Wee Woo Bus
It's the corpse. Pale and drained of life. Skin stale and cold.
It's the beauty of your girlfriend, eyes pure joy in their turquoise hue.
It's the screams of them dying. Echoing through the truck as your medic works to "fix" them.
It's the quiet in your car as you sit outside your driveway.
It's the blinding blinking lights, casting everything in an alarming color of red, blue, and white. Your truck. The firetruck. The police cars. It's a scramble of vibrancy Picasso would prize.
It's the dark of the empty home. The moonlight casts the shadows of the blinds ruthlessly on the carpet floor.
It's the smell of the blood. Yes, his. And especially his. Hers too. Each of them different. Each as unique as the lives that once held it.
It's the smell of the soap, hand sanitizer, lotion, that masks it. The overtly strong cherry blossom that reminds you of your childhood.
It's the feeling as their ribs break. Their chest caving in beneath your weight. The crackle. The pop. The air is forced out of their lungs with each push and you force it back down. The smell of their incontinence a constant.
It's burying your face against her shoulder. Smelling her hair. Feeling her smooth skin. The strong muscles. Counting her ribs with soft fingers. Ear against her chest, listening to the strong heart and soft breathing.
It's driving home and realizing you're driving too fast because you miss the adrenaline.
It's calling your family because in their pictures you see the corpses of the past. Present. Future.
It's trying to giggle to get the pressure off your diaphragm.
It's the hopelessness because you can't save them.
It's the boredom because, well, you can't save them. You drive a little faster. You work the horn a little harder.
They're going to die. So many of them are going to die. And you're going to do everything right. And they're going to die. And one day it's just another body.
It's knowing that that's not always true.
Only Crazed-Way Half
"How many dead people does it take to make a living one?" He asks half, though only crazed-way. The man by his side looks at him funny. They're strangers, after all.
"Are you alive sir?" He asks in his sane kind of way.
"Why, of course I am!" The man exclaims in his normal-Joe kind of way.
"Of course sir of course," he responds then turns away from the living normal-Joe, "Are you alive, ma'am?" He asks a woman. She's pretty in some traditional sense, if not the western tradition. Maybe a southern tradition? Or perhaps a northern-southern east sense.
"What kind of a question is that? You can see me walking can't you?" Responds the northern-southern easterly woman.
"Oh yesss ma'am! I can! I'm so sorry to bother you!" He skips a couple feet to the north-right, about 51 and a third degrees, past the living normal-Joe to yet another man, in a top hat and t-shirt. A bear with a heavy beard, spectacles, and similar top hat resides in blue print on his t-shirt.
"You sir!" The sane-crazed half man calls, pointing, "Are you alive sir?" The bear looks at him with peculiarity that the top hat man doesn't share.
"Well who's asking?" The top hat's resident asks.
"Why sir, I'm asking," the half man responds with delight.
"To which why do you ask?"
"The why that wishes to know how many dead people make a living one?"
"That's a peculiar question sir," Mr. Top-hat man states, bringing his hand to his face in thought, "I suppose it only took one for me."
"Just one!"
"Yes I suppose just one."
"Well that's delightful!"
"It sure is, what about you?" The top-hat man is curious.
"Why, I can't say for sure I'm living," The crazed half-man responds in jolly.
"You sure do ask a lot of questions for a dead man," says the top-hat man.
"Dead men do ask no questions, no real questions anyhow," perhaps he is less a crazed half-man more a sane half-crazed living man? Anyhow, he agrees. The man with the elegant bear continues on:
"The dead folk ask no questions. They pulse and breathe and live dead. But you, sir, you pulse and breathe and question life! You're as alive as I've seen!"
"I am?" The sane half-crazed living man asks in blissful amazement.
"Aren't you?"
"I've definitely met a lot of dead people. Maybe it did bring me to life."
"A lot, a little, the difference is only a number."
"I like that quite a lot sir. Quite a lot."
"Well thank you, I crinkled it myself sir."
"You crinkled well sir."
And with that the bear, quite dead, meandered back into the mall to find a counterpart. And the tophat hugged greasy hair a few hours longer. And the sane-crazed, half-maybe, living-man skipped on past the corpses of the living to meet more dead people and, hopefully, another living soul.
