Kevin's Watch

kevinswatch wrote:Definitely not the one I'm posting right now.

-jay

deer of the dawn wrote:

SS wrote:I wish drops of rain had guidance systems in them to direct them into the flower-pots on the balcony so I wouldn't have to water them even when it's bloody raining or get my shoes wet even when I don't want them to.

Thanks to amazing advances in molecular science, the global community establishes nanochip-replicating microbes in the stratosphere that actually control the movement of specific raindrops by mass and weight so that droughts and starvation become a thing of the past; the desert blossoms as the rose; rain can actually be diverted from, say, major-league sports events and redirected to farm fields.

Those with sufficient funds can even purchase satellite bandwidth so that the rainfall on their property can be custom calibrated to fall in the pool and not on the driveway, for example. Excess rain can be diverted to rooftop cisterns to be available later on for watering lawns and ornamental plantings. Shoe's dream of being able to direct rainwater to his plants is realized.

However it doesn't take long for the global community to realize that temperate zones, which used to receive the bulk of the world's rain, are being starved for rainfall because of the needs of the vast desert belts of the Sahel, the Middle East, the Asian Steppes, and Central America. The Middle East has lots of money, and they are getting used to 100-acre swimming pools and 1000-acre golf courses, so they are buying up lots and lots of water and bunkering it underground (oil out, water in).

Africa, Mexico, and the Asian Steppes, of course, have no money. Corrupt politicians line their pockets by selling off their countries' natural rainfall to be diverted to the highest bidder. Millions suffer drought while in Dubai, fountains gush along every thoroughfare.

Ecotage hackers break into the satellites and redirect rainfall to needy areas. Golf courses brown in the Arab sun. DubaiDisney closes.

Counterhacking retakes control of the rainfall. Global domination by a few faceless sheiks ensues. Shoe goes out one morning and discovers his potted plants are withering....

I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

deer of the dawn wrote:Here's my contribution. Hope it's bad enough.


He thought he was having a nightmare. Absurdly, he heard the old beggar saying, Rock on, dude, you totally got this.

The single red beam from the police car seemed to crucify him like a hot nail as darkness overcame him. He could not look away from the hot red beam, which resonated in his brain like a single note, distorted and wailing, growing louder and louder. His pulse slowed inconceivably, as if each beat was waiting for the terrible music to end.

Abruptly, the single note wavered and came to a dissonant end. "YEAH!!! WOOOOHOOO!!! DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!!! I did it!!"

Covenant was close enough to see the red eyes clearly now, whiteless eyes ringed with way too much eyeliner, their heat and burning red glow like a bowl of weed in his face-- too close, seeming to singe his own eyebrows.

He found himself in a smoky arena. Its walls receded with rows of cobwebbed seats, vanishing in the distance. Exit signs glowed red over entrances that pierced the crepuscular darkness with deeper black at regular intervals around him. High above his head were trusses festooned with every manner of light cans, lasers, spotlights, color beams, all burning with the color red. The chamber was rank with the odor of sour sweat, burned marijuana, unwashed socks, old spilled beer, and halitosis. Covenant gagged on it, and the sight of the being whose eyes had held him.

Hunkered over a flying-V guitar on a high platform just ahead of him was a creature with a long, pasty chest, scrawny arms like wax beans, and a head like a white bowling ball fringed with blackish, stringy hair. One hand clutched the neck of the guitar with preternaturally long fingers tipped by long, yellowed nails with black half-moons of dirt at the tips. The other gripped a guitar pick that looked like it was fashioned of the dried pelt of some nameless creature of the darkness.

"YAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" The creature screamed again. "I did it!! I summoned the magical dude!!!! Me!! Rawk Worm!!! I have the POWAAHHH!!! I'ma kill you now, and be LORD Rawk Worm!!"

The pale creature lifted the hand that clutched the pick over the strings of the guitar, but before he could strike them, a piercing white beam of light sprang from the darkness of the arena, focusing on a platform descending from the crepuscularity above the stage. With it, a burst of arpeggios blared from the unseen speaker stacks, along with billows of smoke and blasts of flame and sparks. A Gospel singer somewhere cried out a crescendo as the platform reached the level of the stage.

"Back off, Rawk Worm!" the newcomer commanded from behind a gout of smoke. "This prey is waaaayyy too great for you. I claim him."

"Mine, dude, mine!! I summoned him with my guitar, you saw me!"

"You had aid. The Guitar of Law was too hard a matter for you. You would have smashed it just trying to show off, had I not taught you some of the power chords. And my lessons have a price. This dude is mine."

"My guitar. I have it. You are not safe," he muttered darkly.

"You want some of this!!" the deep voice bristled, and its dangers edged closer to the surface. "Bring it on, Rawk Worm!! Your doooooooom grows upon you! Behold, a-wan! Two! Three! Four!!"

