"Ehen!"
I moaned groggily.
"Ehen! Wake uh!"
I opened one eye.
There, crouching upon my chest, was something that looked quite a lot like a tarantula. Its exoskeleton was covered in urticating hairs and it had two long fangs pointed directly at my chest. Its beady eyes were staring right into mine.
It raised its two front legs (it had five total) and tapped them on my chest.
"Ehen!"
"What?" I growled.
"Ih ime oo geh uh!" it hissed to me. It's time to get up!
I glared at it for a moment before sighing, "All right, Ligasha. I'm getting up."
Ligasha jumped off my chest and onto the nearby dresser.
There are certain advantages to being a mad scientist. You get to choose your own hours (subject to lightning storms, of course*); you can limit your contact with idiots to only those you've specifically chosen; and you can occasionally cackle maniacally without getting weird looks (except at restaurants).
But, you also have to live with the consequences of your actions. Well, normal people do, too, but it's not quite the same as "I seem to have put on a bit of weight over the holidays" and "Oh dear, I've accidentally invaded a sovereign nation and grossly underestimated the time and resources it would take". No, mad scientist consequences are more along the lines of "Holy crap, this gray goop just ate an entire continent" and "Great, now I have to attempt to integrate this new life form not only into the ecosystem but also into the social and geopolitical environment of human society."
That second one is mine, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong: Ligasha is a wonderful companion and has been an incredible boon to my research. But the other Pentapedes... well, let's just say that they're as varied in attitude and belief as humanity. Only without most of the inhibition.
Ligasha followed me from my bedroom and into the bathroom.
"What's up for today?" I asked.
You're supposed to be on a conference call with President Hawthorne and Prime Minister Kashsh** right after breakfast to discuss a peaceful resolution to the Manitoban Conflict, and after that, Steven, you had agreed to assist me with my latest experiment.***
"Of course, Ligasha. Hopefully Hawthorne and Kashsh will be more amenable to my requests this time."
Ligasha clung silently above me, thinking its own thoughts.
* Just kidding. Turns out you don't really require a lot of power to create life. And, besides, nuclear, solar and wind power (combined with appropriate capacitors) are a more reliable combination.
** The Pentapedes conquered most of Canada about five years ago, and have managed to run it quite well in the meantime, considering.
*** Pentapedes understand English, or any human language, perfectly well, being, on average, only slightly less intelligent than humans****. However, because their mouths are so different from human mouths, they have difficulty speaking it. From here onward, I will write what they mean, rather than their actual vocalizations.
**** But with a much larger standard deviation. Ligasha is a fairly exceptional example.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Trickery II
The monsters of my subconscious have been ebbing and flowing these past months.
Sometimes they remain invisible to me, gripping me, as before, in that half-conscious state between sleeping and waking, terrifying but passing quickly. Other times, I see them lurking in the shadows as I go about my day. They appear as little imps, or goblins, or demons of some sort, their pale eyes boring into me from inside my desk at work or the angular outline of their twisted bodies skulking in the darkened rooms of my apartment. Sometimes they beckon me to follow them into their dark hideaways, but I ignore them.
It sounds so silly—a grown man, afraid of the dark!—but I know there is something real to it.
And I know that they're growing stronger.
One day I will succumb.
Sometimes they remain invisible to me, gripping me, as before, in that half-conscious state between sleeping and waking, terrifying but passing quickly. Other times, I see them lurking in the shadows as I go about my day. They appear as little imps, or goblins, or demons of some sort, their pale eyes boring into me from inside my desk at work or the angular outline of their twisted bodies skulking in the darkened rooms of my apartment. Sometimes they beckon me to follow them into their dark hideaways, but I ignore them.
It sounds so silly—a grown man, afraid of the dark!—but I know there is something real to it.
And I know that they're growing stronger.
One day I will succumb.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Rattespierre
I have no fondness for January and March, the bluest months of the year, because it was the first big rain in January that brought me my present misfortune.
I came to in the cold and dark with a sniffle and a start. The rain was falling in cold sheets, pooled like cat's breath or curtains and piling up with debris behind the bridge columns where I lay. My sniffles echoed off the bridge above. It smelled damp and fresh, a bright smell in a dark place. The rain clamored down, hungry for the earth, in such a din it was hard to hear anything else. In the torrent of sound, a scant noise attracted my attention. Rats. My head spun and I blacked out again. The last sound I remembered was a hoarse whisper; I remember it sounding so dry and sandy it felt warm in the rain: Rattespierre.
