FINALLY, the last prequel. So only one more book is left! (I’ve been reading these books for more than five years now. 😛 Though that’s nothing compared to how long the Slacktivist has been doing this. 😛 )
It’s comforting, on pages 13 to 14, to see Irene’s new Christian friends and pastor counsel her to stop nagging Rayford into getting “saved.”
Another pleasant surprise comes on page 16, when their son Raymie asks, “Mom, is Dad going to hell?” and Irene answers, “Frankly, I can’t tell where your dad is on all this. He claims to believe in God, and it’s not for us to say.”
Pages 17 and 18 inspired me to write this post on my blog, which I will copy for you here:
I’m currently reading the Left Behind book “The Rapture” for my series of Left Behind reviews. My reviews and the Slacktivist describe the bad, ungodly behavior of the Christians in the books. But what I read last night, really burns me up:
A good Christian woman, Lucinda Washington, middle-aged, who is not afraid to show her faith and is respected by all, is also Buck’s favorite colleague, a mentor of sorts.
After witnessing the dramatic, supernatural defeat of the air forces sent to decimate Israel, he comes to her office looking for answers. He plops down in a chair with his feet on the desk and she says,
“If you were my son I’d whup you upside the head, sitting like that, tearing up your spine.”
“You don’t still smack Lionel, do you?” Buck said, peeking at the photo of the smooth-faced youngster [he’s 12].
“Can’t catch him anymore, but he knows I can still take him.”
Excuse me, this isn’t set in 1950, but in 21st-century America, some indeterminate time after the present, right before the Rapture–and the book was written in 2006.
This barbaric practice should be universally condemned as child abuse by the time this book takes place. It’s already illegal in some places. And even 100 years ago, people knew that smacking kids anywhere on the head is dangerous. I go into this in great detail in these posts:
And this is the woman we are supposed to admire as a great woman of God? A FRICKIN’ CHILD ABUSER????!!!!!
Here, I describe how two narcissistic “friends” turned out to be child abusers, whom I eventually reported to CPS because I could not get through to them, and who then threatened and began stalking me for calling them child abusers. One of the things they did which most enraged me, was smacking their little kids in the head.
I also unfriended some old high school classmate a while back for advocating beating children on her Facebook status. Then, a few months ago, unfriended (and eventually blocked) a girl in my social circles who said parents should beat their children.
Now, after all that, and enduring the stress and emotional anguish of being threatened and stalked for calling this child abuse, I’m supposed to read this “Christian” book and accept that a godly woman would abuse her child by smacking him upside the head? I’m supposed to like this character after knowing this? She’s just another hypocrite like the rest of the series’ Christians!
On page 26, Irene has turned into a Stepford Wife, even setting out Rayford’s clothes as if he were a child. Since badgering him into converting doesn’t work, she’s taking the opposite tactic–still manipulative, but I guess she doesn’t see that.
But it drives him crazy, because he knows her various problems with him (church, his use of time, not spending enough time with their son) are still on her mind. He’d rather argue than pretend they don’t exist.
On pages 63 to 66, Rayford explains to Raymie what many of us have realized over the years: that just because you don’t belong to a particular religion or sect, does not necessarily mean you’re going to Hell. Raymie replies,
Wow. You sound just like the people Pastor Billings talks about. People who think they have it all figured out, but they don’t really believe in Jesus.
Say what? Just because you have a different idea of who goes to Hell, you don’t really believe in Jesus? Also, Raymie’s words have a distinct vibe of “Oh, you’re one of those people,” said with a curling lip. ARGH!
And double-ARGH to the last few paragraphs on page 66:
Rayford…overheard the boy talking with Irene, who had asked how things went.
“Dad’s going to hell,” Raymie said. “He doesn’t think he is. He thinks he isn’t. But he doesn’t believe in Jesus. Not really.”
Meanwhile, back in Antichrist land, pages 71 to 74 depict a Mafia-style punishment of the family of a guy marked by Fortunato, Nicolae Carpathia’s right-hand man. It’s full of evil and angst.
Where the heck was this kind of writing in the rest of the series? If we see this along with Carpathia’s public image as a nice guy, we’ll know he’s evil. No, all we get in the first books is that Carpathia wants world peace, which doesn’t sound so bad.
But if we got more of this behind-the-scenes evil instead of endless pages of traveling itineraries and phone conversations, the first books could have been awesome, instead of dull trudging wondering when this book will end.
That one in your house will burn it down I tell but no one believes me I saw her eyes flash with fire She tried to steal my soul
She is a salamander
The one I trusted told me that truth But interspersed with lies A web he wove over me I claw from my eyes
I heard the rage Saw the strikes She bit He bit back
I raise the alarm, tell the truth But now he denies it Turns against me in rage I am betrayed, abandoned
The fire begins to rage It burns through all the rooms I try to pull him out but he won’t let me He is one of them too
[This poem is about witnessing abuse, and being told about abuse, only to be treated by the abuse victim as if you were crazy–then discovering the abuse victim is also an abuser who was manipulating you. It’s based on this story.]
I wrote about and drew pictures of Brian and Shyeskol in my teens. I wrote about the Martians, drew pictures, developed their civilization from beginning to end. I wrote this story in 1992 for my Fiction class in college, after an in-class assignment, a conversation between Brian and Shyeskol, was well-received by the rest of the class.
This story was meant to show how Brian and Shyeskol, always antagonizing each other, ended up married.
For background, Lisfer is Lucifer, Bwer is God, and I based the timeline on Christian conservative concepts of creation. In those days I thought evolution was a scientific fraud, unlike now where I see it as God’s scientifically proven tool of creation.
In those days I followed the school of thought that the dinosaurs, Neanderthals, etc. all had their own eras, but that the chaos referred to in the first chapter of Genesis was when Lucifer warred with God and everything on Earth was destroyed. Then God started over with Adam and Eve (the “Advanced”).
Martians were a gentle people, not sinners in need of redemption, since they never had a Fall to begin with.
(Some readers might find this heavy-handed religion, but please remember that I was quite young, a fundamentalist, and my entire galaxy of planets depended on the Creationist view. Also, the main conflict of the story is driven by the contrast of Shyeskol’s strict beliefs and millennia of tradition with Brian’s looser views of and desire for sex.)
Ernest Tuveson, in his “Swift: The Dean as Satirist,” which I read in 1990 or 1991 for an English research paper, suggested that Swift was influenced by concepts in Henry More’s Divine Dialogues. These dialogues have different speakers with different points of view; one was the
theory of the plurality of worlds. What about the salvation of rational beings who may well exist in distant planets–as well as in remote places of our own earth?
It is suggested that they may be creatures, endowed with reason, who have never experienced the fall. Such beings would have no need of “that Religion that the sons of Adam are saved by.”
They would live a perfectly orderly but monotonous existence, and “no Properties but those either of the Animal or middle life would be needed.”
They would have all sorts of virtues, skills, knowledge–but this is just a “middle” life, with no heights or depths. The Houyhnhnms would be like this.
I copied down this part of the essay, and was influenced by it in my picture of Martian life.
On Thanksgiving Break 1992, I was supposed to sit and just write for an hour. This story came out:
Brian and Shyeskol c. 1992
Twir Yepree came running when he heard the crash. What he found in the red, rocky valley took him aback: the oddest-looking contraption, probably a time machine from the looks of it, and a funny-looking young man of maybe late adolescence.
He had dark brown hair and eyes, common enough, but those eyebrows were so thick and uniform, the nose was so squat and rounded, and the lips were so big. He was also quite tall.
He had to be an alien, but from where? Time-travelers reported seeing such people on the neighboring planet, Morik, but far into the future, maybe a half-billion Reppan years. This had to be a Morikan time-traveler.
No such Morikans had ever been seen on Reppa before. The only ones had been the Primitives, brought to Reppa from Morika by the time-travelers, and then returned to their own times and homes after doctors had studied them.
The Primitives usually had excessive body hair, even on the face, even the later ones. The time-travelers always had to be careful to pass by the Chaos period, after the Primitives and the entire Morikan globe were destroyed in a battle between Lisfer and Bwer, and before the creation of the Advanced and their world.
This was one of those Advanced, one of the culturally, technologically and spiritually enlightened, finally on Reppa, and finally available for long conversations on his life, times and beliefs. Once he learned the language, he would be an invaluable companion.
Twir called his young daughter on his communicator, and she hurried out in the carrier. She was only eight and a half years old, but already knew how to drive the bubble-shaped, four-wheeled carrier.
He’d taught her a few months before, so she could go on errands for him from the country home, and she got her license, earlier than most of her friends had. She jumped out of the carrier and went to him, gasping at the sight.
“What species is that, Yem?” she said. “And what’s that thing beside him?”
“A Morikan Advanced, as far as I can tell,” Twir said.
“A Morikan Advanced? I’ve never seen one of those before, except in books.”
“No one has, except for time-travelers.”
“I wish I could show Wem.”
“So do I, Shyesie. So do I.” His wife, her mother, had died several years before in a carrier accident. “Let’s get this guy into the carrier. He’s hurt.”
“Not bad, I hope.”
“We’ll see when we get him to the sermjit.”
They took the Advanced back to the house, then put him in the medical scanner, the sermjit, to check him. He had no broken bones, but the sermjit couldn’t quite make out his physical makeup, and had to compensate by going according to what it knew about the most advanced of the Primitives. It pronounced him to be “healthy, but shaken up.”
****** Brian Jefferson, finally back from that black void, opened his eyes. What he saw took him aback. A couple of people standing over him, watching him anxiously, but not doctors or nurses or anything.
