Fic: Canvas and Clay
Title: Canvas and Clay
Author: brightly_lit
World: tricycleman
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,500
Genre: gen, slice of life, character study
Characters: AJ, Lisa, the White Man, phone guy, Peaki
Warnings: None
Summary: AJ was an artist, regardless of medium.
This is my second Christmas gift, a tricycleman story for AJ (since nobody else is writing any, ahem!), aka alexisjane. I know you're going through tough times, honey. Hope this helps. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
AJ has given me many wonderful things, some of which can't be quantified, but for something that can, go have a look at this beautiful painting she made for my story "A Real Angel."
AJ poked her head out of her cave just inside one seldom-used opening to the tunnels. No one was around. She crept from her cozily coded cave into the dusty tunnel, sealing her door with the illusion that had kept everyone out thus far, and slipped outside into the daylight.
The first person she saw was the White Man, whom she thought of as the King of the Tunnels, even if he stared blankly the time she used that title in his presence. It jarred her to see someone so soon after exiting the tunnels, lest they figure out that was where she hid herself, but she trusted the White Man at least not to care. After his fashion, instead of greeting her, he averted his eyes politely, as he seemed to wish others would do for him, and she escaped his view with ease.
She had to leave her cave because it was Market Day and she needed a new battery for her phone. There were all kinds: cheap; expensive; original--from before the cataclysm; experimental--coded from various substances the maker theorized would hold charge--even better than real batteries had, they claimed--but she knew the vendor she sought. She found him outside the market proper in the shade of a tree, staring vacantly, as he always did. Maybe he had always been like this, some kind of autistic savant, or maybe he’d coded himself into being able to understand physics and electronics, to be able to understand the inner workings of anything electrical at a glance, and made himself like this in the process. Either way, he was the best, and never showed overmuch interest in her as an added benefit of choosing him to do business with. She picked him in the first place because she had noted, watching all the goings-on to which she was privy and extrapolating secrets from them as was her wont, that he was the Angel Man’s go-to phone repairman, and she knew Angel Man’s phone had to be perfect.
She sidled up to his table and handed him her phone, which he took and looked over. “You need a new battery,” he said with inhuman indifference. She nodded. He simply reached into a box beside him, coded a few adjustments into a battery he withdrew from it, snapped it into her phone, and handed it to her. “Pay up,” he said.
“Give me something you want beautified,” she replied.
The phone guy had no use for beauty himself, as he’d informed her during their first exchange, but he had the theory, concocted through his use of logic and market research, that items he’d been trying and failing to sell for a long time could benefit from beautification. AJ thought they could also benefit from having their exorbitant price lowered, but the phone guy wasn’t about to do that, clearly, so he removed three objects from his box and set them before her. “Don’t mess with the electronic parts, just the surface part,” he told her.
She glanced around to make sure no one was looking, and began to code in adjustments under his shrewd eye, as he kept a close watch to make sure she didn’t undo any of his own coding work. She worked quickly, as she had learned to out of necessity, or at least out of fear, altering these objects’ visage. One she simply made sleeker, blacker; another she made colorful; and the last she gave herself the luxury of taking a little more time on, imprinting (by enlarging some of the tiny speaker holes) a whimsical image of a tree with a robin beneath it on the grass. When she was done, she shoved them back across the table toward him. He glanced at her handiwork, nodded once, and looked beyond her, evidently satisfied with her payment, as if already having forgotten her presence, which was just how she liked it. She took her phone and fled.
She went outside of town to visit her grower, Lisa, who was at least as shy as she was. Lisa grew natural food at her little farm where she also raised sheep. Lisa never even had to come to market anymore; she had so many deals with locals who had discovered her occupation that she could trade for anything she needed right from the comfort of her home--which was nice for Lisa, since the walk from town to her farm was a long trek. She asked her customers for the things she needed, which they found, coded into existence, or traded for before they came to her for food. AJ had a fine selection of things in her bag. She was sure Lisa would be pleased.
Sure enough, Lisa loved what she brought her, including a perch she had coded for her peacat, which AJ had had to put a lot of research into, discovering exactly the height and type of perch both a cat and a peacock might enjoy and be able to utilize, and Lisa seemed to appreciate the effort that must have gone into it. In fact, Lisa was as close to a friend as AJ could imagine having, and she suspected Lisa thought of her likewise. Lisa invited her in, and they spent the afternoon talking as Peaki kneaded AJ’s lap and waved her tails under her nose, burbling while AJ stroked her soft, feathery fur.
On the way home, feeling deliciously full of good food and friendship, conversation and camaraderie, her bag loaded with fresh produce, AJ was smiling and humming to herself when she caught sight of something her mind instantly identified as canvas. It wasn’t actual canvas, of course; in fact, it was a burned-out old car abandoned by the side of the road.