There was a low, steady beat, as of great drums and throbbing bass. Smoke now filled the arena, with coruscating sparks and dazzling laser patterns. Guitars in heavy overdrive struck power chords never heard at any earthly concert. Blistering solos screamed up and down the scale. The smoke intervened between Covenant and Rawk Worm, gathered and swirled and thickened until Rawk Worm was hidden from Covenant's sight. The stench of burning mushrooms and body odor choked Covenant and he felt he was no longer in Rawk Worm's arena. As the smoke grew thick enough to cut with a knife, Covenant fell to his knees.

"You do well to pray to me!!"

After the protracted and arduous ascent from the Spoiled Plains up to where the river Landrider cascaded down from the foothills of the Southron range, as Linden and her companions gained the plateau of the Upper Land, they found a figure on horseback awaiting them and patiently studying their approach.

His garb was as outlandish as had been that of the Harrow, the Ardent or the Mahdoubt; he wore trousers so deeply blue as to appear black with a yellow stripe down each leg and a scarlet high-collared tunic secured with a broad belt and gold buttons. On his head was a wide-brimmed tan campaign hat.

He faced their approach while mounted astride a snow-white horse. As they drew nearer, it became apparent that his seating there was unconventional, facing the horse's nethers.



Stave rode Hynyn close up beside Lynden. "Chosen, there are accounts of this man in the lore of the Haruchai. It is said he is an untiring hunter of those whose deeds conduce ill ends, and that he never fails to catch those he seeks. He might be a potent ally.

"While we knew not of such beings when those stories first were shared in the mind-speech of my people, his deeds and the way he was known to us suggests that he may be an Insequent. In our tales, he is called The Mountie. However, there is another name mentioned_and if he is truly Insequent, that name may be a key to impel his aid to our cause."

Linden hardly heard him. Her entire focus was upon the stallion The Mountie rode. She slipped from Hyn's back, circled around the mounted figure until she met the eye of the beast bearing him. She drew a shuddering breath and spoke one word in a voice deeply affected by passion:

"Horse!"

At this, The Mountie's head snapped around "How do you know his name?"

Before she could answer, Hyn, Hynyn and Narunal all stamped and whinnied at once. Khelen made no move nor sound, but but both he and Jeremiah astride him were avid with attention as acrescendo of hoofbeats hearalded innumerable Ranyhyn thundering from the southwest where the Plains of Ra stood in the distance beyond the horizon.

As the great horses arrived, forming a ring enclosing the company, Mahrtiir dismounted and respectfully stepped away from Narunal. Stave followed suit, dismounting from Hynyn, but the stallion turned and nuzzled the back of the Haruchais head. Stave stopped immediately; despite his characteristic dispassion, it was clear that something had very much engaged his attention.

"So, this is the intendment of what was imparted to me in the horserite. Chosen, I mispoke a moment ago, but Hynyn has enlightened me, calling upon knowledge which I was given when you and I ran with the manes one dark night far away.

"Notwithstanding what has been handed down in Haruchai legend, this man is neither Insequent nor anything more than the abettor of one far greater. Your utterance a moment ago touched on who that one is.

"Still, I must reiterate the question you were asked. How did you know the name you spoke?"

Linden and the white horse had not broken eye contact throughout the arrival of the Ranyhyn, nor while Stave spoke. They did not look away from each other now.

"Neither this man nor his steed are unknown to me. Many times have I seen him, posing as hero. I even know his real name. Although you now tell me it will have no power over him, I still say: Dudley Do-Right, get off The Horse!"

Dudley did as she asked, doffing his hat with characteristic politeness as he said, "But of course, dear lady. Just as Nell always seemed to know who the real hero was, clearly you do too. He has served me well, even if I have not always returned the favor. However, he has long awaited the time when he could return here to reclaim what he was forced to leave behind. His foe believed him dead_but he has merely taken sanctuary where Time runs differently than here.

"Surely, you know who The Horse is?"

Mahrtiir, Stave, Linden and Jeremiah spoke the name as one voice "Kelenbhrabanal!"

And the assembled Ranyhyn nodded joyfully.

Dear Linden,

What on earth were you thinking?? Are you insane?

Between the mind and the page exists a collection of barricades constructed from fears, cliche's, insecurities, the ineptitude of lesser writers infecting the source and a failure of the author to understand the true spirit of language. Ideas and word battle in the trenches between these barricades, and we, the authors, beg them to stop and speak and, if we are lucky, desire each other. Once in ten thousand words, this will happen. Words will exist that say more of our minds than we can stand. We will wince and cringe and cry and understand Robert Frost when he spoke of the tears of the writer. We will beg the world not to look, and we will continue to write, because that moment holds more addiction to it than any other substance in the living world. I do a hundred creative things and could leave them all behind, but not writing. I go to bed writing, I get up writing, I drive writing, I work writing, and I occasionally write writing. Asimov was once asked what he would do if he knew he had a year to live. "Write faster," he said. I hate him for that, and only another addict would understand why.