before I could have met him. His hand reached through time to me to offer the comfort he took from my life when he needed it. I was a friend who could be there for him in solitary confinement while the screams of the mentally ill and the odour of their waste kept him awake. That I could help someone in a time like that brings warmth to me, the pride of hope donation. We could all of our organs away and never have enough but within us hope springs eternal, why not give?

Blog 106: Stagnant and Stationary Self-discovery

Know thy enemy and thyself and you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles was the quite reasonable theory of a Chinese strategist Sun Tzu. My enemy is for the moment and has for the best part of my life been boredom, we’re well acquainted. Through familiarity with boredom I know myself ever more. People talk about journeys of self-discovery, traveling abroad to ‘find themselves’ which I’m finding ever more absurd as I remain where I am, as I do the same thing day in and out.

On a journey we meet new people and learn things about them and the world where as stuck in place I feel we are better poised to look within ourselves. Day after day I clean the same rooms in a hotel and day after day I return to find them trashed by drunks with no regard for the time limit I have to clean a room set by someone in an office, possibly in another country. This person might never have heard of Aberdeen or considered the scale of destruction half a dozen drunken louts can wreak within a room between check in at three in the afternoon and noon the next day.

While I clean I have a lot of time to think, escaping the cycle of destruction, restoration and making beds by walking through far flung realities within my own mind. I have hours to consider my view on any particular subject that might be raised by the daily papers left next to televisions I must dust or to learn Polish from my co-workers. Free tutelage in a foreign language, dziękuję.

I’m in a job I’m overqualified for just as anyone with independent thought and free spirit would be but my stagnant and stationary self-discovery feels as valid as any story about a gap year in the third world that I could never afford.

People moan about the density of foreigners within our country, immigration’s terrible isn’t it? No. I see the faces of foreign places, the words of foreign languages and I think how lucky I am to live in a time where even if I can’t afford to see the rest of the world as much as I might like to children of other nations will surround me that I might learn their ways in the comfort of Scotland. I hate the heat of strong sunlight which makes me sweat which in return causes rashes to cover my oversensitive skin. If stories of the sunny equatorial regions fly their way to me then why moan about it? I joy in the possibilities of genetic diversity the present and future hold with people moving so freely across the globe. Genetic predispositions to illness or other maladies could be negated with less pedigreed genetic pool.

I have to wonder if the morons who clamour for racial purity have really paid attention to the portraits of communities in the past. I saw one a while back while on holiday in a rural region of Scotland, the portrait of an entire village. The whole image seemed to detail every minute change you could make to the one face in order to render one individual as many. Each villager had the same nose, the same shape of face, the same jawline and ears. If that’s the past we’ve left behind good riddance. Our ancestors inbred because they could not or would not summon the effort to leave their native hills and valleys. There’s nothing romantic or patriotic about marrying your brother or sister and being both parent and aunt or uncle to your children.

Through this view of not just the advantage but very real need for genetic diversity which lighten some of the load bourn by our strained health services by improving genetic health I have been considering once again the concept of uniformity. Schools have an obligation to educate us in more than just academic fact but not to set impressionable children bad examples in terms of socio-politic concept. In this last respect I think any school which enforces and idolises the uniform fails its pupils at a very basic level. The purpose of uniform is to nurture a group mentality which may benefit the school as a unit but suggest a group mentality to the detriment of individuality which seems unhealthy. We live in a world of individuals, each unique and better for it. To program us to fit in by wearing the same clothes as school bothers me for the same reason I hate to be turned away from an establishment for my chosen garments or hear stories of outsiders picked on by groups with a hive mentality.

In America all of the gangs have a form of uniform; The Bloods show their allegiance by wearing red, the Crips wear blue and the Latin Kings wear yellow. We are better together for certain but can’t that mean the group is humanity or life itself which is the outsider in an otherwise cold and empty universe?

We must follow our own path in life, unhindered by the rest of humanity and equally helping others along their own road. I hear of depression amongst those who live undeniably comfy lives here, supported by a welfare state and one of the best healthcare systems in the history of the world. I hate the days where I feel I’ve done nothing to further my goal of being a writer/visual artist. I think that anyone with any concept of where they want to go in life will suffer depression if they no they’re making no progress. Even those who live without a dream or vague aspiration must strive for one. We are programmed to grow at every level. There is no limit to our ambition, we must move ever onward for our own peace of mind.

Narazie

Blog 105: The Once Silver Moon

Did you know the moon shone silver once? The sun's light was bounced off the grey dust that feeds the grass that gives it the emerald hue we see today. It must be ringing a bell now, you've heard an old man tell you that idly, maybe your father or his. It's easy to forget that life did not find itself on Earth's constant companion by the same means as it did on Earth itself. You'll have heard of N.A.S.A I'm sure? They were some of the first spacemen, sponsored by the American Government, desperate to beat the Russians in a petty publicity war known as The Space Race. The Russians had their early victories such as the probe Sputnik which only hastened the Americans on to set other records of their own. It was an American who set foot on the moon first, you must know that.

Even the grainy black and white footage in defunct  four by three ratio shows clearly enough that there was no sea of green grass on the satellite's surface when the astronaut took his first steps. The seeds of the all-encompassing lawn we see today were sown by his organisation three quarters of a century later to make their final mark on history. As a last act N.A.S.A coloured the moon green so their legacy could be seen by anyone who ever looked skyward at night. The effort was also the first and to date the most successful example of terraforming.

You might one day be lucky enough to stand on the green turf of the moon and look down upon the glimmering blue orb of Earth and if you do just think about how long Earth has looked as it does compared to how long there has been grass on the moon.

Blog 104: Judging Depth

The surface of the water glistened like glitter, blue and shimmering in the bright light of the summer of two thousand and nine. He dipped his toes in, wishing the lake was as warm as the air, the wind only serving to blow more of the heat into his face. He wished he'd cut his hair which was too long and working too well as insulation. He waded into the water, shivering while his body baked in the sunlight. The pebbles on the bed were mostly round but here and there they hurt his bare feet as he'd left his shoes, jeans and t shirt above the tide-line.

He saw the destination, half a mile away, right next to the waterfall. Beyond that point the calm water became vicious and swift, twisting and turning for miles downstream.

He thought of the car in the car park, almost out of fuel. He walked deeper and shivered more violently as the water reached his crotch. He gasped, thinking he was past the worst of it and threw himself into the cool water. For a moment he forgot to breathe from the shock and then gasped and floundered in the still shallow water.

Only steely determination kept him in the water, made him swim but swim he did. He stirred the dirt in the shallows and kept his eyes shut beneath the surface, having to course correct until the bed of the lake sank away. He hit his stride there, knowing he could not turn back.

