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malins

Stumbling Seeker
«Noemi»

They marched in lockstep as the deep pulsing throb of great drums was thrown back from the walls of the ancient caldera. Carrying their load down the rocky path that zigzagged down to the center of the extinct crater. There, the ceremony would find its completion. A ceremony none present had ever witnessed before.

The pounding drums forcing their rhythm upon a timid chest. Fear in the throat.

The drums would pause when it was time to hear the pounding of hammers; the rhythm would resume with the raising, heave-ho, the offering to the pure high air, and it would continue into the pale, pearly dawn as clouds rolled in and the heart gave out.

Still it was night though, still it was before, and she’d have to go through every step of it -- every beat, every blow, every cry, every breath drawn into drowning lungs, to the last; time is the one master that can't be bribed, seduced or betrayed -- she'd had to live it, die it, every slice of suffering as it was served.

Why can I not be unknowing? - she asked.
Why must I understand.
If I am made to accept all, if that's woven into the fabric of my she-self, then why cannot I succumb and revert to dull clay, why must I have the breath in me.

What is it when a tiny creature stumbles into the ant-lion's pit, is it a pit of despair or is it just the crunch of mandibles and an indifferent end?

From the wooden frame she was bound to, the sacrifice gazed up mesmerized at the star-strewn sky as she was borne down to her destiny. The constellations shifting to and fro.

Had her wrists not been bound to the beam, she could have pointed up again, any time, to that point of light where she had been made.

But she was beyond help, the powers of the sky had withdrawn upon themselves, brooding, sullen, contemplating her failure with the disdain she deserved.

The Instructors had told stories sometimes, in the life before, the curious unfolding before the certainty of ending; and in one of them, told soon after her Awakening, she’d had a sister in the sky, whose soul had been poured into an invincible suit of armor. It was especially Instructor Lys who had often told stories that challenged her understanding; it had taken her much time and pain to understand that there were things to learn from stories even if they weren’t true.

But the stars were distant, impassionate, hard and hateful diamonds with their taunting twinkle, cold as the clenching claws of dread, the closing jaws of fate. Turn away.

Her head rolling sideways she saw painted faces in profile, illuminated by flickering torchlight. A pair of men on either side of the strong, rough-hewn beam her arms were roped to; more all around, men and women too; chanting, their voices rising and falling, interwoven melodies rising from the depth of their souls.

They all sang, their voices sometimes departing from the chorus into wild ululations or archaic lustful cries, but she was silent.

They all marched but she was bound immobile; their feet sank into the earth of the sacred place, the coarse black volcanic sand, but hers would not touch.

It was not her earth, none of this.
They -- they had the blood of one tribe running in their veins.
She -- blood to be spilled.
They were all, she was one.
They were to live, she was to die.
Abandoned by her makers and rejected by her hosts.
Alien, the ultimate non-self.

Still she was precious in her own way, what would be done to her could only be done once, so she too had been lavishly decorated. Spiral patterns tracing the contours of her body, flowers, garlands, gemstones, a necklace of finely wrought chain, the weight of its pain-promising pendants settled between her breasts. And richly covered in the outpourings of ecstasy, she was.

Perhaps it’s embedded into the fabric of all being that when such a thing occurs, the most fitting words must be, ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’.

Because all of it is wasted on me, she thought.
All the effort, from this Ceremony all the way back to the Instructors and the Awakening, it's all been wasted. What I would give to never have been!
 
«Noemi»

They marched in lockstep as the deep pulsing throb of great drums was thrown back from the walls of the ancient caldera. Carrying their load down the rocky path that zigzagged down to the center of the extinct crater. There, the ceremony would find its completion. A ceremony none present had ever witnessed before.

The pounding drums forcing their rhythm upon a timid chest. Fear in the throat.

The drums would pause when it was time to hear the pounding of hammers; the rhythm would resume with the raising, heave-ho, the offering to the pure high air, and it would continue into the pale, pearly dawn as clouds rolled in and the heart gave out.

Still it was night though, still it was before, and she’d have to go through every step of it -- every beat, every blow, every cry, every breath drawn into drowning lungs, to the last; time is the one master that can't be bribed, seduced or betrayed -- she'd had to live it, die it, every slice of suffering as it was served.

