Before I forget
I think I’m losing track of moments. It’s a strange feeling.
It’s spooky, like an old house. There’s this constant sense that I’m all alone.
Nothing else is real.
Which leads to furious masturbation and the opaque sense that I’m falling into a black hole.
The other end is full of despair.
*
Sometimes it’s hard not to give in to the more dramatic aspects of my personality.
Somewhere inside me, I’m still that dumb kid that faked heart palpations to somehow get my turn on the class exercise bike. (Heart palpations + ?!? = Yay! Exercise bike. I will never be this excited about exercise ever again. Thanks for killing all my joy, Mrs. Teacher Man. I hope you never retire.)
And so I find it hard to hold onto the people around me when they’re like ghosts to my senses.
I get wrapped up in my obsessions.
I wonder if I have aspbergers?
Or if it’s just a deepening of my anxieties and manic depression?
I don’t know.
I find it hard to stay in contact with people.
And I get weird when I know there’s actually someone on the other end of these messages.
Because how strange to imagine someone listening to my lonely voice.
As I make up lies to tell the people around me.
* * *
There was a sense of static in the air. It made the captain afraid.
His men were depending on him. He could see them sneaking glances at his face. They were drawing their strength from him.
He kept his voice firm and his expression easy. He borrowed heavily from his impression of Admiral Lackensby’s exo — a rather locquacious fellow with an admirable mustache — though toned down to match his own personality.
He kept his men steady and on-point. Though it was hard. He didn’t even know how they’d gotten into this war in the first place.
Something about Messages from the Great Beyond and kama.
He didn’t understand half the politics.
All he knew was that when rich men ordered soldiers to fight, they fought. And here he was. Beseiged on both sides; trapped in a castle with fast dwindling supplies; and knowing that there was no way he could surrender.
There were fertiles amongst them. Hidden here and there beneath a masking shield of suppression medication.
And that would be why the armies would try to take them alive. Because given enough time drugs wore off. Because certain activities could bring on a Heat, forcing the body to ovulate, and betraying the different biology.
The fertiles would be separated from the rest of the prisoners, shuffled off to who-knows-where. To maybe be rescued in the future. Or not. For the non-fertile prisoners, there would be a hostage exchange or ransom for their freedom.
It was the way of the world.
The captain squared his shoulders and wished that he wasn’t the one in charge. But he was the highest ranked officer left alive. So he would do his best.
“Listen up, here’s the plan…”
*
One minute Simon had been in his house, minding his business. The next he was on an alien world.
“My name is Ash. I am a slave. I wasn’t always a slave…” He giggled to himself. It was either laugh or completely fall apart.
He was toiling in a charcoal pit. His job was to use a three-pronged rake to drag out useable chunks. It was the worst job he’d ever had. But he didn’t know the language and he was trapped in a city under siege.
So he nodded his head to the few words he managed to understand and he kept his hood over his head. Because he didn’t know what kind of situation he was in. And he looked different from the people around him.
They all had hints of bronze to their greenish-skin. And there was something different about the way their eyes looked, though he couldn’t describe what it was. He didn’t think that they were human.
He was on a medieval world. He didn’t know how to get home. And he didn’t want to be discovered and hauled off by the red armored soldiers.
Simon wore a leather mask over his face and claimed he’d been burned. He wouldn’t be the first victim of the so-called Amoeba Flame, or whatever the name translated to. All he knew was that he’d noticed the abundant use of weaponized fire and the number of people in the city masking burns.
Shoveling charcoal and skulking in the shadows was a horrifying experience. But there wasn’t much else he could do. The city was under siege. He wasn’t going anywhere. So he worked and he survived and he tried to learn as much of the language as he could.
And when the city wall fell and the invading army captured dozens of people before they were repelled, he was safe. Huddled in the charcoal pit with the lid pulled shut, he sipped the filtered water he’d squirreled away and nibbled on his homemade energy balls until everything had gone quiet.
Life was a bit tense for the next week and there were several more attacks. Then came word that the Homeguard had rallied under the command of General Ignacio Holdayne.
While Simon continued to toil in the charcoal pit, there were the sounds of battle coming from the outside the city walls. Two weeks of battle and another week to clear the area, then the general’s army was allowed through the gates.
Six months of working in the charcoal pit. Then the city was free. And he had a little bit of money saved and a working understanding of the language. And he was ready to move on. Finally.
He hitched a ride with a caravan headed west. He did odd jobs on the journey and built himself a backstory. He spoke to the other travelers to practice his language skills. And he learned about the various jobs open to a peasant like him.
So wrapped in somewhat form-fitting clothing, he applied for work in the household of a young lord. And his past history was a tale of woe — someone orphaned too young, trapped in a besieged city, forced to work in filth to survive — and he wasn’t surprised at all to get the position of footman for Lord Geofrey Laramieux.