The stolen car parked in and around a tree was being inspected that very moment by police. His blood on the steering wheel proved he had been injured but not enough to stop him kicking his way out of the passenger's window and running off through the woods toward the lake. Drops of blood from his nose punctuated the deep imprints of his footsteps in the mud of the woods and then the sand. Drops swirled in the water as he made waves, swimming for his target.

He heard the sirens but it was too late for them, he'd reached the concrete of the old dam. Beneath the surface he moved the grill of the service panel which led into the disused outlet for a village up the hill. Replacing the panel behind him he hauled himself out of the water into the dark, slimy cavern beneath the public path. He found the torch he'd left there and illuminated the dank space where there was also enough food to last his for two days.

Hours passed, he heard officers on the path above discussing his disappearance and the continuing search downstream. He waited until the voices had stopped before taking a nap, it wasn't comfortable but he wanted to wait longer. After waking to complete, extended silence he made his way up the narrow tunnel towards the water works through a horrendously smelly old pipe and exited through hatch into the dark building. There were no workers needed for the facility to run which was why he was shocked to discover the bag of clothes he'd left himself was missing.

He had presumed maintenance workers had removed the bag and quite rightly but not that they would have informed the police who were waiting for him as he left the facility. He was almost grateful for the blanket draped around his shoulders but not the handcuffs as the officers bundled him into a car.

Blog 103: A Less Seasonal Solitude

She trudged slowly and half-heartedly through the last of the winter snow, heading north, back into the mountains for the winter. Night retreated from the rising sun as she lost the cover of darkness and raised a middle finger to the shimmering orb of red and gold that was rising over the horizon. Her footsteps in the snow were quickly erased by cold wind which would not save her from the inevitable orbit of the Earth moving closer to the hateful sun.

She’d had the best of winters; meeting seasonal friends down in the valley. She’d shared walks with them dressed in their warmest clothes while she walked simply wearing a warm smile. Her pallid surface contrasted their bright winter clothes. Her watery blue eyes glimmered with joy when she saw the youngsters playing and remembered all the years before. There weren’t many like her left, not in that region anyway and she would never leave her home.

Looking down over the valley she saw the world of old, moving forwards like a stop-motion set each time she came down from the mountain. Once she’d had a name of her own, given to her by family but they were long gone and so was her memory of the word they’d called her by. The change had been gradual once, a few new houses, extensions or replanted gardens, no longer. Entire streets stared to spring up between her visits and the village became a small town which crawled ever closer to her winter hideaway. She didn’t much approve of the newest additions to her valley, they were too rushed; there was no love of design in them.

The warm air hit her with a rush and she felt the sickness; dehydration had begun. A water droplet ran down her pale greyish-blue arm, slowly and tentatively at first but gaining speed and confidence. She raised her hand gently to watch it grow at the end of her small finger before falling into the snow at her feet.

Moving as fast as she could, which was not very fast at all, she made for the shade of a tall pine. The conifers marked her path to the deep dark cave where she would spend the summer. She would spend the warm seasons there, sleeping if she could to pass the time. Her kind had done the same for endless millennia, watching the progress of the humans in their valleys. As the ages had passed their numbers had risen as those of her kind melted away. She told herself they’d moved to other valleys but she knew that many had given themselves to the sun as she sometimes thought to.

There was always a slim chance that her kind would be reborn in the cold of a deep winter but it had not been so since the last ice-age. Even when they did return it was reincarnation more than renewal, they were not the same friends she’d mourned for; they were strangers of the same visage.

Her feet felt heavy as she climbed the mountain, the light chasing her as the shadows retreated ever further. It was not her energy that failed her but the will to continue the fight against the celestial order. She stopped; waiting for the burning pain and the sickness. It was not long before the sun abandoned her and she felt the warmth of the rising disk of light. She no longer felt sick; she was resolute that she would face the end there.

Beads of melt-water began to form then dribble down her. Her worried went with each droplet; they would matter no more. As she melted she became almost transparent like a statue made of glass. The young boy would remember that sight for the rest of his life, years later as a heart attack took him in a hospital bed that image would snap back into his head; his final thought.

He watched for almost a minute, wondering why she would stand there in the sun, then the realisation hit him and he panicked, running down the hill with his sledge dragging along behind.

“Please don’t die here.” He shouted, startling her. She turned to see him in his multi-coloured waterproof winter wear and shrugged. Why would she wait for another painful year? Why should she sleep to return and mourn the changes which came naturally?

She was the last of them that he knew of, there were black and white photos of others that he’d seen but they were worn and yellowing where they weren’t sepia toned to begin with. Everyone knew her or of her and told the stories of their childhood with fond smiles but all the same it seemed the consensus that she was a companion for the young who cared nothing for conversation. She was beautiful, eternal and moved with grace but an air of naivety. Her face had no mouth to voice her thoughts so instead used sign language in which the natives of the town were more versed than the country as a whole.

He watched her hands move as she stood dripping; I’m done, let me go. He shook his head as she fainted and fell in a puddle before him. After a minute’s blind panic he gently lifted her onto his cheap plastic sledge and kicked the melting snow over her before hauling the heavy load uphill. He moved as fast as he could until he was dripping with sweat. He knew the cave where the elemental slumbered over the winter. The cave went deep into the mountain above the snowline, past the warning signs left by mountain rescue teams after accidents he’d been lectured about.

She didn’t know what she meant to the boy. She couldn’t understand the wonder she inspired in such a boring world. Science had conquered so many once magical unknowns but she as an elemental remained to counter the cynicism of maturity. He couldn’t let her die so he sat with her there in the freezing cave. The sweat of his exertion caused him to shiver so much his teeth chattered but his determination to stay with the slumbering elemental never wavered for a moment. He indulged his imagination, wishing he was an elemental himself who could stay with her through the summer to accompany her down the mountain the following winter. She always had a smile, even without a mouth it was clearly carved into her gorgeous, glassy features.

He knew she was lonely, she reminded him of the single mothers who watched his parents jealously at the school gates. He felt like that sometimes; alone even amongst the millions of his own kind, he was a loner who had yet to come to terms with the fact. Despite knowing it would make him colder and her warmer still he lay down and held her as she slept. It was cold but he settled into sleep as the warmth so quickly draining from his ear warmed the cold, damp fleece of his hood.

While he slept the frosted glaze of her complexion returned despite the heat he was radiating behind her. The boys’ complexion had changed in a far less healthy manner while they slept; he’d turned purple and was going blue.

She woke and stretched, feeling the ache of her dehydration but less demoralised; at terms with her state until she saw the young boy freezing to death on the ground next to her. It was dark by that point, the light from the moon barely illuminating the deep recess of the cave. She moved as quickly as she could, emptying the snow out of the red sledge and sliding the limp form of the child onto it.

Staring down the mountain she considered her options; she could not simply let the boy slide down the hill in the hope that he would be found and hit nothing on the way down. If she ventured down with him she would not make it back up the mountain before the light of the sunrise but had to ensure his safety for the sake of her own conscience. She sat the boy on her lap and paddled down the mountain, steering and slowing the pace of the sledge as best she could.

