Flipping open the pages, he hurried to the comics to satisfy his intellectual curiosity. Folding the section open flat on the American Maple table, he hummed a song he couldn’t name and dashed into the kitchen. From sound and habit, he knew Mr. Coffee had finished his task. A cup was poured. Half & Half paled its color. Two teaspoons of sugar were splashed in. It was gently stirred so as not to splash.
Next was cereal. “Always after my Lucky Charms,” he said, filling a bowl. Filled bowl, coffee, spoon and napkin were carried in to the waiting folded paper. He returned for to the kitchen for the milk. He used to carry them all in at the same time but that one time – he refrained from thinking about it. The milk had been hell to clean up. The imagined smell of souring, spilled milk took weeks to skulk away. Never again.
Seated, he took a sip of coffee. “Perfect.” He poured his milk over his cereal until it the bobbing cereal was at the bowl’s brim. Perfect.” Raising his spoon —
They found him with his face down in a bowl of warm, sour milk on mushy cereal. It looked like natural causes. Perhaps that would have been the end.
Except one person noticed the newspaper’s date said nineteen seventy. That discovery made everyone looked more closely at the interior decor.
I lost the argument. We’re moving out tomorrow. Going north. I don’t think it’s a smart idea and argued against it. Obviously, I lost. Yes, I already wrote that, didn’t I? I should edit it but it doesn’t matter, does it?
So, we’re going. One of our community’s rules is that we’ll stay together. We all agreed to the rules in the beginning. I argued that we need to adhere to them even if we don’t like their employment. We have safety and strength in numbers and are more likely to die if there are less of us, IMO.
We’re moving because the majority are afraid and Jeremy is persuasive. Water is low, food, all that, and it’s getting hellaciously hot. Last night, it never dipped below eighty-four. What do you expect? The world is hellaciously hot – and dry – but they think that it might be cooler and wetter up north. Nobody has come through in weeks, since those two young couples trying to get to Mexico. Jeremy and Buck believe it’s because it’s nicer up there so nobody is coming down here into the hot, dry land. Maybe they’re right. I think nobody is coming down here because they can’t or they’re dead. I mean, all that smoke that filled the valley was from fires, wasn’t it?
Well, at least the fires are out and the air is clear today. No smoke! Yes! That’s something positive. We talked about it this morning and decided it’s been at least three months since we didn’t have smoke in the valley. We still have coffee beans, too, if you want something else that’s positive, and only three died this week, with Meghan being the last. We’ve packed up the vans, cars and RVs, and we’re taking the solar panels. You know I’m taking my computer, so you might hear from me again.
I think Meghan’s death really changed the argument. I won’t say this to anyone else, but I think they may have poisoned her for just that reason. She didn’t appear sick and her death was a surprise. But, most people don’t appear sick before dying. Someone might be poisoning all of us, for all I know. That would help the food last longer.
Wish I could hear something posted back from one of you out there.
Wish I had an internet connection and could actually post this on the Internet.
I wish…I wish…there are so many things to wish for now.
I’d begin with hope.
____
This was a writing exercise prompted by another’s post, what would you write for your last post. I needed a reason to write such a post, so I imagined a situation and let it flow. I honestly struggle with the idea that I’d no longer post. Writing helps me think, and posting boosts my sense of being connected to others. I plan to continue writing and posting for as long as I have the physical and mental means.
“That’s not what I said,” he said, and she retorted in a shot, “Yes, it is.”
Both asserted it with concrete insistence, reminding him of a conversation they’d had earlier, where the roles were reversed, and she was claiming, “That’s not what I said,” and he was retorting, “Yes, it is.”
It made him wonder and want a time machine, just something small, to wind back the seconds so he could see and hear.
Pram has declared Protocol Three. You know what that means: the sierra is encountering the rotating blades.
Meanwhile, Handley and company have found their target. Fermenting in my brain cells for several weeks, I’m looking forward to writing these scenes; their plans are going disastrously awry, and they’re ignorant of what is about to happen. Love writing my characters into disasters and confrontations. Some, like Tang’s confrontation with Pram, I never see coming. Such surprising encounters are engaging, especially when they organically develop from just letting the characters carry the scene and be themselves. And then, what happened next astonished me but made absolute sense from the characters’ POV. Very cool.
After this is written, it’s back to Forus Ker, Seth Nor and the Humans, where they’ve been killing Brett, and Philea and the Wrinkle, where she’s meeting Forus Ker and Seth Nor. I can see and hear these scenes so clearly, I’m impatient to write them, but I don’t want to be hasty. Relax, I order myself; they’ll be written.