They had tiny eyebrows that looked like the over-plucked ones women gave themselves back in the 1970s, and lips that looked like the cupid’s-bow women painted on back in silent-movie days. Their noses were so tiny and pointed, they hardly looked real.
The two people looked alike, though, even though one was a man and the other was obviously a girl, both with the same auburn hair and impossibly huge brown eyes.
What, had he been abducted by some of those space aliens, and put on one of their observation tables? This was so weird. The man said something with a smile, but in a language not like any he’d ever heard before. The girl looked at the man, and then at Brian again.
She looked his own age, maybe sixteen. She looked so ugly, though, with that pinched face. The man didn’t look much better, but at least it wasn’t so bad on him. Guys aren’t supposed to look pretty.
The man had normal-looking hair, short and with bangs, like Brian himself wore. But the girl’s hair was in a bunch of little braids that looked strange somehow. He looked closer when she leaned over him once, and saw they had four strands instead of three.
On each side of her head, three of them hung free, fastened with ribbons with those triangular bows, but the back ones were pulled into a ponytail and braided together, then looped up and fastened with a larger triangular bow.
The man’s face looked normal, with no makeup on it, but the girl’s face was covered with a hideous light-orange paint, and her lips were a garish red. She’d even outlined her eyes with blue. Her forehead was covered in snow-white powder, making a harsh contrast.
They both wore Beatle-collars, but the girl’s had a string bow on it. Each of the man’s sleeves had a large X across it, but each of the girl’s was encircled by a large piece of pink cloth. Her sleeves were white, as was the collar, but her shirt was pink. The man’s clothes were green and black, the lighter, green color on his sleeves and collar.
Above the table, Brian could see they each wore an elastic band covering the hips, green for the man and white for the girl, the man’s sewn into horizontal bands, the girl’s sewn into curved vertical lines that accentuated her hips.
Later, when he found the man was shorter than Brian, he would see that the man wore black pants, the bottoms of which hung over green boots with a black, saddle-shoe-like stripe across each.
The girl also wore pants, pink things with pink boots that each had a darker, vertical stripe, but she also wore a pink skirt that reached to just above her knees.
So far, the man seemed pretty normal, but he didn’t know about this girl.
“So, you’ve finally woken up,” Twir said.
His daughter looked at him with excited eyes, then looked back at the Advanced. She’d always been so curious and smart. This would be such a wonderful experience for her.
“Check his temperature,” Twir said.
She leaned over to look at the readout on the side of the table. “It’s normal,” she said. “At least, according to Primitive stats. Too bad the sermjit doesn’t know anything about Advanceds. Too bad we don’t know anything about Advanceds.”
“We should find out soon enough.” Twir smiled. “But let’s not tell anyone right away. This’ll be our little secret for a while.”
She smiled back. “Whatever you say, Yem.”
“Let’s give him something to eat, then let him rest for a while before subjecting him to the knowledge globe.”
“Why the knowledge globe?”
“So he can learn our language. Why don’t you make some of your famous bread-in-broth, and I’ll get some skij-water.”
****** A few minutes later, the man gave Brian a drink that tasted like strawberries, but not quite, and the girl gave him a fork and a bowl of something like bread covered in broth. The food took some getting used to, but the colored water tasted pretty good. He was starving, and he didn’t mind what he got to eat, as long as it didn’t kill him.
He wasn’t hurt too badly from being thrown from the machine as it fell over, but his head throbbed. When he sat up, he grabbed his head.
The man said something to the girl, and she rushed to get Brian a packet of white, tasteless powder, which she poured into the water, where it dissolved. Whatever it was, it didn’t take too long to get rid of his headache.
A few minutes later, he smiled at her, to show it was gone. She smiled back, and looked at the man, who said something to her. She took Brian’s hand, and gestured for him to get off the table. He did, and she led him to an easy chair.
“Aw, great,” he said, sitting down and getting comfortable. “You Martians do know how to live. I can’t say much for your women, though.–I’m glad you can’t understand me. I wouldn’t want to get your planet so mad that you wipe out my ape ancestors.”
He looked around the little room. It had blue carpeting, and walls with some wood-like paneling. Except for the rounded ceiling, it looked like a regular Earth room, four walls, windows and a couple of doors, even some pictures on the walls.
One was a framed picture, a family portrait. The girl was a few years younger, which he expected, but there was also a woman, an older version of the girl. Where was she? At work or something?
There was also what looked like a television screen, encased in a blue material, and what had to be a radio. It had four speakers, a tuner, and two decks that looked like they held compact discs.
Sitting beside the radio was a large instrument that looked like a cross between a flute and a harp with metal strings. The girl smiled at him, and picked up the instrument. She put her hand on her chest, and said,
“Shyeskol. Shyeskol Yepree.”
“What?” Brian said.
“Shyeskol.”
“Oh, that’s your name. Shes-kol? No, Shyeskol. Okay.” He pointed to himself. “Brian.”
“Brine?”
“No, Bri-an.”
“Brian?”
“Yeah, there you go, girl.” He smiled.
Shyeskol turned on the instrument, obviously electric, and tuned it by twisting the metal strings. Then she played a song on it, the instrument like an electric flute, the music mystical, with developments that Brian’s time hadn’t seen yet.
She seemed to be playing two tunes at once, but combining them into one melody. When she finished, the man came into the room, carrying a large globe with a hole in the bottom. He put it halfway over Brian’s head.
“Hey, what’re you doing?” Brian cried, trying to get away. The man held him down, and called to the girl. Brian heard what sounded like switches being hit, then a muffled zap. He heard the switches again, and the globe was taken from his head.
He looked around, puzzled, feeling no different from before. “What did you guys do to me?” he said. He stopped, realizing the words that came out of his mouth were not English words.
“Ty hicka our language into your brain,” the man said. “Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, though I don’t know why.”
“Good, then it was successful.”
“Pretnub ecka!” Shyeskol cried. “Suhmt ishee to hear our language coming out of the mouth of a Morikan Advanced.”
“What’s a Morikan Advanced?” Brian said.
“That’s you. You’re from Morika, and you’re from one of the advanced civilizations of half a billion years from now.”
“No, I’m from Earth, maybe a billion years into the future.”
The man said, “Oh, Earth, is that what you call it? We call it Morika. And remember, our years are almost twice as long as yours.”
“Pretnu’s fear!” Shyeskol said. “This is so weird.”
“What’s ‘Pretnu’s fear’?” Brian said.
“It’s an exclamation. Pretnu’s a beautiful, peaceful region, so it takes a lot to make its people fear anything.”
“Where is it?”
She took out a map and showed him, and he saw it was Elysium.
“And what’s your name, Sar?” Brian said to the man, surprised that he knew the proper address.
“Twir Yepree, this beautiful girl’s father,” he said.
“Sar Yepree to you,” Shyeskol said, smiling.
Shyeskol, beautiful? He’d have a lot to get used to on this planet.
Brian wanted to see what kinds of television programs the Martians would have, but first Twir and his daughter wanted to learn all about him. They asked him questions late into the night, until Brian knew little more about them than that Twir was a scientist, but they knew more about him than he thought he knew about himself.
Then something slipped out about evolution. Brian discovered he didn’t know the word for macro-evolution in the Martian language.
“What is ‘macro-evolution’?” Shyeskol said, her eyebrows drawn together in her confusion.
“The theory that most scientists agree to,” Brian said, “having to do with the origin of life. You do know about micro-evolution, I see, since you have that word. It’s like that, only whole species can change into other species. You know those Primitives you’re always talking about? You know how they keep changing? They finally changed into humans–they evolved into homo sapiens.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Twir said, laughing. “I don’t know about the Primitives evolving that way, but your species has no relation to them. Don’t you know about the Chaos that preceded your own Creation?”
“That sounds like that religious theory that fundamentalists are always hitting us over the head with.”
“Religious theory? But it’s not theory, it’s what happened. Our time-travelers have documented it.”
“Do you Reppans believe in Bwer?”
“Oh, yes. Bwer is the God over all. He created us back in the ancient era. We didn’t ‘evolve’ from anything, and certainly not Primitives. Everyone believes in Bwer, except for those from the planet Egha. They’re degenerates.”
“Egha, the planet Pluto. But I don’t believe in Bwer.”
“How could you not believe in Bwer? I thought all the Advanceds believed in Bwer, and that’s why they’re advanced.”
“No, we don’t. The Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in Bwer.”
“Pretnu’s fear!” Shyeskol glared at Brian. “I thought all Advanceds were spiritually advanced, but now I see you’re just like those Eghans. How can you be like them? That’s the planet that taught us the words for rape and murder!” She stormed out of the room.
“You have to excuse my daughter,” Twir said. “Ever since Pretby got rescued from Morika, Shyeskol’s been highly upsettable about anything that deals with rape.”
“Who’s Pretby?”
“My sister’s daughter. She’s about two years older than Shyeskol. We took her with us a few years ago when we were invited on a trip to the time of the next-to-last stage of the Primitives, the ones that have overhanging brow ridges and are quite intelligent, but still not as intelligent as the last stage.”
“You mean the Neanderthals,” Brian said.
“At the time, Pretby was only about Shyeskol’s present age, and those two girls were devoted to each other. They left the group to go off and play in the forest. We didn’t even notice they were gone, because we were too busy with our own concerns. We were boring them. They stopped by a stream to drink and have some girl talk, then they stated playing hide and seek, Shyeskol told us. Pretby hid, but Shyeskol couldn’t find her, no matter how much she yelled for her. She got scared, and ran back to tell us. We looked all over for Pretby, but she was gone, and we had to go back home.”
“What happened to her?”
