FLASH CHALLENGE: June '07-Vote!

[kailhofer]

The following entries were received:


[center]Silence[/center]



The little Goddess of Sound skips along a jungle path that meanders beneath the trees, skirting the three main villages where dark-skinned Yombex worship her and a few even pray to her though they know she cannot hear their words.

She pauses in a shallow stream. The cool water washes over her thin, brown ankles, rippling as she drags her feet along the stony bottom. She closes her eyes and breaths in the smells of mud and fungus.

A frog bounds away from the water's edge as Chi draws near. She laughs like the tinkle of little splashes. The sound causes red, blue and yellow flowers to blossom all along the banks.

Chi smiles at the tiny flowers.

TUM!

Chi's smile fades.

TUM!

Her eyes -- solid black pupils surrounded by brilliant white orbs -- scan the thick jungle.

TUM!

The Yombex call to her. She feels the concussion of their bone and hide drums in her feet, shaking the very earth beneath them.

TUM!

She cannot ignore her people. This call is as ancient as she -- as ancient as man's first communicative sound: the warning grunt, the beating of stick on stone, the first articulate word. Chi no more runs through the forest than sunlight falls from the heavens. She arrives at the tiny village of "Ch'uk Ya Byg Flop" before the drums' next strike.

TUM!

The drums cease. All is silent.

Arrayed before the little Goddess of Sound stands a gaggle of foreign men. These are strange men, like none Chi has ever seen. Their skins are pale as sand, their long hair is the color of goldenrod, and their bodies, almost to a man, are covered in a strange, silvery stone that looks hard as a beetle's carapace.

Behind these foreigners the assembled Yombex fall to their knees. The men drop their chest-high drums, the women press their babes to their breasts and each genuflects where he or she stands.

The pale men do not bow, though they look upon Chi with wonder. She forgives their ignorance. Surely they come from a land where the gods do not make them bow. Perhaps they were never taught.

One of the pale men holds up a sheaf of many bound pages. Upon one is a picture of Chi -- a skinny, dark-skinned girl dressed in worn tribal sarong and pantacat top. He points at her and says something to one of the other pale men, but Chi cannot read the man's words.

The pale men spread out and only now does Chi notice the black-skinned man among them. He has not bowed his head, nor does he look surprised to see the little goddess. He is Yomti, tribal chief of the Bexyom -- blood enemies to Chi's people.

Chi reads Yomti's lips as he says, "See, oh foreign king, she is but a child as I said. Take her and you shall conquer the Yombex."

Chi bares her little teeth, which are very white and very sharp. The pale men draw swords from their belts.

The men move to surround the little goddess, but she does not back away. They advance on her from the front and the rear and Chi crouches. Yomti is first to raise a blade -- a gleaming foreign blade -- against her.

Thunder like that of the most raucous storm issues from Chi's mouth. Although she cannot hear the sound, she savors its effect. The pale men nearest her drop their swords and fall to the ground writhing in pain. Yomti, who was closest, staggers back, blood running from his ears. As slow as leaves falling, he crumples to the ground and moves no more.

The thunder subsides, only to be replaced by a note of such clarity and such frequency, that nearby trees split at their trunks, birds fall dead from the sky, and the ten men closest to the little goddess are instantly struck deaf. It is the sound of cicadas -- millions of cicadas.

The few pale men still standing scramble away in every direction, most running from one doom towards another as they rush blindly into the untamed jungle.

Chi strides silently to where her people kneel. They have not heard the sounds; she would never harm them. One young woman looks up and sees a smiling child -- the little goddess -- looking down upon her.

"They would have killed us," she mouths at the deaf Goddess of Sound.

Chi nods and caresses the woman's face.

A pale man, wide-eyed and clearly half mad, rises and staggers towards them. He wears a thin coronet of beaten brass and a brown cape. He must be the pale chief.

Chi presses a small hand against the man's chest and feels the beat of his heart.

The pale chief screams something at her. She can feel his rank breath on her cheek, but she cannot read his words. They are pale and foreign.

TUM!

The pale man's heart beats.

TUM!

Chi begins to sing. It is the song of the cockatoo, if a cockatoo weighed eighty tons and had a megaphone for a beak.

TUM!

The pale man is frightened. He wants to run away; he wants to cover his ears, but he can do neither. He stands, mesmerized by the little goddess's gaze, touch, and song.

Tum. . .

Blood runs from the man's ears.

Tum. . . tum

The man's heart skips and his eyes begin to blanch white.

Tum. . . tum. . . . . . . tum

The man's shock of golden hair turns gray from roots to tips. He sags, but Chi forces him to stand with the last ounce of his strength.

. . . tum. . .

The Little Goddess of Sound stops singing just before the pale man's heart ceases its beat. She releases him and he falls to the ground deaf and blind and ruined.

The End

[hr][hr]

[center]The Source of Sunshine[/center]



“Describe again to me what blue looks like.”

Ruelin heard Prista sighing. “You always ask me that,” she admonished. She gave his hand a quick squeeze. “Watch your step here. There’s a sharp rock underfoot.”

Ruelin prodded with his staff. “I just don’t understand how it can be cold. You always say that blue is cold. And wet! Yet if that is the sky, how can the sun, which is hot, swim in it?”

Prista giggled. “Oh Ruelin, my love. I don’t even know how to respond to that. Keep asking me impossible questions and I’ll lead you over a cliff.”

Ruelin swung his face upwards, feeling the sunshine on his face. He tried to imagine the celestial orb, round and blistering, adrift without ropes or wires in this medium called a sky. Prista had stated that no clouds lazed today, the sky barren except for the sun. It amazed Ruelin that the sky possessed the ability to change, filling with clouds and rain or even nothing at all.

Ruelin wiped the sweat from his brow. “Is the altar here?”

“Yes,” she responded. He heard pages turned. “Just as the book said it would. The altar is weathered and partially eroded, but the ancient glyphs match what’s written.”

He exhaled a deep breath. “Lead me over there.”

Prista hesitated. “It’s not too late to go back.”

Ruelin heard the desperation in her voice. Harsher than he intended, he replied, “I can’t go back. If I do, I’ll never be able to live afterwards, always wondering, always speculating. Now take me over there.” A hoarse whisper escaped him. “Please.”

