An Eternity Measured

My entry for the Sci-Fi London 2014 48-hour storytelling competition. Late Friday evening, I was messaged with the following prompts to build the story around: 

"Title: AN ETERNITY MEASURED
Line: As far as I'm concerned you're 31 with a mental age of... Probably 12.
Theme: What if people could reproduce asexually?"

This is the result. It was a challenge, but immensely fun to work on.

Her eyes scanned the topmost shelf of the bookcase, empty save for three black books, each with a Roman numeral on its spine. The rest of the room was far less reserved and enigmatic. The walls were practically covered with black-framed photos of their gracious host shaking hands with various past presidents and other select world leaders. A few more were on some of the other shelves, propped up against photo albums and scrapbooks. The other shelves contained all various manner of mementos, most of them toys. Some she found quaint, even endearing, such as a rusty metal pickup truck, the kind her own grandfather likely would have had passed down to him. Others, though, struck her a bit less flattering, such as a diorama of a semi-nude slave girl chained to a pillar, the base bearing an undeniably barbarian-sounding name in gold foil. The circle of Mardis Gras beads around it didn't help. It was even starting to turn her stomach a bit. She wondered if those little black books up top were full of numbers arranged according to cute little pet names instead of real ones. She took a sip of her wine and tried to tell herself she was only projecting. 
It was late in the evening and the party had quieted down, apart from the occasional fit of raucous laughter from her boyfriend, having made it his mission to match each of her sips with a full glass. She took another sip and pinched the bridge of her nose as she heard footsteps from the stairwell, expecting it to be him. Another laugh from downstairs told her it wasn't. 
"Impressed?" it was their host, a man who'd cheated death three times thanks to modern science. She said nothing. Her boyfriend was convinced meeting this man would lead to some high-tier networking, thanks to all those famous and powerful people he'd met in his multiple lifetimes. She tried to inform him gently that simply knowing someone wasn't the same as having someone's ear or a direct line up a chain of command, but it was no use. "I'd ask if you'd like to see my etchings, but I don't think your guy would approve. He says that's how you met. Surprised he knows that routine, young as he is." It was the last straw. She hated that story. It wasn't true. He only told it to get a rise out of her, and now it was being used as an icebreaker to get in good with someone whose only claim to fame was being one of a dozen successful cloning experiments. 

"As far as I'm concerned, you're 31 with a mental age of... Probably 12." She shot him a dirty look. She didn't care anymore; she wanted to leave. If it meant offending the host, so be it. 
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but passive-aggressive quantifications of my emotional maturity make head feel no good, then all better." Considering she was expecting him to go for the obvious and make some snooty remark about how, once upon a time, having a childhood was a mark of distinction and class, that he went the mocking manchild route was something of a relief. She tried to hold back a smile, but gave in, a small chuckle coming with it. Looking down into her wine glass, she waved her free hand around, trying to think of where to start and how to phrase an apology. He cut her off, "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at entertaining. I'm more used to being a guest. Even then, I'm lucky if one joke or story clicks." 
She motioned to the diorama and beads with her glass, "If you want to try for two, I'm sure the story behind this is hilarious." He looked a little embarrassed, giving an "aw, shucks" sort of smile. 
"They're only technically mine. Old Mister Zero knew the guy who drew those comics when he was about half my age." he said, reaching up and taking down the first book, holding it as a preacher holds up a bible, putting his other hand to his heart and donning a comical Irish accent, "I was a different person back then, poppet." He replaced it and took down the second, this time only pinching its corner between his thumb and forefinger, waving it side-to-side, "You don't want to know what this guy was into." he put it back and took the third one down, flipping through a few pages. "This one's a work in progress." She could see they were simple notebooks, informal journals, and realized the reason for the shelf space. 

"Old Mister Zero? Not number one?" she nodded to the shelf. 

"He was ninety when he submitted his original material. Died about a year later. No memoirs."

"No family?" She asked, knowing the answer, and the awkward reason for it. 