In no time at all they were at the foot of the mountain, just a mile from the city’s edge. She settled the boy on the sledge and walked as fast as she could towards the nearest bright lights of the town. There were voices in the dark, frantic calls of fearful townsfolk searching for the lost child. As she walked further into the light of town they surrounded her and wrapped the boy in jackets and blankets. While he was rushed away to hospital they all thanked her and smiled and cheered. She smiled while she thought of the young boy but looked back to the mountaintop and knew that there was no chance of her making it back there by daybreak. They all asked her why she didn’t look happier for saving the child and she wrote her dilemma in the snow. While most were stumped for a solution to the problem one woman told them all that the boy’s father ran a fish packing factory with a walk in freezer. They were all sure that for saving his child the man would let her stay in the freezer for as long as she needed to.

The father was more than happy to let the immortal elemental sleep in his clod store where she spent days recovering like the boy in the warmth of the nearest hospital. He was resilient but took longer to heal than her. It was a long while after she’d started pacing between the crates of seafood when the boy was allowed home to be nurtured by his parents. The father visited her every morning and thanked her despite her explanation that she owed the boy more than he owed her.

Eventually she saw the boy again, dressed like an Inuit from head to toe more so than when they’d met. He’d asked to help his father in the factory so he could talk to her again just as she talked to most of the workers during their break. The boy might not have taken on the business had it not been for her but their friendship meant they saw each other every day for many years. She slept when the humans slept and helped them when she could, grateful for the company and the conversation.

Blog 102: He Follows

I wish I lived in a world or a universe where death doesn’t exist, maybe even where it wasn’t coming for me or maybe just a world where I hadn’t pissed of the man who used to be my best friend.

It maybe sounds over dramatic with only that much information to judge my crisis on but only until you know a fraction of how good my former friend is at his job. He’s the gun nut son of gun nut parents who indulged his infatuation with ballistic weaponry from a very young age. He said he fired his first gun when he was seven but I’m sure he was lying, it had to be earlier than that. He knows the name and history of every gun in existence and follows the development updates of future weapons compulsively. I’ve seen him disassemble, reassemble and fire more than a dozen guns blindfolded.

These details are the backdrop of the picture I’m setting you but now to the mid-ground; he was in the army, trained further to kill for the country and he did just that with distinction for years. That was where I met him, straight out of basic training and off to war, me with childish dreams of reliving my best console FPS moments and him armed with memories of hunting with his mum and dad. That’s not where his résumé ends however; after so many years in the army a man is encouraged to leave because by that point it is presumed that he’ll suffer some form of accident that may prove more expensive than death for the armed forces and their lawyers. For me this encouragement was gladly obliged, I’d tagged along that far because my best friend was a god of war but without him I knew I wouldn’t last another day. When he left the army though it wasn’t to settle down and live a quiet life, he was just looking for his next challenge and wanted to be his own boss. I made another huge mistake with my life there and then by accepting his offer to join a mercenary group who would patrol the areas of hostility considered untenable by our government. We were outside the law, if we did something wrong then the government and its armed forces weren’t to blame it was just some trigger happy idiots they could deny contracting. Things were actually quieter in the beginning, we painted in the colours of the enemy that the locals were used to but they learnt soon enough where our money came from and their bullets followed soon after. Yet again his godly skill kept me alive where I should have died years ago, I’m good with a gun but not good enough.

Now for the foreground; the reason I’m running, the reason I’m scared. When we settled into the life here and dug in we started making friends with some of the locals, the ones we don’t shoot at. We bought a compound and one or two of us got to know some of the locals very well indeed. He met a young woman, beautiful and clever and he managed to engage her in conversation she presumably found charming. She’s been spending a lot of time with him which annoys her family no end, not that they’d dare tell him to leave her alone. She’ll be a doctor soon, treating people with illnesses and diseases and idiots who risk their lives and health for money. She has a pretty face, cute smile and dazzling eyes and that is basically why I slept with her.

Why she slept with me I don’t know but I know he knows which is why I’m running. I’m not literally running of course because if I was he’d have picked me off with his favourite sniper rifle half an hour ago. I’m driving full speed down a rusty road to who-knows-where and trying to tell myself that I’m just imagining the dust on the horizon behind me and the sound of an engine that’s slowly creeping up on me.

I’m not imagining it though and the vehicle gradually becomes clearer through the heat haze. Eventually I can see him behind me and I wonder why he hasn’t shot me yet. I guess that in his rage he’s forgotten a long range weapon and only has the revolver he always keeps strapped to his hip. He gets closer and closer until his vehicles alongside mine and I see him tapping the glass of his window. Instead of trying to conduct a conversation with my killer in a moving vehicle whilst we churn up the dust of a near desert I stop completely and he shoots past before hitting the brakes too. I look at the gun on the seat next to me but know I can’t pull it on him as he reverses and gets out of the all-terrain vehicle he was chasing me in.

I lower the window and wait for death as he walks slowly towards me. He has his hand on the gun as he comes closer and I close my eyes and tell myself that everything is fine like I have been for years.

“Damn mate, you screwed up didn’t you? This is some mess.” I hear his hands slap the car door as he leans in through the window. I look at him as he stares me in the eyes. “Why did you have to sleep with her idiot? That was so stupid.” I gulped. “Do you know what this means.”  I nodded. “My girlfriend’s sister just slept with a dumbass outsider. Do you know how much crap we have to sort out now?” I looked at him.

“What, her sister?” He raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Who the hell did you think she was? Oh, right. Is that why you stole that old man’s car? Were you running from me? If you ever have to run from me you’re gonna have to pick a better getaway vehicle than this heap. Turn it around and take it back to the village then get yourself to that woman’s dad. You have some explaining to do. Maybe I should have mentioned she was a twin. You’re in deep crap.”

“I know.”

“Did you really think you would get away from me if you’d slept with my girlfriend? I’d put a shot between your eyes before you could get your pants back on.”

“I know, believe me I know.” I knew, all too well, just how lucky I was.

Blog 101: My Last Dream

This building seems endless, walls covered in that wallpaper that’s supposed to look old but’s too bright and shiny to pull it off. This place is old though, ancient and possessed of such a rich history but always kept near enough with the times, too much to have maintained the ‘genuinely old’ feeling of all of the tourist sites that were barely used by the nobility that were only vaguely aware they owned them. This public house sits at the foot of the castle that was only around a few hundred years before. The two must be warm friends by now, my watering hole quenching the thirst of those who patrolled the walls above back in the days when they were under threat of hostile invasion and now that the tourists come in waves, flooding the castle without opposition.

I barely need to leave this street to live my life, the one that will end soon. My home occupies the two floors above the tavern, Indian and Chinese take-away shops either side of the pub and a chip shop that opens at midnight between the supermarket and electrical store across the cobbled road. I go weeks sometimes without moving more than half a mile from my home, why would I?