Why can I not be unknowing? - she asked.
Why must I understand.
If I am made to accept all, if that's woven into the fabric of my she-self, then why cannot I succumb and revert to dull clay, why must I have the breath in me.

What is it when a tiny creature stumbles into the ant-lion's pit, is it a pit of despair or is it just the crunch of mandibles and an indifferent end?

From the wooden frame she was bound to, the sacrifice gazed up mesmerized at the star-strewn sky as she was borne down to her destiny. The constellations shifting to and fro.

Had her wrists not been bound to the beam, she could have pointed up again, any time, to that point of light where she had been made.

But she was beyond help, the powers of the sky had withdrawn upon themselves, brooding, sullen, contemplating her failure with the disdain she deserved.

The Instructors had told stories sometimes, in the life before, the curious unfolding before the certainty of ending; and in one of them, told soon after her Awakening, she’d had a sister in the sky, whose soul had been poured into an invincible suit of armor. It was especially Instructor Lys who had often told stories that challenged her understanding; it had taken her much time and pain to understand that there were things to learn from stories even if they weren’t true.

But the stars were distant, impassionate, hard and hateful diamonds with their taunting twinkle, cold as the clenching claws of dread, the closing jaws of fate. Turn away.

Her head rolling sideways she saw painted faces in profile, illuminated by flickering torchlight. A pair of men on either side of the strong, rough-hewn beam her arms were roped to; more all around, men and women too; chanting, their voices rising and falling, interwoven melodies rising from the depth of their souls.

They all sang, their voices sometimes departing from the chorus into wild ululations or archaic lustful cries, but she was silent.

They all marched but she was bound immobile; their feet sank into the earth of the sacred place, the coarse black volcanic sand, but hers would not touch.

It was not her earth, none of this.
They -- they had the blood of one tribe running in their veins.
She -- blood to be spilled.
They were all, she was one.
They were to live, she was to die.
Abandoned by her makers and rejected by her hosts.
Alien, the ultimate non-self.

Still she was precious in her own way, what would be done to her could only be done once, so she too had been lavishly decorated. Spiral patterns tracing the contours of her body, flowers, garlands, gemstones, a necklace of finely wrought chain, the weight of its pain-promising pendants settled between her breasts. And richly covered in the outpourings of ecstasy, she was.

Perhaps it’s embedded into the fabric of all being that when such a thing occurs, the most fitting words must be, ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’.

Because all of it is wasted on me, she thought.
All the effort, from this Ceremony all the way back to the Instructors and the Awakening, it's all been wasted. What I would give to never have been!
i liik forward to reading more.
 
«Noemi»

They marched in lockstep as the deep pulsing throb of great drums was thrown back from the walls of the ancient caldera. Carrying their load down the rocky path that zigzagged down to the center of the extinct crater. There, the ceremony would find its completion. A ceremony none present had ever witnessed before.

The pounding drums forcing their rhythm upon a timid chest. Fear in the throat.

The drums would pause when it was time to hear the pounding of hammers; the rhythm would resume with the raising, heave-ho, the offering to the pure high air, and it would continue into the pale, pearly dawn as clouds rolled in and the heart gave out.

Still it was night though, still it was before, and she’d have to go through every step of it -- every beat, every blow, every cry, every breath drawn into drowning lungs, to the last; time is the one master that can't be bribed, seduced or betrayed -- she'd had to live it, die it, every slice of suffering as it was served.

Why can I not be unknowing? - she asked.
Why must I understand.
If I am made to accept all, if that's woven into the fabric of my she-self, then why cannot I succumb and revert to dull clay, why must I have the breath in me.

What is it when a tiny creature stumbles into the ant-lion's pit, is it a pit of despair or is it just the crunch of mandibles and an indifferent end?

From the wooden frame she was bound to, the sacrifice gazed up mesmerized at the star-strewn sky as she was borne down to her destiny. The constellations shifting to and fro.

Had her wrists not been bound to the beam, she could have pointed up again, any time, to that point of light where she had been made.

But she was beyond help, the powers of the sky had withdrawn upon themselves, brooding, sullen, contemplating her failure with the disdain she deserved.

The Instructors had told stories sometimes, in the life before, the curious unfolding before the certainty of ending; and in one of them, told soon after her Awakening, she’d had a sister in the sky, whose soul had been poured into an invincible suit of armor. It was especially Instructor Lys who had often told stories that challenged her understanding; it had taken her much time and pain to understand that there were things to learn from stories even if they weren’t true.