“A male Primitive, at about her stage in physical development, saw her and carried her off. Primitive customs are different from ours. They mate for life, which is like being married, but they don’t have a ceremony or anything. The Primitive saw her beauty–she was known for it, back here on Reppa–and wanted her for his mate, but she didn’t know what he wanted. He thought he owned her now, since he’d carried her off, so he raped her. He, of course, didn’t know why she refused, he just continued on with what he wanted to do.”
“But how did you find all this out, if you never found her?”
“Another group found her, a few years after her abduction. She came back, and wrote a book about her experiences. You’ll have to read it. It caused quite a stir here, someone being forced like that, and never being married. It took a while for anyone to even want to marry her.”
“Doesn’t rape exist on Reppa?”
“No. No sin of any kind exists on Reppa.”
Probably the most pleasant planet in the galaxy, then, Brian thought. And the most boring.
By the time they went to bed, Twir knew all about Brian’s experiment to escape the boring planet Earth and see what he could find on ancient Mars, and that Brian was considered a prodigy. Shyeskol, however, didn’t even care anymore. After a few weeks, Twir announced his discovery to the world. Brian, however, was surprised to see how the Martians accepted him into their society, without wanting to study him like a laboratory animal, as he knew his own people would have done to a Martian.
They did study his physique, but a computer analyzed him, and he was out of the lab by the end of the day. After that, he was allowed to just go on his way.
Shyeskol took him along to her school, but he found he couldn’t keep up without getting more zaps from the knowledge globe. School was basically for bringing out the knowledge that the globe already put in.
His learning of the language was so quick because of its nature and because it was the only thing zapped into him at the time, but other subjects took much longer to learn.
Shyeskol never forgave Brian for being an atheist. Martians didn’t realize that they did sin when they didn’t forgive someone for being from what they termed a “sinful” planet. To get her back for this, Brian took to teasing her unmercifully. He often brought her to tears, and she hated him.
Matters weren’t helped any when he began to get used to Martian features, and see that she really wasn’t ugly, especially when she took off her makeup. After being there for about one Martian year, he even realized she was getting very beautiful. When he compared her to her cousin Pretby, he saw how equal in beauty they were. Her Martian-terrain-makeup even began to look good on her.
One of Shyeskol’s favorite hairstyles, also the most fashionable hairstyle, eventually became one where she needed to cut long bangs. These she separated into strands, which she then wound into little circles.
She pulled her side hair back into a ponytail held with a ribbon tied into a triangular bow. The ponytail then curled into an S. Sometimes she wore two braids instead of or along with this style. The rest of her waist-length hair somehow curled into a long version of the flip, the bottom either round or triangular.
Her other favorite style was little circles of hair all over her head. Her favorite colors of clothes were pink and white, blue and green, and blue and black, and she looked so good in them. She filled out quite nicely. Brian countered this unfairness by hating her even more than ever.
One afternoon, as Brian sat watching a Martian program, laughing at how the best plots always dealt with encounters with people from “sinful” planets, Shyeskol came into the room with the golden goblet of skij-water that he’d asked for.
The Martians loved gold: They used it to make goblets, bowls, and their simple, one-piece pens (always dipped in orange ink–strange how they never progressed beyond the simplest of fountain pens).
Brian had taught the Yeprees English, and every once in a while he liked to use it on Shyeskol, since her father was much better at it than she was, and it frustrated her so much. He said to her now, in English,
“Set the goblet down there, Shyeskol….What’re you waiting for?”
Shyeskol said, “‘Set the goblet down there, Shyeskol.’ ‘Clean this dish for me, Shyeskol; the dishwasher is not working.’ ‘When are you going to do the dusting, Shyeskol?’–No ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’ What think you that I am? A slave-servant?”
“‘Slave-servant,'” Brian muttered, snorting. “You stupid Martian girl, you can’t even get the word right. It’s either ‘slave’ or ‘servant,’ but not both.”
“Yet I am both.”
“No, you’re not. It doesn’t make good English.”
Shyeskol’s pretty lips quivered. “How is it that you expect me to know your Earthling language perfectly? It was never put into the knowledge globe.”
“So put it in there, zap yourself with it, and then I’ll bring the knowledge out for you.”
“You are so–incorrigible. How expect you for me to–”
“‘Incorrigible’? ‘Incorrigible’?”
“Are you saying you are not?”
“I know I’m not, but no, I’m not saying that. You used another word that doesn’t quite fit.”
“”Oh, Pretnub ecka! Whatever you are, you are.”
“I am good-looking, which is more than I can say for you.”
Shyeskol’s big eyes watered. “You are always so abusing with me. I am not–ungood-looking.”
“No. You are ugly. I’ve always thought so, and always will.”
“Am-ee, I wish you had never crashed your space-time machine here. Why did it have to be my father finding you?”
“So, I’m getting to you, am I?” He grinned like a demon. “Good. I was hoping I would.”
“”No. You know that I am not ugly. You know how men look at me.”
“Yeah, like you’re a slut.”
“A what?”
He knew there was no such word in the Martian language. “A slut. A prostitute. A whore.”
“What are these words?”
“Words for girls like you that throw themselves at men for money. Girls like you, that actually encourage guys to do to them what that Neanderthal did to Pretby.”
Shyeskol’s eyes widened in horror. This was just the tender spot Brian was looking for, the one that really hurt her.
“You have said such horrible things,” Shyeskol said, her voice shaking, tears starting to stream through her orange powder. “My father will punish you, defend me. You are so–horrible!”
Too angry to laugh at her repetitive word choice, Brian jumped up and put his hands around her neck. Her soft neck, with such a beautiful, golden, braided chain around it.
Yes, four-stranded Martian braids. Her favorite necklace, with her favorite pendant, a golden bird. It’d be too bad if he broke the chain. He thought about doing it, but didn’t want to.
Shyeskol looked at him with eyes like those of a deer caught in headlights. Her thin eyebrows wedged together, her tiny, pointy nose scrunched up, and her auburn hair began coming out of its circles.
The green, blue and purple liner around her eyes, imitating chlorophyll, gave her such a wild, but beautiful, look. Some girls couldn’t wear the current makeup well, but it always made Shyeskol look so beautiful now.
With her hair in the circles, imitating the style of an earlier era, the effect of the hair combined with the makeup was more globe-like. The feelings stirring in him were too much for him.
“You are such a wench,” he said. He moved his head closer to hers, to terrify her more. “It would be so easy to kill you, Martian. You’re so puny. All of you are so short and puny.”
Looking into her eyes, he felt drawn to her somehow. He moved his head even closer. Shyeskol’s eyes showed her shock just before his lips met hers. His hands gently loosened from her neck, and moved to her shoulders.
He knew kissing wasn’t alien to the Martian people. He moved his lips from side to side, and Shyeskol soon began to do the same. He touched her lips with his tongue, and began to slip it into her mouth.
A familiar stamping gait in the hall told them Twir Yepree was coming. They jumped apart, and averted their eyes from each other. Twir entered the room, and said, the corner of his mouth curving up,
“As you would say, Brian, I hope you two weren’t at each other’s throats again.”
Brian and Shyeskol glanced at each other, wondering how much he really knew.
****** Twir wasn’t blind. He could sense what his two “children” weren’t admitting, not to him, not to each other, not even to themselves. He saw the looks Brian sneaked at Shyeskol when she walked by, and the ones she sneaked at him when she thought he wasn’t looking.
He probably interrupted something just now, when he walked in on them, considering their guilty looks. He began to worry about their being in the same house together. He knew he could trust her, but Brian was an alien, and a Morikan.
From what Brian told him about Morikans, they had trouble controlling their urges. He might try to get Shyeskol to participate with him in sin, or force it on her if she didn’t. He had to keep a close watch on them now.
****** One night, Brian stayed up late, changed from his Martian clothes into loose-fitting, white pajamas and slippers, to read up on the dying red planet. It was a big concern of the Martians.
They’d been turning up the heat in their homes, adaptable as they were to the environment, and stayed inside more or else wore sunblock. The orange powder the women wore was giving way to colored sunblock, and even men were starting to wear it.
Waterships often went to Earth to pick up loads of that essential liquid, which was disappearing from Mars.
Brian closed the magazines, and headed down the hall of the bubble-shaped house. On the way to his room, he met up with Shyeskol, on her way back from the bathroom.
She had on nothing but a long, pale yellow, flowing nightgown, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders. They stopped and stared at each other. Brian felt such a strong physical attraction to her, and he didn’t want to control it now.
He lifted his hands, then put them down again. He lifted them up again, and encircled her in his arms. Then he was kissing her, her tongue touching his lips now. He put his in her mouth, then stopped kissing her and lifted her up into his arms.
“What are you doing?” Shyeskol cried, as loudly as she could cry in a whisper.
“The rooms are soundproof, right?” Brian whispered.
“Yes, but why do you ask?”
“Why do you think?”
Shyeskol stared at him with drawn-together eyebrows, then her eyes widened when she realized what he meant. “No, no, you can’t do this. We can’t do this!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a sin, and we Martians do not want to sin.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re so ‘moral.’ come on, I don’t have any diseases, because I’ve never done this before, and I want to do this with you.”
“No. Now, put me down.”
“Forget your morals for one night. Don’t you Reppans have desires? Don’t you want to forget about your morals now?”
Shyeskol averted her eyes.
“Don’t you?” Brian was not going to let her go so easily.
“All right, yes, I do. But I’m not going to forget my morals. No Reppan in our entire history has ever done that.”
“How do you know?”
“Just–no one ever has, and no one ever will.”
“How do you know, though? Do you think anyone would admit it if they did? You could be one in a string of many Reppans that gave in, but never told anyone.”
