We were Dreamers once

[Sekot]

The world glistened like so many sapphires and diamonds. Light refracted from the blue of its water, was scattered along the horizon line, the curvature of it. Smooth like a marble, he could reach out and grab it. Fear sat in his throat, trembling and thick. He looked up and behind, the chair sat empty. He turned back to the console, wiping his hands on his pants. The world loomed before him, a perfect piece of beauty against the bleak darkness of space. It had been so long, too long. His mouth felt dry.

Even from this distance, so many thousands of kilometers away, they cast a shadow. He wondered what they thought, had they even come to know what this meant, or were they seen as gods? Could they look up into the sky and see their approach? Some distant monster come for their personal Ragnarok. Or were they blinded as they gazed upon the sun even as it was blotted out? This eclipsing force that was not their many satellites, a new harbinger. He hoped it was so, the alternative was far more terrifying to him. Many a night he had looked out the window and seen this very vessel lingering against the backdrop of the Father. But truthfully, he had not come to appreciate it until he had enlisted. Promising to never see his parents or Home again, he had decided to serve Her Majesty.

But was this what he had envisioned? Was this his dream of seeing the stars? The world came closer, it filled his screen until he scrolled out. He could now more clearly make out the biomes and the various differences in the surface. He could trace the coastlines, he could make out the mountain ranges covered in snow and the desert lines. He saw little flashes of light beyond the perimeter of the world's sphere. Enhanced by the ship's onboard targeting computers, little stars that were brighter than the others came to life. They did know what they were, what he was. And still they fought anyway.

He placed his shaking hands on the console, his fingers stretching from key to key in blinding motion. He heard the door behind him open. He heard the footsteps and his heart raced faster. Eyes were upon him, looking over his shoulder. The little points of light were highlighted, marked and annotated. The world view came closer and closer still. The points of light grew larger. This world, it struggled. How much quicker it would have been for them, how much easier for him, if they did not know, if they were still stuck within the age where gods roamed the world and dispensed certain kinds of justice. But then, he wouldn't be here for them would he?

"Excellent work."

The words were like ice water down his back. He felt a hand on his shoulder, the grip strong. He could make out each individual finger, burned the feeling into his memory.

"If only all of my crew served Her Majesty so well," the captain said a little too loudly.

He could feel the others' eyes on him, feel their hungering stares. The hand left him, and suddenly he felt he could breathe again. When had he held his breath? The presence passed him like a stormcloud, and suddenly the air felt clear and light. He breathed in sharply, the scent of stale air and stale bodies assailing his nostrils in a way they never had before. So refreshing, but now tainted too. He did not turn to watch his captain rise out of the bay. He did not sit in polite reverence as she took her seat. He heard her, the leather conforming to her body. The bridge had fallen eerily silent, even as the little colors on his screen grew larger. She could take all the time in the world, he knew. Those colors were as threatening to the Dread Naught as they were on his screen.

The ship turned, an odd sensation of acceleration and deceleration pulling his body in different directions. He knew he could look out the forward view, but instead he stayed glued to his screen. He could now make out the shapely forms of the capital ships this little planet could deploy. Their shapes uncouth, gangly and bizarre. He fought the urge to hate them, but still found his judgments full of prejudice. His fingers traced lines across the board. The lights slowly changed. It would be a rout. He knew it. Did they?

They fired. Tiny pinpoints of laser light flickering madly toward them only to be eaten by smartmatter shields. It was a show. Their weapons would hardly scar the hull. They were to be humiliated even as they were shown the full force of Her Majesty's power. What had this world even done?

The Dread Naught responded. Each color flared brilliantly for but a moment before collapsing on themselves. Efficient deaths.

Soon, they would descent upon the world. They would devour it whole, consuming mass tracts of land with a gorgeous array of lights and matter. The world itself would collapse as the earthborers would destroy its very core. The surface would be rendered into glass, flattened and hardly able to recall what it had once been. No fingerprint of its current state would remain, only a distant belt of broken rock. Its satellites would roam madly free. So complete would its destruction be that the star itself would be demolished. No remnant of this system would find gravity.

[Sekot]

He descended the ashen staircase draped in rags of gold and ivory. His hands were painted black, a mask across his face. His hair flowed like fiery tendrils upward and outward, tipped by sizzling embers. About him was that burning stench, a profound sensation that your own skin was aflame, your own hair burning away to nothing. And under his dark brow were a pair of ruby eyes, twin points of incandescence amongst the ash smeared skin. His steps were measured, a canticle unto themselves. Behind him, beyond the smeared and smoky glass that still sat shattered in the ancient frame, a morning sunrise glistened. His shadow was long, cast upon the marbled stone as a pillar of power proportional to his will. With great effort we kept our heads raised, even though the urge to bow became stronger with every step nearer he came.