He turned toward the pictures on the wall, turning the notebook over in his hands, "Clones are perfect copies, flaws and all. You need good genes to pass on. Luckily, he was the kind of guy insurance companies loved; no pre-existing conditions. No heart problems, no cancer, no diabetes... extraordinary by being ordinary. Almost a perfect specimen." He saw her blush a little, but gave a comforting smile before going on, "One hundred total candidates passed. Only half were successful, and only about a dozen of us have carried on. Number four will put me in the top three after I'm gone."

"What happened to them, the ones who didn't carry on?" She asked. 

"They decided to solve the birth rate problem the old-fashioned way, settling down and having families."

"I'm sorry," she said, feeling she'd put him on the spot. 

"I'm not. It's win-win, really. They get normal lives, and guys like me get their appearance gigs." He looked around at all the photos, sighing, "Of course, talk shows and garden parties can't pay bills forever. My stand up career clearly isn't going to take off, though I think my Irish accent's getting better." 
"So, what are you going to do to fill the book, besides your Father Ted impression?" 
He thought for a moment, "I've heard etching has become kind of a lost art." 

Angel of Mercy

     The receptionist had no face to speak of, merely a blank, white void with a rather crass-looking speaker grill where a mouth would be. The head bobbed a little as prerecorded segments of speech were spliced and rearranged in real-time to answer simple questions or give directions. The subtle moves were made less so by the sausage curls of the stark, white wig swaying with each tinny syllable. The groomed loudspeaker chimed its canned answers from behind the reception desk, effectively obscuring the horrifically serpentine cluster of fiber optic cables and pneumatic hoses pouring out from the skirt of the white uniform. Its dress form of a body was completely motionless apart from its head and six furiously busy arms. One pair was typing away at a teletype machine, answering a call from a deaf patient. Another were shuffling and filing small computer punch cards whose exact advantage or even purpose was likely beyond the grasp of even the most tenured of staff. The fifth was running a finger over a stack of forms in a labyrinthine pattern, a magnetic sensor in the tip following the metallic ink lines of previous patients' handwriting. The last, after handing off a clipboard to a patient, went back to helping the literate lefty by moving read forms into an outbox. Like the face, the hair, and the uniform, the arms were clad in white, seamlessly ending in fine, silk gloves stretched over the long, spindly, spring-loaded fingers. The only item of color was the red cross in the dead center of the cap which was undoubtedly bolted to the head to keep the wig in place. 

     Susan imagined a technician standing behind the android, ratcheting the bolt loose to swap out the sausages for a swing bob or possibly dreadlocks festooned with pearly beads. She was so lost in her little daydream, looking back and forth between the animatronic octopus and the clipboard it had given her, that she'd completely tuned out what it was saying. The concussion she was in for wasn't helping, but she knew all she had to do was say "Repeat that" at any time. She also knew there was no one behind her, so she could probably say "Repeat that" as many times as she needed. What she didn't know was how many times she had already said "Repeat that." Her daze was broken when, while clumsily signing her name at the bottom of the form, a messy red drop beat her to the punch in dotting the "i" in her last name. She knew it was her own blood from the gash between her eyes; she'd felt it creep down her nose, welling up at the tip while ticking boxes on the triage form. What she hadn't realized was how much further it had crept beyond merely her nose. Looking down revealed a hand-sized red teardrop on her shirt. It wasn't this bad in the car ride over, she thought. Panic set in as she felt a presence behind her, and tried to form the words she'd lost count of saying. 

     "Room 106. To your right. Third door on the right." The male voice from behind Susan was distinctly non-mechanical, but almost as cold apart from the tinge of impatience. She awkwardly spun round to apologize, nearly saying sorry to an ID card on a lanyard dangling in front of a blurry splash of pastel pink. Looking up, she found she could no longer blink both her eyes at once, or very quickly, so clearing up her vision to get a better look at the man was a tedious ordeal. All she could really work out at first was that the pink of his scrubs didn't go very well with his olive skin. He leaned forward, which helped a little bit. "My God, that's really bad. I couldn't tell from down the hall. I thought you were just having fun." The impatience was gone, taking the coldness with it. He turned to his left to grab something off the cart he'd been pushing. 