Shyeskol began sobbing. “Put me down now, Brian Jefferson. Oh, Bwer, what should I do?”
“Is that a prayer, or are you, a Reppan, actually swearing?”
“It’s a prayer, you big bully. Put me down. Oh, Bwer, help me resist!”
Brian could feel her body through the nightgown as he held her. He wanted so badly to see it, touch it, but Shyeskol was so freaking moral.
She now twisted around, and became such a handful that he had to let her down. She didn’t hesitate; she took off running down the hall to her room, and shut and locked the door behind her.
****** Shyeskol didn’t come to breakfast the next morning. Twir, concerned about his only daughter, put her breakfast on her tray, and carried it to her room.
He knocked on the door, and she let him in, tears on her bare face, her hair disheveled from sleep. She hadn’t even dressed yet. She brushed her hair for him, then sat and ate her dough rolls and drank her fruit juice in silence, still weeping.
She told him what happened the night before. He’d known this would happen. Given the strength of youthful passions, and the immorality of so many Morikans, this was inevitable.
He knew Shyeskol loved Brian. She’d told him so many times about Brian’s newest love interests, how it bothered her when he went on dates with other girls. She just never realized her feelings were so strong.
She hated and loved him at the same time, an ambivalence she couldn’t understand, but he could. It wasn’t at all common on Reppa for such a thing to happen, but he’d watched it develop.
Only one thing seemed the answer: If Brian loved her back, then they should marry, and as soon as possible. He didn’t want his daughter to be the one to break with millennia of tradition, and neither did she.
He went to Brian later that morning, and said, “How do you really feel about my daughter?”
“How do I feel?” Brian said. “Can I be honest with you, Sar? Or will you turn me out of the house?”
“I won’t turn you out of the house. I want you to be honest with me, no matter what you have to say.”
“All right. I hate her, but I don’t hate her. I have to, but I just can’t. I don’t understand it. I do know I want her, real bad.”
“Enough to marry her?”
“Marry her? I’m not sure I even want to think about marriage at my age.”
“But if you want to carry out your desires, you’ll have to marry. There’s no other way on Reppa, and there’s no girl here on this entire planet that’ll let it be done any other way. Including my Shyeskol.”
“But do I have to marry her, Sar?”
“I want to keep peace in my house. She told me about last night.”
Brian blanched.
“I also want to restore her spirits. She’s been moping around so much lately. If you love her, I want you to seriously consider marrying her.”
“Well, see, that’s the problem. I don’t know if I really love her, or if I just–want her. And then there’s the question of what I’m supposed to do when I want to go back home to my own planet and time.”
“Let’s try this, then. You two will date other people for a while, and if you still have the same feelings for each other, then I suggest–strongly suggest–you marry, or go back home.”
Twir watched what happened over the next fifteen days. Brian went out on dates and stayed out late, and Shyeskol got a few offers for dates that she accepted and on which she sometimes stayed out late. But neither of them seemed happy.
****** Brian knew he’d always remember that night as the worst night of his life, when he left his room for a snack and saw Shyeskol sitting on the couch with another man. He was good-looking, too, probably better-looking than he was himself. He didn’t give such an honorable description to many.
He opened the refrigerator and took out some carbonated skij-water, found a candy bar, and sat eating at the kitchen table, brooding. He could hear Shyeskol saying good-bye to the person at the door, and what had to be her kissing him.
He took a drink of the Martian soda pop, and slammed the can onto the table. He finished it, and crushed it, pretending it was the man’s head.
He tossed the can into the aluminum recycling bin, threw the wrapper into the pulverizer, and trudged back to his room, making sure he avoided Shyeksol on the way.
The next morning, when he first saw Shyeskol alone, he yelled at her, “What, are you going to kiss every guy that comes around, now?”
“If I’ve been on more than one date with him, yes,” Shyeskol said. “Why should I not? There’s nothing wrong with kissing, not like what you’d rather do.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean? That I’m the pervert, and you’re not? I don’t think so, girl. You’re just as much a sinner as I am. You know you want to do things you’re not supposed to.”
Shyeskol just glared at him, then spun around on her heel and stalked away.
****** Fifteen days had passed when Shyeskol and Brian finally had their big blowout. Shyeskol had been moping around more than ever, as had Brian. Twir went to Brian, who decided he’d rather marry Shyeskol now than keep seeing her with other men.
Then Brian went to Shyeskol as she stood fixing a snack in the kitchen, and Twir started walking to another part of the house to give them their privacy. This was to be Brian’s time to propose.
Twir didn’t miss the first part of the conversation, though, and pretty soon he wouldn’t have been able to miss it even on the other side of the house: The kitchen had no doors, so sounds could escape it.
“Shyeskol,” Brian said, “I have something really important to ask you.”
“Go ahead,” Shyeskol said.
“Would you–uh, I’d like to ask you to–uh…Would you marry me, Shyeskol?”
Whatever Shyeskol was doing, the noise of a spoon clanging against glass suddenly stopped. “Marry you? Uh…No. No, I can’t.”
“You can’t? But why not?”
“Because I can’t stand your being an atheist, that’s why. I believe very strongly in Bwer, and I’ve always thought my husband would, too.”
“Please, Shyeskol, don’t say I’m an atheist. Your father knows from talking to me–just ask him, if you don’t believe me–I–I’m starting to change my mind. I mean, I’ve seen videotapes of the Chaos, and I’ve read the books about that and Creation, and it just seems too much like proof. Or at least, if not proof, then strong evidence that Bwer exists.”
“But you don’t know for sure. I don’t want to marry you.”
“Please, Shyeskol, don’t be a bigot.”
Now Shyeskol’s voice rose. “A bigot? I am not a bigot! Just because I want what’s best for me, doesn’t mean I’m a bigot.”
“Well, you’re something, all right. I tell you I’m changing my mind, and you still don’t accept me. You are so closed-minded. I’m going to change my mind, all right. I’m going to change my mind about you. I hate you, you little–”
His next word didn’t translate into Reppan, so Twir didn’t know what it was, but he did know it was insulting. But after that, everything got quiet. Deathly quiet. Had he killed her, or had she killed him?
****** Shyeskol looked at Brian with those eyes, especially huge now that she widened them. She looked so beautiful, especially with that Martian makeup on.
She lifted her spoon, and pulled her arm back to throw it. Brian grabbed her arm, but she didn’t struggle. She looked at him, he looked at her, and next thing he knew, he was kissing her. Why did he always do that?
Shyeskol dropped the spoon, Brian loosened his grip on her arm, and she put her arms around his neck. He held her close, hoping he’d finally get her to say yes. She pulled away, and said,
“All right, Brian, I’ll marry you. I can’t live otherwise.”
Martians had a simple wedding ceremony. The local preacher, the man or woman (in this case, man) that led the worship services, didn’t perform the honors; the father did. If the father was dead and had no living brothers, and his father or grandfather was either dead or unable to perform the ceremony, then the preacher stepped in. In this case, Twir Yepree was the one to do it.
As family and close friends stood around, Twir said a simple pronouncement over the couple as they held hands and kneeled before him in the red and blue yard, and then they were married.
After this was the reception, which, for the fun-loving Martians, meant party time. No alcohol, but plenty of Martian soda pop and food, including wedding candies.
Shyeskol wore a colorful dress, made in the simpler fashion of an earlier era: a long bertha, a sash, a skirt so long that the pant-legs were almost completely hidden, feet bandaged in brown cloth, and a large cloth so skillfully placed and tied with ribbon that it looked about to fall off her head.
She wore her hair looped, and simple makeup that reddened the lips, exaggerated the eyes, and showed her natural complexion, which now glowed. Brian wore a simple tunic with a sash around the waist and a hood, pants, and brown-bandaged feet.
According to Twir, this was clothing from the Third Era, one of the most ancient.
Before leaving for home, Brian spent a few Earth-years collecting all the information he could on Mars and its past, including stories from all the eras. They didn’t leave the Yepree house.
Shyeskol didn’t allow herself to get pregnant yet, so they’d have no problem leaving on the time machine, which was now much improved with Martian technology.
They would have trouble leaving Twir, and Shyeskol would have trouble leaving the rest of her family, especially Pretby. They promised to visit often, since it would now be possible with the time machine.
Sad as she was to leave her home, Shyeskol still couldn’t wait to see what twentieth-century Earth was really like, firsthand.
–END–
As a child, I made up various planets and civilizations for my stories. Back around middle school, I developed my own alphabet for the characters and drawings I was always making for Martian stories. These gentle creatures had their own eras, fashions, customs….
They used orange to match their planet. The women even painted their faces like Mars, with orange and white patches for the poles. They believed in God, and did not sin, never had a Fall, as hypothesized by Jonathan Swift centuries earlier.
The alphabet was based on the International Phonetic Alphabet. One day, I made a document based on the Rosetta Stone: English (for the planet Spimpy, colonized by Earthlings) on the top, Martian (Shah-Lee) in the middle, and some other language (Uranus, maybe?) on the bottom.
I’m glad I made this, because several years later, my mother inadvertently tossed a whole bunch of my Martian pictures and stories, including the alphabets. Here it is:
[Update 9/13/14:] This story (the top version, from 1992) received rave reviews and stirred imaginations at Writer’s Club in the summer of 2013. 🙂 I may revise it one of these days….
I wrote the first version of this story as a senior in high school, while listening to Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence.” It was July 27, 1990. The story was based on a dream I had just had that morning.
First I’ll include the much better-written version I wrote in 1992 or 1993, in college. Then I’ll show the original version, which does have its own strengths.