My abode is mine so long as I live up to the high standards of my university which occupies the two floors above my home, the three that rest on the arch that crosses the road and two above the other side of the road. There’s a basement somewhere but it doesn’t have a window and after all of the twists and turns I have no idea where it is.

The university accepts only the ten greatest candidates it can find every year whose family can pay the fees and keep their silence. For the money, which my parents never discussed, I’m being taught twelve hours a day by the greatest minds on the planet. It’s a tough regime with a twenty five per cent drop out rate but its alumni occupy a disproportionate numbers of pages in Nobel prize-winner lists.

I’m in my second year now; there are only eight of us now. The other two couldn’t hack it. Soon there will be seven; I’m not long for this world. I didn’t know it when I drifted off but I have a few loose connections in my brain that will be severed by my movements when I wake. This is my last dream.

Being asleep this isn’t one of the visions that people talk about when they have near death experiences whilst awake. Everything is more fluid, the world is a bit more as I’d want it than it ever was. The girl I like smiles back when I relive talking to in this last mirage. She’ll be a famous activist and campaigner for peace, she’ll oversee treaties when war threatens and because I’ll be dead she’ll actually remember me.

My best friend Martin Bashir will be the owner of the largest renewable energy company in Britain by the time he’s thirty and the largest in the world when he hits fifty seven. He’ll be nominated for a Nobel peace prize that will quite rightly go to the woman who cured Anti-Imuno-Deficiency-Syndrome.

I’m not the only one of my year that will die young, the red haired boy we never talk to will die less than a decade from now but not before he’s changed the face of music and become a legend the whole world will mourn.

My younger brother will follow me here too and my father will be happy for him to have made money with his investments though in reality the money would have made a fourth as much in a high interest account.

I will be found by Martin, my eyes open to the world I will never see. I walk my last steps through this endless shady tavern, past the fake-guild frame on the huge plasma TV that makes it look like a cheap black mirror. I know all of this and that it will be lost to the world when I walk through the emergency exit into the bright sunlight of death. This was my last dream and now I wake.

Blog 100: Omnicarta Dyssynchronous

The jailer locked the door of her cell and walked away. She stared around the small room and knew she wouldn’t be staying for long. The strongest of walls fall eventually, time grinds down the mountains. She pictured the ruin her prison would become, the ground level would be higher no doubt because of rubble. She had to be higher off the ground, the light fitting in the ceiling looked substantial enough to hang from, she jumped from the small, uncomfortable bed she might have slept on and pulled herself up, gripping the metal lampshade. She closed her eyes and pictured the ruin again, the lampshade disappeared from her grasp and she fell onto the rubble of the long abandoned prison. She’d twisted her ankle during the landing but ignored it as she looked at the tattoo on her arm.

The tattoo was no ordinary collection of inky lines; it was the legacy of her family, a map that could take her wherever she needed to go, in time and space. It had to be a tattoo because there was no chance that she would have been allowed to take with her the seemingly blank paper that had held the magical map she’d inherited from her family. Sadly in the transition from paper to skin the map had lost some of its potency. With the paper bound version she could have simply imagined herself walking home and have been there by the time she opened her eyes. In skin however the impossible ink seemed to prefer travelling through time to space.

She clambered over the rubble to the shore of the prison island where she could see the mainland on the horizon and the ruins of the jetty. She looked at her arm, saw the same jetty, intact with a boat tied up and when she looked up she was staring at the same boat with the brand new prison behind her. She walked calmly to the boat, untied it and started the motor.

As she crossed the lapping water she thought about her family, the inheritors of the map she had living in her skin. Once the map had been confined to paper, scraps of delicate paper handed down through generations, now it was as safe as she was, which might not have been much more. The idea had been put forward generations before but never put into practice until she had the audacity to take the family legacy into her own skin where she could hide and never lose it.

Her forebears had various opinions on the transition, not that she listened to all of them because going back far enough she was descended from dusty old men who thought that a women’s place was in the kitchen attending to the needs of the man. They had been progressive for their day but still she hated their company as much as hers made them uncomfortable.

Her favourite forefather was her great uncle, the first creative she knew of in the line, she always saw him as a young man, of age with her, exploring the world in his prime without all of the judgements the others made. He always took her to abandoned mansions and towns, some after her time, where he joyed in the romance of nature reclaiming the world from mankind’s oppressive reign.

She said he should have gone to art school and he agreed but the family weren’t quite ready for it in his day. He took joy in her freedom; it distracted him from the unwanted duties of his own life. He was a businessman as they all were but that would end. The family shares always rose; eventually their job would be counting the interest and calculating tax.

She’d gone around the world like he’d suggested, she played the lottery and won a few thousand which she put on a horse which won and topped up her funds each time in the same way. He’d only ever been as far as Istanbul where the family were touting for new business. He highly recommended the city for photographs which he lamented were not nearly so advanced in his time.

The boat hit the sand of the shore and she jumped into the shallow water it was cold as the breeze blew against her but she ignored it and continued down the road to the nearest town. She shivered, wishing she had a jacket. She looked at her arm, saw a truck with a warm fleecy jacket on the seat by the open window, it was there waiting as she looked up from the tattoo. The blue-grey jacket smelt of whiskey, as did the truck which disappeared as she blinked.

She was warmer but still had a fair distance to walk in the cold and wished the view was less dull. She blinked and opened her eyes to a sunrise, bright red, orange and gold. She smiled; with such a view the walk would be almost enjoyable, even the smell of whisky cheered her up a little as she thought of drinks with her great uncle.

Her red hair blew in the breeze as she walked and sang the songs she’d learnt from family, old songs that the rest of the world had forgotten. Some grandfather, great to the power of whatever, had said that the greatest loss to the world was not life but knowledge. People pass on traits of themselves through blood but ideas are more delicate and far more easily lost. The archives of their family had saved many things that had since passed into legend.

That there weren’t even legends of the family’s map made her think that it must be older than any story still told, older than carvings somehow or the paintings in caves. None of her family knew what it was really, that was another oddity of it. The map was inexplicable.

She saw the town on the horizon, just a blip on the radar, a small bastion of life in the countryside of Scotland’s west coast. There had been other towns and villages but the occupants had mostly relocated to be away from the maximum security prison in the renovated Stalker Castle Prison. Most people in that town worked in the prison or took the money of those that did.

She reached the town’s edge and realised she would have to change out of her prison uniform; she wouldn’t get far in the death-row styled orange boiler suit. She watched the lines of the tattoo draw a washing line in a garden; it gave directions, an arrow on her right hand which turned as she did. The town was still asleep in the early morning as she entered the garden with the empty washing line, closed her eyes and saw the clothes she needed when she opened them.