     "I fell off a horse." She winced as she said it, realizing he hadn't even asked a question, let alone about what happened. 
     He gave her a puzzled look over his shoulder, "Why would you do such a thing?" She tried to roll her eyes, but got dizzy in the process, and shut her eyes while trying to keep her balance and formulate a retort. 
     "Look," she managed, trying in vain to point, "I've just been lectured by an answering machine with a stupid haircut, I don't need this from you." How much of this suddenly-difficult thought ended up in spoken words was just beyond Susan's grasp. Fortunately, it turned out to be enough. 

     "I apologize." he said, followed by a quick battery of questions, like if she was nauseous or felt chills or was short of breath, among others that all blurred together. She lazily swung her head from side-to-side in response to all of the above, even the one about feeling dizzy, which she was as shaking her head with her eyes still closed threw her balance completely off. A hand firmly grasped her arm, making her tense up with a start, dropping the clipboard. She opened her eyes to see him coming at her with a wad of gauze. She reflexively made fists, ready to reach up and push him away. When he gently pressed the gauze against the gash, she felt relief, and a bit of guilt over how defensive she was being. 

     "You need to apply pressure." He pushed a little harder on the wad of gauze with each word. She reached up, felt about for the compress, and slid her fingers under his. He let go, kneeling down to pick up the clipboard. She looked down, spotting the edge of a tattoo at the base of his neck. Some kind of star, she thought. He stood up, giving the clipboard a once-over before looking back to her. "Can you walk?" He asked. She didn't answer. "I'll walk you to your room." 

     "Thank you..." her eyes finally focused enough for her to read the ID, "Oliver." She found herself too easily amused at "Oliver with the olive skin." She was bad with names, always making up quick little mnemonics. So rarely did any of them fall into place this easily. 

     When they got to the room, Oliver tossed the clipboard onto the counter before guiding Susan onto the exam table and helping her lie down. He pinched her wrist between his thumb and forefinger, asking her to tell him what happened without looking up from his watch. She told him of how she and her friend were out riding when the cinch of her saddle snapped. She managed to roll as she fell, but the saddle fell the rest of the way with her, one of the stirrups hitting her right between the eyes. 

     "It wasn't bleeding like this in the car," she went on, "so I told my friend to just drop me off and come inside when he found a parking space." Oliver rolled up her sleeve and pressed a small handheld device against her forearm. There was a sudden warming sensation that ran up her wrist to her elbow, followed by three beeps. He pulled the device away, subtly mouthing whatever he was reading off of it, then glancing over at the clipboard on the counter. 

     "Well, Susan, the good news is it looks worse than it is. You may get a scar, but you won't need stitches. You haven't lost that much blood. A touch anemic, obviously, but it's nothing serious. I can just wheel in the Hemvac, clean up and bandage that gash while it's working--"

     "The what?" she interrupted. 

     "It's for transfusions. Don't worry, the name is the scariest part. You don't have any heart conditions, and you're not on any medications, so it should only take about fifteen minutes. Won't even need to call in an RN." 

     "Oh, only a one nurse town?" She joked, propping herself up on one elbow. 

     "I'm not a nurse. I'm an orderly." He saw her smile melt to a nervous quiver. He leaned in, assuring, "It means you're fine." He started to leave. "I'll have the doctor paged when I pass the reception desk. He'll give you your discharge instructions when we're all done." He got to the door, stopped, and turned back to her. "What's your friend's name?" 

     "Simon." She blurted amid trying to process his mile-a-minute prognosis. 

     "I'll see if he's in the waiting room yet, let him know you're all right." 

     "Thank you, Oliver." 

     "It's why I'm here," he smiled, closing the door behind him.

     Susan laid back down, staring up at the ceiling in silence. She pulled the gauze away from between her eyes and looked at the stain.  

     It looked like a star. 

This story was written in a weekend as a warm-up exercise for a 48-hour story telling contest happening later in the week. 

The River of Blood

The River of Blood

A webbing of red lace poured out from every slit in the black skirt, swaying to and fro with each of the queen's strides. Everything she did seemed to carry such an elegance, even the way her littlest finger toyed with the length of chain she held over her shoulder. Her prisoner in tow on the other end of the chain was less than taken with the queen's poise and grace.