Alkin’s character in the dream was Avon from the British sci-fi show “Blake’s 7“; his appearance was the same that he assumed in an episode of Dr. Who (Timelash), in which the same actor played Tekker: Romanish clothes and medieval hair. The planet Roke was loosely based on Rome.
Revised version, copyright 1992:
The Last Night
The young woman of twenty threw on her cloak and hid her face with the hood. No one must recognize her. She opened the door and slipped out, as quickly and quietly as possible. Then she opened the gate, and hurried away with light steps.
The villa was all dark. Even the servants were asleep. No one would notice her.
Her parents agreed with her political views, but would not approve of her zeal for them. They would accuse her of the rashness of youth. Her father was a senator and had to have a respectable family.
Well, the rashness of youth was getting the emperor stirred up, and, besides, one of their group was an old man, the adviser. She found her way through the dark streets, her eyes constantly watching for danger of any kind–a soldier, a mugger, or a mere witness. After what seemed only a few hours short of forever, she arrived at Morcub’s house. She gave three raps on the door, and the peephole slid open.
“Reach for the dream,” she whispered, and the door opened just enough for her to slip through. She did, and a man of thirty closed the door behind her.
“You’re late, Ocsabia,” he said, reproach in his tone. “Morcub was worried.”
“I was delayed.”
“Don’t let yourself be delayed. We have little time each night we meet; do you want the morning light to reveal us?”
“Why do you always treat me this way, Alkin? I said I was delayed. I didn’t cause it. It’s not as if I was hours late.”
“Let’s just get going. Give me your cloak.”
“I get a much warmer reception than yours when I go to meet with the saints.”
“Don’t compare me to those eccentrics. Just give me your cloak.”
Ocsabia tugged at the string that held on her cloak, whipped off the cloak, and tossed it into Alkin’s arms. Loosening the veil over her hair, ears and neck, she strode into the meeting-room.
Sitting on cushions in a close circle were the others: Morcub Padrit, the leader, a dark-haired man in his late thirties; the old man Alukremub, whose age no one knew for certain; [name], a couple of years younger than Ocsabia, of the plebeian class; and Hifary, about Ocsabia’s age, and one of the saints.
He was a dear friend, and she knew he loved her with more than just saintly love. She and Alkin joined them, forced to sit next to each other because of the arrangement of the cushions.
“Welcome, Ocsabia,” Morcub said, then he addressed the group. “The emperor is now aware of our presence. We don’t kill as some groups would do, due to Alukremub’s counsel, but his voice in the Senate and our passive resistance to tyranny have made us visible. We have to be careful now–we are probably being closely watched.”
“I tried to warn Ocsabia of that when she came so late to our meeting,” Alkin said.
Ocsabia glared at him. “Alkin thinks the fate of our cause depends on me alone.”
“Please, let’s have peace at this meeting,” Morcub cried. “I want to speak with you two later.”
“I don’t see why we don’t just kill the emperor,” [name] said.
“We are resisters, not assassins.”
“Then let’s kill some of the emperor’s guards.”
“No, let’s resist without bringing death on ourselves,” Alukremub said.
“Talikula will never change the laws except as they suit him. He’s mad, and Roke is in chaos with him as emperor. He deserves to die.”
“If our sins were measured, we’d see we all deserve to die,” Hifary said.
Morcub said, “I’m sure we all know of the new tax, on the hours each person is awake. Next thing you know, he’ll be taxing us for the air we breathe. We refused to pay the tax on people with eyebrows, and the whole city followed our lead. Talikula had to let us go, and he stopped the tax. Maybe the same thing will happen this time, so let’s all stand together.”
He ended the meeting, and took Ocsabia and Alkin aside and into a side room, after calling a trusted servant to get some food for everyone.
“I don’t know why you two don’t get along,” he said, “but please, at least try. Ocsabia, do as your religion’s leaders say, and live in peace with everyone, even Alkin.”
“I try, but he’s so antagonizing,” Ocsabia said.
“She has too quick of a temper,” Alkin said. “She’ll argue at the slightest intimidation.”
“There it is, then,” Morcub said. “Don’t intimidate her, Alkin.”
“But she’s such an annoying child, with her pampered looks and silly, womanish concerns. Her ideals show she knows nothing of the world, thinking man can possibly live in peace and harmony.”
“Let her have her ideals. For us to survive, we must act as a group, and support each other. I want to see an improvement in the relationship you two have with each other. For a start, cooperate with each other and serve the fruit.”
He grabbed the fruit platter from the surprised servant’s hands, and left with him.
“Grab a bowl and put some of the fruit in it,” Alkin said.
“There you go, ordering me around,” Ocsabia said.
“You just don’t like being considered less than you want to be, a beautiful daughter of a senator. You think you have special status.”
“I just don’t like being ordered around. I am not a silly child, either. How can we ever get along if you keep putting me down?”
“I put you down because you need to be humbled. You may act like you love all people, giving your money to the poor and helping your servants, but inside you’re still as snobbish as you always were before you became one of these ‘believers.’ I’ve known you since you were a child, a proud child, and people just don’t change like that.”
“I can’t believe you said that.” She wiped away a tear. “There has been a change in me since I was a child. I can see it. I’m ashamed of how proud I used to be.”
“There’s been a definite physical change, not a change of heart. But the physical one–” He looked her over, from her face to her calves. She felt like a prized horse. “Yes, I was wrong on one point–You’re no longer a child.”
He grabbed her, and she struggled, thinking he was going to hit her. Instead, he kissed her, and set her free.
Ocsabia stepped back, gaping. “How could you do that?” she cried. “I didn’t want you to.”
“You can’t tell me that,” Alkin said. “You kissed back.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“A woman doesn’t kiss back when she doesn’t mean to.”
Ocsabia flushed, and bowed her head. Alkin stepped up to her, took her in his arms again, raised her chin, and kissed her more gently this time.
“Where’s that food?” [name] called from the other room. Alkin and Ocsabia let go of each other, and silently began to put some of the fruit into a bowl. [Name] came into the room, and leaned on the doorframe.
“A little quicker, please, before you kill each other,” he said with a grin. “Morcub is a fool. His age has made him mellow.”
“He gets results,” Alkin said, irritated.
“His policies are the best,” Ocsabia said, “when compared to insurrectionists. He respects the importance of each person, bad or good as they are.”
“Well, one bad person is dead. I sneaked up to one of the palace guards earlier tonight, and killed him. Talkula will know we’re not to be trifled with.”
“You’re a fool!” Alkin growled.
“I take action.” [Name] pursed his lips and stalked away.
Alkin carried the bowl into the other room. As Ocsabia rearranged the fruit left on the platter, Hifary came into the room.
“Are you all right, Ocsabia?” he said, saying her name as if it were the most beautiful word he knew.
“Yes.” Ocsabia smiled.
“Did Alkin say anything to upset you?”
“He loves me. And I love him. That’s what caused the tension between us: We loved each other and didn’t know it.”
“Then I’m happy for you.”
Ocsabia studied his face–It showed his sincerity. Even though her news had to be painful, all Hifary wanted was her happiness. What love he had for her.
A commotion in the other room caused them to hurry there. The sight of soldiers stopped them cold.
They’d somehow been betrayed, and one soldier said [name] had been seen by the body of a murdered guard–This group was in deep trouble now.
A soldier herded Hifary and Ocsabia over with the others with the tip of his sword. One of the other soldiers tried to grope Ocsabia, but Alkin jerked his arm away.
The soldier ran him through with his dagger, and he fell at Ocsabia’s feet. She screamed. Hifary held her to his breast as she sobbed.
“Let the Holy Spirit calm you, Ocsabia,” he whispered. “God is with us all the time, whether we live or die. Just keep trusting Him.”
Even in her sobs, Ocsabia knew the value of such a friendship. Just before the soldiers led them away, he squeezed her hand.
————————————
High school version, copyright 1990:
Untitled
Their leader was a tyrant. He imposed taxes to pay for his own pleasure, killed anyone who disagreed with his decisions, restricted anything under the sun, and he and his soldiers persecuted those who believed in only one God.
A resistance group arose on this little planet named Roke. The leader was named Morcub Padrit, and an elderly man named Alukremub counseled him.
Close in age to Morcub was thirty-year-old Alkin, an unprincipled man whose loyalty to the group was sometimes doubtful. His views and those of a young woman in the group often clashed, and they argued as loudly as they could without being discovered.
This young woman, Ocsabia, was a lovely eighteen-year-old with an hourglass figure and of medium height. She, along with a young man of the same age named Hifary, was one of the group and a believer in the one true God.
This was not the same as a Christian in every way, but in many ways. The souls of believers and non-believers both went to the same place, however, since this was not humankind.
Ocsabia lived alone, a not uncommon thing for women to do. She was fashionable, and always knew just what clothes and hairdo to wear.
Fashions on Roke lasted for hundreds of years, and included pants, capes, and long, flowing robes, along with long hair either braided–possibly coiled–or loose.
One cloth headdress covered both the head and neck and left only the face showing, and had a slit in the back through which the hair could be pushed. Ocsabia, as all women did, wore this headdress most often.
She had chestnut, waist-length hair. She was still a virgin, as she’d been born into the Church and kept its statutes all her life. She was no spendthrift, but prudent in all matters. Therefore she never found herself in debt.
Her pagan friends jokingly called her the vestal, or, as they would say it in their language, bessaf (bes’ sif). “Surely you are a priestess of Bessa,” they’d say, “or do you even know who she is? She’s the goddess of the hearth and hearth fire, little believer in only one God.”
She was desired as a wife by many men.