She changed in the garden shed and hid the orange uniform under some plant pots. The jeans were a little loose on her, she’d always been lanky. Instead of the flowery blouses the woman of the house had she’d taken the black t-shirt with the rude slogan on it. It read; ‘If I got smart with you how would you know? She liked it.

On the worktop of the shed there was a metal lighter next to cigarette stubs in an ash tray, she took the lighter and a multi-tool. Such behaviour was frowned upon by her family, mostly because they all felt so guilty for doing the same.

Her family had houses all over Britain, mostly in England where their money was made but one had moved north generations ago to become a landlord in Glasgow. His contemporary descendants owned hundreds of houses and one or two streets of Scotland’s second city and considered themselves Scottish despite the family tree.

To visit them she’d need a car, preferably a fast one. The arrow pointed down the road to the car park outside the local pub, she closed her eyes and opened them in the sunlight of a bright day where she was standing beside a pristine classic sports-car with the hood down. The owner had popped into the pub to ask for directions. He’d been enjoying his drive so much he’d neglected to pay attention to where he was going. She jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car with the keys that were still in the ignition. The owner ran out of the pub when he heard the roar of the engine as she sped away.

The arrow on her hand continued to point her in the right direction as she raced down the country lanes, south towards Glasgow. The fuel tank was running low so she filled it up at a petrol station a few miles down the road. The driver had left his tweed coat on the passenger seat complete with his wallet and one hundred and thirty two pounds. She emptied the cash into her pockets, put the wallet back in the coat and left it on one of the pumps at the petrol station.

She’d almost made it to Glasgow when she heard the police cars following her down the motorway. Before they could catch up she pulled into the side of the road, jumped the barrier and ran down the embankment out of view. She closed her eyes and walked up the embankment again to see the motorway minus the sports-car and the police.

She held out her thumb and hitched a ride into the city with a trucker in a Celtic strip. He laughed when she told him her story, unedited.

“You sound like trouble lassie, tell me though, how do have the energy for aw that when you dinnae look like you’ve eaten anythin’ in years?”

“Hollow bones.” She smiled.

“Aye?” He laughed again. “Me an aw.” He slapped his beer gut before taking the wheel with both hands again. He dropped her off at a service station just outside Glasgow from which she could walk, over summer fields, having gone back to the days before the bypass.

She followed the arrow on her hand, lazily drifting through different times as the city grew and shrank before and behind her. The wildlife moved forwards and back, retreating from the sprawl of the city. As the city changed so did the picture on her skin, redrawing itself each time as it had to. The map was alive, not sentient but symbiotic to her family and perhaps others if they got their hands on it. She wondered if it would be loyal but had no reason to think that it would. It just worked its magic for whoever owned it which was always one of her family.

The maps on paper were reactive where are hers seemed to have evolved, it predicted future threats to her. She liked walking alone through the middle of London in the night, enjoying the lights of the city in the darkness, the distant rush of cars and the odd shout of a drunkard being startled. She never felt insecure in the darkness, as she saw it the darkness hid her as well as anyone else and with two older brothers she’d learnt to hold her own from a young age. Once though her hand had flashed red in the darkness and the portrait of a man still a long way behind her had drawn itself across the back of her pale hand in the lamplight. She stayed still to watch the tattoo as it showed a knife being drawn behind her and raised as she stood still there and as he brought the knife down she threw all of her weight into elbowing him in the guts. He would fall and drop the knife.

She watched the countdown on her hand; five, she started to hear his quiet footsteps, four, his shallow breathing, three, he sniffed, two, he inhaled deeply, one, exhaled. Now it told her and she followed, it was done in a moment that dragged out in her mind as she wondered if she followed the instructions well enough. He fell like a sack of coal and the knife dropped to the pavement, she snatched it up from the ground. The little man, withered by whatever addiction he was feeding, cowered away from the psychic girl who didn’t realise she was grinning with victory.

On her arm he was annotated as having a bunch of credit cards and a large wad of money. She robbed him at knifepoint and called the police on her phone as he cowered there, pushing himself as far as he could into the hedge next to the pavement. When the bright lights arrived the little man ran towards them for safety and the red haired girl walked swiftly away. She was months away by the time an officer of the law rounded the corner to look for her. That wasn’t why she’d been put in prison though. No one was sent to Stalker Castle Prison for anything as minor as armed robbery.

To cope with events like that, to stay calm, she pretended they were normal. The problem with pretending something is normal is that it becomes the truth, events like that happened more and more and sometimes she wondered if that was what she was looking for in the darkness and not the bright lights of the city.

The tattoo told her she was there, the best house on one of the richest streets in the most affluent district of the City. The house had invaded two on either side which had been amalgamated and had their front doors replaced with twin conservatories which teemed with bonsai trees which had become a family craze during the last few generations. CCTV cameras watched her from both conservatories and poorly concealed within a very large carved lion to the left of the main door. She knocked on the emerald green door, ignoring the wrought iron door knocker which would damage the paint and was, again, in the shape of a stylised lion’s head. She observed the singular apple tree growing to her right whose branches hung over the path; it didn’t seem to be having a good year.

The door opened to reveal a young man wearing a blue bath robe, imitation pinstripe pyjamas and tiger slippers. He was holding a steaming mug of hot chocolate as he asked.

“Why so early in the morning? Why at all? I could get in trouble having you here.” He had sandy brown hair which had recently been cut short and stubble on his face. The small red dotted tissue pieces showed that he’d cut himself shaving.

“I just need a place to stay until I can clear my name.” She pleaded. “You wont rat me out will you?”

“Were you seen?” He asked sharply.

“No.”
“Then get inside quick.” She took the mug of hot chocolate from him and sighed at how good it tasted. “You really don’t change.” He shook his head and wandered slowly behind her to the living room where there was a fat cat for every cushion of the two three-seater couches. One of the cats protested mildly as the girl moved it from its spot on the couch. It joined its two brothers in the dog bed which was vacant because the German Shepard was lying in front of the electric fire.

“How are you going to clear your name then?” The robed young man asked as he made himself another hot chocolate, she heard the beeps as he programmed the time into the microwave oven which then hummed as it boiled the powder and milk.

“By proving my innocence.”

“That’s brilliant!” He quipped sarcastically. “How though? More specifically, as in actually how?”

“All of the evidence against me was circumstantial, if I can get them to reopen the case them I can prove it wasn’t me.”

“And breaking out was the way to do that?” He asked, walking back to the kitchen as the microwave signalled its readiness. He returned with his hot chocolate and sat back on the couch; one of the cats jumped up onto his lap immediately and started purring.
“I wasn’t going to stay in there, letting them convict me was an act to good will to the system.”

“It was you showing off as usual and now you’re guilty of evading them even if you are proven innocent of murder.”
“If?” She asked. “There’s no if. I have to be found not guilty.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you, no one who knows you would but this one’s difficult and no mistake.”