But the stars were distant, impassionate, hard and hateful diamonds with their taunting twinkle, cold as the clenching claws of dread, the closing jaws of fate. Turn away.

Her head rolling sideways she saw painted faces in profile, illuminated by flickering torchlight. A pair of men on either side of the strong, rough-hewn beam her arms were roped to; more all around, men and women too; chanting, their voices rising and falling, interwoven melodies rising from the depth of their souls.

They all sang, their voices sometimes departing from the chorus into wild ululations or archaic lustful cries, but she was silent.

They all marched but she was bound immobile; their feet sank into the earth of the sacred place, the coarse black volcanic sand, but hers would not touch.

It was not her earth, none of this.
They -- they had the blood of one tribe running in their veins.
She -- blood to be spilled.
They were all, she was one.
They were to live, she was to die.
Abandoned by her makers and rejected by her hosts.
Alien, the ultimate non-self.

Still she was precious in her own way, what would be done to her could only be done once, so she too had been lavishly decorated. Spiral patterns tracing the contours of her body, flowers, garlands, gemstones, a necklace of finely wrought chain, the weight of its pain-promising pendants settled between her breasts. And richly covered in the outpourings of ecstasy, she was.

Perhaps it’s embedded into the fabric of all being that when such a thing occurs, the most fitting words must be, ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’.

Because all of it is wasted on me, she thought.
All the effort, from this Ceremony all the way back to the Instructors and the Awakening, it's all been wasted. What I would give to never have been!
I'll be back... I need a drink after that!!!
 
Still she was precious in her own way, what would be done to her could only be done once, so she too had been lavishly decorated. Spiral patterns tracing the contours of her body, flowers, garlands, gemstones, a necklace of finely wrought chain, the weight of its pain-promising pendants settled between her breasts. And richly covered in the outpourings of ecstasy, she was.

Nice writing! I really liked this passage. I like the way it mixes a statement of her uniqueness, her preciousness, with a fluid descriptive image of her lavishly decorated body. Richness, ecstasy, individuality and acceptance all rolled into one.
 
It was especially Instructor Lys who had often told stories that challenged her understanding; it had taken her much time and pain to understand that there were things to learn from stories even if they weren’t true.
Ah, but just because they're just stories doesn't mean they aren't true, and there is a place where all stories are real.

Another enticing beginning. Sadly for Noemi, it is also, apparently, the ending, and she is caught in her story, lavishly decked out as the main character in a pageant where she is the focus and would rather not be there at all.
 
«Noemi»

They marched in lockstep as the deep pulsing throb of great drums was thrown back from the walls of the ancient caldera. Carrying their load down the rocky path that zigzagged down to the center of the extinct crater. There, the ceremony would find its completion. A ceremony none present had ever witnessed before.

The pounding drums forcing their rhythm upon a timid chest. Fear in the throat.

The drums would pause when it was time to hear the pounding of hammers; the rhythm would resume with the raising, heave-ho, the offering to the pure high air, and it would continue into the pale, pearly dawn as clouds rolled in and the heart gave out.

Still it was night though, still it was before, and she’d have to go through every step of it -- every beat, every blow, every cry, every breath drawn into drowning lungs, to the last; time is the one master that can't be bribed, seduced or betrayed -- she'd had to live it, die it, every slice of suffering as it was served.

Why can I not be unknowing? - she asked.
Why must I understand.
If I am made to accept all, if that's woven into the fabric of my she-self, then why cannot I succumb and revert to dull clay, why must I have the breath in me.

What is it when a tiny creature stumbles into the ant-lion's pit, is it a pit of despair or is it just the crunch of mandibles and an indifferent end?

From the wooden frame she was bound to, the sacrifice gazed up mesmerized at the star-strewn sky as she was borne down to her destiny. The constellations shifting to and fro.

Had her wrists not been bound to the beam, she could have pointed up again, any time, to that point of light where she had been made.

But she was beyond help, the powers of the sky had withdrawn upon themselves, brooding, sullen, contemplating her failure with the disdain she deserved.

The Instructors had told stories sometimes, in the life before, the curious unfolding before the certainty of ending; and in one of them, told soon after her Awakening, she’d had a sister in the sky, whose soul had been poured into an invincible suit of armor. It was especially Instructor Lys who had often told stories that challenged her understanding; it had taken her much time and pain to understand that there were things to learn from stories even if they weren’t true.