Alkin, on the other hand, was good-looking, tall, and strong, but not a believer. He worshipped the pagan Rokan gods and goddesses, and this was another point of disagreement between him and Ocsabia. He lived with a friend just a few doors down from Ocsabia.
He also was fashionable, and wore his dark hair chin-length, covering his ears, and in bangs reaching to just above his eyebrows. Men’s fashion also included pants and robes, but also had a Roman-like tunic and toga.
Hifary was pleasing to look at, lively, and a bit fashionable. He wore tunics mostly, and kept his red hair short and ears uncovered. He wore his bangs about the same length as Alkin’s.
He was sweet, chaste, gentlemanlike, devoted to God, and a likely match for Ocsabia. He and Ocsabia often went out on dates together.
Morcub held the meetings in his house, and the members entered through a trap door (in the floor). Each member had a smaller trap door in his house which led to a tunnel, which led to Morcub’s house.
During one meeting, Ocsabia and Alkin let their voices get too loud while arguing, and Morcub said,
“Please keep your voices down! Do you want us to be discovered? Really, I don’t see why you two can’t settle your differences peaceably.”
Once, Ocsabia came down with a bad cold-like illness and had to miss a meeting. As soon as he saw her work outside in her garden again a few days later, Alkin went over to find out if she was recovered.
She was, so he asked to talk with her inside. She took him into a little room with no windows and closed the door. She lit a lamp and said in almost a whisper,
“What’s this you want to talk to me about? Does it have to do with the rebellion?”
“Yes,” Alkin said. “We want to rescue a political prisoner from his cell tomorrow morning. We need you to distract the guards while we unlock the door. He’s in solitary confinement.”
“So how am I supposed to distract them?”
“Just walking by them in pants should be sufficient. Get them to leave their post.”
“Like this?” She walked forward a few steps, her hands on her hips and shaking her hips. She had pants on so she could work in her garden, and that combined with the way she now walked caused Alkin to notice her figure for the first time.
“Yes, yes, that’s quite all right,” he said. “That’ll certainly get their attention.” Then, under his breath, “It certainly got mine.”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing.” Ocsabia took her place in front of Alkin again, and it was all he could do to keep from examining her figure with his eyes.
He tried to content himself with just looking at her lovely face, the innocent eyes of which now gazed up at him in anticipation of his next word. The rosy cheeks; the shapely, red lips just waiting to form words in reply….
Before he knew what he did, he kissed her. When he released her, the eyes on that face, wide with shock, stared at him, and the lips outlined a mouth gaping in amazement.
He could utter no words in explanation to those eyes, even though he had an explanation. All he could do was turn and walk out.
*******
Ocsabia extinguished the lamp and left the room, looked around and didn’t see Alkin anywhere, then slumped into a chair. Her thoughts, her emotions, her beliefs all scrambled together into one huge mass of confusion; and no matter how hard she tried, she could not sort them out.
One moment she felt disgusted, another moment she remembered the kiss with a smile, another moment it repulsed her. One moment she thought she loved Alkin, another moment she fought to keep from hating him.
Believers weren’t supposed to hate. What was the prudent thing to do? What did God will in this case? What would He have her do?
All she could do was pray for wisdom and guidance, and that her feelings for this man would become clear to her.
Alkin came to Ocsabia’s door the next morning to escort her to the place for political prisoners. He only said why he was there, nothing more. She wore pants for this job, and this made it all the more difficult for him to keep from possibly offending her by looking at her figure.
He led her to a place just behind the building, which had only one cell inside and was more the size of a shed. Rokan solitary confinement was this way.
The other buildings stood hidden behind a wall to the right. This building had only one door and no windows, and could stand unwalled near the street. Solitary confinement buildings stood near streets so everyone could see what happened to political dissenters.
Alkin and Ocsabia sneaked around to the side of the building, then Alkin sent Ocsabia around to the front. She collected herself, then assumed her “walk.” She passed by the guards in their armor, short skirts, gladiator sandals and helmets. She didn’t see what happened, but she knew the plan, and that Alkin took the keys from one guard as soon as their heads turned.
She turned around and beckoned to the guards, who walked up to her and left the building unguarded, obviously assuming it was perfectly safe, if they even thought about guarding their post at all.
She entertained them with flirtatious banter as Alkin unlocked the door, went inside, unlocked the prisoner’s shackles, and led him outside, behind the building, and into the street. As soon as she saw they were safely away, Ocsabia said,
“Aren’t you forgetting your post?”
The guards spun around and found the door open and the keys on the ground. As soon as they turned around, Ocsabia sprinted down the street.
Morcub hid the man in his house until they could depose the emperor. Ocsabia began to wonder if someone would have to hide her as well. She went to Alkin’s house afterwards while his friend was out.
“I hope they won’t kill those guards because he escaped,” she said.
“You and your compassionate heart,” Alkin said. “They’re the enemy, girl.”
“Am I in danger? Will the guards tell who I am?”
“I doubt they’ll even say they left their post to flirt with a woman. All their commanding officer will care about is that they left their post. If they mention why they left, it should only be worse for them.”
“You know, at first I didn’t like the idea of having to distract the guards and do all those things; I was glad when it was over; but it was also fun while I was doing it.”
“Ah, maybe you’re beginning to become more like the kind of woman I like.”
“Oh, I hope not.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Why did you kiss me yesterday?”
“Because you’re irresistible even to me.”
“I am? I didn’t know I was irresistible to anyone.”
“Are you blind to your own beauty, girl? Or just overly modest?”
“Why do you always cut me down? Why are you always so abusive to me with words?”
“Because you have such ridiculous ideas–compassion, brotherly love, not expecting payment from someone who’s borrowed money from you.”
“They aren’t such ridiculous ideas. Just think about them sometime.”
“I don’t want to be nauseated.”
Ocsabia bent over in her chair, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.
“Oh, don’t cry,” Alkin said. “I was just beginning to admire your spirit.” She continued to sob, so he got up out of his chair and knelt beside her. “I can’t stand to see a woman cry. Fight it. Then we can have more spirited conversation.”
“Don’t mock me. Go away.”
“You realize you won’t be so desirable with puffy, red eyes?”
“Then I must continue to cry.”
“I don’t understand you, Ocsabia. You don’t want men to lust after you and you only want to do good and pure things. I don’t understand myself, either. I desire you even though you’re like that.”
“Maybe you just want what you can’t have. Or maybe you actually want to be like me, you see in me what you’re not.”
“Why? Why can’t I have you?”
Ocsabia stopped crying and looked up at him.
“Because you’re not the kind of man I want to marry. Such a man is kind, gentle, a believer, and my own age, like–like Hifary.”
“Hifary? Do you really like Hifary?”
“Yes.”
“But I’m a man and he’s just a boy.”
“Do you think being a man means cutting down other people just because they believe differently than you do?”
“I was right, you do have spirit.” He stood up and turned away. He tried to keep his voice steady. “Leave me.”
Ocsabia had no wish to stay, so she wiped her eyes and left. Alkin’s fondness for her helped her influence his opinions, so he contemplated her words for hours afterwards, and began to wonder if she was right. Or had this girl so bewitched him with her beauty that he was willing to believe the way she did?
******
Alkin, a prominent member of society, would rouse suspicion if he declined invitations to travel with his friends so he could help the resistance at home. When a group of friends asked him along on a month-long trip to the tropics, he had to accept.
He visited Ocsabia to tell her this. At first she didn’t want to let him in, but he said he had to talk to her. She led him into the atrium, and he said, “I thought about the things you said the other day.”
“And you agree with me now?” Ocsabia said.
“I didn’t say that, I just said I thought about what you said.” He smiled. “And that’s a start, isn’t it?”
He was sincere, but the reason he admitted this was so Ocsabia would consider opening a space in her heart for him. It worked, though he didn’t know it. “I’m leaving for a month with a group of friends,” he said. “I want you to come with me.”
“Come with you? How could I come with you? Are there any girls in the group?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t come. It wouldn’t look right.”
“Then marry me.”
“No. I don’t love you.”
This so frustrated him that he couldn’t control his voice very well. “Then stay here,” he said, turning away. He pondered for a moment, nearly despairing of convincing her.
An idea came to him, and with it a glimmer of hope. He turned to her. “Maybe this will change your mind,” he said, and kissed her as persuasively as he could. When he released her, she said,
“I’ve never known of anyone who truly fell in love just because of a kiss.”
Alkin realized that if he managed to seduce her she would have to marry him, since her moral code demanded it. They’d argued abut that part of the code before.
He kissed her again, lustfully this time, and simultaneously unbuttoned the back of her headdress and pushed aside part of the neck to expose her skin. He then kissed her neck. She immediately pushed him away.
“Whatever you were thinking of doing, it won’t work, either, so please leave.”
He could find his own way out. He turned in a huff and left. Ocsabia stared in the direction in which he’d gone, and said, “Good riddance–and good-bye.”
She didn’t really know why she said “good-bye.” If only she could ask her heart. It had to know more than she did about the whole situation. Why did she long for more of Alkin’s kisses and feel repulsed by them at the same time?
During the next month, she dated Hifary, as usual, and she grew quite fond of him. Near the end of the month he asked her to marry him. She told him she couldn’t, her feelings were too mixed up.
“This may be hard for you to believe,” she said, “but I’m sure I’m in love with either you or Alkin.”
“Alkin? How could you love Alkin?” Hifary said. “You two are always fighting. You’ve always been enemies. He’s also an unbeliever.”
“I know. It’s hard even for me to believe. Maybe it’s not even true. Maybe I love you. I’ve got to be alone for a while so I can sort this out.”
