Washed Up – Part 4
Here’s the skinny: I like fantasy and sci-fi equally. But you know what I love best? A solid fusion of the two. I’ve written about this before , and it ended up becoming what I try to shop around in an attempt to find an agent, but I cannot overstate my love of the sci/fantasy genre.
There’s something beyond simple magic when the two are mixed. I will always and forever come back to it, and more often than not when I start out writing Sci-Fi works, I turn them into fusion pieces before all is said and done. It’s not an excuse to paper-over my lack of understanding on science, either. I honestly work very hard (when the piece calls for it) on making sure that my understanding of the scientific principles involved is as sound as I can reasonably make it with threadbare Lexus Nexus access and self-instruction. Inevitably, however, my work circles around to magical elements before all is said and done. I am forever a slave to the things which inspire me to write, and I sincerely doubt that will ever change.
I’ve also come to understand something else which is fundamental to my writing. These posts have become a ritual to me, a sacrament of sorts that I have developed over these last two years. They are a way to remind myself that while the road may seem long, I have walked further along it than most ever will. I have stared into the abyss, into the unrelenting maw of my own inadequacies, and I have not blinked.
That’s not nothing.
…. ness
Washed Up – Part 4
Flight Lieutenant Abigail Weathers tried desperately not to vomit. It would be the fourth time in as many minutes, and she was certain she would lose this particular battle before too much longer.
She was still smiling however, because vomiting or not it beat being dead.
Plus, she would be missing out on being the only human being to have met intelligent alien life. Mother sort of counted, but she was humanities crowning achievement, so it was a family relationship to start with. This, however, was entirely new.
Abigail lost the fight yet again, and as she recovered and wiped the bile from her chin, she marveled at the sight before her once more.
The creature lay quiescent, huddled back down into the boulder-like form she had first encountered it in. The eye slit remained open this time, and the six lightly burning orbs peered out at her. They were in constant motion, whirring one way or the other as they considered her. The back of the boulder was again exposed, the jade green and bright azure basking in the orange sunlight. A thought struck Abigail, so she steeled her belly and shouted the question inside her mind.
The bubbles arrived once more, and a wave of nausea came with them so strong that it threatened to push her stomach entirely outside of her body. She clamped down and battled once more, and after the nausea had passed, she began cackling. Loudly. She couldn’t help it, bending almost double as all the emotions of the last six hours burst their dams, flowing out in waves of hysteria and mirth.
She had been marveling at, and had reached out to touch, the stomach of the Dendrobite resting before her. She had no idea where she had pulled the name from, but she knew it was correct in the same fashion that she knew how to add or subtract. It was simply fact, and must’ve arrived in some round or another of the bubbling communications which had been making her so ill.
The exposed tissue was pointed directly towards the sun, and the radiation filtered down to the Dendrobite and provided the vast energies necessary to sustain it. It also explained what had puzzled her about the boulder upon first encountering it. The boulder sat upon the woven gray grass which coated the land, and despite the obvious weight pushing it down to the firmament beneath, the boulder did not break the surface.
The boulder had not initiated any communications outside of the first, realizing they were dangerous after the violent physical nausea and mental distress of the first communique. Neither did it show fear or hostility towards her now. She was weakened by the events of the day and the effects of communication. If it had wanted to dispatch her, she would’ve been dispatched.
Instead, it sat. And ate. And pondered.
It was amazing how swift and analytical the creature was. It adapted to new information without hesitation or restraint, applying what it learned into immediate practice. She was no threat, so it fed. She was a reasoning being, so it tried to reason with her. Its words had caused her distress, so it allowed her to dictate the pace of the discussion. It was… remarkable.
Abigail tried talking out loud.
“Look, the way you speak really hurt me. I need to set up camp, rest, eat, and gather myself. Can you do something to indicate if you understand my thoughts that isn’t… whatever you’ve been doing?”
The orbs whirled, a pinwheel dancing left and right. Then, out of the smooth face of rock, one of the arms extended. It took position near the head, and then unmistakably imitated a human nod.
Abigail laughed out loud. The creature had taken obvious pains to make it a non-threatening gesture and to duplicate the human communique so exactly. It still looked completely ridiculous, but not in a bad way, just in a way that meant she couldn’t contain her joy and wonder at the whole affair.
Abigail wobbled to her feet, then began weaving drunkenly towards the tools she had dropped in her initial flight. She had to tell Mother what she had found. She and humanity both had to know.
They were not so alone after all.
To be continued…
Dendrobitefully,
The Unsheathed Quill