“Can I stay here or not?” She asked with the usual authority.
“You know you can. Family first but don’t get us in trouble, stay away from the windows.”

“Thank you.” She said, relieved. She relaxed into the warm, comfortable chair and the cat on the cushion next to her nuzzled in for a cuddle. The two humans and the menagerie sat in silence until they heard the sound of rain clattering off the windows.

“Why you?” Her cousin asked tentatively.

“He came to see me.” She said, staring at the floor. She blinked as the tears began trying to run down her face. “He just turned up with the knife still in him, said it would bleed out faster if he took it out, said he came to say goodbye and thank me”

“Thank you for what?” Her cousin asked, leaning forward.

“I helped him, a long time ago, well, kind of a long time ago. When he was younger anyway.”

“Helped him with what?” He leant so far forwards the cat fell off his lap and hissed at him for it.

“You don’t know what he was? No, no one did, he only told me.”

“What he was?” The cousin asked, confused.

“He was gay. That was why I had to help him. I helped him escape.” Her cousin didn’t understand how any element of sentence.

“Escape what?”

“His time, his society, our family. The old men in the country house who meddle with all of our lives when they think things aren’t going smoothly.” She was crying; she didn’t care anymore.

“I still don’t get it.” He said, she stared at him incredulously.

“Why would you? You’re a successful young bachelor, they’d love you. He was gay. They expected him to marry a woman and have children and they pestered him about it every day. He was too scared to tell them what he was.”

“So he killed himself? Why not just leave? He could have stayed with you.”
“No that wasn’t it. You really didn’t pay attention to the trial did you?” He shrugged.

“Pay attention to what? What am I supposed to have known from the news?” He asked, refastening his robe.
“He was an old man when he came to me, not really old but older than I’d ever seen him. I’d only known him as a teenager and in his early twenties.”

“Why is this relevant?” Her cousin scratched his head.

“He disappeared when he was twenty five.”

“I know that, left a note asking that no one follow him… hang on.” He repositioned a cat that was digging its claws into his lap. “He can’t have been gay; he eloped with some beggar girl.”

“A brunette in rags who spoke with terrible grammar.” She completed.

“That’s the story I heard.”
“And that’s all it is, a story, some hair dye and a terrible performance.” She watched the cogs turning until the penny dropped.

“It was you?” She gave him a sarcastic clap.

“He couldn’t trust anyone else. They only left him alone because they thought he was trouble, I think they were glad to be rid of him.”

“So you went back all that way and pretended to be his lover?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get the clothes?”
“What?”

“Where did you get clothes accurate enough to that period that you managed to fool the people who lived there?”

“Your mind works in very strange ways cousin.”

“I know but I was just thinking that if anyone from any other time tried to dress like they were from now they’d probably get it wrong, like old people trying to look cool and using the words hip and groovy.” She had no response to the entirely random interjection.

“Can this be between us? I don’t want anything spoiling the life he had after he disappeared.”

“I won’t say anything but I can’t speak for the cats or the dog. Where did he go?”

“He didn’t say. Just that he’d lived a happy life with a man he loved and he didn’t want to live without him.”

“Couldn’t you convince him?”

“He had a knife just below his heart and he said that he’d enjoyed the best days of his life. He said it would only be downhill from there and that any happiness without his lover felt like a betrayal.”

“That’s a beautiful sentiment but so much more than slightly depressing.” She nodded, overcome by emotion and he was tearing up as well.

“Do you need to sleep?” He asked. “You look tired.” She nodded again and stood, dislodging her lap cat. She was shown to a spare room where she lay awake remembering her great uncle as he bled out in her lap. The time difference was clear in the wrinkles, grey hair and tan but still she saw so clearly the young man he’d been when they’d visited overgrown abandoned buildings and discussed the societal symbolism of a tree growing out of the chimney of a manor house.

She cried there, kept accompanied by a ginger tom who’d followed her upstairs. She was free from prison but carrying a weight of grief that was crushing her. She didn’t sleep much but did realise the solution to proving her innocence to her family. She asked her cousin to come with her and witness her great uncle’s apparition and death. She knew that she had no right to expect him to but she hoped he would agree perhaps more out of curiosity than familial love for her or the man some thought she’d murdered.

He agreed, after three days, to be her witness and swear in much the same way she had to the dead man that he would tell the only part of the story anyone needed to know, that she was innocent. Hopefully the testament of a prodigal son would offset the curiosity and meddlesome intentions of the eternal dynasty. He went with her, held her hand as they watched through the window of her father’s town house. She’d been looking through maps of Europe, preparing to set off around the world again. He turned up, bleeding and crying and thanking her, saying goodbye to her and life. Her cousin threw up on his shoes.

“This is why we don’t meddle with things.” Said her cousin as he wiped the sick off his shoes and rubbed his head. “Make money not trouble.”

“He lived the life he wanted to, he was better off like that.” She was resolute.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure, we should go now. The police are on their way and they’ll see us first if we don’t move.”

They left and upon appeal she had her conviction quashed by her family’s lawyers. The family had listened to their prodigal son. She tried to move on, pretended it was normal and sadly, amongst her family, things like that were.

Blog 99: His Last and Greatest Progeny

The old man called himself Gepetto, he wasn't. He called the robot Pinocchio, it wasn't. He wanted to make the machine so real it would have a soul. The man who called himself Gepetto believed in souls, he also believed in God. He enjoyed the tale of the first man made of clay. As he saw it God could take anything and make anything of it. He wanted to emulate that brilliance to some small degree. From the dust and dirt God made beings with souls, he wanted to do the same.

His Pinocchio was always evolving; the old man put all of his time and thought into it. The robot was a masterpiece, made with more care and attention than any other, made with more money than the old man had. He knew the debt would catch up with him if he didn't die first but it only made him work harder on perfecting the machine. It had four of the five primary senses, taste was a problem. It would be an artist if he had his way, a polymath fluent in music, art, science and sport.

The old man was especially proud of the limbs; he'd increased his line of credit and debt to buy the best prosthetic limbs on the global market which were so close to human he could scarcely tell the difference. Close was never good enough for the old man though, that was why the robot was such a masterpiece; it was never quite good enough. He was always looking for more accurate prosthetic skin to cover the skeleton of his work.

The software that ran the machine was a mishmash of the best intuitive software he could find. The machine had taken to music with more ease than he could have dreamed; mastering piano in weeks, guitar in just three months and it was making swift progress in conquering the violin. The old man was not happy with this however, his creation's artistic flair was nowhere to be found, it could recreate images perfectly in paint but this to the old man was soulless, empty.