He heard Prista approach. Her gentled fingers grabbed his arm and escorted him a few steps forward. She took his hand and guided his fingers downward. He felt a hard, smooth stone slab, blistering from the sun’s heat. He leaned over and kissed her tenderly. “Give me the lyre,” he requested. He heard her unstrap the legendary instrument from her back. She placed it in his hands and he felt the smooth, beautiful wood, its comfortable weight recalling past performances.

He smiled. “It’s time. Let me begin.” He began to pray. The words burbled out, entreating. In the back of his mind, he imagined the sun, the mysterious sphere that managed to warm the world. He pleaded, almost demanded, the gift of sight from the mercurial god. He heard a faint buzzing as his praying reached a crescendo. “He hears me!” thought Ruelin. “He is listening!”

Quaking with fervor, he grabbed in one hand the ancient lyre, perfect and irreplaceable. In the other hand, he clutched the ax, raising it high above his head. The sounds of the concerts he had played sang through his memory. Snarling, he brought the weapon down. He heard the unmistakable crunch of wood smashed asunder, the twang of the metal strings. He swung down twice more.

He felt his heart snap as he pushed aside regret. He dropped the ax. It clattered on the stone next to him. He continued his supplications, the buzzing subdued but still present.

“Hear me, hear me!” he begged. His mind became focused. He willed his eyes to work. “I’ve given up my livelihood! You must listen to me!”

Almost imperceptibly, the droning sound changed from a steady hum to something akin to a pulse. The noise became sharper and comprehension finally dawned. “He’s laughing at me,” rasped Ruelin. “It wasn’t enough.” He slammed his fist on the mountaintop. “It’s not fair!” he screamed. “How can you do this to me?”

Enraged, he rose to his knees and threw his staff. He swept the broken offering from the altar. His hand found the ax lying next to him. He rained blows down upon the sacrificial stone, the sharp strikes echoing in the air.

“Ruelin, my love, it’s alright,” said Prista behind him, her voice filled with tears. She placed her hands on his shoulders.

“Not enough,” he croaked one last time. He rose, turned, and swung the ax in an arc.

Without thought. Savage. Soulless.

A sickening noise as the ax connected with flesh and bone. Ruelin heard her collapse. He let the tool fall from his numb fingers.

He stood frozen, unable to fathom. He felt surreal and detached.

Then the world appeared before him, chaotic, overwhelming, a barrage of color and new sensation. Nothing made sense. Still burdened with emotional shock, he lurched forward and tripped.

He searched around him, closed his eyes to shut out the noise of color, and found what he stumbled over. His fingers ran over the warm body of Prista. His lower lip trembled, the taboo act finally reaching through his consciousness. He cradled her, kneeling beside her, as he released his lamentation, a long sorrowful cry. The sounds of his wailing grew softer and he realized in horror the price afterward.

The world of sound and music departed. The god demanded it.

His heartbeat, rapid and thunderous, the last thing he heard until that, too, faded, dead to his ears.

He opened his eyes heavenward. In the midst of his grieving, he found the sky to be less chaotic, just one color. “I see blue, Prista,” he said, unable to hear his own voice. “I see it.”

His eyes found one thing in the azure expanse, brilliant and small. He stared at it in awe. “It’s so beautiful,” he whispered. He gazed upon the source of sunshine, ignoring the pain, until his eyesight began to darken, the tears running down his face.

The light became smaller…

…smaller…

…until it reached a pinprick. Then darkness once again.

He picked up his Prista in his arms and felt her warmth. He carried her as he walked forward, blind and deaf. “I’m sorry, Prista,” he said. He took one step after another until he reached the precipice. Stone gave way to endless sky.

He tumbled forth with his sun held tightly to his chest, into oblivion, into exoneration.



THE END

[hr][hr]

[center]The Silent Despair of Lives Wasted[/center]



Cordite was in the air, that and the ozone smell of pulse cannons discharging.

Jamal was being dragged by someone, he knew that much. It was Lt. Chatham, the one from Pasadena. He was holding Jamal by his harness and puling him over the ledge into the trench.

Jamal saw a dozen other troopers huddled there, scared looks on their faces. Looks that said it was over.

The lieutenant, so young it didn't seem right to even have him here in the first place, was talking to the others. His movements were very animated, the weapon slung over his shoulder moving in tandem.

Jamal was lying inside the trench. Now drifting smoke reached him, and he could feel the cold, frozen ground underneath him. His own weapon was still warm from being fired repeatedly until an explosion pushed him to the earth, silencing him for the time being until the officer came to get him out of the way.

He felt someone rushing from the other end of the trench, raised himself on his elbows and saw the medic, Alvin Young, hustling towards him. Good that someone still cared, Jamal reckoned, although the sentiment wasn't as strong as when he thought of home, his mother, sister and child.

Nothing will ever match that.

Young was bent down, saying something, superimposed over the roiling steel-colored sky.

Jamal made to indicate he couldn't hear anything, pointing with one hand to his left ear. Young nodded and reached into a small pouch, producing a needle. He pointed to it and Jamal agreed. One thing he did feel was pain.

After the injection things went a little bit haywire. Chatham was joined by another, higher ranking officer and it appeared they were rallying the troops.

Jamal was now lying next to another guy, this one with his face bandaged and not really moving. He guessed some time has passed since Young gave him that shot.

The smells of cordite and pulse weaponry were now fainter, replaced by another he got to know quite well over the last couple of weeks since the invasion began.

It was the woodsy scent their machines gave off. The backroom boys figured something in the lubricated joints that were so prominent in their designs resulted in that smell. No matter the reason, wherever you smelled it there was a very good chance you'd never smell much of anything else.

Since the first fire fight Jamal knew this action was symbolic, as most people, including the ones he loved, where either already gone or taken. Nothing worked against the invaders, except nukes but those only slowed them down. Their ships simply never stopped arriving in orbit, pouring out more of those fuckers.

He was angry, angry that life had to put him and those he loved at a time when something like this happened.

He raised himself again, seeing the others getting ready. They were packing up. The officers probably decided that without artillery and air support fighting would be even stupider than usually.