Ever. after happily
Section II.III: The Burning Poison that is me
The small room is aglow from the cigarette in my face, eerily lighting my ragged hair and unwashed face. My dark brown eyes are black with death. A slim ray of heat grazes the tip of my nose and radiates against the skin of my fingers.
The house is large and empty of value, the front of it having been blown off in some long-forgotten battle. The only body within is the one I made. I take another drag.
Bodies litter the world now. Far too many than make sense. I remember seeing the mushroom clouds. The two fat pillars rising far into the sky; their tops flowering to grapple the clouds in their deathly clasp. Those sure didn't leave the bodies.
The following radiation had its place but it's still no explanation for so many buildings with corpses littering their floors while my small group lives. By now the bodies are nothing more than piles of tattered clothes and grey mush, but in the beginning...
Mr. Bain supposed biological warfare. I suppose he was right. It makes as much sense as anything else in this dead world.
You can't do this. I pull the cigarette away and look at its pitiful yellow light. The edges are a deep red and dying. Just lay down and die. I watch the embers snuff out. I shift my weight. The pistol at my hip digs into my skin and my belt chafes my skin. They're both painful. I like the pain. Just be a pile of grey mush. The group will move and leave you alone in this little room, confiding in only your misery. Just die. The cigarette has the faintest of faint cherry in its grey center. I can't see anything in the dark except the single point of burning poison.
His body hadn't responded to the shots as they went through him. He just opened his mouth and reached for his weapon at his side but his muscles failed him. I took a step forward and made a futile attempt to catch him as he face-planted. His left arm went out to find support but found none, merely a limp arm crushed by his body. I stood there with my ears ringing and arm outstretched to his prone body, my gun lowered. My heart hammered in my throat so bad I couldn't breathe or swallow, pain flashed through my mouth with every heartbeat.
He had just been leaning against a wall there. I saw the surprise in his eyes. His mouth slightly agape. Nostrils flared. His eyes were brown and his forehead a little too big. His body skinny and hands large. Like everything else on this planet, he only wore grey. Then there were three holes in his chest and two over his shoulder. I was down on my left knee and my hand outstretched in the impossible task of catching the gravity-bound corpse I had created. He made a muffled thud through my ringing ears.
There were more muffled footsteps behind me. I spun around and stood quickly. Too quickly. I fell flat on my ass as Rippy turned the corner, wild shots flying over his head into the ceiling. I laid back onto my elbows as he brought his rifle to bear, scanning the room. My heart hammered in my chest and my elbows flowered with pain. My butt hurt. I let out a shaky breath but the weight in my chest didn't go away. Anxiety clung to me like a wet rag. Rippy said something and I said something and things happened in a blur and then I lit a cigarette and stared at the body. I made that body. We stuck him in the closet downstairs.
I still feel the weight in my chest. The cigarette didn't take away the edge. Doesn't release the pressure. Doesn't do much of anything except make my throat itchy. I snuff it out. Burning poison deserves to die.
Section II.II The Chisel, Hammer, and Rubber Mallet
Megan glances at the spot. There's still blood smears on the hardwood floor I couldn't mop up. Chunks and droplets I missed. She looks at the holes in the wall where the bullets landed. They went straight through him.
"He was alone?" She asks, her voice an octave too high as she forces too much air through her throat. The thought is making her giddy.
"I did a perimeter check and sent the drone up, we've not seen anybody," Rippy replies with a shrug, "Kevin is supposed to be on guard." They both look at me.
"I brought Megan in," I reply dumbly. My hands are still shaking.
"Yes, and thank you. Now you should get back to guard duty," She replies softly. She's been accepted as de facto leader as long as she keeps Rippy in check.
Rippy looks at me too, I can't read him. I always just assume disappointment and anger.
If Megan is the chisel, Rippy is the hammer. Megan leads with humanity and Rippy effeciency. We follow Megan because she cares. We follow Rippy because he's right.
I give a curt nod and turn on my heels, my face is heating up. I'm flustered. I just killed a man and they dismissed me like a child.
I freeze. My muscles are tight, my entire body tense and ready for a fight. Anger boils up inside me as I become dangerously aware of the heavy rifle slung over my shoulder.
"What about the others?" My voice sounds far away, from the far side of a long and narrow tunnel. Someone else's voice falling on my ears. The words are devoid of any emotion, completely empty. I can hear the decisiveness in her reply.
"I'll bring them in."
"I need time to myself."