The common rule of thumb for movies is that one page equals one minute of screen time. That’s what I learned but The Working Screenwriter says, “Not so,” and gives specifics of movie scripts and running times. Anyway, I’ve noticed that scenes and dialogue take place in my head very quickly. I’ll visualize and realize them in thirty to ninety seconds.
Great, right? So they all pile on, scene after scene after scene. But writing these thirty to ninety second one bites takes a few days of writing and editing, and typically require two or three days. One, I’ll often write to capture the essence. Then I return to pad it with relevant details. In parallel, I’m editing and revising for pacing, grammar, sentence structure, et cetera. Then, I also find that something realized during the writing of such scenes trigger an impact on another scene. Sometimes that scene is already written and needs revision to add the tidbit.
The other scenes then must be held in my head or scribbled onto a notebook page, or have a brief entry typed up in a doc. All those paths fortunately work for me. Sometimes one of them stumbles but I find that with a little work, they start making sense again.
So much to write, so little time. Three…two…one. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
I was pleased to see the Vulture headline for the NBCCAs in my inbox:
Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith Are Among the Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards
Great, I enjoy their writing. But then I read the list and was dismayed that they’d not mentioned several favorites in their headline. What, no love to Louise Erdrich for ‘LaRosa’? Or Jane Mayer for ‘Dark Money’? A few headlines mentioned Ann Pratchett but I saw no mention of the excellent Mayer and Erdrich. Then, scanning the list, I saw that Margaret Atwood was winning the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. That’s marvelous, as she remains a lifelong favorite for me, but again, she’s not in the headlines.
It’s an excellent list of nominees. I need to read more books.
Collecting, collating and compiling data from Human databases and streams – government, social, medical, financial, historic, personal, personnel, death, birth and health records – revealed startling evidence.
Humans were dying less. Even those who could be resurrected, cloned, recovered, re-invigorated or re-born, were dying far less often. Fewer still were dying and remaining dead. Suicides were recorded with four zeroes after a decimal point. The population median age, already well over one hundred, was rising sharply, with less people deciding to even be reborn as a younger age with their adult memories intact. It seemed like that fad had fast faded.
Okay. But birth rates had also plummeted, falling like the temperatures on Castle Frozen when an Arctic front roared over the mountains and down across the plains. Less than two children were being born for every hundred people. Most of those children were not being permitted to age into maturity and adulthood but were kept as children for their parents’ entertainment.
The Council for Peace and Prosperity met on Castle Prime’s equatorial climate-controlled island to discuss general trends and concerns. The big data study on birth and death was a minor agenda item on the third day.
Most weren’t worried, arguing this was a burp, a blip. Yes, all were part of longer, greater trends, but the sharp drop-off was new. Those in the business of helping the dead return to life weren’t concerned; their business reviews were based on subscriptions and not a per use basis. Subscription rates were remaining steady. No losses were being recognized but the resurrection was a mature technology and had developed into a commodity. Profit margins were smaller. That was a concern.
Analysts also had deep dive data to present. Wars, warfare and violence remained at high levels but more people were avoiding killing one another. That unnerved attendees. It pointed to a training issue to many. Soldiers and officers needed encouragement to kill more quickly and readily. Perhaps studies were needed to understand what kept them from killing others when engaging them.
Such suggestions were quickly shot down. Studies like that were for the weak-willed or when appearances were needed that something was being done to mollify investors and voters until their attention wandered or other matters distracted them. No, studies weren’t needed in this situation; investors and voters didn’t know about these big data reveals. They would remain corporate secrets.
Second: population growth was required. Cloning was the natural solution. Adult clones were a ready market. Children had smaller and well-defined needs that were already being fulfilled. Adults were big children who eagerly embraced new toys and trends. Adults were willing to spend more on their toys, too, especially if said toys could be positioned as status symbols about wealth, power or influence. Most adults were sufficiently weak-willed and insecure or had such low self-esteem that they would be swayed by such bland and routine practices.
However…archaic laws remained in place against cloning a person to live more than one life at a time. Right now, cloning was permitted for only very small population segments and narrowly defined pre-existing conditions. Even that cloning was done well outside of the public eye.