But the stars were distant, impassionate, hard and hateful diamonds with their taunting twinkle, cold as the clenching claws of dread, the closing jaws of fate. Turn away.

Her head rolling sideways she saw painted faces in profile, illuminated by flickering torchlight. A pair of men on either side of the strong, rough-hewn beam her arms were roped to; more all around, men and women too; chanting, their voices rising and falling, interwoven melodies rising from the depth of their souls.

They all sang, their voices sometimes departing from the chorus into wild ululations or archaic lustful cries, but she was silent.

They all marched but she was bound immobile; their feet sank into the earth of the sacred place, the coarse black volcanic sand, but hers would not touch.

It was not her earth, none of this.
They -- they had the blood of one tribe running in their veins.
She -- blood to be spilled.
They were all, she was one.
They were to live, she was to die.
Abandoned by her makers and rejected by her hosts.
Alien, the ultimate non-self.

Still she was precious in her own way, what would be done to her could only be done once, so she too had been lavishly decorated. Spiral patterns tracing the contours of her body, flowers, garlands, gemstones, a necklace of finely wrought chain, the weight of its pain-promising pendants settled between her breasts. And richly covered in the outpourings of ecstasy, she was.

Perhaps it’s embedded into the fabric of all being that when such a thing occurs, the most fitting words must be, ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’.

Because all of it is wasted on me, she thought.
All the effort, from this Ceremony all the way back to the Instructors and the Awakening, it's all been wasted. What I would give to never have been!

Mysterious, and beautiful! I loved it, Malins!
 
Still it was night though, still it was before, and she’d have to go through every step of it -- every beat, every blow, every cry, every breath drawn into drowning lungs, to the last; time is the one master that can't be bribed, seduced or betrayed -- she'd had to live it, die it, every slice of suffering as it was served.
The agony of anticipation?
Nice writing, Malins!
 
Absolutely loved the imagery ... and the cadence was superb.

Loved it, Malins!


:clapping:
 
«Noemi»

They marched in lockstep as the deep pulsing throb of great drums was thrown back from the walls of the ancient caldera. Carrying their load down the rocky path that zigzagged down to the center of the extinct crater. There, the ceremony would find its completion. A ceremony none present had ever witnessed before.

The pounding drums forcing their rhythm upon a timid chest. Fear in the throat.

The drums would pause when it was time to hear the pounding of hammers; the rhythm would resume with the raising, heave-ho, the offering to the pure high air, and it would continue into the pale, pearly dawn as clouds rolled in and the heart gave out.

Still it was night though, still it was before, and she’d have to go through every step of it -- every beat, every blow, every cry, every breath drawn into drowning lungs, to the last; time is the one master that can't be bribed, seduced or betrayed -- she'd had to live it, die it, every slice of suffering as it was served.

Why can I not be unknowing? - she asked.
Why must I understand.
If I am made to accept all, if that's woven into the fabric of my she-self, then why cannot I succumb and revert to dull clay, why must I have the breath in me.

What is it when a tiny creature stumbles into the ant-lion's pit, is it a pit of despair or is it just the crunch of mandibles and an indifferent end?

From the wooden frame she was bound to, the sacrifice gazed up mesmerized at the star-strewn sky as she was borne down to her destiny. The constellations shifting to and fro.

Had her wrists not been bound to the beam, she could have pointed up again, any time, to that point of light where she had been made.

But she was beyond help, the powers of the sky had withdrawn upon themselves, brooding, sullen, contemplating her failure with the disdain she deserved.

The Instructors had told stories sometimes, in the life before, the curious unfolding before the certainty of ending; and in one of them, told soon after her Awakening, she’d had a sister in the sky, whose soul had been poured into an invincible suit of armor. It was especially Instructor Lys who had often told stories that challenged her understanding; it had taken her much time and pain to understand that there were things to learn from stories even if they weren’t true.

But the stars were distant, impassionate, hard and hateful diamonds with their taunting twinkle, cold as the clenching claws of dread, the closing jaws of fate. Turn away.

Her head rolling sideways she saw painted faces in profile, illuminated by flickering torchlight. A pair of men on either side of the strong, rough-hewn beam her arms were roped to; more all around, men and women too; chanting, their voices rising and falling, interwoven melodies rising from the depth of their souls.