I had no way of knowing he had saved my life that night. I was an outcast. Burped up from the river onto foreign land, my mere existence as a giant among these folk was illegal. Not that Rattespierre thought my skin was worth saving, only politically expedient to do so. He bore the brunt of many a joke for refusing to hand down a death sentence. He found it morally repugnant to kill . I felt miserable, knowing myself to be more selfish and less true to my ideals. Put into his position, I'd have hung the bastard and wept at my deserted morals. But not Rattespierre. His moral conviction may have swung like a noose in a windstorm, but he always walked North by what he thought was truth.
I hadn't even seen him, but nonetheless I felt he looked out for me. His impersonal refusal to have me killed was the only kindness shown to me in a land of man-sized rodents. I lacked the furtive glance, the deferential aversion to face-to-face contact. The few people (if I may call them that, as I have come to think of them) I had dealings with complained I made them uncomfortable with my earnest, transparent expression. I was hard to con, being such a pitiful and cold and hairless and obviously deformed Rat, and that was my only protection.
How many times I threw myself into the water, willing the river to take me back, I'm ashamed to say. What little I earned I got by telling stories of a land of hairless talking apes. Thousands of them, I would say; millions, teaming cities. With ratty guffaws, they would dismiss the ludicrous notion.
Maximilian Rattespierre. La Revolucion. La guillotine. The Committee of Public Safety.
I found myself running with him, hot on the vigilante winds of July. Rattespierre was an outlaw from a justice he had created. I was only running from la guillotine. They finally ran us to ground in Thermidor and caught up Rattespierre in a noose and I in a blanket. They marched us into the square in shackles, appropriating a boulongerie for a court. I abandoned him, slipping out while the attention of the tribunal was on him. I watched him face la guillotine. His jaw set, his nose pale, he shrugged off his captors' hands and went willingly.
I saw him as he lie there, red blood like July pooling about his paws, seeping into the crimson earth of Thermidor. His eyes were turned toward heaven, imploring the Divine Hand to the last. His body seemed so small as power slid from his shaggy hide. His limp form regressed from Rattespierre to just Max. He resembled nothing more than a giant dead rat.
July and September are the reddest months of the year.
I came to in the cold and dark with a sniffle and a start. The rain was falling in cold sheets, pooled like cat's breath or curtains and piling up with debris behind the bridge columns where I lay. My sniffles echoed off the bridge above. It smelled damp and fresh, a bright smell in a dark place. The rain clamored down, hungry for the earth, in such a din it was hard to hear anything else. In the torrent of sound, a scant noise attracted my attention. Rats. My head spun and I blacked out again. The last sound I remembered was a hoarse whisper; I remember it sounding so dry and sandy it felt warm in the rain: Rattespierre.
I had no way of knowing he had saved my life that night. I was an outcast. Burped up from the river onto foreign land, my mere existence as a giant among these folk was illegal. Not that Rattespierre thought my skin was worth saving, only politically expedient to do so. He bore the brunt of many a joke for refusing to hand down a death sentence. He found it morally repugnant to kill . I felt miserable, knowing myself to be more selfish and less true to my ideals. Put into his position, I'd have hung the bastard and wept at my deserted morals. But not Rattespierre. His moral conviction may have swung like a noose in a windstorm, but he always walked North by what he thought was truth.
I hadn't even seen him, but nonetheless I felt he looked out for me. His impersonal refusal to have me killed was the only kindness shown to me in a land of man-sized rodents. I lacked the furtive glance, the deferential aversion to face-to-face contact. The few people (if I may call them that, as I have come to think of them) I had dealings with complained I made them uncomfortable with my earnest, transparent expression. I was hard to con, being such a pitiful and cold and hairless and obviously deformed Rat, and that was my only protection.
How many times I threw myself into the water, willing the river to take me back, I'm ashamed to say. What little I earned I got by telling stories of a land of hairless talking apes. Thousands of them, I would say; millions, teaming cities. With ratty guffaws, they would dismiss the ludicrous notion.
Maximilian Rattespierre. La Revolucion. La guillotine. The Committee of Public Safety.
I found myself running with him, hot on the vigilante winds of July. Rattespierre was an outlaw from a justice he had created. I was only running from la guillotine. They finally ran us to ground in Thermidor and caught up Rattespierre in a noose and I in a blanket. They marched us into the square in shackles, appropriating a boulongerie for a court. I abandoned him, slipping out while the attention of the tribunal was on him. I watched him face la guillotine. His jaw set, his nose pale, he shrugged off his captors' hands and went willingly.
I saw him as he lie there, red blood like July pooling about his paws, seeping into the crimson earth of Thermidor. His eyes were turned toward heaven, imploring the Divine Hand to the last. His body seemed so small as power slid from his shaggy hide. His limp form regressed from Rattespierre to just Max. He resembled nothing more than a giant dead rat.
July and September are the reddest months of the year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)