Jamal managed to get up, sort of. He peered over the trench and through the blue haze saw their hulking machines, the big ones, with countless smaller things boiling around them. Those were nicknamed mites pretty quick, but didn't lend themselves to squashing so good.

He felt someone touch him and turned to see Young talking to him. His lips were moving slowly, but Jamal couldn't hear a thing. Something bright and hot smashed into the network not half a click away, and he couldn't hear that, either.

Young was tugging at him as Jamal saw everybody else heave-ho over the trench and proceed away from the battle, away from the invaders and away from certain death.

The bandaged guy wansn't moving and no one was tending to him, so Jamal figured he was gone.

The two officers were still talking, arguing maybe. Jamal came up to ledge and was about to push when he realized he didn't recall seeing the radio guy, DK, anywhere. If the radio was out, then they'd have no way to reach anyone else with the satelllites and cells all down.

As he was about to go over, the air about him moved slightly. He knew the pores were coming, the canister having popped above them, he got out of the glorified ditch and ran as fast as he could, trying to catch up to the others.

He looked back to see Young on the cold ground, a pore wriggling its way into his back.

Jamal turned to run, a few pores hitting around him, but they were too slow on the ground. He hobbled, several other guys dying nearby, but the officers were still good.

***

At night, they were in a town. There were no people, no power. They got rid of most of their gear and weapons, and were mostly in civvies. It was agreed that other part of their lives was no longer relevant. That's what the officers were arguing over before.

Jamal still couldn't hear anything, though he wanted to. The fire they had going probably crackled nice, and that guy, the one he thought was from Show Low but wasn't, he was playing the guitar. They probably found one somewhere here. Jamal enjoyed music.

He fished a book out of a backpack he found before, a book that went into his kit when they went out to stand against the invaders. This book has been with him for a while. Footfall.

He wished it were that easy.

THE END

[hr][hr]

[center]Dancing to a Different Tune[/center]



Nadia, are you ready?

Nadia Mirasova blinked in annoyance as glowing text appeared in mid-air just over Dmitri's head. The voice-to-text "heads-up display" was supposed to be above her normal line of sight, and she supposed that it was -- Dmitri was, after all, at least 20 centimeters taller than she was -- but it was still distracting. It didn't help that the interface provided no clue as to who was speaking, or where they were; only the fact that Dmitri was looking at someone behind her prompted her to turn toward the speaker.

"Hello, Mr. Boorman," she said. "We are just finishing up here, making sure that the suit is functioning properly." Maddeningly, her own words now scrolled through the air over Boorman's head.

Boorman's lips moved, and a tiny fraction of a second later, more text marched across her field of vision. The suit, yes, the suit, how wonderful it must be that it lets you dance again. When you lost your hearing, you must have thought your career was over..."

Nadia suppressed the urge to snarl at the promoter -- a boorish man, indeed. His tuxedo fit him like an overstuffed sausage casing, and the pathetic way he arranged his remaining hair! But he was giving her the chance to perform, to prove herself, when no one else would.

"Yes, it is thrilling," she said. "They could not restore my hearing -- the nerve damage was too severe even for the most advanced cochlear implants. But the suit -- it lets me feel the music, to experience it with all its nuances intact. In some ways, it may be better than hearing."

Lies. Like the voice-to-text display, it was a poor substitute for what nature had taken away. Changes in pitch and volume were translated into a tingle here, a feeling of heat or cold there, swirlings of color if she activated the visual interface, tastes or odors that changed with uncanny speed. Her first few days in the suit had been a nightmare, twitching and stumbling about in response to a thousand phantom touches, sneezing as smells changed from sweet to foul in instants. Dmitri had been a saint, comforting her when she wept in frustration, endlessly adjusting the sensitivity of the sensor mesh and fiddling with the software that changed sound into everything but sound.

And she had learned. The brain is a wonderful thing, capable of adapting to the most bizarre and extreme changes in circumstance. Dmitri had showed her old video of psychology students who learned to function normally while viewing the world through prisms that inverted everything. Then, when the prisms were removed, they had to learn to see normally again! Blind people with early versions of artificial vision systems had found ways to derive meaning from a few dots or lines of light; deaf people had been able to interpret the crude stimuli provided by primitive cochlear implants as sound and speech.

She had applied a dancer's discipline to turning signals that would be symptoms of madness in any other context into mood and rhythm. It was not music as anyone had ever experienced it before -- but it was far more subtle than the thumping bass beats that allowed other hearing-impaired people to imitate the clumsy flailing that passed for dancing in the clubs.

Miss Mirasova, it's time.

Nadia nodded at the stage manager who had, thank God, spoken where she could see him, and glided past Boorman and onto the stage.

Stage right, she saw the grand piano, with her old friend and accompanist Vladislav Tzerbinski at the keyboard. Seated beside him, Janice Tillman cradled her cello between her legs like an old familiar lover. The set was simple -- a few wooden chairs, a lectern upon which a large book lay open, folding screens to represent walls. Nadia knew that the book was actually a hardbound collection of cartoons, but the audience would imagine it to be something more profound, -- a Bible, or a hymnal, perhaps.

The audience exploded in applause, thrilled to see her perform -- or try to perform. Perhaps they expected a clumsy, freakish display as "that dancer who went deaf" tried to move to music when she couldn't hear a single note. The "suit" and neural implants translated the shouts and clapping into something like the crawling of ants over her arms and legs, a sharp scent -- vinegar and musk -- and the taste of burnt sugar. If they hadn't prepared for this moment with recordings of live concerts, she would have been overwhelmed.

Instead, she let her right arm drift upward, as if pulled by invisible strings. Vladimir pounded out the opening chords of the "Queen of the Sea" solo from Lacotte's Ondine, and the audience fell silent.

And she danced.

People often said that they felt music washing over them. Nadia truly felt the music now, but it did not pass over and through her like water. It poked and teased and caressed and chilled and burned her. It filled her nostrils with the scent of violets and the reek of decay, changing in a heartbeat to chocolate tinged with celery and rhubarb.