She was a thief of notorious repute despite her age. This had bolstered her hubris into making an attempt on the queen's jewels, kept on her person at all times, even to bed. The risk would bear no reward. The hand that clamped down on the thief's wrist seemed almost to have a mind of its own, the queen only opening her eyes at the thief's startled gasp. Her majesty did not scream, instead tightening her grip as a grin crept across her face, bringing with it an amused chuckle. Fear pierced the thief to her very core, leaving her frozen in place. It was only an instant before she snapped out of it and remembered her knife, only to glance down to see it twirling in the queen's fingers. The chuckle had become a hysterical laugh. This alerted the guards, who promptly stormed into the room, surrounding the bed. The queen sighed, slackening her grip as she fell back against the pillows in mock disappointment.

The thief found herself scrambling into the arms of a guard. The guard was startled by this and found himself putting a hand on her shoulder, as he might have for a lost child. By the time the thief came to her senses, she felt her arms pulled behind her, secured with heavy chain by another of the queen's men. The hand on her shoulder tightened, forcing her back round to see the queen slide off the other side of the bed and make her way to an armoire. A guard opened it as she approached, revealing an accumulation of knives buried in the wood, their points only just breaking the surface of the door. With a sweeping gesture of the queen's arm and nary a break in her stride, the thief's knife was added to the collection. A snap of fingers sent the guard holding the door out of the room with two other men following right behind. This was all so surreal for the thief. Everything from scaling of the wall to the sound of her own knife embedding itself in an armoire was running through her mind over and over again. She had been so careful, so meticulous, considered every possible failure, but all for naught. The thief stared daggers into the queen's back as she took her time slipping on a black robe over her red, lacy evening gown, reaching down to pull parts of the gown through slits in the robe, turning the whole ensemble into a performance. The queen glanced over her shoulder to smile at the thief before resuming her fitting, unphased by the stare. The thief looked on in silence.

She expected to get some sort of lecture from her royal highness before being carted off to the dungeon, or at least some gloating. What she did not expect was for the queen to turn away from the armoire dangling a heavy, iron collar from a length of chain. 

"Shall we go for a walk?"


The spikes that lined the inside of the collar were not sharp enough to draw blood. Rather, they were to give incentive against not keeping pace or speaking out of turn by way of a firm pull. Still, she couldn't help but wonder if what she felt rolling down her back was merely a bead of sweat. The party walked at a leisurely pace set by the queen, the last two guards from the bedchamber marching in silence behind the thief the entirety of the seemingly endless trek from the high tower into the depths of the castle.

As they went further, the plastered masonry gave way to earthen clay with tiles of red marble arranged in a flowing mosaic. It was a simple beauty the thief had never given much thought to, always too transfixed on the opulent. The queen explained that the castle was built upon a spring which served as irrigation for the garden. The flowing warmth allowed roses to stave off withering well past the first snowfall, a spectacle beheld by only a select few. Unfortunately, her highness sighed, the spring dried up years ago. The fountain atop the source was knocked down, the entire chamber altered to serve a different purpose, one the queen insisted would be as spectacular as before. As if on cue, the end of the hallway was in sight. The thief leaned to one side to see over the queen's shoulder a fairly small door in front of which were the three guards the queen had dismissed earlier. One held out an ornate key to the queen, asking quietly if she needed them further. Her majesty held up her hand and took the key. The guards passed, the two escorts following. The thief looked back over her shoulder at them walking away, immediately regretting it, not just for the spikes scraping along her neck, but the thought of the queen pulling on the chain. She winced in anticipation, turning slowly back toward the door to find the queen patiently standing beside the open door, politely gesturing the thief to enter. It was hard to find relief in any of her majesty's shifts in manner, each act of courtesy carrying the scent of a trap. After a brief hesitation, testing to see if the queen would tighten her grip on the chain, the thief cautiously walked through the door, the queen closing it behind them.