Those laws needed to be changed. Immediate potential campaigns inspired the Council attendees. Contract pop and sports stars to headline campaigns. Say, they could be doing different activities on different planets, like skiing, surfing, fucking, dancing, performing, interviewing, whatever, marketing could work out those details. The point would be that doing these things simultaneously enriched the individual experiences and compounded their impact. The key behind the campaigns – there would naturally need to be several because to cover all the pop-culture segments – was to encourage envy about living a fuller life by living multiple simultaneous lives and fertilizing your life base. Having it done illegally by someone(s) popular and successful was the natural launching point. People loved lawbreakers.
Likewise, clone the best of the service members. Offer small bonuses for permitting the cloning. Simultaneously, initiate campaigns to overturn the cloning laws. Analysis would reveal which planets and societies could be open to such change and which would be the greatest influencers. New interpretations of founding documents and religious works could be published that seemed to encourage cloning as a religious right and even an expectation by whatever deities people worshiped these days.
Third, begin a whisper campaign. Stir up the rabble: birth rates were down because governments were encouraging certain races, ages, classes, corporations and planets to give birth less as part of a greater conspiracy to reduce those populations, thereby undermining their impact and participation. People always hated and distrusted governments and were easily inspired to rise up against them. Blame regulations, too. That always fired up the fringes, and then the flames would spread.
Beautiful. It was all coming together. Off the record, they agreed that more wars could be initiated. Step up the activity against pirates, rebels, independent planets, and smaller corporations and systems. That would increase the death rate and probably the birth rate.
Sure, this wasn’t a problem; it was an opportunity. Open the floodgates and rake in the wealth.
Back into the wayback machine for this choice – which puts in mind the fantasy, wouldn’t it be cool to have a wayback machine? “Yes, but the paradoxes, what you would do to time,” naysayers moan. Yeah, let’s suspend logic; suspend physics, quantum mechanics, all the thinking and all the relative theories. Just pretend you’re a child and play with ideas of all the time travel variations possible.
Here’s one.
Just about every house is getting one. It’s the hot holiday gift, and it’s on sale in dozens of places. You, disliking crowds and cold weather, and feeling bored, restless and wanting a change, surf the net and turn to Amazon to check out the offerings and read the reviews. They come up immediately: Wayback Machines. They’re priced at just under six hundred dollars. If you order today, sites claim, “Receive this by Christmas with Free Shipping!”
Okay, but six hundred eggs. Cards are already heavy with spending for the season for toys and clothes, dinners out. But you’re intrigued. You read.
“What’s included: computer interlink, two bracelets, headgear and software.” You skip into the specs and the system requirements, bringing up your system’s information and running a mental checklist.
You have the computer speed, the computer power, an approved OS, the USB ports, everything needed. Well, hell, you should, you blew a wad on this laptop just a year ago for your own special Christmas present because, WTF, you deserve it.
“This is not virtual reality,” a review says. “This the real thing. You are there.”
Yeah, you’ve read the ads, seen them on television during football and baseball games for half the year, talked about them at work while waiting for meetings to begin, swapped information with friends over wine and beer. You know what it’s supposed to be, what it can do.
So you order your Wayback Machine.
Three days later, it arrives. Boxes are in boxes. You’re usually so organized about opening and unpacking boxes, especially things like this, but you’ve become really excited about what it can do.
“Where the fuck is the quick start?” you ask, and it’s right there, the very first thing you pulled out after opening a box, a DVD. There are cables and the headgear, which looks like one of those half-helmets, the small console, the size of your first Roku, resembling a blue and black cigarette back, and the silver and black bracelets.
It’s a clean set-up and install. Breathlessly you power everything up, starting as the program booms, “Welcome,” even thought it’s a soft female voice. Lights are green. The program shows up on your laptop’s screen. You’re sweating and trembling. Well, the heat is running. It’s snowing outside. The wife, children and grandchildren are all out shopping. Then they’re eating somewhere and going ice-skating. You tell your phone to turn down the heat.
Snow falls more heavily outside past the windows. Inside, it’s just you. Your anticipation amazes you. You hope you won’t be disappointed. You put on the bracelets and headgear. The system checks you out. The Wayback program asks, “Do you want to sync with your Fitbit and smart phone?” Hell, yes.
Thirty seconds later, that is done. “Select a year from your life,” the program says.Feeding off a memory, a hope, a dream, you select 1964.
Then shoves now aside. It feels a little violent, more violent than the reviews said it would be like. Your pulse breaks out into something appropriate for finishing a hundred yard dash. Your body –
Oh, my god, you’re back in it, you’re ten years old ago. You’re so skinny. Jesus. It’s amazing how much you look like your grandson, Yuri.
Your young entity is reading a book. The pages swim into your understanding: ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’.