Somehow, out of that chaotic storm of sensory input, she drew a melody. The pain of dancing en pointe, the strain of extending her limbs beyond what most would consider their normal range of motion, even the thud of landing after a grand jete, merely served as punctuation for the torrent of sensations flowing from the sensor web under her costume to the circuitry implanted in her brain.

With only a few moment's pause, Vlad and Janice launched into an excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, specially arranged to allow the low thrum and moan of the cello to guide Nadia's limbs through Sergeev's intricate choreography. And she danced ...

When the performance ended, when the last note had been played and the last step taken, the applause was ... deafening.

[center]The End[/center]


[hr][hr]

[center]Love Like Clockwork[/center]



For long hours, I sat by the open window, with the open book on my lap, pretending to read and watching her play. She had the piano set up at the far end of the room, by the door, her metal fingers skittering backward and forward across the black and white keys, the hydraulics in her legs pumping the pedals, and bracing her against the crescendos of the first and third movements.

Of course, the music meant nothing to her - being deaf, she couldn't hear it. It was a gift, an offering... a mathematical exercise designed to please me.

Eventually, when she wound down, I closed the book. I got up and walked to the door, my own joints and gears hissing and clanking as I moved.

As I passed, I touched her copper hair.

'Thank you, my love,' I said.


-ENDS-

[hr][hr]

[center]Extra Sensory[/center]



I see you're reading a history book, kid. That's good.

You read in there about how we won The War? You did?

Does it say in there that the aliens almost beat us? No?

Just says we sent 'em packin' does it? Well, that's mostly true. But don't you believe it that we didn't have to work for it.

What's that, kid? Our superior fighting spirit and technology? That's a bunch of sh. . .uh. . . nonsense!

No it ain't okay. I promised your momma that I'd watch my language around you and that's what I'm gonna do.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, technology.

I was there kid, and I'm tellin' you that if anything, they was a little more advanced than we was. On the ground, anyway. Way I hear it, out in space we was evenly matched. It was ship-for-ship every time they tried to fight. Every time. Well, you really gotta have your back against the wall to be willing to die just to kill one of your enemy. That ain't no way to fight no war. Period.

No kid, this war was fought and won on the ground, by Infantry. And I don't mind sayin' that the only reason we won was that we got resupplied first. They was usin' their ESP to good advantage and was pushin' us back hard and fast until we got fresh ammo, grub and replacements. Especially the replacements. Lots of 'em.

That book don't say nothin' about their ESP?

Does it say they were all deaf-mutes? Born that way? Well, that part's true enough.

They was deaf and dumb, all right, but they had ESP, and it gave 'em one hel. . .uh. . . heck of an advantage when we had to fight 'em nose to snout down there in them swamps.

Huh? Nah, they didn't like swamps any better'n us. But same as us, they liked all that high-quality uranium ore down inside that planet. But we was soldiers, kid. Soldiers ain't supposed to care what the war's about.

And we didn't. Not those of us who had to slug it out with them in that rank, steaming, slimy mud. And I mean slug it out, too. It's a good thing we have a whole history fighting wars without any of the technological military advantages we have today.

Not that our troops were ready for it at the beginning. Not that theirs were, either.

Our damping fields will stop any electric motor, which completely canceled the superiority provided by their powered suits. And our unpowered ablative body armor was pretty good at dissipating their beam weapons unless they managed to concentrate their shots in one place. But they learned fast, those critters. Fast.

Our bullets chewed them up pretty good until they started salvaging pieces of their dead, worthless, heavy suits to use as makeshift shields and redoubts. By the end some of them were even wearing homemade helmets, vests and leggings that were dang-near bulletproof. But we learned. . .we learned. The trick was to shoot for where they were soft.


What's that you say, kid? No they really was deaf and mute. Didn't have the voice box to make sounds or the ears to hear 'em. But they did have these specialized organs that let them modulate and transmit their ESP signals and others that received them.

Hell, kid. . .uh. . .do me a favor and don't tell your mama about that, okay? Thanks, I appreciate it.

Anyway, they even made something like music that was just for their ESP.

'Course, it had to be better than that junk you young people listen to, today. How you can even call that music. . .

What's that? No, it didn't sound like nothing. I told ya' it was just for their ESP. I even seen one of their music makers, once. We thought it was a new kind of weapon and turned it over to the CO after a raid on one of their camps. It was long, shaped a little like a rifle but it had these six metal wires stretched across it. CO later told us that it was something they used to make ESP music, but now that I think about it, maybe he was just tryin' to keep us in the dark and it really was a weapon. SOS, if you get my drift.

Wasn't long after that raid that they started using their ESP to start kicking our ass. . .our backsides. . .all over that slimeball of a planet.


We knew we were in trouble when they started jamming the radio frequencies. . .all of them. Nothin' but loud static in your ears.

Radio waves? Well, they used them, of course, but they didn't really need 'em, you see. They had that damn ESP going for them and could communicate with each other over fair distances. Once they found out that we couldn't do that weird trick with our minds, they started making headway. I lost a lot of good friends before we figured out that they could coordinate attacks over long distances even with all the frequencies jammed.

Turns out their ESP would even tell 'em if one of us was tryin' to sneak up on 'em. It was weird, kid. . .spooky even. They could tell if something close by so much as moved, even when they wasn't looking.

How's it work?

You sure you wanna know?

Well, okay, but you gotta understand that I don't know any of the technical jabber.

Okay then. Seems they got this alien organ or gland or something that vibrates. And you'll learn in science class that vibrations can travel through any kind of material.

Well, they had this other organ that could read these vibrations in. . .and kid, you ain't gonna believe this. . .could read these vibrations and make sense of them in air. Nothing but air.

Once they jammed the radio frequencies. . . we was the deaf mutes.


End

[hr][hr]

[center]Silent Storm[/center]



Ciara hurled her plate across the kitchen, screaming at the top of her lungs into the suffocating silence. Panting, she pounded her fists on the counter and glared at the splotches of spaghetti sauce covering her bookcase full of useless music books and medical texts. She beat the scarred surface until her knuckles split, careless of her pianist’s fingers – what good were they to her now?

