(c) 2010 TAB

-
Raiden was doing the crossword puzzle section of the Gaian Times and had just about finished the last crossword. He checked the clock on the top of the page and noted that he would probably finish today’s set in record time. He sipped on his absinthe; the sugar was settling out of it since he hadn’t bothered stirring it or drinking it too fast. A few more words and he tossed down the paper. He watched the fluffy Florida clouds and took out a pack of Dank Filterless from his tweed jacket and lit one. This place was always amusing, flocks of teenagers sitting around sipping free water and talking about nothing, some adults with dogs or babies or books. They kept this sector at summer all year for the tourists and it felt like hundreds of years ago, usual estadounidense behavior seemed to have been preserved in time somehow here as if capitalism still meant multiple corporate entities and the world were full of nation-states.

(continue reading…)

(c) 2010 TAB

Hoover is built underground in the area around Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. it is not visible from the surface at all except for carefully concealed and fortified tunnel entrances, often in rocky hills but concealing a road connection to flatter areas. these roads are as short as possible and sometimes seem to lead to nowhere, stopping well before they clear the hills and rocks and sometimes built flat in the middle of nothing but miles of hills that cannot be considered roaded at all. the only area above ground are the Dam and Lake themselves. it is peculiar in that there are often many tracks near the roads. they come not in pairs but as single wheelmarks with strange carvings made into the outsides of the wheels- the only explanation for the way the tracks look, but not something which makes sense. rarely there is a pair with a third track down the center, and these sets of tracks always disappear a short way outside the entrance. the entrances are always closed and when closed resemble natural rock enough to be not easily visible.

(continue reading…)

Note: I wrote this bit as a college assignment for a Shakespeare class some years ago, but I was always tickled with how it turned out.  No feedback required; this is just for fun. Enjoy!

Garden Sport

“Build thy lodge with mortar, stone and sticks,
That won’t stop this Puck from playing tricks!”

I shook my head, and leaves rustled about me.  “Robin, art sure this is needful?  These gentle ones, lacking in all harmful intention, deserve not our devious sport.”

“Deserve not our sport?”  He leapt down from an upper branch, landing lightly beside me with an incredulous look.  “Any creature on this earth, being mortal, thus is game for our fair play.  And these very creatures, gentle though they be, lack not in wit and mundanity, and so are ours for the sport.”  He grinned.  “Besides the which, young Ariel, thy skills are sore out of tone for mischief, and thy head all twisted round for fear of mortal magic.  Fear not, for mortal magic ne’er again shalt touch thee, as one in Oberon’s court.”  He made a graceful gesture, and fireflies danced a quick jig round his fingertips.  Fireflies, at midday!
(continue reading…)

This hasn’t been edited much.. feedback is appreciated so I can make it better (I can tell it could be better)

the Fool and the Hermit

(c) 2008 TAB

the Fool, whose name was never told to anyone that can remember, was walking, the dog barking as always, wary of every shrub and every burrow, thinking that the oddity of the sky was especially strange this day. as he walked along not taking notice of where he was he watched the Moon and the Sun dancing, and found it wonderous and beautiful. the dog kept barking, sometimes more excited and sometimes less. sometime in the afternoon, the Fool heard the voice of a man. he looked to see a Hermit with a walking stick, his clothes sturdy but worn with time, much as the man himself. the Hermit looked at the Fool, whose thin clothes could not possibly be as new as they were, for he was near to a large canyon, one which could not have been crossed without damaging them, and from which no other place could have led to the place they were. the Hermit began to speak again.

“How did you get here?”

“What do you mean? I walked.”

“But how did you manage to climb the canyon?”

“What canyon?”

“The one just back there, from where you came.”

“I didn’t notice any canyon. Have you seen how the Sun and Moon are dancing in the sky today?”

(continue reading…)

(c) 2009 TAB

*

Memory was hanging back at the base camp with Mister Renk Cho, who was always either awkwardly talkative or fidgeting with one of his little toys. Right now he was playing some obscure 2D game that he had spent fifteen minutes describing the history of. It was apparently one of the truly timeless classics of the early age of computing. Memory scrolled down her clipboard readout area and set up some readouts. She now watched the power consumption of the entire team’s equipment, as well as the status of the consumables. Right now the team had spent something like eight hundred thousand credits, rising towards that exact figure at a few thousandths of a credit a second.

A thunderclap sounded, maybe a couple kilometers away. Memory looked up around the sky. The closest thing to a raincloud was the sooty emission from a distant volcano. Heat shimmers came off the small rock plateau the base camp was on. A pterosaur glided by lazily and large insects flew among the strange plants.

A sudden breeze gusted into Memory, and she turned her head away from it behind her, and then turned herself around completely as she watched a dimensional hole widening like a violently gushing gas leak tearing itself out from some container, only in reverse. The hot Cretaceous air was being pulled inward with a sucking noise, smelling like mold and ferns rotting. Renk Cho looked up from his game and just dropped his handheld, eyes bulging. He scrambled around checking readings from the potentiality engine and his tools. Memory watched the hole become an elliptical slice over two meters tall and one wide, slowing walking towards it without consciously realizing it. Renk Cho called something out but the humid wind going past her was like a thin waterfall and stripped any meaning from the words. Memory stopped a meter from the opening and waited eagerly. Even though this opening was unscheduled, she was too bored to care. It might be some emergency requiring a recall, and if field assignments weren’t required for career advancement into Central Auditing, she would never have wanted to come here anyway.

(continue reading…)