The chamber resembled a place of worship with its domed ceiling and columns along the walls. However, there were no statues or icons, doubtless removed in favor of the queen's machinations. The columns had been methodically chiseled in places to remove their engravings. All had been adorned with iron rings through which were strewn lengths of chain. In the center was the culmination of the queen's master plan, the ultimate defacing. It was the base of the fountain that once channeled the spring. A pair of grated spouts along the edge fed into small canals that ran parallel toward the door, leading out to the garden. If there had been a statue in its center, there was no sign of it. Instead, the base had been filled in to serve as a platform for a monstrosity of engineering, a guillotine built for eight, same as the number of columns encircling the room. The thief suddenly felt sick to her stomach with the revelation of the queen's grand spectacle.

She recalled seeing one in the town square as a child, though not as elaborate as this one. It was eventually taken down, having never been used so far as she could recall, replaced with a statue of the queen. Her highness led her guest up a short flight of crude, wooden stairs. She stopped in the center and spun round on the thief, directing her attention to the array of stocks, four on each side, all occupied. Man and woman, boy and girl, young and old, it was an eclectic assortment of prisoners. The queen explained that after the spring dried up, tourism to the town declined, and stricter laws were needed to keep the rising crime rate in check. Of course, the queen chuckled, strict laws were nothing without severe punishments behind them. For a time, there was no shortage of criminals to maintain the steady flow. Prisoners from neighboring countries looking to save face were brought in under the guise of exile for a price. Still, it was never enough to match the flow of the spring, and eventually the laws worked too well. Fewer and fewer were brought to justice, slowing the new spring down to a trickle.

The thief looked around at the device, trying to work out what her part in all this was meant to be, or if this was simply the lecture and gloating she'd been anticipating from the start.The crimes of the eight were rattled off with an air of ambiguity, one a murderer, others thieves, another an artist who tried to incite a revolt, two that refused to pay taxes on their businesses, and another who merely stood in the way of the guards' pursuit of a child caught swiping apples from a cart in the market. As the queen read off these convictions, none of them said so much as a word or tried to look up. No doubt they'd been tortured, starved, or otherwise rendered broken in light of their impending fate. Rather than supporting themselves on hands and knees, the prisoners were laid on benches, wrapped in canvas and secured with straps tight enough to squeeze the life out of them. There were no baskets to catch the severed heads, only a pair of deep grooves chiseled into the brickwork that ended in rusty grates before spilling over the edge of the old fountain and out of the room. The ceiling was a mess of pulleys and gears, most of it hardly appearing necessary for a device regarded so highly for its simplicity. Even the blades themselves were atypical, perforated with several small holes instead of a clean, metallic shine.

A tug on the leash brought the thief back to attention.

"I am not telling you all this merely so I can throw you in a cell to rot, much less execute you. I am telling you this because you have a decision to make, and it is important you have context." The last word carried a biting sharpness rivaling the twin blades hanging overhead. The thief straightened up, putting her shoulders back and her head up. Impressed, the queen smiled, continuing her ominous proposal.

"You will receive a full pardon for your trespass, leaving here with a perfectly clean slate. However, if you defy my word within my kingdom or its borders again, however minuscule, you will find yourself in their position, awaiting the fall of a blade." There was a stifled sob from one of the prisoners. The queen waited patiently for silence, a delighted smile creeping across her face. It remained while she carried on. "If you decide not to do as I ask, your leave of this place becomes more complicated." With that, the queen pulled the leash taut and began waving her arm left to right, causing the thief to sway gently with it for the sake of the spikes. "So brave of you," she cooed, "Never before have I had a visitor come calling in the night like that. Despite your intent, I found the whole affair rather amusing." The thief took a step forward to put some slack in the leash. The queen mockingly pouted at having her fun ruined, only to laugh and shake her head, "A rare gem such as you belongs among my treasures. You will be my servant, my pet, and my personal plaything for whatever whims may come to mind. You shan't come to any real harm, but your life will be solely for my amusement, so long as I wish it. It could be the rest of your life, or on the morrow."

The queen reached up and pulled down on a chain, setting a few of the pulleys in motion. There was a mechanical clicking sound of gears locking into place as some of the ropes and chains above tightened.

"Either way, I'll have no need for this room anymore." The queen held out the end of the chain to the thief at eye level.

On the end of the chain was a wooden handle wrapped in leather. There were teeth marks on it.



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