They had to be wrong, there had to be a way to fix it. Music was her life! Damn the doctors, their helpful suggestions, and their completely unhelpful medicine. “Idiopathic sudden hearing loss” was a description, not a diagnosis, but not one of the dozen she’d begged for help could tell her anything more useful! If one more person told her how brilliant Beethoven was even after he lost his hearing, there would be murder, and she wouldn’t be sorry. Beethoven was a genius, one of a kind – were you supposed to just accept that life sucked and go on with it if you didn’t have that luck? No way in hell!

Drained and exhausted, she walked to the sink and washed the blood from her hands, then started cleaning up her splattered dinner. The incoming call light on the TTY unit attached to her phone started blinking, but she certainly didn’t feel like being social. Anything, anywhere away from the human race was what she wanted now.

She walked away from it to stare out the rain washed window by the baby grand piano that took up most of her living room. She hardly saw the wind lashed trees illuminated by the streetlights as she brooded with one hand resting absently on the neglected instrument, brushing the dust from it.

She could still play, she knew. She had been just starting to make a
living as a concert pianist, and she knew just how good she was, but she knew just how much she had lost when she couldn’t hear herself anymore. She couldn’t do that. She had tried, once, at the advice of a well-intentioned therapist who the third specialist had referred her to. She had sat at the bench with her bare feet against the hardwood floor to better sense the vibrations, and had played all of three bars before crashing her hands violently against the keys and running out of the apartment.

She had thrown a blanket over it when she came back, and hadn’t touched it since.

Lightning strobed and flickered, and suddenly Ciara couldn’t stand it. She had to get out, or she was going to break something much more precious than a plate.

She grabbed her jacket and fled, slamming the door behind her with a silent and unsatisfying crash.

The driving rain was almost warm, but the wind seemed much stronger than it had looked from her sheltered living room. She pushed against it for the sheer angry joy of something to fight, not bothering about what direction she was going. She stumbled down the sidewalk, head down and shoulders hunched as she beat her way across the street and found herself heading into one of the pocket sized parks that were tucked into odd corners of the city. The biggest oak she had ever seen was the centerpiece of the small space, regally shading a couple of benches and a small pond – beautiful, even in the little light thrown by the park lamp posts, but certainly nowhere to go in a thunderstorm!

Deciding for sanity and sense, Ciara stopped at the edge of the park and stared at the king tree. Was someone standing by it? She pushed her drenched hair from her face and peered into the shadows.

Someone was, she was almost certain. A flash of moving white convinced her. That was insane! She took a deep breath, then let it out. Even if she yelled, she was pretty sure the wind was going to drown her out, and she was self-conscious about how her speech might sound to a stranger. Everyone told her she sounded fine, but how could she know?

A sudden flash of lightning lit the tree, followed hard by a crack of thunder strong enough to rattle her bones. She blamed her sudden shiver on that and the gusting wind, since she couldn’t possibly have seen what she thought she saw under the spreading branches.

Ciara had never been strong on her Irish heritage, but her grandfather had been a great storyteller. His chilling tales of the ancient woman in winding rags who marked you for imminent death once you’d heard her wail had made a lasting impression. They were stories, though, simply stories spun to frighten children and make them mind. There was no banshee, and certainly not one - the lightning strobed again and she fled without intent from the crone who crouched below the tree, head thrown back and mouth stretched wide in a silent rictus.

Again a brilliant flash, and the grinding thunder that came with it shook her no more than the shaking of the ground when the king oak was split and shattered by the spear of lightning, falling across the sidewalk where she had stood moments before.

Stunned, she whirled and stared at the fallen giant. She looked back towards the smoking ground where it had grown for so long, but she couldn’t tell if she saw a wisp of white or not.

Biting her lip, she pulled her jacket tight against the storm and turned towards home.

The End

[hr][hr]

[center]The New World[/center]



The sound of the empty winds blowing through ruins a thousand years old decreased as the evening fell still. The harsh sunlight of an hour before left a lingering heat in the rubble, not enough to entice long-dead creatures back to life, but enough to cause a faint red glow in the eerie crags. But no one heard the winds, or saw the glow.

For a millennium, the ruins had stood, once a whole city but now just a collection of oddly-shaped bits of concrete, stone and steel. The builders were long dead, wiped out by their own contentious behavior, with no survivors, no progeny, no legacy other than the ruins and the secret below them.

Hardly anyone came to this place. At first discovery, it had been explored by the initial settling teams, and then declared off limits as a possible danger. But as the years went by, the only real danger was the instability of the remaining structures and the possibility that one could wander out here alone, get lost or injured, and not be found until it was too late. It was far from any settlement and offered only a lonely and insistent reminder that someone else had been here first.

Cora didn't mind the danger or the solitude. She was an experienced climber, always brought provisions and a communicator, and was very careful. The melancholy loneliness of the place intrigued her. In the crowded settlement, her people enjoyed the warmth of continual companionship, the communion of close living, the strength of numbers. Only a few ever sought to be alone, and solitary pursuits, while not frowned upon, were rare.

She found a flat spot inside the perimeter of broken walls and set up her communicator, then unpacked a bag of snacks and stuck a flexible tube into it. She flattened herself out and absorbed the warmth of the floor. Cora knew something lay under the floor, but in her many visits to the place she had been unable to determine what it was. It felt like a vast set of dry chambers, like lungs.

She tried again to pass through the barrier into the chambers, but was unable to do so. Eventually the floor turned cooler and she moved. She began to slowly perambulate the ruins, gliding carefully over the rubble, avoiding anything sharp or too fragile to hold her weight without breaking. Here and there, pockets of warmth remained and she absorbed them with pleasure. So intent was she on the pursuit of the warmth that she failed to notice the cracks in an unfamiliar section of the flooring. Her weight caused a breach and she fell.

She was uninjured, but disoriented and confused. The air was old, stale, and full of crackling particulates. She moved enough to assure herself that there was no danger of falling even further into the interior of the ruins, then reached out on either side, feeling rows of metal pieces interspersed with dry materials. She would have to find the edge of this place in order to climb out. She carefully moved across the rubble, recognizing metal and stone, but not recognizing the dry, flaking materials. She picked one up and examined it. It was not edible, but had an organic quality to it. Could it be a part of one of the previous inhabitants? Was it a dry lung?