AJ had been a painter, once, but in the dark days after the cataclysm, it had been hard enough to find food and shelter, much less paints and brushes, so AJ had learned to paint another way. It happened one night as she wept with rage over the hideousness of this new, intolerable world that had been made unlivable due to the new fad of coding reality into something else. A few people had taken digital art that step further even before the cataclysm, coding sculptures and paintings into existence with ones and zeroes rather than clay and paint, but AJ had reviled all that, considering it a cheap copout, so it was only thanks to a spirit of vengeance that made her viciously start coding the rubble around her as carelessly as Lifehack, Inc. into whatever she felt like making it into: sculptures, sure--massive dragons and pterodactyls and butterflies, and King Kong stomping the world to bits. Here was a stone crocodile taking a bite out of Detroit; there was a phoenix surrounded by sparking golden holographic flames. It was the dumbest, most ridiculous excuse for art she’d ever created, the biggest waste of a day she’d ever spent, but she felt a little better by the time she abandoned her abuse of coding technology.
It was a few weeks later when she overheard people at the market talking about the ‘art cave’ to be found in the rubble downtown, discussing bewildered who would have thought to do such a thing during such desperate times and why. Since her home was nearby her silly creation, which was how she’d found herself there in the first place, she often returned home after scavenging to see groups of people standing within it, regarding it with wonder. Someone coded a plaque and a title, “Unknown” written in the space where the creator’s name would go.
She was more than willing to remain anonymous as its creator; attention was the last thing she ever wanted, even before the cataclysm, but it made her feel better to see her creation soothing others’ suffering in those dark times. Creating it had been cathartic for her, too. She was an artist; it was all she was. She had to make art. So she found herself coding more little artworks as she went about her business gathering and trading and coding, here and there in unlikely spots, some of which were discovered, some of which never were, as far as she knew. She also stumbled upon the creations of others as she ranged over the whole city to scavenge, and beyond. Whether she was the inspiration for all these other works, the first to have the idea, or other artists had done the same thing at the same time and hers was only the first to be found, she would never know.
She took out her phone and altered the car until it looked like a ritzy gondola lift that randomly found itself lying out here by a road, its cable strung into nearby trees. She coded in luxurious seating that was gloriously comfortable (hilariously useless, unless one of the rare travelers along this road way outside of town felt like sitting a spell before continuing on their way), and she made the windows sparkle prism rainbows over every surface, within and without. People would be able to see it shining out here from miles away.
She smiled at her handiwork when she was done. It was both beautiful and delightfully absurd; it made her laugh to see it there. It wasn’t the fault of the code that it had been used for evil, because look too at all the beauty it had wrought.
~ The End ~
Author: brightly_lit
World: tricycleman
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,500
Genre: gen, slice of life, character study
Characters: AJ, Lisa, the White Man, phone guy, Peaki
Warnings: None
Summary: AJ was an artist, regardless of medium.
This is my second Christmas gift, a tricycleman story for AJ (since nobody else is writing any, ahem!), aka alexisjane. I know you're going through tough times, honey. Hope this helps. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
AJ has given me many wonderful things, some of which can't be quantified, but for something that can, go have a look at this beautiful painting she made for my story "A Real Angel."
AJ poked her head out of her cave just inside one seldom-used opening to the tunnels. No one was around. She crept from her cozily coded cave into the dusty tunnel, sealing her door with the illusion that had kept everyone out thus far, and slipped outside into the daylight.
The first person she saw was the White Man, whom she thought of as the King of the Tunnels, even if he stared blankly the time she used that title in his presence. It jarred her to see someone so soon after exiting the tunnels, lest they figure out that was where she hid herself, but she trusted the White Man at least not to care. After his fashion, instead of greeting her, he averted his eyes politely, as he seemed to wish others would do for him, and she escaped his view with ease.
She had to leave her cave because it was Market Day and she needed a new battery for her phone. There were all kinds: cheap; expensive; original--from before the cataclysm; experimental--coded from various substances the maker theorized would hold charge--even better than real batteries had, they claimed--but she knew the vendor she sought. She found him outside the market proper in the shade of a tree, staring vacantly, as he always did. Maybe he had always been like this, some kind of autistic savant, or maybe he’d coded himself into being able to understand physics and electronics, to be able to understand the inner workings of anything electrical at a glance, and made himself like this in the process. Either way, he was the best, and never showed overmuch interest in her as an added benefit of choosing him to do business with. She picked him in the first place because she had noted, watching all the goings-on to which she was privy and extrapolating secrets from them as was her wont, that he was the Angel Man’s go-to phone repairman, and she knew Angel Man’s phone had to be perfect.
She sidled up to his table and handed him her phone, which he took and looked over. “You need a new battery,” he said with inhuman indifference. She nodded. He simply reached into a box beside him, coded a few adjustments into a battery he withdrew from it, snapped it into her phone, and handed it to her. “Pay up,” he said.
“Give me something you want beautified,” she replied.
