Absolutely Positive [and other short stories too!]

[RobertMason]

Alright! First story of my return.

And it's pretty sad (wait, what?).

Also, the story will probably be at least a little confusing. Beyond telling there is showing, and beyond showing there is just implying. This story is an exercise in implying as much as possible over showing or telling: this is a single episode in a long, eventful life, and the story tries to capture some of that "in the moment" feeling. My Beta reader said that the story still works despite not knowing the whole story, but I'd like to get your thoughts.

Please be very critical. If there's anything at all that you don't think works, let me know.

Absolutely Positive

You made the lentil soup yourself. No-one can make it the way that you do. A dash of this and that. Humble ingredients that are spun together to make a meal fit for a noble. At least, you think so. Many nobles have disagreed with you on the matter.

Perhaps that is why they needed to die.

It isn't that you killed them for lacking in good culinary taste or simply disagreeing with you. But they couldn't appreciate the simple things. They couldn't see the refinement of humility or the grandeur therein. This had many different consequences. One of them was that they were unable to appreciate the best things in life. Another was that you have been been killing them whenever you could get away with it.

That's life, isn't it? And it's also life that you won't be able to kill any more of them. And life that they'll die soon anyway.

It's done. Babylon the great has fallen. Your dreams of empire crushed to dust.

And here you are, all alone, eating lentil soup.

There are books all around you. Surrounding you. Like a cloud or a ring of fire. On every imaginable topic, rising high in piles like towers and great walls. Here a treatise on astronomy, there five volumes of poetry by a circle of poet-historians all centuries dead. If you close your eyes then you can envision each and every one of them in its place, exactly where you left it.

If you can close your eyes then you can remember your first day in Babylon. You had not always been a speaker for the living, or a philosopher, or a demagogue (and all three were the same in Babylon, or so they were to you). Once, you had been a trader. A sailor. A night shipwreck had brought you to the edges of Babylon, and you walked to the lights from the crash site, no other survivors in sight. Who would have thought that you would stumble across a library? Who would have thought that you would enter therein?

Perhaps it was fate. If so, then you wonder what it was that had made fate love you so, as much as you love books. And you wonder what it was that had made fate so fickle, and made her turn her eyes and her favor from you.

You drop the spoon into its bowl and stand. It is time. "I come, I come," you whisper. A smile spreads on your face. "Why do you call for me?"

The world is falling to ashes at your hands. All future history aborted and replaced with a hideousness that burns your mind's eye. You have a duty to perform, a rectification to perform. And you are hardly going to do that in the nude.

Luckily you have clothes hanging beside your desk. You slip on silken underclothing first of all. Comfortable clothing, to be sure, but once its purpose was to catch the arrows aimed at the ancestors of your adopted people. The sleeves are long and wide, far from restrictive. Next to go on is a poet blouse and a short, dark blue skirt. Less your style than your previous dress or undress, but you can own it all the same. You have to. The rules for formal dress are older than your grandfather. And he's pretty old.

You remember walking through the streets in the wake of the Iconoclasm. The Trial of Sisyphus was brought to the forefront of your mind. "The quest for power is an empty thing," you told John. "Sisyphus' wife threw his corpse into the public square."  

John didn't say anything. It was John's corpse that was thrown into the square, John that spent ten years in Hell before your friends could secure a release. But that's why you say it. You understand. You understand the pain. And what else you understand, what must be understood by John if it is not already, is that these are more than stories. Or else all other things are no more than stories.  

But if there is mourning for the sacrifices that have been made, then surely there can also be rejoicing over fresh gardens and empty tombs. "Here, John," you told your friend, and the two of you looked around at the scattered statues all about you, like the books in your study. "Hear the silence of the idols."  

Stories, you did not know if John understood. But you could see in your comrade's eyes that acceptable losses were understood. John lost something, in those ten years at Letois, and John accepted the pain every day (there is no price too high for the glory of the city Babylon).

You slide copper bracelets over your left hand and hang jade rings from your ears. You move as you dress, you dance as you move. Happiness is not good for mortals but neither is sorrow not fitting for immortals, and you know that no-one has ever been a prince by playing a pauper. Do you weep today?

There is salt enough in your lentil soup already, you think. Why would you add more? What reason do you have to weep? You can feel the sun rising and falling in your body, and the waves reaching and sinking. You stand alone, and you stand alone in the midst of creation. This is the nobility of your soul, that you can see past the dark of space into that day when the gods, now dead, now not-yet-born, are made by the hands of men and women with their eyes firmly fixed upon the stars.

This is the nobility of your soul, that you can see in your heart the future ashes and rubble of Babylon, and not flinch. That you can see, and see past it- to the songs that will be played on other worlds in generations hence. And today you see to it, where it will not be seen, and make a cure against a sickness unto death. To realize, and to exist in awareness of yourself and your own future gods.

To stand. And to do your duty.

A memory floats into your thoughts, from scant days ago. You were speaking with John and Elymas. The three of you had begun to realize that the war was not going as you had planned it. That the city would fall. That every pain and trial in your collective history would be turned to vain.

Unless...

Unless. The most powerful word with which a sorcerer can conjure.  