They all sang, their voices sometimes departing from the chorus into wild ululations or archaic lustful cries, but she was silent.

They all marched but she was bound immobile; their feet sank into the earth of the sacred place, the coarse black volcanic sand, but hers would not touch.

It was not her earth, none of this.
They -- they had the blood of one tribe running in their veins.
She -- blood to be spilled.
They were all, she was one.
They were to live, she was to die.
Abandoned by her makers and rejected by her hosts.
Alien, the ultimate non-self.

Still she was precious in her own way, what would be done to her could only be done once, so she too had been lavishly decorated. Spiral patterns tracing the contours of her body, flowers, garlands, gemstones, a necklace of finely wrought chain, the weight of its pain-promising pendants settled between her breasts. And richly covered in the outpourings of ecstasy, she was.

Perhaps it’s embedded into the fabric of all being that when such a thing occurs, the most fitting words must be, ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’.

Because all of it is wasted on me, she thought.
All the effort, from this Ceremony all the way back to the Instructors and the Awakening, it's all been wasted. What I would give to never have been!

Beautiful, Malins, beautiful. Is there more to come? I sense that your take on AI (if this is what this is) will be far more beautiful, nuanced and memorable than anything I can produce.
 
Anyway this one is a bit of a filler until things start getting weird...

(2)


Seen from a distance, the torchbearers coalesced into a flaming serpent winding its way down the slope, bearing on its back the promised sacrifice.

In this warm night filled with the scents of burnt offerings and chants of faith, cries of abandon in communion with the Gods, the Grand Priest forgot the needles of pain in his creaky old joints and stood tall, raising his arms into the sky and proclaiming the ancient truths that never changed but had to be ever renewed.

Or did they change?

Strange new signs had come.
Dazzling promises of a new kingdom, healings.
A strange new star even, rising now to cross the sky within the hour. As it had done unfailingly for weeks.

Flocks of birds, tongues of fire, the whispers of crones and the murmurs of oracles, … everywhere he’d looked and listened, tried to find counsel towards the interpretation of these omens.
What to do with this stranger who said she had a home on high.

Days and nights he had fasted in the desert caves, the desiccated dreamers sitting cross-legged on crumbling pedestals, forever open-mouthed.
The place where in days of a future not far off, he too would rest.
He had strained to hear the voices of his predecessors out of the howling winds and singing sands.
Nothing.

Finally the arduous pilgrimage to the Old City where dwelled the Readers, who could bring life to legends older than all memory, older perhaps than the stones smoothed by ages of scouring winds, legends from before the sky turned to flame and the sands into glass.

The Readers who from life to life passed on their secret knowledge for eternal purpose – so that the names and doings of the Redeemer Kings who slept beneath the great mounds would be heard each year again when the stars were right, as should their names or deeds ever be left unspoken in the nights when the Gods pricked up their ears, the fire from the sky was sure to fall again.

And there the truth had been uncovered. There among the ancient symbols beaten into fine sheets of gold, so they would never succumb to decay, the legend had been preserved, although even the Readers could decipher only fragments.

The arrival of a messenger. An arrival heralded by a new star. A messenger who was of the same flesh as theirs, but claimed descent not from the union of man and woman but parentage from the sky. And the promise of a kingdom. Most importantly it told how the promise could be attained, the prophecy fulfilled. That part was the clearest, and it was illustrated, the symbol that signified its fulfillment repeating many times over, so without doubt the wise ancients knew this ending was the most essential.

It was a unique, unfamiliar ritual and the Priest wondered … when he gave the signal to begin, … when it had found its end ... would the lords of the sky signal their acceptance, so that they knew it had been done right?

It seemed strange to him.
Strange that love, godly love, should hurt so much, but then the Gods had their own ways.
So, let the love, and the hurting, begin.
 
Don't want to start believing in them, or look what happens
Also don't follow garbled renditions of a religion that was already half-extinct back in the day when your planet got nuked, just because circumstances of the visit of the peaceful emissary from the federation of planets or galactic pantocracy or whatever it's called this time around happen to align with some of that...
 
(3)

Soon the pain would begin, she understood.

As the procession had wound its way down, and come to an end, at the bottom of the slope.

The wooden cross she was carried upon placed on a stone platform, perhaps an altar of earlier sacrifices.