"You're getting time to yourself."
"No, I'm getting a job. I need to breathe."
"I'll send someone to relieve you once we're settled."
"Kevin," Rippy interjects, ice cold, "Not now."
I'm still not facing them. They can't see the murder in my eyes. The burning, murderous fury of someone who just blew holes through a man and chucked him into a closet.
Then the battle clarity comes. My hands stop shaking and my muscles relax. Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I watch, in my mind's eye, small chunks of flesh scatter from the man's back and litter the hardwood floor. It's what had to be done then and this is what has to be done now.
Section II: The New World Dead
I don't suppose I ever actually woke up. The world is harsh, and growing harsher.
I let out a shaky breath, feeling the smoke trace along the roof of my mouth and imagine it rolling over my teeth and into the cold air. For a moment, only a moment, my hands stop shaking.
We left after Felicia shot herself. Her mark is probably still all over the wall in the attic.
It's funny how quickly you adjust to things. I never did. I don't suppose any of us did. But we're still here, so something must have happened. Several of us, anyway.
We lost Mr. Bain some months ago in a shoot-out. Olivia. We left Mrs. Bain behind because she couldn't keep up.
This new world is a harsh and cold one. Always clean up. That's what he told us. Mr. Bain did, after our first fight. Never let the women see them. As if they didn't know. As if they wouldn't see the remnants when they came in behind us. He was an old worlder, where women are sheltered and protected by chivalry and honor. I suspect that world died with him.
"We need to clean up," Rippy states. His voice is devoid of any emotion, as piercing as his killing eyes and the cutting wind. I let out my breath and enjoy feeling it roll out of my mouth. Rippy is of the new world. Women are slower, smaller, and bear just as much of the anvil of life as anyone else. Anything less means death. Apparently, though, he remember's Mr. Bain's words.
I snuff and slip the cigarrete into the tupperware case I store them within and look at the body.
"I suppose we do." Rippy had already dragged anything useful away and takes this moment to cover it in a ragged towel. Blood starts soaking through the thin material immediately.
The body is dead weight between us, limp and jiggly when we drop it in the closet. When we close the door behind us I leave a torn page peeking out from under the door. The women know that means not to enter. Because they know. They see the remnants when they come in behind us. The bottom of the page reads 4.
Victoria got sick about two weeks ago and we all avoided her. At first we hoped it was the radiation but when Jiavanni fell sick as well... They took care of each other as we watched. We didn't have medicine. We barely have food. We brought them what we could but stayed our distance. Yesterday they fell too weak to cry for food; hunger certainly gnawing at their gut. We left them in the night, too.
I go back and switch the page under the door for one that reads 6.
Waiting Room Talks
"I was prostituted"
"I know, I'm sorry. The police will want to hear that."
"It was my roommate. She did it to me."
"I'm sorry."
"They did it on purpose. The homeless shelter. They knew."
"I see."
"I want an abortion pill."
"You'll have to wait for the doctor and talk to them about that."
"Oh.
Can I have something to drink?"
"I'm sorry I can't give you anything to eat or drink. In case surgery is required."
"Oh."
"I can't give you anything to eat but I'm not going to stop you from eating those. That's the doctor's problem."
"The homeless shelter gave me a tent. A tent."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"They don't care about you unless you have children."
"That's why they put me with my roommate. That's why she prostituted me."
"When you have children they give you food. And instead of a tent you get a house. And warm clothes."
"My mother never left me."
"That's good."
"I lived with my sister but her boyfriend was a pimp."
"I see."
"He prostituted me and she abandoned me."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"My mother never left me though. I never lose."
"What do you mean?"
"I never lose. I NEVER lose. My mother never left me. But my aunt took me from her and she wouldn't tell her where I was at and so I was alone but I never lose. Never. I'll find my mother."
"I'm sorry."
"My aunt raises my cousins. But I don't trust her with them. She uses them for EBT money."
"That's terrible, I'm sorry."
"She used me for EBT money. And my sister. She feeds them McDonalds while she eats well. McDonalds. She doesn't care about them."
"That's frustrating, I'm sorry to hear that."
"She raised my sister until she moved out with her pimp boyfriend."
"I see."
"I lived with them until he started prostituting me. I left. And the shelter gave me a tent. A tent."
"I'm sorry."