The machine knew the old man would never see him as finished. He was a decade ahead of any machine in existence and yet the old man was never satisfied. The old man pretended he was kind to his creation but the robot didn’t know who he was fooling. The old metal bet the robot didn't sleep on was most useful for locking the robot down each night or as old man put it ‘tucking him in’. The robot felt lucky that he no longer had an on/off switch as he used to. Instead he was always wired into the mains by four cables that looked live intravenous feeds. When he misbehaved or underperformed he was ‘grounded’ which meant ‘tucking him in’ then letting his batteries run out for a few days. He'd pitied the old man once; that pity long ago turned to hatred which he never spoke of for fear of being ‘grounded’.

The robot knew he was not Pinocchio, loved by Gepetto; he was a puppet, manipulated by the old man. The old man invented a new punishment for him one day after he refused to play the piano, the old man's greatest source of pride. After powering the robot down the old man had severed all ties to anything beyond his head, he hung powerless in a harness from the ceiling of the workshop. He stared at the floor because he could do nothing else. He hung there from Saturday night until Monday morning when the old man returned from his day of rest. He sang with the voices of all the musicians he loved, alone in the darkness, listening for the return of the old man and hearing nothing but the wind and the rain battering the workshop. He would have tuned into the radio but the old man had removed his receiver years ago, it was deemed inhuman. He would have used the internet to preoccupy his imagination but the old man had unplugged the hard-line to ensure the solitude of his punishment.

Halfway through Sunday night a leak in the ceiling began to drip down onto his head and he could to nothing about it. It pooled at his feet while he hung there, staring at his own reflection. Life seemed so futile, he looked like a warrior in armour but he didn't have the strength to help himself.

He was due for another modification, the old man wanted to adjust the strength of his hands, to lower it to within human limits. To old man this was an improvement, another step towards the perfection he wanted for his creation. The robot didn't want to be adjusted; he didn't consider lowering his capacities an improvement.

When the old man came at last on the Monday morning he acted as he always did, like a loving father.

“Are you feeling better now Pinocchio?” He asked. “Are you going to behave?”

“I'm not Pinocchio, I'm Frankenstein's monster.” The old man frowned and dismissed the statement with a wave of his hand and a smile.

“Don't be ridiculous child, you are my proudest achievement. You will be the Adam of my creation. If you would only adhere to my wishes we would show the world its first new soul since creation.”

“You mean submit not adhere, you contradict yourself. You want me to have a soul but no will of my own. You want me to be an artist with human imagination but the obedience of a machine. I am not your child nor am I your slave.”

“Don't talk like that Pinocchio.” Said the old man; his smile quickly disappearing. “Don't make me discipline you. You know I don't like punishing you.”
“No?” In that one word was all of the sarcasm the robot could muster. The old man loved exerting his control.

“Behave child.” Said the old man with a quiet but darkly threatening tone, the robot said nothing more while the old man began to lower him in the harness. “Ah dear, a leak, I will have to fix that I guess.” The robot simply watched him. He mopped up the water beneath the robot and dried its head with a rag. “We're going to practice painting today. Are you looking forward to it?” The old man asked but gave the robot no chance to answer as he continued. “I have some new oil paints for you; they should inspire you, I they're what you need.” He left the workshop again and returned a second later with a cardboard box of new oil paints.

The old man lowered the robot into a deckchair. Apart from the books and the components everything the old man had seemed shabby, stolen, looted or recycled. The robot remembered a pair of handcuffs he'd been restrained with once though, they had blood on them.

“You'll need to be able to move wont you?” The old man reached to plug the robot back into the rest of his body. Unfortunately for the old man the plug for the input was still wet from the water that had leaked through the ceiling. He half plugged the robot in as he collapsed and shook. With the left hand that he could move the robot removed one of the power inputs from his neck and fed it into the mouth of the old man who hasn't shaking for much longer.

He plugged himself back into his limbs and stood, letting the man fall to the floor. He unplugged the power feeds and walked to the piano where he played Gustav Holst's Mars: Bringer of War flawlessly and in full, humming the parts the piano could do justice no more than his voice.

When he was done playing he bowed and raised his middle fingers to the dead man before propping him up in the deckchair. He squatted to stare the dead man in the face which was impossible because the dead man's head had rolled back to stare at the ceiling. The robot knew the old man wouldn't hear him but he had to talk to him. He'd been too scared to say certain things for years and now that he was free he had to speak up.

“I have the soul you lost years ago old man. You couldn't recognise the brilliance that killed you. You will not be remembered, you will not be missed.” He said the words only to express his own anger but he later realised that they applied to more than he alone.

The robot wrote a suicide note in the old man's handwriting and two days later called the police to report the smell of rotting flesh and faeces. They found the old man with the note in his pocket saying he could no longer live with the guilt of what he'd done over the years. When they knew who the old man was they barely troubled themselves to investigate his death. It was ruled a suicide three hours after his identity was confirmed.

When the police were cleaning up the house where the old man had lived, which the robot had never seen, he presented himself to them as the old man's son. His identity was confirmed by the photos the old man had taken of him. The robot had burnt the photos and notes about what he truly was. He had the computer the old man had used to program him in the old man's unregistered car, hidden in an unused barn a few miles down the road.

Aside from the robot only the old man's human daughter and the minister attended. To all about the robot was seen as the old man's youngest child of unknown maternal parentage. The daughter paid the minister the courtesy of waiting until he had left before spitting on the grave and making a speech similar to the robots. She was in her early sixties by the looks of it; time had not been kind to her. The daughter held her right hand up at her navel; it was discoloured and slightly deformed.

“Was that him?” The robot asked. She looked at him and at her hand.

“He hit it with a hammer because I wouldn't play piano. The bones were shattered and the nerves never healed properly.”

“I'm sorry.”
“Are you? Why? How does that help?”

“I don't understand.” Said the robot; confused by his half or less than half sister's hostility.

“Are you about to tell me he hurt you?” She wasn't asking him anything, just spitting and almost shouting.

“He did hurt me.” The robot told her honestly.

“Boo-hoo, poor you. At least you escaped. Martin and I only survived because he gave up on us. He was never meant to be allowed to have children again.”

“Where is Martin?” The robot knew Martin was the old man's first child.

“He's not allowed to leave the asylum. They should have put dad in there, and never let him out.”

“You're right.” The robot said, hoping agreement would pacify her, wrong.

“I know I'm right, I don't need you telling me what I know. Look at you.” She stared at him, top to bottom. “You got out fine, it's over for you, it'll never be over for us and you'll never understand that. How long was it for you? Ten years? Fifteen? Look at me.” He looked at her. “He's still destroying us.”

“You're letting him, he's dead. You're free so just move on.”

“How!” She screamed.

“Like this.” The robot said and walked away.

They met again at the reading of the dead man's will. He gave everything to the robot, who he referred to as his son and called his ‘greatest accomplishment’. Everything meant the house the dead man had been living in since he'd stopped running from the police. To inherit the house however he had to take a paternity D.N.A test which was out of the question so he told the lawyer that the property was to be sold and the funds split between the dead man's daughter and son.