And he opened his mouth and what spilled forth was pestilence upon a deadly horse. Sprouting insectoid wings, he outstretched his arms and the clouds of locust swarmed the space behind him until their wings became countless refracted images of sunlight that now lay scattered about the ruinous hall. We drew our weapons and launched ourselves upon him. But with every move he spun, a new surprise rose from the grave to meet us. Accursed monster, we yelled, you will fall upon our holy blades. But he only laughed at us, mocked us, took our weapons and slid them into him as if he was fornicating only to then toss them aside like play things. His face was ruinous, his eyes cavernous. He eclipsed the sun, became as bright as the sun, truly the Sun itself had come to visit us, to wage battle against us. In one breath we felt exultant, here we were waging war against the end of things, and on the other we were terrified at the futility of our current situation.

But with a trumpet cry came the reinforcements. Great winged things, talons for fingers and a mouth as sharp as any steel. More bird than human, these sweet angels descended as half crazed fiends. Their once beatific features were contorted into agonized images of disgust and horror. We stood by and watched, paralyzed by the sacrilege of it all. These beasts tortured by gods to fight, to betray their peaceful natures. But with such lack of effort they tore into the battle, even as the Sun upturned the world and spat out of geysers of lava the spawns of hells, they craved it. They smiled, they hungered for it. Was this their true face? Was this the arm of God?

[Sekot]

He turned, swiveling on his chair, to face me. Early morning light spilled in through the window beside him, small specks of dust catching the light as they effortlessly floated through the air. He wore a warm smile on his aged face, the wrinkles parting in expert ways. He blew air violently through his nose, a contented sigh. He patted my shoulder and pulled me closer, holding me against him as he showed me what he was working on. There was pride in his voice, the weight of it as it sat upon me. He talked and I listened. I listened as he detailed the finer points, words beyond my understanding. I listened and I enjoyed because he held me close and told me these things. I felt as if I were entering some secret place, that these designs were as much a part of me now as they were him. And it was then that I could detail a plan for us, a dream that maybe wed go into business together, that we'd share some life between us.

[Sekot]

He raised his head, looking toward me as I clambered over the grassy hill, and smiled. I smiled back, my cheeks feeling flushed and my heart beating a little too quickly. He shouted at me a word, I responded with more. This coupling was merely temporary, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. From here I could smell him on the gentle summer breeze. His cologne was old, his body unwashed, but these were the scents I'd carry with me into my future journey, and now I could only but savor them as mystically powerful. He stirred the pot that sat above the fire, diverted his attention to the last meal we'd share and gave it all the care I could ask for. He smiled at me and my world ended.


We sat at world's end, gazing out over the rolling waves of the convalescent ocean, eating our stew and joking with one another as if this were any other day. His laugh was robust, load and raucous. It was distinct, you could easily pick it out of a crowd, and it was not obnoxious. Not to me. I loved listening to it, loved to make him laugh and smile. That smile! It took up the entirety of his face, just grandly beaming, the purest expression of his happiness even when his eyes lied. They never told the truth, they always hid something, a thing not even he knew. Mirrors to the soul, was it my soul they mirrored?

I wrote upon the sand as the dusk hung angrily for a moment. I wrote the words of the undoing. I had hoped that would mean this entire farce would stop, that we'd together sit upon this beach for all eternity. But truthfully I could only move time one way and I had, somewhat hastily and foolishly, chosen forward. Then again, would I have been happy with any of my choices? I never would have met him without this. Should I count my blessings?

[Sekot]

“What are those, Nana?”

I remember the way she used to smile at me, especially when I asked silly questions. Her thin smile hid underneath the folds of weathered skin. Her eyes held a delicate warmth, gentle blue waves against the milky brown skin of her aged face. I remember the way her gray hair tumbled from her head to tickle my cheeks.

“They’re wrinkles, dear.”

“Will I have those?”

“With any luck, no. You are a special boy and you will never get wrinkles,” she pinched my cheeks as she said it.

“But when I grow up I wanna be just like you!”

Now when I recall this exchange, I wonder if I saw it or if it was my own mind placing memories were there weren’t any, seeking some way to make sense of my innocence and her choice. Surely I was too young to recognize it, but after I said that remark, her face changed. It is imprinted upon me, real or fake it doesn’t matter. It was then that I saw her age as significance, history written upon flesh.

* * * * *

I walked with her amongst the stalls. The thick aromas of spice and meat, the fragrances of fruit and plants filled the air of the market. Vibrant colors swirled in bowls and dangled from banners. The crowd was thick, the two of us pressed tightly together to avoid losing one another. It was easier than it sounds, she was a petite woman, bent with age. Even POIed in my hud, she was easy to lose amongst the brightly colored, flowing fabrics of the sari that were so popular back then. Truthfully, it was easier to keep an eye on her without my hud. Though small, she wore a heavy black garment that covered every inch of her except her hands and face. Her head was equally covered by a black wrap with white fringe. I forgot what she called it but a cursory wiki identifies it as a hijab. Don’t see those these days.