You tear your attention from the page. You’re back in your parents house, Jesus, a place they sold during their divorce in the mid-1970s, back in the wood-paneled game room, built from the finished basement downstairs. In the corner is your father’s bar, positioned back there where he can see the television or play pool. You’re on that leather sofa he and your mother bought for the room. You remember, “This is where the dog barfed,” a disgusting moment that will happen in another year. You won’t even have the dog for a few more months.
There’s the big console TV. Brand new, the huge Zenith can broadcast in color. Taking over your young self – he doesn’t seem to notice – you pick up the remote control, amused at the differences between the technology of your youth, when color TV was new, and the technology of your life, using a computer to come back here. How the fuck is that even possible? You want to explore but you begin carefully, by turning on the television.
There is a show on in black and white. OMG, it’s the Kinks. Jesus, are they still even alive?
Then, releasing everything but enjoyment of the moment, you’re ten and watching the Kinks in your basement in black and white. Everything old is young and new, and you are free to believe that you can change the world.
Finishing up another awesome writing day, knock on wood. I exploded with excitement here in the coffee shop, leaping up to rapidly pace with an epiphany. The coffee shop was empty so there wasn’t anyone to witness this except the security cameras.
I’m eighty pages into Part II. One of my finer parts: do I want to use Roman numerals for these parts, or Arabic?
Other finer points: had to add a reminder into the bible that Travail, regardless of sex, sound female to Humans.
More finer points.
Still have trouble with some words. Lay and lie today. I believe it’s because they’re often mis-used, and that ends up causing me confusion. Then I researched the differences between replicate and duplicate.
Dislike writing and using the expression ‘time travel’. Movement, travel, etc., indicates physical motion in the inventor’s opinion. She, as a physicist, objects to that expression. It’s under discussion and investigation.
After yesterday’s intense session, I continued writing in my head when I left. That’s sort of frustrating and exciting because it debilitates my ability to navigate and manage in the real world. Walking was okay, as I was on residential streets with little traffic. Behind the wheel was more dangerous as dialogue preoccupied my brain. I was able to capture this today and expand on it when I resumed my writing.
I had to go over where the novel is at and where it’s going. Eight major story lines exist. Each has its own presenting POV. I went over each one, re-stating where they’re at, where they’re going, what (in a broad sense) needs to be written, and how they intersect and affect the others. This was mentally done three times to sort, organize and solidify my understanding. Part of today’s session was then spent capturing that novel map into (yet another) guiding document. LOL.
They’re such intense writing sessions at this time. I love it. They remind me of how wonderful and satisfying writing like crazy can be. I can’t write fast enough to stay up with the unfolding novel.
Now, the coffee is gone, my ass is asleep, yadda yadda yadda. Besides, this new arrival at another table has an impressive stage voice. We all know that she had two glasses of wine last night. It’s been said three times as a minimum.
Danny has offered writers and bloggers another chance to meet and connect over on Dream Big. I hope you take the opportunity to see what others are offering.
Enjoy the writing, create a vision and pursue the dream. Cheers
I grok the story but don’t know if others can. It’s the writing challenge: you see, hear, feel and experiences these stories being told in details and colors and sounds technology can’t approach. Your job, Writer, is to capture these events, people and places, and organize it in a coherent, satisfying and entertaining matter.
That’s my interpretation of writing. Yours may vary.
Grok is a word that Robert Heinlein created in ‘A Stranger In A Strange Land’. It’s a classic novel. His expression, grok, has spread like wildflowers in the spring, going far beyond a word in a novel to have other meetings. The essence of grok remains the same for me: to intuitively grasp and understand a matter. It has larger and more expansive definitions and usage, but that’s the essential distilled for my use.
I’m encountering the grok gap while I’m writing. It’s a pretty familiar with whatever I’m writing. I grok what’s happening in my novel. I need to explain it to everyone who isn’t me. That meant spending a few days further defining terms and relationships. The big one is the ideopat. It is telepathy among the Travail Avresti Forus and Seth, and the Travail Favrashi Forus and Seth but telepathy is but one component among the names, gults, vhylla and races. I needed another term for one of the other components because it doesn’t fit with human knowledge and experiences.
While researching my invention, which ended up being termed the phena for now, after reading about consciousness, phenomenon and epiphenomenon, I grok and researched it for a while. After all, phena and grok share commonalities. The insights I encountered about what grok meant and was used in the original novel opened my thinking. Such sessions are always the most satisfying and treasured for me.
Michael Seidel, writer 