She tucked the item into her pouch and continued along the floor until a tall obstruction offered a way back to the surface. Attaching to it, she pulled herself up and found her way back to the familiar flat place where she had left her communicator.

She was uninjured, so there was no need to communicate just yet. She consumed her snack and rested. She would take the flaking object back to the settlement as she had taken the very first object she had found at the ruins. No had one ever found a use for the first object, a tube-like piece of metal with little protrusions and holes along its length. A bit of building material, perhaps, she had conjectured.

This new bit of detritus would probably be equally mystifying. What had they used them for, those long-dead unknowns? Cora felt the flaking object. It was leaved, like the inside of a lung, but without any inflation. What could it be? She remembered bearing the first object back to the settlement. She had carried it aloft, and the winds had blown through it. There was no one to hear the whistle of the flute, though, just as there would be no one to read the book. Cora's kind could only feel.

The End

[hr][hr]

[center]Larry the Lizard[/center]



Mary put her book down on the desk just as the clock flashed 6:15.

Darn it, she thought. I should have closed up over an hour ago.

She sighed. If only someone would have come in this week besides the crazy guy in the lizard suit. What's the point of being a librarian if no one wants a book to read?

She was about to curse the day the town council voted to build the new library so far out of town--way out next to the Cranberry Point Lighthouse--when the door opened and a monster walked in.

It was Larry the Lizard, the guy in the suit. Mary didn't know his real name, but that was what she called him. The head of his suit looked just like the head of a reptile, but with all-white eyes. Its skin was a greenish-gray. Over it, he wore a camouflage coverall, overburdened with pockets, pouches, and overlapping belts, each of which was covered with strange, bulbous or wickedly sharp-looking objects. Thick forearms extended from the sleeves, leading down to six fingers with long claws. Bare feet stuck out below his pants, and also had six claws.

She couldn't guess where he would have bought it in this area of the state, but figured he must have paid a lot for the suit, because it pretty good special effects, almost like you would see in a movie.

She said, "We're closed."

Larry looked at her, but as far as she could tell, he didn't say anything, and hadn't since he first appeared on Monday.

"Sir, you have to leave now."

Larry's blank eyes stared at her.

She put her hands on her hips. "Sir, I can't hear you, so if you are saying something, you'll have to take your mask off."

Larry leaned his head to one side, but just looked at her.

Just to reassure herself, Mary felt the side of her neck when she repeated herself. For a moment, she wondered just how long a 911 call would take to make on the TTY phone.

Larry punched his arm toward her.

She jumped back, startled.

He raised his meaty claws up over his head and down behind him. He pulled a large tube on a strap from the equipment on his back. It looked to Mary like a knobby, gold-colored drainpipe with random holes drilled along its three-foot length. He clamped his mouth hard around one end of it.

Mary gasped. When Larry's mouth opened, it opened more than a foot wide, and was filled with rows upon rows of shark-like teeth, all the way back to his throat, across both the top and the bottom halves. He puffed out his chest and face until he was three times larger than he had been--like a frog when it croaked.

Mary didn't think Larry was wearing a costume.

His fingers danced over the holes. The window nearest to the pipe shattered. She could feel vibrations in the desktop and even through the floor.

When he finished, Larry took the instrument out of his mouth and watched her again.

She didn't know what to do.

Her index finger slashed across her open palm, a sign for "What?".

Larry took a step backward, as if afraid. Then he laid his hands flat in front of him, palms up, and brought them together at the edge.

Book? Mary thought at a hundred miles per hour. Dear God in Heaven, what are the odds? Aliens just landed on Earth, and they want a book. I don't think there's another librarian in the whole county who knows sign language.

She put her hands into fists in front of her chest, then stuck up both thumbs. She alternated her hands, raising them up and down, to ask which book he wanted.

Larry stuck out the first two fingers on each hand, spread them apart, and then bent the long claws at the tips in toward his chest slightly. He brought his hands toward the center of his chest.

Mary grinned, and ran toward the stacks. At a particular shelf, she grabbed one by the best-known author and then brought it back to the alien.

Larry turned his head sideways and looked at it. He opened the lid and clumsily fanned through the pages.

He spun and charged through the main doors.

Mary beamed as she watched him disappear into the winter night. She had no idea what he wanted with a book on physics. Maybe he wanted to gauge how far humans had progressed. Maybe his spaceship was broken and he needed help. In either case, she was glad to give him the only book in the whole library by Stephen Hawking.

It made her proud to be a librarian.

***

Report on Species 6190:

Contact made at knowledge beacon 105, grid 43. Subject did not flee at any of the five required visits, and did not hide upon playing of standard challenge on fluge horn. It indicated that if played again, the playing hand would be chopped off. When given sign for forbidden contact, subject threatened to rip out my internal organs. I responded that I would protect them, and then subject shoved a tome of native symbols at me, exactly like the zealots of Mori IX do, species 392. Translation matrix indicated manuscript used advanced mathematics at level four, but flawed worldview. These animals do not even believe in the Great Zimx! Given that, pursuant to treaty clause 13926j.z, they would not qualify under protected status. However, given their extreme aggressiveness, caution should be taken when we hunt them tomorrow.

They look tasty.


The End

[kailhofer]

Entrants, members, and guests alike are strongly encouraged to vote. With this many entries, we need every vote we can get to make it a fair contest.

Thank you to everyone who entered!

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

Not voting yet -- I can't quite decide if mine is "best" for any reason other than it being mine, or if I will have to vote for someone else. This is a very impressive crop -- I would not hesitate to run any one of them in Aphelion (although I'm not quite sure how I would package that there one-paragraph piece...)

Robert "Vote for mine. It's the one with deafness, a book, and a musical instrum... er, the one that's under a thousand words ... oh, just VOTE" M.

[kailhofer]

Not voting yet -- I can't quite decide if mine is "best" for any reason other than it being mine, or if I will have to vote for someone else. This is a very impressive crop

Would it help if I changed it so you could vote for more than one, (say, vote for favorite 3) and whomever happens to have the most wins?

I think I'm the only person to have voted so far... I had a lot of time to read them before they went online...