The chanting continued. The drums did not rest.

Hands now, untying and unwinding her bonds.
More hands, many pairs of them holding her down, firmly, securely. Safely.

Other hands, reaching for the long, dull-gray spikes on the cord around her neck and withdrawing them.
Spikes forged out of meteor-iron gathered from the desert plains.
For the emissary of heaven.

Ever more hands. Roaming over her, all longing to touch her now, to run over her nakedness, before she was raised for her rapture to the sky.
Hands, fingers, going where they wanted to, and doing so with much wanting, but their touch was caressing and not crude.
The signs painted in paste of vermilion and ochre now smeared to rust-red all over her skin. The essence of their meaning soaked up into fingertips that had first drawn and now obscured them.

Her mind struggled to cope with the conflicting sensations.
Fear and desire, rejection and acceptance.

She had come to tell a story, and they had eagerly listened to her.
She had learned how to speak to them within days of her arrival, words of an unknown tongue bursting from her lips as if they had only waited to be awakened.

She had come to show marvels and bring healing, to give proof for her promises, the rewards they would attain when they acceded to the one family of Humanity that spanned the stars.

But it seemed she had awoken an older tale, older than the union of the stars, and she had fallen into it, each attempt to escape back into her own story had drawn her deeper into theirs.
She could recognize futility and had resigned herself, accepted their story as true.
Here they were all and she was one.

She understood there would be no intervention if her mission failed.

It would be attempted again later, elsewhere, with lessons learned.

The Pantocracy was a patient power.
An ever-growing, pulsing sphere subsuming all it encountered, pockets or bubbles of otherness briefly persisting on the fringe, perhaps for the blink of a lifetime such as hers, but then its expanding surface would be pulled taut again as it stretched outward with the next cycle.

There would be no fire from the sky to avenge her and no armored angel winging down to save her.
Her pain, her death, would be all hers … and theirs, through this ceremony.

She had pondered death as much as most other creatures who shared her gift might -- the gift of self-awareness, be it a blessing or a curse.

But, she had never seen it happen before her visit to this people.

All the deaths she had witnessed here had been peaceful though, and so she hoped in the end hers could be too.

Strangely, she felt their gift to her was as much one of life, life in its fullness if only briefly, as of death.

As for pain, she knew her very self had been shaped by it, she could not have lived without it.

But after the Awakening, she had not felt any pain at all.
Pain had not existed.
That had been her nearly fatal flaw.

She knew that without pain, she could never have become herself.
If she had a true mother it was pain, the pain that had proven her worthy.

It had shaped her into what she was so it was no wonder that it was her destiny.

When she heard a voice inside her head it was most often that of Instructor Lys.

I am very proud of you today. We've made it through the entire session and I haven't had to push the button once!

She wondered if the nails would hurt as much as the button had, or even worse.

Because she understood, much better probably than most other creatures blesses with the gift of understanding -- there were things you couldn't imagine until you experienced them.
 
(4)

Strips of feeble light.
Seeping through the blinds.
Strips of pale translucent skin.
Pulled from pulsing red.
Peel, probe, dig.
Deeper.
See what comes up.
See what is underneath.
Where do I begin?
What will I find if…​


Plop. Gurgle. Slump.


Rushing steps in the corridor.
Voices.


“WE'VE HAD TO SEDATE NUMBER SIX AGAIN.”
through the speaker.

“I thought this was supposed to be a safe enclosure!? She keeps finding things to hurt herself with, and…”

“It. So long as they don’t fuse, remember they’re an 'it'. You know most of them end up rejecting the bodies. They won’t attach so it’s better not to get attached.”

“We need to reduce the quarantine time. These are deprivation side-effects.”

“It’s necessary. The inculcation won’t work if we don’t have clean blanks. Anyway, wait and see. ‘No emotional involvement’. Also... you shouldn’t be involved at this stage anyway."

“That wasn’t my decision. And I do think I’ve documented enough evidence for the benefits of early … ‘involvement’."

“Oh whatever. What counts is the results. I think this entire batch is messed up. Though at least since we came up with the mouth-spreaders they aren’t chewing off their fingers anymore!”

"Call me over-involved but you, … you’re taking some kind of perverted pleasure out of this, you ..."

“Oh please. Don’t you of all people dare call me names. Everyone can see what you are but I happen to know why too.”