You wrap your hands around one of John's, and look at Elymas. "The process from perception to comprehension is like this, a closing fist," you say. "I will persuade Persephone before you, as Sisyphus did."  

Neither of them doubt you. This was your dream all along. Your dream that you made yours, or your dream and theirs, woven into a more brilliant tapestry. Your dream was history itself.

You put on felt socks and leather boots, and over your hands go soft green gloves with a button leaf design.

"Oh, Aesopus," you say. "Aesopus, there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn!"

You take the golden crown into your hands and rest it on your head. You look at it in the mirror and make a face. You toss it away with a flick of your fingers and pay no attention to where it goes.

"Benediction. Benediction, Mister Cross. Haha!"

You give a little spin where you stand, and giggle. Very girlish of you- but then, you haven't allowed yourself to be a girl for so long. Perhaps you can be one again in this short space of time, hanging between moments.

You take your suit-jacket off of its hook. Orange and white pinstripes. Perhaps you can allow yourself just one touch of personal expression.

Your fingers deftly work their way up the jacket's buttons. Smooth out a couple of ruffles in your outfit. Tie your hair back into a ponytail.

You hear the front door open downstairs.

You look at yourself in the mirror. This is it: the katalepsis of the sniper.

There are footsteps coming up the stairs.

You ascend the chair. It must look very silly, if you're going to be honest with yourself. Your hands brush against your throat.

You think back to Sisyphus one last time. Think of the war, the stone, the victory. The struggle was enough, and he had become Man alone.

John appears at the head of the stairs. You can hear a scream, you can hear the words, but you cannot attach to them any meaning.

You look at John. Smile. "Look! For I shall die, and in dying shall conquer death!"

You kick the chair out from under you, and then your neck catches against the belt.

"Zeno! Zeno!"

John won't get you down in time. You're safe.

You've done it.

"Happiness is a good flow of life."

- Zeno, as quoted by Stobaeus

[RobertMason]

Barring so much conversation about the stories that it's too hard to keep track of who's talking about what, I'm going to keep all of my short stories in this topic in order to avoid spamming the Art Gallery.

Since I returned from my mission I tried to move away from the sadcore. It turned into horror. I tried to move away from horror (it feels wrong to put too much sadcore and horror up on such a bubbly place like the Toadfish) and waltzed into this. It's a humor/horror piece with a side of d'aww. How much humor, how much horror, and how much d'aww is probably going to depend on how you're feeling that day.


Bubblegum Peculiarity

Was it a peculiar home? A peculiar family? Oh, indeed.

"If you continue to fight me about your vegetables then I can assure you that you won't be happy."

But some things are part of every family, no matter how peculiar.

Miss Taylor could hear the mother from the other side of the door. And the girl responded. Too quietly for Miss Taylor to make out the words, but the tone that she used conveyed the impression that she wasn't worried.

That was good. That was very good.

Miss Taylor knocked on the door.

It meant that she probably wasn't afraid of her mother.

"Elizabeth Taylor," she announced as soon as the door opened- which was very, very quickly. Miss Taylor held up her identification. "Child Protective Services."

Miss Taylor hoped that this would be a false alarm. But the problem that had been brought to their attention had nothing to do with whether or not the woman was doing anything that might make her daughter afraid of her.

Still, it didn't seem that the woman was afraid of CPS. That was either a sign that everything was alright or... or that she was such an unfit parent that she couldn't even begin to conceive of what she might have done wrong. Which would mean that they probably wouldn't be able to get her to fix the situation.

The apartment that Miss Taylor walked into was a modest one. There was a kitchen but the living room was doubling as the dining room. The girl- Nancy, according to their reports- was eating dinner on a TV folding tray. The woman... did not appear to be eating dinner.

"Not hungry?" Miss Taylor asked.

The woman laughed. "Oh no. I'll be eating later. I have a very restrictive diet."

Nancy appeared to be nine. Her mother couldn't have been older than twenty-five, and that was pushing it. At most, she couldn't have been older than sixteen when she had given birth to Nancy.

"I apologize," the woman suddenly said. "I'm Autumn Frase." She shook Miss Taylor's hand energetically, then gestured for Miss Taylor to take a seat beside Nancy.

The couch was leather. Probably older than Nancy.

There didn't seem to be more than two people living here, just as the report said- Hell, there seemed in some ways to be only one person living here.

Which, actually, gave weight to the unfortunate side of the report.

But definitely no father in the home. That was something that she could confirm right away.

Autumn pulled up a seat in front of the two of them. She sat with grace, and gave a stern look at her daughter. "Green beans. You. Now." Something peculiar came into her eyes. "Or you won't grow up to be like me."

Whatever was behind those words- and there had to be something- it got Nancy to resume eating.

"I'm sure that you didn't come here to make a social call," Autumn said, "social worker though you may be. If you'll forgive the pun." She paused just long enough for the silence to become awkward and for Miss Taylor to wonder if perhaps she was expected to respond. But as soon as she opened her mouth to do so, Autumn went on. "So if you'll get down to the business of, well, your business..."

"To cut to the chase, we've gotten reports that your daughter has been left at home alone."