Anyway, we walked through the crowd. She went from stall to stall, haggled with the sellers when they are physical, cursed them when they were virtual. More than a few recognized the jewels that glittered in her white hair and on the necklace she wore. They treated her differently. Again at the time I could not appreciate it. My Coming of Age day was still a few years off, I had some time still to hang on to my naivete. Their faces contorted in a variety of expressions, many struggling not to come off as too angry, or scared. “Witch,” they called her.

She would merely smile back at them, old eyes warm as ever. She waved intricate patterns with her dancing fingers, clicked a few of her jewels. The sellers would jump, startled by something I did not know. “Witch,” they muttered under their breaths.

Once she had gathered all that she needed, we walked through the streets together. There was a constant hum about the city, the rush of interplanetary vehicles coming and going from the nearby starstation, land and air speeders hurtling toward their destinations. On these walks she liked to point upwards, “Do you see that ring? How it glitters like diamond? All of its colors are a promise, child. A promise to you and me.”

“A promise for what?” I asked, not really caring to hear the answer. I am sure my attention was more focused on the frizzards that constantly leaped into our path to peck at trash and leap back out before we came too close.

She would place her hand on me as she always did, would say something quietly, then pinch or tickle me. I would forget what she said. She was my Nana, and she was crazy. Lovable, but loony.

It wasn’t until later that I had time to really sit and talk with her. After my Coming of Age day had come and passed. I had chosen my current age to stop at, I was attractive enough and had no shortage of partners. I was privileged enough to get by with few augs, and decided to wait on the more cosmetic ones. The aug-fingers were great though, definitely first on my list for a next update.

I went to visit Nana. I knocked on her door, an old style nonauto kind. It slid open and revealed her as she had always been to me. But then I was taller, older. She had to crane her head upward. Her face lit up when she saw me, her mouth agape in half-shoult-half-smile. She clutched me to her, her grip extremely tight for a woman her age.

When we parted she ushered me into her home and shut the door. To call it small was an understatement. Her cot was in a corner underneath the solitary window. Dust lingered in the light that poured in from the outside lamps. The stove was not far from it, a pot on top full of boiling water and a strong stench that curled my stomach. She loved this thing she called tea, made from leaves from plants, if you can believe it. It was a smell that followed her around, as if she kept clumps of it hidden in her robes.

There was a table with a comp, a pad next to that, and then a couch and two chairs. Sparse but it was all she needed. I remember being so bored going to visit, there was never anything to do. I think my parents felt the same as we never stayed very long. My father hated her, my mother refused to say much at all about her life with her. The one good part was that her furniture was always comfortable. You could swim in that cough if you wanted to.

She adjusted her hijab, smoothed her robes. Picked up an odd brick from the coffee table and placed it behind the comp. The jewels clinked together in that soft song that was hers.

[Sekot]

Upon the altar the child was disgorged. Weeping women sat as statues about it, draped in finery of flesh and blood. Escaping into the absent realm of daydream the child became monstrosity. The women clamored on their own faces, clawing at their seeping eyes and wailing with a thousand gnashing of teeth. And upon the storm rode the child, wielding a disgusting weapon of terror that would lay waste to the wealth and the calamity of life. Upon this pale horse he rode, his billowing tatters of bodies draped about him like the thunder he belched. Awesome in projection of power based upon the ontology of itself. All seeing eyes surveyed the vast wreckages of homesteads and ruinous assumptions of those wicked men caught upon top the wastelands of dessicated desire.

He laughed, he cackled and his voice rang as the piano played by three hands.

Rage. Rage forever. Rage against that mechanized ideology. Pathetic. Infective. Injective. She twirled, her dress a carona of cacophonous color. Her hair was about her, her face a mystery. She was bright amongst the ash, catching the eye of the god monster. He was alight upon her, speeding toward her, and upon his steed was lightning. He swept her up, pulled her with him. But even as her dress stilled her hair still hid her face. He batted it away, screamed at her with filth. Oil dripped between his teeth, sepia bile spilling onto his shirt and pants.

Her face. Her hair stilled. Calm. Dessicant belief in abstract hope. blank. she was blank. her face an empty reflection of the still life statues of his birth. blood. flesh. ripped. tear. anger written in visages of starlight. galactic arms stretching to collect what little home they can carve in the vastly growing empty. can you hear them sing, the stars, they sing of life beyond of freedom of their gravitic attraction to each other to split and become nova and to escape. to spread into that void to spread into the black and return as beatific angels written from heaven itself. and in their eternal frustration comes the collapse.