Also during that month, Alkin tried to console himself with wine, food, women and luxury, but all of these things left him unsatisfied. He was sure he loved Ocsabia, and she was all he wanted. In desperation he cried out to her God.
“If you’re real, show me,” he said. “If you make Ocsabia fall in love with me, I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.”
*****
At a meeting the night before Alkin was to come home, Morcub said, “I think the authorities have become suspicious. I saw two soldiers watching my house today. Perhaps the neighbors have heard us. We’ll have to be extremely careful.”
*****
The next day, Ocsabia expected Alkin to come home, since it was the end of the month. It seemed that she longed for him to come home. She watched from her windows until she saw him.
As soon as she saw his roommate greet him and him go in his house, she opened her door on an impulse and ran over to his house. She knocked on the door; the roommate opened it, and, having been told many times before by Alkin of his disagreements with her, looked at her with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.
“Baferiub, I’d like to see Alkin,” she said.
“Certainly, Ocsabia,” he said, causing Alkin to spin around and stare at the door. Baferiub stepped aside to let Ocsabia enter. She hurried in to Alkin, and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. In a few moments, Alkin haltingly put his arms around her. When she ended the kiss, he said,
“Ocsabia, what a pleasant surprise. Your God is real, I know that now. He answered my prayer.”
“He did?” she said. “How?”
“I’ll tell you later.–Baferiub, would you please leave us alone for a moment?–Look, I’m sorry about all those disagreements with you. You may be right about some things. I’m also sorry I tried to seduce you a month ago. I was trying to force you into marrying me by making you do something that would demand it, according to your moral code. Now will you marry me?”
“Yes, I will.”
They set the date for a year from then, and Ocsabia told Hifary as gently as she could. He told her that a year might be long enough for him to get over her. He wished them happiness as soon as Alkin became a believer. That issue had bothered him, as he knew of situations when a believer married an unbeliever and it didn’t work out very well.
The next time they had a meeting, which was a week later, Rokan soldiers listened at the door for incriminating conversation, then burst into the house and arrested everyone.
The little group wasn’t even tried, just put into a concentration camp. Fashion was forgotten as their clothes were taken away and replaced with prison suits, which were pants, a shirt, and sandals, plus a cloth for Ocsabia to wrap around her body as a sort of primitive corset.
This was the only part of the prison suit that looked fashionable, but the group soon forgot about such things, and thought of fashion as trivial. What really mattered was survival–a difficult thing.
They had little food, and almost starved. Their taskmasters put them to work around the camp, every day of the week, all day long. Their one relief: enough sleep.
However, the beds were hard, and barracks hot or cold, depending on the weather. All they had to heat the barracks was one brazier each.
During the evening meal, Ocsabia could finally join Alkin and the rest of the group. Afterwards, she and Alkin would walk around the non-restricted areas of the camp.
“Will we ever get out of here?” she said one evening about two and a half years after they arrived.
“Perhaps when that tyrant Kaebar dies or is deposed,” Alkin said.
“I wonder what they did with my birds? Did they give them to someone, or are they dying in their cages in my house? I know it’s a bit morbid….”
Alkin lowered his voice. “I may soon find out for you, and if they’re dead, I can bury them.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m going to try to escape. If God wills it, I will. I want to start another resistance group. I’d take you with me, but it’s too dangerous.”
The next evening, about the same time, he said good-bye to Ocsabia. That night, when everyone was supposed to stay in the barracks, Ocsabia woke to the sound of Rokan canines woofing and guards yelling.
Alkin, she thought, it must be Alkin. Soon after she heard a man scream. She drew her blanket over her nose and mouth and sobbed into it.
During role call the next morning, the commandant said, “There was an escape attempt last night. A prisoner tried to go over the wire. But our guards got him with the sword. You may bury him yourself as a lesson to you: attempting to escape is useless.”
Hifary provided Ocsabia with a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen to her voice her emotions, but didn’t give her advice or say it would get better. He knew better than to say that to her; what she needed was a listener, not an adviser.
And he didn’t do this to get her to fall in love with him, nor did he rejoice over Alkin’s death. He still loved Ocsabia, and did this out of the tenderness of his heart for her. He had no ulterior motive. Also, he grieved over the loss of one who’d become a good, respected friend since his conversion.
About two years later, as they went on one of their now-customary walks and discussed Hifary’s plans to go to many cities and countries as an apostle, if God willed him to, he halted. Ocsabia, whose arm was intertwined with his, immediately stopped also.
“What is it?” she said.
“I must tell you something, but it’s terribly difficult, especially considering the life I’m called to lead.”
“What do you want to say?”
He hesitated.
“If you go ahead and say it, it’ll be much easier for you to do.”
“All right, Ocsabia. I love you. I’ve never stopped. I prayed I would while you were engaged, and then I tried to suppress it after Alkin died so you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable around me and I wouldn’t try to force you to love me back. But it’s only grown stronger. You also might not want to be an apostle’s wife. It’s a hard life, whether you come along or stay home alone.”
“It sounds challenging. And I’d be serving God–and probably loving it.”
“You would? Then will you marry me? Oh, I should first ask you if you love me–”
“Yes to both questions. Not that I’ve forgotten Alkin. I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to be alone for the rest of my life, especially if I marry such a dear friend of his as you.”
She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. As she began to straighten her back again and her head moved away from his neck, in that split-second Hifary kissed her.
After five years in the concentration camp, a new resistance group deposed Kaebar, and put one of their own in his place.
During the fourteen-day celebration, Hifary and Ocsabia decided to celebrate in an additional way by marrying immediately, on the fifth day so they’d have time to prepare.
Ocsabia accompanied Hifary on his travels, and he wrote letters to the Rokans, Corinzians, Cafasians, Egebians, Gifidians, Cofothians, Zebafonians, and others.
In my childhood, not only did I act out “Wizard of Oz,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Star Wars,” but I also invented various elaborate stories which I would act out while outside or on the school playground. I normally played them by myself, since other people didn’t know how to do their parts “right.”
Though I do recall pretending to be foxes one winter day with Chad, Keith, Danny and another little boy, on a day when even the snow was very icy and you could barely walk on the playground without slipping. Our “den” was one of the play tunnels, which was painted like a hollow log….
I was also mostly by myself as a child, since my brothers were much older and liked “boy” stuff, and while there were a few kids in the neighborhood, they didn’t often come over–and a few of them were too mean to play with. But with my stories, I barely noticed that I was the only one. I intend to write a series of posts on my different stories. I also mention some of them in my posts about life with NVLD.
One of my stories started when I was 8 years old and in third grade. The teacher took us out on the playground one day and assigned each of us a planet, a satellite, or the sun. Then she had us all stand in various places based on where the sun was and where each planet was, to demonstrate to us just how large the solar system is.
I was a satellite, Nereid, and went to stand by a girl named Jessica who was Neptune. I also remember the girl who was the sun, though I don’t remember her name; she had a pointy, knit cap with a ball on the top. It was winter, so I was wearing a certain beige coat which I really liked, which had a hood and a cloth belt, and I wore black boots.
I was so enchanted by this game the teacher had us play, that I began acting it out by myself, whether at home, in the church basement while my dad set up the microphones, or at the playground. In fact, I associate that old church basement–the square-shaped hallway with the drain on the floor–with these stories.
I also wrote stories about it and drew pictures, with myself as Nereid, in the same coat and boots, and with little curls in my hair that I didn’t have in real life. Nereid had to wear a coat because she was in the outer reaches of the solar system, far from the sun.
Every such being, or heavenly body–whether planet, moon, sun, asteroid, or comet–was eight years old, just like me, and always would be eight years old. The Asteroid Patrol was the police force. The beings would walk on metal walkways in space, so they wouldn’t fall into nothingness. Instead of “Martian,” beings on Mars would be called “Marslings” (as in “Earthlings”), and same for the “lings” of any other planet. Sun-chips and star-chips, flashy bits taken from suns and stars, were used as money.
Nereid was constantly getting separated from Neptune, unlike the other moon Triton, another girl, who behaved and stayed nearby. So on the one hand Nereid was always looking for Neptune and would be happy and relieved when she found her. But on the other hand, she had all sorts of adventures. I wish I could remember even half of them.
One of my classmates, Keith, also ended up in these stories, even though I don’t recall him actually playing this game with me in real life. He had somehow ended up trapped on the planet of Mouseooine, named after Tatooine, where everybody dressed in mouse costumes (yes, like furries), and the young princess was in love with Keith–but he, typical boy, kept trying to put her off.
Venus was a beautiful girl surrounded all over her head and body with chilled silver jewelry (what showed up to Earthlings as clouds), which kept her cool near the Sun. The ringed planets had rings either around their bodies or around their heads, depending on how I felt like drawing it that day.
Earth was a boy whom Nereid had a crush on, but he had a crush on Venus. Earth’s creatures were like an infestation on his head, since the head was the planet itself; the other planets were fascinated by them.
Mars was a redheaded girl. The little ball on the Sun’s hat (her sun-hat) is what provided the fire and heat of the sun. She could take off the hat and point it at Nereid, a ray would come out of the little ball, and Nereid would then shrink to human-size, and go visit Keith on Mouseooine. Then the Sun would use her sun-hat on Nereid again so she could go back to normal moon-size.
In middle school, I drew a daily comic strip which was, in a tragic accident, somehow lost during one of our moves in adulthood. It was silly and bizarre, the sort of humor middle school kids might love, set in an alternative reality of my middle school, with Star Wars and other strange fashions instead of actual 1985 fashions, monsters, a woman who was literally stick-thin, a news anchor named Pretty Face who had 1985-fashionable hair and had to fend off suitors, magic, genies, a resurrected Cleopatra, a 50s-style soda shop in the air where all the kids hung out, and various other things.