The phone guy had no use for beauty himself, as he’d informed her during their first exchange, but he had the theory, concocted through his use of logic and market research, that items he’d been trying and failing to sell for a long time could benefit from beautification. AJ thought they could also benefit from having their exorbitant price lowered, but the phone guy wasn’t about to do that, clearly, so he removed three objects from his box and set them before her. “Don’t mess with the electronic parts, just the surface part,” he told her.
She glanced around to make sure no one was looking, and began to code in adjustments under his shrewd eye, as he kept a close watch to make sure she didn’t undo any of his own coding work. She worked quickly, as she had learned to out of necessity, or at least out of fear, altering these objects’ visage. One she simply made sleeker, blacker; another she made colorful; and the last she gave herself the luxury of taking a little more time on, imprinting (by enlarging some of the tiny speaker holes) a whimsical image of a tree with a robin beneath it on the grass. When she was done, she shoved them back across the table toward him. He glanced at her handiwork, nodded once, and looked beyond her, evidently satisfied with her payment, as if already having forgotten her presence, which was just how she liked it. She took her phone and fled.
She went outside of town to visit her grower, Lisa, who was at least as shy as she was. Lisa grew natural food at her little farm where she also raised sheep. Lisa never even had to come to market anymore; she had so many deals with locals who had discovered her occupation that she could trade for anything she needed right from the comfort of her home--which was nice for Lisa, since the walk from town to her farm was a long trek. She asked her customers for the things she needed, which they found, coded into existence, or traded for before they came to her for food. AJ had a fine selection of things in her bag. She was sure Lisa would be pleased.
Sure enough, Lisa loved what she brought her, including a perch she had coded for her peacat, which AJ had had to put a lot of research into, discovering exactly the height and type of perch both a cat and a peacock might enjoy and be able to utilize, and Lisa seemed to appreciate the effort that must have gone into it. In fact, Lisa was as close to a friend as AJ could imagine having, and she suspected Lisa thought of her likewise. Lisa invited her in, and they spent the afternoon talking as Peaki kneaded AJ’s lap and waved her tails under her nose, burbling while AJ stroked her soft, feathery fur.
On the way home, feeling deliciously full of good food and friendship, conversation and camaraderie, her bag loaded with fresh produce, AJ was smiling and humming to herself when she caught sight of something her mind instantly identified as canvas. It wasn’t actual canvas, of course; in fact, it was a burned-out old car abandoned by the side of the road.
AJ had been a painter, once, but in the dark days after the cataclysm, it had been hard enough to find food and shelter, much less paints and brushes, so AJ had learned to paint another way. It happened one night as she wept with rage over the hideousness of this new, intolerable world that had been made unlivable due to the new fad of coding reality into something else. A few people had taken digital art that step further even before the cataclysm, coding sculptures and paintings into existence with ones and zeroes rather than clay and paint, but AJ had reviled all that, considering it a cheap copout, so it was only thanks to a spirit of vengeance that made her viciously start coding the rubble around her as carelessly as Lifehack, Inc. into whatever she felt like making it into: sculptures, sure--massive dragons and pterodactyls and butterflies, and King Kong stomping the world to bits. Here was a stone crocodile taking a bite out of Detroit; there was a phoenix surrounded by sparking golden holographic flames. It was the dumbest, most ridiculous excuse for art she’d ever created, the biggest waste of a day she’d ever spent, but she felt a little better by the time she abandoned her abuse of coding technology.
It was a few weeks later when she overheard people at the market talking about the ‘art cave’ to be found in the rubble downtown, discussing bewildered who would have thought to do such a thing during such desperate times and why. Since her home was nearby her silly creation, which was how she’d found herself there in the first place, she often returned home after scavenging to see groups of people standing within it, regarding it with wonder. Someone coded a plaque and a title, “Unknown” written in the space where the creator’s name would go.
She was more than willing to remain anonymous as its creator; attention was the last thing she ever wanted, even before the cataclysm, but it made her feel better to see her creation soothing others’ suffering in those dark times. Creating it had been cathartic for her, too. She was an artist; it was all she was. She had to make art. So she found herself coding more little artworks as she went about her business gathering and trading and coding, here and there in unlikely spots, some of which were discovered, some of which never were, as far as she knew. She also stumbled upon the creations of others as she ranged over the whole city to scavenge, and beyond. Whether she was the inspiration for all these other works, the first to have the idea, or other artists had done the same thing at the same time and hers was only the first to be found, she would never know.
She took out her phone and altered the car until it looked like a ritzy gondola lift that randomly found itself lying out here by a road, its cable strung into nearby trees. She coded in luxurious seating that was gloriously comfortable (hilariously useless, unless one of the rare travelers along this road way outside of town felt like sitting a spell before continuing on their way), and she made the windows sparkle prism rainbows over every surface, within and without. People would be able to see it shining out here from miles away.
She smiled at her handiwork when she was done. It was both beautiful and delightfully absurd; it made her laugh to see it there. It wasn’t the fault of the code that it had been used for evil, because look too at all the beauty it had wrought.
~ The End ~