Nate

[kailhofer]

I've got to head out for the weekend now, so I guess we'll try the vote for 2 or 3 the next time we have many entries.



Every vote counts!


Nate

[doc]

I dunno. I think keeping it simple is a good idea. There could always be a run-off if two or more stories end up tied.

[kailhofer]

I have no problem with a tie. Now if there was a three or more, I could see a run-off...

Also, I have to add that technically you can vote for more than one. The vote is open to guests, so one could vote as a guest, then log in and vote again. That's a voter's limit, so it's not like you can really stuff the ballot box, unless one has a whole lot of different computers with different IPs & different gateways.

So, you can vote for your favorite two without violating any rule, and I fully endorse this. Obviously, one could vote twice for your own story, but I trust you all. Mostly, I'd just like to see a whole bunch of votes come in so that it seems like a fair, and real, contest.

Nate

[kailhofer]

Just read them all, just voted.

Wow, some of these things are fan-freakin'-tastic. I can see why flash is getting so popular. It's a whole new kind of challenge.

I'll have to go back and read them all when I have more time.

Good idea, Nate.

And it didn't help to know some of the names of authors who threw their hats in the ring. I couldn't come up with a single, definite. . .That one's by Robert. . .or That's definitely Kate.

Maybe in a longer piece, but not in Flash.

I'm lovin' this.

Bill Wolfe

Thanks, Bill. I hoped this concept would catch on, and it sounds like it is. (I have a whole page of challenge ideas, so I hope it stays popular, and that enough comments come in on issues that we can keep doing this.)

About knowing who's who, I dunno. Obviously, I knew who wrote each one before I read it, but I think everyone's story sounds very much like their style/voice. I think yours does. And Robert's, and Kate's, etc. I think when the voting is done and people see who wrote what everybody is going to be saying, "I believe they wrote that. Sounds just like him or her."

Until then, long live the mystery of it.

In all, Aphelionites should be very proud of the incredible quality they've put forward. We should be able to brag that the stuff in our forum is better than some of the whole issues of other magazines out there. This is no easy contest!

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

When does voting close?

Whenever -- I am happy to see that I'm not the only one to vote for my story -- this time -- *

Robert M.

(*Devious people can use this information to eliminate several entries from the "might be Robert's" sweepstakes. They can then try to vote for -- or against -- me with better odds of hitting -- or missing.)
(YES, that's right, this is ALL ABOUT ME!) [smiley=evil.gif]

[kailhofer]

When does voting close?

Whenever -- I am happy to see that I'm not the only one to vote for my story -- this time -- *

Robert M.

(*Devious people can use this information to eliminate several entries from the "might be Robert's" sweepstakes. They can then try to vote for -- or against -- me with better odds of hitting -- or missing.)
(YES, that's right, this is ALL ABOUT ME!) [smiley=evil.gif]

Voting closes Wednesday night at 10:00 central.

Rally your friends! Buy off your enemies! Just get them to Vote! Vote! Vote! :)

Nate

[kailhofer]

Well, it's been an interesting evening. After almost an hour of trying unsuccessfully to get on to check the vote and post the result (and panicking), I finally connected.

There was an apparent problem with the votes. Rob tells me that one of the stories received a number of anonymous votes in a short period from the same network. He removed all but one of those votes. If these were indeed real votes, the people involved should contact me or Rob and we'll get them reinstated. If the story earned real votes, I absolutely want that author to share in the win, because it made the result a tie.

I guess next time we'll have to not use guest voting.

The other complication was that I'm not able to alter the poll message & put the author's names on them like I thought I could. Sorry. I know I was trying to put the names after the titles in the story as well, for future reference and to protect everyone's copyrights. Maybe Rob can fix them.

These are the entries and the authors:

Silence by David Alan Jones
The Source of Sunshine by Jaimie L. Elliott
The Silent Dispair of Lives Wasted by Lee Alon
Dancing to a Different Tune by Robert Moriyama
Love Like Clockwork by Gareth L. Powell
Extra Sensory by Bill Wolfe
Silent Storm by Larissa March
The New World by Kate Thornton
Larry the Lizard by N.J. Kailhofer

So pending any vote changes that may happen, I'm a bit embarrassed to say that my story received the most votes. As I was running the challenge, I want to say that if any contestant at all is not comfortable with my entry being in there, I'll remove it from eligibility and give the win to the entrants with the next highest tallies. I don't want to create any bad feelings.

It was one of those things where I saw the vote and said "Oh, I'm winning!" then thought, "Ooo. I'm winning. That might not be good." I feel happy and guilty at the same time.

Anyhow, thank you to everyone who entered. You all should be proud of how good your stories were. Top notch, every one of them. And good enough, I might add, that each and every one of them received at least one vote as favorite. That's outstanding.

Nate

PS Rob, every time I try to reply or send you a new PM, I get:
Net::SMTP fatal error: unable to create Net::SMTP object smtp.america.net. at (eval 6) line 3.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Well, at least I got a couple of votes besides my own, which is an improvement. (Last time I was the only one that voted for my story. But I will have my revenge, by abusing my editorial powers even more than usual... Just kidding! Really!)

Actually, I thought that "Extra Sensory" was Nate's story, based on the last-sentence twist ...

I gather from Nate's remarks that Rob at least is able to tell who voted for whom (at least to the extent of identifying the originating network). So if I offer a big enough bribe, I CAN have my revenge on those who failed to recognize my genius*! Bwahahahahahackchoke...

Robert M.
(*A fancy microwave oven from Panasonic that I planned to use to -- ahem -- cook the results.)

[kailhofer]

Well, at least I got a couple of votes besides my own, which is an improvement. (Last time I was the only one that voted for my story.

The guest thing was both good and bad. If it makes you feel better, with the guest and member vote allowing us to vote for two favorites, one of those votes for yours was mine.

Then, of course, my wife got mad at me because then she didn't get a vote after reading them all. She liked Jaimie's best and didn't have other computer access, so I had to do another guest vote for her at work... The things one does to stay happily married.

I gather from Nate's remarks that Rob at least is able to tell who voted for whom (at least to the extent of identifying the originating network).