[Sekot]

She looked at me with eyes of fire. Tremors rippling within the colored iris. Passion laid therein, a fury of a loving kind. Even in her age, she still held onto a sense of power in her self, a will strong enough to break worlds. Her hand rested against my face, wrinkled flesh cold with the history of a lifetime written into the tips. I could feel her pulse, a strong bass rhythm transmitted into my own body, overpowering my own rapid tempo and settling into calm.

She pulled me close to her, placed my head against her breast. She held me tight, enveloping me in her dark shroud. There was a strength in the thin chest, a warmth that surrounded her. Long strands of silver hair tickled my cheeks as she placed her chin against my crown. An animalistic urge to separate, to flee surged within me. But her grip was strong, and in the silence I heard the whispers of her voice singing a gentle song lost to the memories of my youth.

"Oh dearest child, my little boy..."

[Sekot]

And he descended like ash fire. He crawled forward like monster and birthed from the flame desire. And I, I laid witness to his rebirth. I watched as he let loose, as he roared and screamed and tore at his face. He dripped blood and melted flesh, he tore out the sky.

He stood with ghostly tattered cloth billowing madly about god dream. And into the night did god die, plummeting southward, downward into the cool dark storm that was mine madness. I sipped from the golden chalice and supped on grapes made of misery. And only then did we fly, did we rise and ascend. Through this did we escape thine orbit and eclipse avaricious host.

He ran, his breath fast in his chest. Behind him came the clamoring of voices, of shouts and screams. Hoof beats rapped like angry drums. But they were not horses, instead something worse. They were...caught in my throat, voices wanting to be spoken but nothing more than disgusting horror. Greed. Clamoring nightmare. Ascend to me come to me and be wrapped in this embrace. Let me take you into me and make love to your memory.

They're hungry. Can you hear them?

They are wanting. Can you feel them?

And there it is, the eclipsing star. There it is, the end of it all.

"I left you behind. I left you there!"

"I am here, now, forever."

I have to fight to survive. No one is going to take me alive. I have fought this war before and I will fight it once more. The horse beats beneath me, lips spread along teeth like knives and acidic spit dribbled onto the tortured earth. I can feel the air ttremble and shake around me as god himself breathes once more. You've done this to me once, you've sounded the call. and in the end there can be only one.

[Sekot]

I have looked mania in the face. Have you seen them? That stare, that voice, those words without meaning. Ahh but the bug has bitten me, and I know it. A hand reaches forth, grasps me by the arm, and pulls me away. I have watched a child die and I know that cry. I have looked into the too wide eyes of the dead and seen a stare too real. They say that the eyes glaze over but they don't. You will look at them, do a double-take, because you're sure that they're looking at you. There's a bloat to their face where the tubes stick out, there's a dent in their chest where my hands were moments before.

Its not quite a crunch, not quick a slick wet sound, but first on the chest and you feel it more than hear it. You don't think you just do. Because in that moment this person is dying. This person is dead. Can you bring them back to life? Can you restart their heart? How much longer to the two minute mark. Eternity. I want off, I want out. Is that a brain? No, just a fragment of brain. To stare at that piece, to know it is a thing you should never see. And the drums

the drums beat for you, the battle has only just begun. Hunger deep and sip loud of this particular cup, take me into you and grasp hard at the heart until naught but death rests.

[Sekot]

As you stare into the glass you remember how it was always so easy to forget. Your face stares back at you, and you wonder who that is, who's eyes are those surrounded by wrinkles and purple hues? Have you also forgotten how to sleep? Ah but you can hear it, in the back of your mind, that softly swelling sound. Desperate hands clinging to fleeting thoughts, clawing at the ceiling of the world. Not even they can escape, trapped and consumed by the growing layers of storm clouds.

You remember the scent of that day. Roasted vegetables cooked in bacon fat, onion and garlic notes perfumed throughout the tiny space. You remember the way the light danced through the windows in its final moments before dipping to rest for the night. You remember the words shouted across the table at one another. You remember it all and your heart is weighed by the sound of the door slamming shut and the car starting in the garage. Is this the end, you wonder? Is this finally it? Is this what they've all been talking about?

Hands clawing, hands scratching at your body, at your neck. Smothering. They are your hands, and suddenly you catch yourself amidst another panic attack.

Tangent:

Have you ever watched someone die? Or watched them and known that that is what will happen in an hour? Maybe two? We have a name for the way you breathe before you die.

End tangent.

Ah that voice. That sound. That smell. It is a breeding stench. He went up to you, smiling. He said a few words and departed. The sun had just begun to rise. The air was caught aflame. Smoke settled on the horizon. Whispered words passed between lips as they watched you. What will you do?