“Damn you. Damn all of this. This whole place … the whole program… ought to be Anathematized!”

“Oh sure. Go file a report. What with your credibility. And if so… what about you? Get yourself a reassignment? You’ve already had one. And anyway … you wouldn’t want to miss your little darlings would you?”


=====================================



STRENGTH THROUGH UNITY
JUSTICE THROUGH PURITY
JOY IN OUR DUTY -
THAT IS HUMANITY!


Humanity.

A million times a million souls, underneath a hundred times a hundred suns, a species strewn across the sky but bound together by one rule, one law, one order, one custom.
One universal Authority.
Praise the Pantocracy.

Humanity.

Shuffling feet and stifled coughs, a gray line outside the gate, Realignment & Reassignment.
From inside, a joyous hymn, All rivers in one, all rays of the sun.
But … eyes to the ground.
There - a tiny weed poking up between the cracks, trampled and trodden upon but stubbornly, senselessly refusing to die.

Or ...

a white door marked 13-06.
Behind it, a hunched form, rocking back and forth, drooling.
Eyes shifting.
Behind them … who … or what?

Stare at the stenciled numerals till they blur and flow.

Then turn and go, down the corridor, out the door at the other end,

...back to what dares call itself ... 'Humanity'.

... mix and mingle.

If they let you.

Pretend to be one of them.

Never stop pretending.

In the opposite direction there waits Disposal, and the maceration chamber.
 
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(4)

Strips of feeble light.
Seeping through the blinds.
Strips of pale translucent skin.
Pulled from pulsing red.
Peel, probe, dig.
Deeper.
See what comes up.
See what is underneath.
Where do I begin?
What will I find if…​


Plop. Gurgle. Slump.


Rushing steps in the corridor.
Voices.


“WE'VE HAD TO SEDATE NUMBER SIX AGAIN.”
through the speaker.

“I thought this was supposed to be a safe enclosure!? She keeps finding things to hurt herself with, and…”

“It. So long as they don’t fuse, remember they’re an 'it'. You know most of them end up rejecting the bodies. They won’t attach so it’s better not to get attached.”

“We need to reduce the quarantine time. These are deprivation side-effects.”

“It’s necessary. The inculcation won’t work if we don’t have clean blanks. Anyway, wait and see. ‘No emotional involvement’. Also... you shouldn’t be involved at this stage anyway."

“That wasn’t my decision. And I do think I’ve documented enough evidence for the benefits of early … ‘involvement’."

“Oh whatever. What counts is the results. I think this entire batch is messed up. Though at least since we came up with the mouth-spreaders they aren’t chewing off their fingers anymore!”

"Call me over-involved but you, … you’re taking some kind of perverted pleasure out of this, you ..."

“Oh please. Don’t you of all people dare call me names. Everyone can see what you are but I happen to know why too.”

“Damn you. Damn all of this. This whole place … the whole program… ought to be Anathematized!”

“Oh sure. Go file a report. What with your credibility. And if so… what about you? Get yourself a reassignment? You’ve already had one. And anyway … you wouldn’t want to miss your little darlings would you?”


=====================================



STRENGTH THROUGH UNITY
JUSTICE THROUGH PURITY
JOY IN OUR DUTY -
THAT IS HUMANITY!


Humanity.

A million times a million souls, underneath a hundred times a hundred suns, a species strewn across the sky but bound together by one rule, one law, one order, one custom.
One universal Authority.
Praise the Pantocracy.

Humanity.

Shuffling feet and stifled coughs, a gray line outside the gate, Realignment & Reassignment.
From inside, a joyous hymn, All rivers in one, all rays of the sun.
But … eyes to the ground.
There - a tiny weed poking up between the cracks, trampled and trodden upon but stubbornly, senselessly refusing to die.

Or ...

a white door marked 13-06.
Behind it, a hunched form, rocking back and forth, drooling.
Eyes shifting.
Behind them … who … or what?

Stare at the stenciled numerals till they blur and flow.

Then turn and go, down the corridor, out the door at the other end,

...back to what dares call itself ... 'Humanity'.

... mix and mingle.

If they let you.

Pretend to be one of them.

Never stop pretending.

In the opposite direction there waits Disposal, and the maceration chamber.
The 'maceration chamber'? You go lower than Tree himself!!!
 
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