(no subject)
CRITIQUE ME!
Those Who Remain
A Story by Amber Brooke Rimkus
Prelude
At one point, Earth had its own life.
Not the metaphorical sort of existence too often spouted out by those self-medicated philosophers on television airways: corrupt rhetoric promoting a more “eco-friendly” existence. Nor the “God and Satan” arena you hear from parent-rebelling pseudo-pagans who are convinced that you can tap into the world’s magical life force by mixing cat hairs with coconut juice in a stew pot to turn your brown eyes blue. Not a soul or a spirit that thrives through the collective whole of humanity, making us “one.” Of course, nothing like those subtle video game messages that are a virtual environmental warning labels found in electronic, hand-held Godmachines.
No, it’s like a breath. That long, suffocating inhale of air just before you drop beneath the water’s surface to rediscover Darwin’s beginnings. With the “lub-dub” of your heartbeat echoing with the bubbling sound of water in your ears as you explore the vast, aquatic realm of your species’ origin. That exhilarating moment in the cold and silence, a complete bliss when you realize you are alive. It was that sort of alive: a real, living, breath with a flesh and blood heartbeat.
Alive.
Until something inside it broke. Heart and all the working innards turning into a molten ooze, strangling the muscles until they became petrified rock. That fire consumed the blood, thinning it until it was nothing but water floating helplessly stagnant on the dead surface. A forgotten body, barely preserved by the vacuum of space. Cold and empty.
Dead.
And that’s where a new sort of thing starts. Ever watch a body farm cadaver attract all sorts of little life forms? Maggots and flies and beetles, boring into and feasting away at the decaying tissue? Imagine that on a bigger scale, with a body so huge it takes thousands of millennia to be eaten down to the bone. With that sort of time, all different kinds of creatures can flourish and expand much more then any recently deceased creature, no matter how well preserved.
Have I lost you yet? Are you asking me why beetles and flies haven’t built their own miniature civilizations on the back of some dead cow, or some other unfortunate creature left to rot. There isn’t much time when your resources turn to shit in a matter of months. Even less time to organize the next world power in line for national domination. And, of course, a very limited brain capacity and a twenty-four hour lifespan hardly adds to the equation that equals “evolution.”
No time, no need, no advancement.
But what if you gave those parasites a will, and a desire to advance? Give it the time
it needs to do so, and slowly things start to happen. Packs turn to clans, and clans form villages. When villages grow into cities, and cities into countries, the world becomes a thriving organism. People connect through super highways of physical and electronic information. Harvesting and tilling, breeding and expanding. Parasites on a bloated corpse given a lap-top with a wireless network, sucking the remaining resources from the dashboard of their fully automatic driving apparatus.
A Parasite Paradise.
At least, until the punch line sets in.
***
Zakai scoffed as he tossed the leather-bound journal on the table, nearly knocking over his coffee cup in the process. The spine hit the surface with a crackling thump, as though the binding would give way any moment. Zakai considered it as it lay open on top of this previous reading material, a three-day-old newspaper. The paper inside the book was hold and yellowing, with the fine ink bleeding in more then a few spots that made quite a bit of it illegible. He sat back and regarded the last statement he read with a sigh. He was already getting annoyed with the general tone of distain throughout the journal, but for some reason, that line made him apprehensive about reading more.
“At least until the punch line sets in,” he said to mockingly to himself.
“What was that, sug?” A heavily accented voice came from behind him. Glancing through the corner of his eye, the soft curve of a feminine form came to view, and he smiled a bit. He set a hand on his coffee mug and turned his eyes up to the waitress’s face. Her features were fairly unremarkable, but the way her body filled out her uniform dress more then amply made up for her face. That rack looks like a pair of watermelons shoved into a sock, his thought sent his smile into a grin. Her ass has to kill if her tits look that good. He watched her breasts for a long, obvious moment, before looking up at her.
“RiRi?”
A coy smile. “Oh, yeah, hon,” that sexy southern drawl sent a few shivers up his spine, “whole town calls me that. But my real name’s Rhiannon.”
“RiRi. You wouldn’t mind getting me some more coffee would you? I’ve unfortunately let this one get a bit too cold.”