"But now I'm pregnant. And I don't care about it. I'll have it on the streets and kill both of us."
"That's something you'll want to tell the SANe nurse and doctor."
"It's about the babies. That's why they give us houses."
"If we aren't pregnant we get tents. If we are pregnant we get houses. They're farming us."
"They're farming homeless people for babies. They're prostituting them for the children."
"That's why they put me with my roommate. That's what my sister's pimp boyfriend did to me."
"California owns me. They own me. But the homeless shelter owns the children."
"See these crackers? They're made from the baby fetuses."
"After I have mine I'm going to kill us both before its turned into crackers."
"Before my aunt gets it and raises it for EBT money."
"I'm going to go get some water."
Class 0 Planetarium: The Rock
“We have a rock, inbound,” Trank yells. His tinnitus must be kicking it. It’s from his soldiering days.
“A rock?” Dr. Bella Gunderson asks after several moments when no one else seems to care.
“A rock,” Trank replies with a nod of finality.
“You’re sure it isn’t a Placa?” Dr. Bella Gunderson asks playfully. Trank gives an irritated scowl in response.
Placa is a military term for the enemy. No different than the Hajji or Charlie. Placa. In the twisted vein of military humor though, Placa derived from the Andromedans’ (self-identifying as Slethcs) term for humans. Human tongues cannot quite form the true word of Placa, a mix of “Plaka”, “Plasha”, and “Plucka”. A mumbled garble that Trank says brings a variety of pronunciations across different combat units. It’s one of the reasons military personnel like the term. Though the Placa may not be the humans nor the Slethcs (another trilogy of sounds), they are the enemy. Different only in pronunciation. Trank has killed many a Placa, by any definition.
It was the way Dr. Bella Gunderson has yet to be anything less than pleased, that has bothered him.
As the crew’s psychiatrist, anthropologist, linguist, and archaeologist, Dr. Bella Gunderson is often odd to the rest of them, some even consider her the least of them, yet, still.
Dr. Bella Gunderson stands tall and lithe, hair in the changing colors of sandy-blond to red-dwarf red in the current fashion of the day. She is a well respected author of philosophy with a PhD in AI cultural studies and the long term effects of birth without a soul. Her crew specialties are in AI, software, and Quantum Mechanics. She is also the primary pilot of the crew.
Dr. Bella Gunderson is on this mission to gather data on the initial probes that were sent out to inspect the planet they stand on. She’s constructing a PeD thesis on AI and the Long Term Effects of Birth Without a Soul with Unilaterally Assigned Purpose Preceding Death Post Operation and how that is impacted by termination shortly after meeting other AI for the first time. This mission provided a rare circumstance to converse with three AI with unilateral purposes who were alone in the dead of space for five decades who all came to inconclusive readings and uncertain conclusions. Certainly fifty years alone with one mission in life and an inability to comprehend anything pertaining to that mission would prove interesting to The Board.
“Time to impact, ten minutes. We need to leave.” Trank stands, his white suit stained with purple-red cubic specks of sand.
“But my readings!” Sharon cries out, “They’re still coming in and they contrast my initial findings, some are better than I could have hoped while others spell disaster to my hypothesis!”
“I’ll warm the engines,” Trank yells and stands, but he hesitates. The most imperceptible of whimpers is released from his lips as his body comes to an ache with painful needles stab along his spine. It’s from his soldiering days. He boards the SALEEM.
His next words are furious rage.
Class 0 Planetarium: The Rock Pt. 3
Class 0 Planetarium: Landfall Pt. 2
https://theprose.com/post/798520/class-zero-planetarium-landfall
Class 0 Planetarium: Pt. 1
https://theprose.com/post/798338/class-zero-planetarium
Eons of Warmth
It was the stars, I think.
They're brighter in the winter, the skies are clearer. It's with their clarity found snippets of peace.
At night my body shook, hard wracks against the wood of the chair I slept in. The sharp stab of wood against bone was a common cause of bruising on my right shoulder.
I never much liked the feel of cotton, yet in those days cotton is what I clung to. Though touching it sent goose bumps up my neck I envoloped my body in the dead plant. Two layers of it if I could. Even now I can still feel the horrid texture gently sliding against the very tip of my left forefinger. Yet my body shook with chills and the cold hurt. Life was stiff joints and cramped muscles. Cotton would do.