"Well, that happens here and there, doesn't it?" Autumn replied.

"Not for days on end, it shouldn't. And not repeatedly." Miss Taylor smiled, and hoped that it reached up to her eyes. "But I'm sure that we can get to the bottom of this and discover that it was all just a big, big misunderstanding." She hoped. She couldn't figure out why she was in this line of work sometimes. Always hoping so desperately that she was wrong. Sometimes it was so, and she stressed for nothing. Sometimes it wasn't so, and the stress was added to by horror.

Autumn practically stared into her soul, her gaze was so intent. Beside her, Miss Taylor noticed, Nancy had stopped eating again.

Not out of curiosity- no, it was out of curiosity. But not only. There was stress there as well. Who the fear was for, or exactly what part of this meeting was triggering it, Miss Taylor couldn't determine, but it was there. That had the potential to not be good- or to be very good, because day-to-day life was always so peaceful that she was hypersensitive to stress. With as little as she had to go by right now, Miss Taylor thought that it was a very good toss-up.

Miss Taylor supposed that she ought to say something, but then Nancy spoke up. Miss Taylor wondered if perhaps she had caught some sort of... some sort of glance shared between the two before Nancy had spoken, but then Nancy repeated herself and continued talking. "It's late. I know because my mom is up and she gets up really late. Also, the clock says that it's five past seven. So."

"So?" Miss Taylor repeated.

"So we're your last people!" Her eyes lit up. "We can make hot chocolate! Can't we mama?" she asked. Nancy looked at her mother with imploring eyes.

"Well, I suppose that that depends on Elizabeth," Autumn said. "I can call you Elizabeth, can't I?"

This was confusing. Everything was confusing. Where had this come from? "Sure." Really. She couldn't remember the last time that a family had asked her to drink hot chocolate with them. Probably because there had never been such a time before now.

"Well then." Autumn grinned. "Do you have to return to the office at the end of the day or do you normally go home?"

"I can go straight home if I have to, but I don't see what-"

"But will they miss you?" Nancy asked, adopting a pouting expression. "That is, will they expect you to come to the office, and be worried if you don't?"

Miss Taylor also couldn't remember the last time that a nine-year-old child had prefaced a clarifying statement with the words "That is." For much the same reason as her other recent failure at recollection. "No, I suppose not. Why?"

"It makes things easier," Autumn said. "I don't have to wear your skin and mimic your voice for a few hours in order for everyone to see you end your day as normal."

If that wasn't the strangest thing that Miss Taylor had ever heard- and she had heard no fewer than three very strange things in the past two minutes- then she was going to give up trying to understand anything at all in the world.

Before she could think about it any further, though, Autumn moved. And there was only the barest fraction of a second for the words "People don't move that fast" to flash through her mind before her neck was snapped and she stopped being surprised forever.

Autumn looked the woman over. "It isn't often that dinner comes to me, Nancy. Might be the last time I get to eat before we have to move. They'll start looking for her soon." She turned to her daughter. "You need to mind yourself better. There was a moment when you didn't sound like a normal nine-year-old."

"What would you know about normal nine-year-olds, mama?" Nancy retorted. "You haven't been one since forever."

"1750 is hardly 'forever,'" Autumn replied. "And being old doesn't make me blind." She chuckled. "Actually, for our kind, it makes me less blind."

"Your kind," Nancy muttered. She turned away.

"Oh, Nancy. Nancy," Autumn said, and she gently nudged Nancy's chin so as to make her daughter look into her eyes. "You just haven't grown into your wings, dear. You'll be fit for immortality yet."

"Y-you sure?"

"Of course." Autumn stood. She picked up the social worker's body and began to take it into the back. "And don't forget to eat your vegetables. That's important while you're still human."

"But mama..."

FIN

[Aggie]

You slide copper bracelets over your left hand and hang jade rings from your ears. You move as you dress, you dance as you move. Happiness is not good for mortals but neither is sorrow not fitting for immortals, and you know that no-one has ever been a prince by playing a pauper. Do you weep today?

There is salt enough in your lentil soup already, you think. Why would you add more? What reason do you have to weep? You can feel the sun rising and falling in your body, and the waves reaching and sinking. You stand alone, and you stand alone in the midst of creation. This is the nobility of your soul, that you can see past the dark of space into that day when the gods, now dead, now not-yet-born, are made by the hands of men and women with their eyes firmly fixed upon the stars.

I like the writing through most of this, but especially the above section. The paragraph break, followed by the seemingly mundane comment on the soup, followed by re-referencing weeping, allows the reader to do the work in piecing together the image of crying in one's soup.

[RobertMason]

Thanks!

I was worried that there was too much implying, not enough letting the reader figure out what was actually going on. Like, "show, don't tell," and "less is more," but when you've turned on a fog generator and thrown somebody into the cornfield without any explanation of why they're there or what country they're in, well, maybe that's a little too far.

So I'm working on a novel now, a couple of days out of the week (still have to work on short stories, after all), and while I won't be able to post the actual text of it (too many companies will consider it to have been already published... grumble grumble) I'm wondering if anyone would still like for me to put up plot and character outlines and other random notes as I develop it.