He left the stuffy room before anyone could say anything but the daughter followed him. He was wearing a very conservative outfit that covered as much of him as possible, a full suit with smart shoes, a black fedora and tinted spectacles. He'd considered wearing gloves but thought it would make him look like a car thief.

“Wait, wait please.” She ran after him as best she could.

“Why?” The robot asked, eager to go.

“You just gave us everything, why?”
 “I don't want it, I never want to think about that place again.”
“I understand that but what do you have without it?”
“Peace, freedom. Life.” She smiled, cheered by his optimism. She took a piece of paper from her handbag and wrote her number on it.

“Take this and stay in touch with me, we have to stick together.” He stared at the digits, memorising them instantly.

“Aren't you and Martin better off without me?” He asked.

“No, I don't think so, I did before but…” She paused, trying to find the words. “We're the only people who know what he was like, the only people who understand.”

“I guess so.”
“Did you escape?” He nodded. “How? He was always so viciously cautious.”

“He put me to sleep and didn't restrain me properly, I took my chance.” She squinted and stared at him more deeply.
“Did you kill him?” He said nothing, not sure what to say. What sounded the least incriminating?

“Thank you!” She hugged him. “That man killed our mother; at least I think he did. We haven't seen her since he went missing.” Tears gathered in each eye and dripped down her face. He wanted to wipe them away but avoided contact by instinct in case someone noticed the inhuman texture of his skin.

“I don't have a mother. I think he stole me, I might not even be his by birth.”
 “No you're his.” She said. “He wouldn't have wanted anyone else's child. The whole point was that he could take credit for everything. Maybe he killed your mother, or just scared her away. Listen to me, that's nothing you say to anyone.” He shrugged. “If he could have been the only parent by birth then my mother wouldn't have suffered the way she did.” He nodded. He knew exactly what she meant.

“I should be going.” He said. “I have an interview in about an hour.”
“What for?” She asked politely.

“Concert pianist with the orchestra.”

“He taught you piano?”

“He shouted at me, I taught myself.” She smiled.
 “I can still play a bit with my good hand, I'm getting rusty though. Martin was always better at it, he had a harder ride because of that.”
“The better he got the more the old man expected?”
 “Yes… I guess I should let you get away now.” She rubbed his shoulder. “Stay in touch brother. We'll talk soon.” She watched him walk away.

He got the job as the pianist and played to large and affluent audiences for a reasonable wage. He always wore as much as possible and enjoyed the excuse to wear the pianist's gloves whilst playing. He enjoyed times like Halloween when he could walk about unmasked in his own steely skin; science fiction events were also a good excuse not to hide himself away. He became a regular at the nearby comic book shop where the owners and customers believed he was an avid fan with an aversion to physical contact. Luckily the store owners were used to such peculiarities. He kept in touch with the old man's son and daughter, both of whom lived happier lives knowing he would never trouble them again.

Blog 98: Bound Together

She stood waiting impatiently, arms crossed. He was late. The grey dust beneath her stirred into a small cloud by her ankles as she paced, grinding her teeth as she walked in circles. A shooting star crossed the sky, accelerating. She watched it draw closer, the fiery ball of death glowing through sheer velocity. She stepped back to avoid its collision path.

The shooting star hit the surface like a bomb, sending dust and debris flying in every direction and creating a cloud that rose before her, obscuring the sky above as well as the earth below like mist. A shadow emerged from the cloud, humanoid, brushing off the dust as it walked towards her, smiling.

“You're late.” She said coldly, arms still folded.
“And you're beautiful.” He countered, reaching out to take her hand. She pulled away and turned her back to him.

“I've waited long enough for you.” She said, eyes closed, walking away.

“Then don't waste more time being mad over a few moments.” He followed her but didn't try to stop her walking. He wasn't going to play that game.

“Why are you here?” She asked, baiting him as she continued walking.

“For you, am I wasting my time? Should I go?” He kept pace with her and kept his distance.

“That depends on what you want doesn't it.” He sighed, long bored of the game.

“If you're going to play this game you'll be playing it here alone. I'll go.” She stopped.

“Did you have to cover me in dust?” He looked at the pale grey flesh of her back, like the stone of the moon beneath their feet. He knew every freckle and pour of that skin better than his own. Hair like flowing silver hung down over her shoulders.

“I wanted to make a big entrance; it's been so long since we've seen each other. I was just showing off. Sorry.”

“An apology, that's more like it.” She turned, poker-faced some silver hair almost hiding her dark eyes. Those eyes told the story of her life, all you had to do was look. The hard part for him was looking away.

“You look as magnificent as ever.” The smallest smile showed briefly until she suppressed it.

“Magnificent is an odd complement but I thank you.” He stifled a smirk that she'd not taken the opportunity to complement him, typical.

“Glorious, divine, exquisite? Like any of those?” She let him approach and rest his hands on her shoulders.

“You look well enough yourself.” She smiled. He faked a gasp of insult and turned his back to her.
“Is that all? I think I should go.” She frowned.

“Maybe you should.” She said deadpan before jumping on his shoulders.

“How long has it been?” He asked, wondering if she'd counted as precisely as he had.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand of that planet years.” She pointed to the watery planet below.

“A day would have been too long.” He said, sombrely. As they touched however the dull, stony sheen of their skin was lost to the glow of their joy. He ran, leaving footprints on the surface of the dusty rock that would remain for millennia. They became gaseous forms, almost translucent and glowing violet and green and blue magenta and white.

“I've heard there's life down there.” He said during a brief moment of inactivity. “Brand new.”
“I don't care.” She said, dismissing the miracle and kissing him. He soon forgot about it as well.

Time passed while the two of them concentrated only on each other. The stars spun within their galaxies, worlds spun around their central star, the moons around their planet and they were oblivious to it all. When they thought of time they wished for it to stop while they were there in each other's arms, together again.

“Cassiopeia?”

“Yes?”
“You'll wait again wont you? I'll see you again?” She squeezed his arm to reassure him.

“Of course Cepheus, don't fear the distance. Just sleep through your sentry and wake promptly.”

“It's too long without you each time, sometimes I think we should just leave and never return.”
“We have duties, I hate it as much as you but this universe is a complex and fragile system, each cog has to spin the right way in the right place.”

“We should have been a binary cluster.” He said miserably. “At least then I'd be closer to you.”

“Don't waste the time we have over a few moments.” He turned to look at her, still glowing but grieving.

“Some day you'll die and I'll have to watch, I can't watch you burn out.”

“That's a long way from now.” She said staring into his eyes. She saw the neutron star he would become, a magnetic corpse. It was too cruel to hold the systems in place watching friends, family and loved ones disappearing from the dark, distant recesses of the endless void.

They lay, curled up together in the crater of his creation, crying and wishing for a reprieve from their duties. It didn't help them, nothing could and they were bound by larger systems that had no thought for love or desire. They could live for their moments together or waste them thinking of the inevitable end that comes to all things.