It was news to me, but I think it's good that someone can watch over it.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

I'm touched that Nate voted for my story, although the fact that he knew who wrote what means that I will never be sure of his sincerity. Did my threats and intimidation work? :-/

I'm pretty sure that you can register multiple member names using the same e-mail address over and over again... I wonder how many member names were set up specifically for voting purposes? (John R. Murray did not cast a vote, and I only cast one vote, because in my absolutely unbiased opinion, mine was best. :D)

Robert M.

[doc]

Bill (ashamed to show my icon in these parts) Wolfe

There's a reason I carefully didn't identify which story received the benefit of the ballot tsuffing -- it was very possible it was an event just as you describe. I generally assume good intentions wherever possible, rather than assuming malice.

For the record, Bill, your story was my second choice if i'd had two votes. (I know Nate says "sure you can vote twice", but I think it's cheesy. Still, if I had two [s]dead mimes[/s] votes, I'd give you one.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Thanks Rob,

I've tracked down four votes from work, by the way.  One guy voted twice because he has two offices and two computers.  So it looks like I may have had one 'real' vote, after all.

Although given the choice, I'd rather have the mime.  After all, the only good mime is.  .  .

Bill Wolfe

But a mime is a terrible thing to waste...

they do that "walking against the wind" thing right until they lose consciousness from blood loss. And after they're dead, they're still so ... damned ... quiet.

Robert M.

PS Thought for the day: to the profoundly deaf, all live theater is mime.

[kailhofer]

Bill, I had said something about buying votes in jest, but I still said it, so that's egg on my face.

I thought that it might be people in an office, and if they actually read the entries, that'd be fine.

[kailhofer]

I know Nate says "sure you can vote twice", but I think it's cheesy.

I suppose "cheesy" depends on your goals.

My goals are to get everyone's creativity going and to build community (and perhaps even attract someone new to our little slice of heaven).

One thing I have learned about the internet is that the harder one makes it for people online, the less they'll do it.

The first time had, what, 5 votes? That's not very good. With this many entries, choosing one became difficult, and I wanted more people to vote.

As for guest access, if someone new didn't have to log in and become a member, I thought we might have a chance to get some fresh blood in on the voting, and maybe entice them to hang around. It's still a new thing, and hasn't been discovered by a wide audience.

As it turned out, a few new people did in fact vote, and that's a good thing. In the end, however, the guest thing didn't work out so well.

You live, you learn.

Nate

[doc]

I know Nate says "sure you can vote twice", but I think it's cheesy.

I suppose "cheesy" depends on your goals.

Actually, it was just my personal opinion, as applied only to me. :) There I go stating my opinions as sweeping generalizations again.

My goals are to get everyone's creativity going and to build community (and perhaps even attract someone new to our little slice of heaven).

One thing I have learned about the internet is that the harder one makes it for people online, the less they'll do it.

That is definitely true. And we want this to be more accessible.

The first time had, what, 5 votes? That's not very good. With this many entries, choosing one became difficult, and I wanted more people to vote.

I suspect that as we continue the experiment, it will grow. It takes time to build an audience.

As for guest access, if someone new didn't have to log in and become a member, I thought we might have a chance to get some fresh blood in on the voting, and maybe entice them to hang around. It's still a new thing, and hasn't been discovered by a wide audience.

As it turned out, a few new people did in fact vote, and that's a good thing. In the end, however, the guest thing didn't work out so well.

You live, you learn.

Oh, it wasn't so bad. I don't think you can count the well-meant but flawed enthusiasm Bill's coworkers had as a condemnation of guest voting altogether. :)

Like everything in Aphelion, this is a work in progress. It'll get better every time.

[Robert_Moriyama]

Count your blessings, folks.

According to our IT guys, there are 14,211 computers hooked to the ORNL network.

What if I had lots of friends.  .  .?

Don't be ridiculous. People with lots of friends don't have time to write or participate in forums -- fori? -- like this. Oh... damn. :'(

Robert M.

[kailhofer]

Such are also the vicissitudes of binary contests.

Exactly how distracting is it *not* to have a poll? "Look! Eight great stories! ... Um... Let's vote on the greatest of them all!"

Let me ask an "Eastern-Themed question": Would any of these NOT be sufficient grade for the magazine? Supposing this last time we had a grand sweep of quality entries, ... then let's make a Flash section of the magazine and post them, blurbs &all, into the following magazine issue! (I can supply draft blurbs if that's what it takes.)

It would also make a nice trilogy of formats: Serials, Shorts, & Flash.

There are already many more parts to things than that. There's editorial, poetry, features, & more. All valuable pieces of Aphelion, to boot.

More importantly, I think that notion crosses a line. Things in the zine are under the careful inspection of editors. In the case of flash, Robert. I have no intention of usurping his turf. (Can you even do that in any state legally? ;))

Furthermore, this is a reader's choice contest, and that's also an important distinction. Should Robert decide to run them, that's up to him. Otherwise, this contest gives we lowly readers a say, gets our juices flowing, and (by all accounts) helps make us a more unified group of crazy people. :)

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

Which state would that be? Apathy, Despair, or Confusion?

And nobody usurps my turf without at least buying me a nice dinner first.

What? That's NOT what 'usurping my turf' means? (Damn this 21st Century Idioms datachip. That phrase doesn't become popular until 2017...)

Robert M.

[kailhofer]

I don't feel I brought my A-game to the June contest -- david j.

Well, at least 3 people thought you did. :)

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

...
(And no, 'Usurp' is not the sound made when ingesting Hot-Sour Soup in one of those huge oriental spoons.)

Of course not. You left out the glottal stop between syllables (representing that moment before one realizes that the soup is hot in the thermal sense) and the 'click' at then end (representing the spasm of the throat muscles as one's uvula (by that time medium-rare) breaks off and is ejected along with twin streams of steam from one's nostrils).


'Usurp' is the sound one makes after salivating excessively (over, say, a Jessica Alba swimsuit pictorial), then trying to suck the saliva back into one's mouth before it stains one's $6.99 SortaSilk tie.

Robert M.

[kailhofer]

If anyone is wondering, the next challenge should be coming out Sunday night, July 8th. That will give the zine a week's worth of undivided attention.

Nate