I would sit on the back of the truck and look at the stars. Look at them through the thin whisp that was my breath. I'd feel the wind bite through my three layers as the wind whipped about my loose hair. My stomach would growl and the sharp pain right below my diaphragm would stab. The dull ache spreading down to my lower gut because the moldy bread I had for breakfast was not enough. It was never enough. Nevertheless, I looked at the stars.
Mornings were filled with coughing and freezing showers, if I could work up the courage to endure such torture. The smoke from the nightly fire would be so thick I could taste it down the back of my throat all day. It would scratch with every word I spoke and flavor my food. My eyes burned. So when I got home I would sit on the truck and I would look at the stars. I would breathe the daggered air because only the sharp pain of the frigid winter could cure the taste of raw smoke.
I dreamed of a warmth I did not have. Of people I did not have near. Of bread without mold. Of a bed.
What is summer but the celebrated prime of the survivors? Spring is but a youthful testing. The summer is the celebration where not a single fear is held of the soul-piercing wind of a winter night.
Stars live outside the wane of a freezing winter. I took comfort seeing their warmth, eons old. I dug deep down, seeking to find my own warmth to last the eons and I found it. It's like the fires that I made that *did* last the whole night (many did not). At the coldest point of the night the embers burned. Not with brilliant fire, for those went out the fastest. No, with a dull glow and steadfastness.
These days I work with people who never found that fire and I only hope to spread the flame. Spread the summer. To burn through one more winter.
"In the midst of winter, I finally found there was within me an invincible summer"
Class Zero Planetarium: Landfall
Trank made them hover over their landing space and quadruple check the surface for Placa traps. It's from his soldiering days.
It was the way that the purple sand seemed to ebb and flow that bothered him. Maybe the surface is an ocean? Is that not what a Desert is? An ocean of solids?
The land is soft. None of the crew even knew they landed officially until SALEEM confirmed it. Even Trank, who was acting "pilot", wasn't certain, even when the blue landing gear light had come on. The crew sat quietly for several moments.
"Are we going to go meet these Placas or what?" Dr. Bella Gunderson asks with a sly grin.
"What?" Trank asks loudly. His tinnitus must be acting up again. Mechaster ignores him;
"You guys go on ahead," Mechaster says, not looking up from his screens, "I'm going to figure out what's wrong with our equipment. We should've scrapped the mission as soon as we saw the surface."
"But my research!" Sharon crows.
"Alright, let's go," Trank says finally. He's been largely left out of the conversation and not liking it one bit. He's a slim man with the energy of a bigger one; like most things, it's from his soldiering days. He's also the crew's secondary doctor, secondary pilot, primary Xenologist and primary Astrobiologist. If it has a pulse or a hydroflux he can realive it almost as fast as he can unalive it.
"Why, yes!" Dr. Hoffen pipes up, remembering suddenly he's the crew's mission captain. Often the actual leadering comes from Trank, as is happening now. "We are here now, so let's see what this 'water' planet has to offer!" He does not bother hiding his mocking tone.
It was the way that the air had a blue tint to it, that bothered him. The suit and ship sensors both concurred the air was breathable but nobody trusted that. He also didn't trust the sand he dug his hand into, kneeling and holding a fistful by his face plate. Up close the cubic speckles are a brick red. No, he does not trust this at all.
"Why did we land here, again?" Dr. Bella Gunderson asks, spinning around amidst the endless purple desert and blue... mist? Aura? "The dune over there is hardly interesting," she doesn't gesture anywhere. There's dunes all about.
"The altitude and planet tilt are great for my research!" Sharon responds as she gently sets a box down in the cubic, purple sand. Red flecks begin sticking to its outer shell. Trank helps unload a few more boxes as Sharon sets them up.
"I suppose you're comparing your ground data against what you've been collecting en route?" Dr. Bella Gunderson asks. Sharon does not respond to such a heedless question and Dr. Bella Gunderson does not ask again.
Dr. Hoffen turns to him.
"Dr. N, can you have TEZMEEN fire probes around the planet at different altitudes so we can run data comparisons?"
It's the way the radio waves bounced through the atmosphere, that worried him. They bent just like the light. TEZMEEN did not respond.
Class Zero Planetarium: Landfall
Pt. 2
Class Zero Planetarium Pt. 1:
https://theprose.com/post/798338/class-zero-planetarium-pt-1