Undertow
"There is something sacred... no, sensual... about handling a newly-changed
over channel. There is the sense, almost overpowering, that in your hands
lies the seed that will grow into just about anything! Why, in that helpless
child, there could be the next World Controller. So were we all, in the brief
flashing moments before the knives of disillusionment carved us down." --
Topal Jerdan
Vale of Tears
"Garlen teaches that the world will not know peace until parent does not
fear child and child does not fear parent. Therefore we must go forth and
take the place between them. For salvation lies not in preaching, but in
physical and spiritual self-sacrifice." -- Excerpt from the book
of Garlenist teachings.
Fireflies
"They say the guilt eats at you. They say that month after month of receiving
life through channels, rather than Killing, makes you weakened, until finally
in remorse and self-loathing you cannot bear to take the single Kill per
year that makes it possible to remain alive." -- Unknown semi-junct.
Doves + Wolves
"Like the dove, heaven sent, I bear a message greater than myself. And
upon its delivery, so will my soul find its deliverance." -- Excerpt from
the book of Garlenist teachings.
Ruthless
"It would be different," Chaz had said once, "if the servants were loyal
enough to give their lives for our parents."
Cows
"I needed big crowds. I wanted to get pushed down the sidewalks like one
cow in a million head of cattle." -- Unknown Gen.
Sugar
Simelan is a difficult language to learn, subtle and detailed with as
many arcane caste-variations as there are larities and age groups to speak
them. Conspicuously missing is a phrase which, when spoken by a Second
Order Donor, is the equivalent to the Genlan "I quit".
Circus
Mid-morning, the sun tips over the mountains and smites the desert with a
glaring heat. On any other day the town would be a blight, the double-row
of weathered buildings incongruous as a pimple against the foothills and
the sage-dotted landscape. Now, with the lurid colors of the circus tent
sprouted overnight beside it, the town is reduced to background.
Transitions
Poem
I Need You
Song
One Hundred Days of Hunting
"They took me to a small room to wait. I was all alone. I couldn't
sit down, I was so pumped up. Finally he came in. He was wearing a
disposable gown over his uniform and a mask hung around his neck. He looked
tired, and sweaty. He zlinned distracted. His hands and forearms had been
freshly scrubbed and as he took the package from me, his damp skin sent a
jolt through me like an electric spark." -- Excerpt from the diary of a
stalker.
The Mystery
The police officer fixed him with a half-lidded stare that compressed years
of weary patience into several poignant seconds. "Somebody stole your selyn
and you felt nothing," he repeated, deadpan. "Well how could I?"
retorted Jogn. "I'm only a GN-3, I never feel selyn movement."
Critiques of The Mystery
"I have one question: Army Green or Baby Diarrhea Green?" -- M.
Petrino |