Those Who Remain
A Story by Amber Brooke Rimkus
Prelude
At one point, Earth had its own life.
Not the metaphorical sort of existence too often spouted out by those self-medicated philosophers on television airways: corrupt rhetoric promoting a more “eco-friendly” existence. Nor the “God and Satan” arena you hear from parent-rebelling pseudo-pagans who are convinced that you can tap into the world’s magical life force by mixing cat hairs with coconut juice in a stew pot to turn your brown eyes blue. Not a soul or a spirit that thrives through the collective whole of humanity, making us “one.” Of course, nothing like those subtle video game messages that are a virtual environmental warning labels found in electronic, hand-held Godmachines.
No, it’s like a breath. That long, suffocating inhale of air just before you drop beneath the water’s surface to rediscover Darwin’s beginnings. With the “lub-dub” of your heartbeat echoing with the bubbling sound of water in your ears as you explore the vast, aquatic realm of your species’ origin. That exhilarating moment in the cold and silence, a complete bliss when you realize you are alive. It was that sort of alive: a real, living, breath with a flesh and blood heartbeat.
Alive.
Until something inside it broke. Heart and all the working innards turning into a molten ooze, strangling the muscles until they became petrified rock. That fire consumed the blood, thinning it until it was nothing but water floating helplessly stagnant on the dead surface. A forgotten body, barely preserved by the vacuum of space. Cold and empty.
Dead.
And that’s where a new sort of thing starts. Ever watch a body farm cadaver attract all sorts of little life forms? Maggots and flies and beetles, boring into and feasting away at the decaying tissue? Imagine that on a bigger scale, with a body so huge it takes thousands of millennia to be eaten down to the bone. With that sort of time, all different kinds of creatures can flourish and expand much more then any recently deceased creature, no matter how well preserved.
Have I lost you yet? Are you asking me why beetles and flies haven’t built their own miniature civilizations on the back of some dead cow, or some other unfortunate creature left to rot. There isn’t much time when your resources turn to shit in a matter of months. Even less time to organize the next world power in line for national domination. And, of course, a very limited brain capacity and a twenty-four hour lifespan hardly adds to the equation that equals “evolution.”
No time, no need, no advancement.
But what if you gave those parasites a will, and a desire to advance? Give it the time
it needs to do so, and slowly things start to happen. Packs turn to clans, and clans form villages. When villages grow into cities, and cities into countries, the world becomes a thriving organism. People connect through super highways of physical and electronic information. Harvesting and tilling, breeding and expanding. Parasites on a bloated corpse given a lap-top with a wireless network, sucking the remaining resources from the dashboard of their fully automatic driving apparatus.
A Parasite Paradise.
At least, until the punch line sets in.
***
Zakai scoffed as he tossed the leather-bound journal on the table, nearly knocking over his coffee cup in the process. The spine hit the surface with a crackling thump, as though the binding would give way any moment. Zakai considered it as it lay open on top of this previous reading material, a three-day-old newspaper. The paper inside the book was hold and yellowing, with the fine ink bleeding in more then a few spots that made quite a bit of it illegible. He sat back and regarded the last statement he read with a sigh. He was already getting annoyed with the general tone of distain throughout the journal, but for some reason, that line made him apprehensive about reading more.
“At least until the punch line sets in,” he said to mockingly to himself.
“What was that, sug?” A heavily accented voice came from behind him. Glancing through the corner of his eye, the soft curve of a feminine form came to view, and he smiled a bit. He set a hand on his coffee mug and turned his eyes up to the waitress’s face. Her features were fairly unremarkable, but the way her body filled out her uniform dress more then amply made up for her face. That rack looks like a pair of watermelons shoved into a sock, his thought sent his smile into a grin. Her ass has to kill if her tits look that good. He watched her breasts for a long, obvious moment, before looking up at her.
“RiRi?”
A coy smile. “Oh, yeah, hon,” that sexy southern drawl sent a few shivers up his spine, “whole town calls me that. But my real name’s Rhiannon.”
“RiRi. You wouldn’t mind getting me some more coffee would you? I’ve unfortunately let this one get a bit too cold.”