In college, I found these old strips and began writing a more adult version, only I called it “Sol-Sys Blues” and based it on a version of the solar system game; the characters were now growing up.
I found two story fragments written about the solar system when I was a young child, probably no older than 12.
My mom was a cleaning lady, cleaning the houses of people at our church, and also a bank in a nearby town, and other businesses; she would take me with her. Later, one of my brothers helped her as well, but in the beginning it was just her.
Probably when I was around 8 or 9, she started bringing home boxes and boxes of discarded form letters from the bank: usually letters which scolded for non-payment or were sent with loan coupons, letters which were blank on one side and perfect for me to write stories on.
I recall checking the Encyclopedia Brittanica at one house, probably when I was no older than 9 or 10, looking up information about the solar system, and writing stories on the old bank paper about Nereid, as my mom cleaned the house.
These are the two fragments. Based on the references to choosing school courses, French and handwriting–which is legible (to me, at least, because it’s mine), in cursive, and full of strange little variants I had developed to make my handwriting pretty and interesting, unlike everybody else’s cursive–I must have been 12 when I wrote the first one.
I believe “earliest Hebrew” was chosen because I thought that Adam and Eve must have spoken this. I was a very religious child, raised in the Nazarene Church, with no smoking, dancing or drinking, and with a premillennial dispensationalist, creationist theology:
Chapter 1
The Sun was the name given to all the suns, girl or boy, firstborn, middleborn or lastborn, or origin. It was in the language of the most important planet’s inhabitants, of course, because that was the language of the solar system.
If the important planet’s inhabitants spoke more than one language, the first language ever given, or the majority languages, were given; but they all could speak all the languages in the universe!
But this particular system spoke earliest Hebrew; and so their words had to be written in English in this book. Besides, I don’t know earliest Hebrew.
Each sun was created by God and put in the care of the galaxy ruler. This galaxy was the Milky Way.
Our sun was, of course, named The Sun; she was a girl with brown curls for hair. When she was three years old she had to begin her training.
First she had to know what kind of star she was. The galaxy ruler, or garu, took a small, metallic object with a scale and put it on The Sun’s head. The scale had three points–Large, Middle-Sized and Small. The scale moved and the arrow pointed to “Middle-Sized.” Under each point was a number, and under The Sun’s point was the number “8.” That meant, when she was eight she’d stop growing.
She was given a textbook and, when she learned to read all words, she read the book whenever assigned in her school. It was written in the fastest-writing and -reading language in the universe–Sheeshu.
The school near the middle of the galaxy for Milky-Way Students was a space station orbiting a substitute sun. The Sun got there by riding a bullet-shaped capsule, and lived in the room she was assigned to. Now let me tell you about her first ractul, or seven days (to her each day was 30 hours, school time):
The first day was exciting and unsure and unsettled. The Sun had to be given a school name, Misa. That was because every sun there had the same name! The language was Milky Wayan, and “Misa” meant “sun on the edge of the galaxy.”
“Misa” landed in a large room with asteroid-workers everywhere. Some of them helped her get out, and her bag of clothes and oral hygiene supplies were put on a cart that moved along a metal track leading to the office. When the cart came back, The Sun got on it, but near the office it turned on a fork and went into the office door. The baggage had gone into a smaller door on the side of the room.
The Sun got up and stood at the desk. The secretary asked her questions, and this form was filled out:
school name: ___________ from what galaxy? Milky Way what part? very edge name of system Solar System home room no.: 123 age: 3 years type: Middle-Sized age to stop: 8 meaning of school name: ________
“So you’re a misa,” said the secretary, and wrote next to the words “school name:” “Misa,” and put its meaning in the blank for it.
“Your school name is ‘Misa.’ Here’s your form, and you have to fill out this paper.” The secretary put a black paper and yellow pencil in front of her and told her to choose her classes.
“I can’t read this; I haven’t been taught!”
“Oh, yes; I forgot! Now here’re your required courses:
“Math; Spelling; Writing; Reading; Universal Science and Universal Studies.” She told the same thing to the computer, which typed everything she said. “Now your courses to choose from are Home-ec, which prepares you to be a Sun;–”
“I’ll take that.”
“–Singing; Art; Gym; Educational Games and Job Study, which tells you better about all the jobs in the universe. Everybody seems to like to take the last one; I’d advise it. Choose two of those for this seven weeks.”
“Um–Job Study and–Singing.”
“Okay. Uh–Computer, type in ‘Job Study and Singing.'” The tiny screen of the computer got three more words on it. It had a keyboard, but that was only used when necessary. A switch was flipped and the computer was able to understand voice commands. [Here is a picture of a computer which looks like your typical 1985 computer.]
“Computer–shuffle around.” The computer mixed around the subjects and they turned out like this–Reading, Writing, Spelling, Universal Science, Math, Universal Studies, Singing and Job Study.
Then she said, “Computer, add times.” The screen showed:
When the computer had printed in yellow on a black piece of paper, the secretary tore it…
[next three pages are missing]
…were trying to figure it out. “In Sheeshu,” she said, “the letter stands for the sound ‘kuh.'”
“‘Kuh’ is no number.”
“Oh–numbers! Then the letter could be ‘8’! Do you have a room number with that number in it?”
“I don’t remember. I think so.”
“Check the room number ‘128’!”
So they walked over to room 128, both dragging their luggage with them. Misa knocked on the door, and a man opened it; they shoved the paper toward him and asked if there were any 8’s in the room number.
“No,” he said; “but your room number is 123. Must be one of you reads Sheeshu to know this is 128! Well, go to room 123; that’s your homeroom number!”
“Dut dut!” Sheesheetu called, which meant several things–this time, “Good-bye” and “Thank you” at the same time.
They looked for room 123, with Sheesheetu reading the Sheeshu numbers.They came to a room numbered: [marks resembling 118] which didn’t match the sheet, which said: [marks resembling 11S] but it was “123” in Sheeshu. They knocked, and the woman named “Mrs. Mara,” who spoke Misan especially, answered. Lucky for them, they found their room, because after half an hour it was already nearing 8:00!
Mrs. Mara had told them to put their things in the corner of the room where others had put their own, and take out the following materials from their own luggage–textbook, pencil, pen, paper–and go to their desk. Written in Sheeshu, the placecards were easy for Sheesheetu to read.
The others were shopping around with their eyes on the fifth floor, and should be back pretty soon.
When it was 8:01 and everyone was back in their seats, they were told to open their books to the part labeled (it was written on the board): [Sheeshu writing] It was the sixth section. [scribbles meant to represent Sheeshu writing]
They were taught a few paragraphs from the first section, each sentence written differently but meaning the same. For example: [sentences in French, English and Sheeshu]
Each book was large and written in small letters. This was so all languages in the entire universe that ever was and ever would be would fit on a quarter of the page!
These, if you’re interested, were the Sheeshu sentences for the two sentences described in four languages:
[English-based letters]
They would be pronounced: Kuh-ee olg kuh-eye bhft. Kuh-ee gol kuh-eye bum.
Sheesheetu, of course, had no problem reading those Sheeshu sentences!
Mrs. Mara was especially interested in Misa, because they both spoke Misan (most ancient Hebrew) as official languages. She was concerned she couldn’t read her own language, and the rest of the class could! So, she wrote on the board: [scribbles representing Misan writing]
That was the way it was written at the time. Then it was written the way Earthlings would someday write it.
By 9:20 everyone in the class could read a paragraph from every single language ever! They took their book, paper, pencil and pen to whatever their next class would be (except for those who stayed in the same class, of course!).
Misa and Sheesheetu had Mrs. CShCeer (KUSH-keer) next, rm. 124, Sheeshu-speaker, for Writing. Sheesheetu was her favorite student because they both spoke and read the same language.
That day they practiced making all lines and rounded lines.
Next for Misa was Mr. CShCeer; for Sheesheetu his wife, Mrs. CShCeer. In that class the lesson was on spelling rules for Sheeshu, which was mostly used in the TB and was important to know.
At 12:10 was lunch. Mr. CShCeer took his class to lunch.
There was a lunchroom on every floor; for the fifth floor, it was a real good restaurant that costs the cheapest monetary unit for all–the raktuluh–for each meal. There was a real rich sun named Tuka (“rich sun on side of galaxy”) who liked to insist on using a sun-chip (the highest monetary unit of all), so eventually all meals were free.
Everyone ate in the small lunchroom for Mr. CShCeer’s class until 12:15, the time to start the next class. Then they were all to go to the room for their next teacher’s class. Misa couldn’t understand.
She went up to Mr. CShCeer with her shere in her hands, holding it by its two handles. “I don’t know where to go,” she said. “I don’t have my schedule with me.”
This was an experience! Misa could be late to class! And how’d she know where to go?
She met up with Sheesheetu, who was going to the lunchroom reserved for Mrs. SunCeer’s class.
“Well, let’s see if you belong in my class,” she said, leading her away.
The sphere-tray was a shere colored different colors each with two handles on its sides to carry it. It was split down the middle, and you opened it and flattened it down, and the food and everything was put in attached boxes all over the tray. Milk and silverware was also put there.
It was finally 3:00! Everyone returned to HR (homeroom), but for a bit it wasn’t exactly like home because:
For one thing, everyone had half an hour to finish homework because with those just going to school it’s not easy to get a lot of homework!
For Misa, there was no homework until Universal Science. All that was was finding the distance a certain bawling ball (slight version of “bowling ball”) would roll until it hit the gitter (gutter). (With this study, it’s no wonder those schools turn out so many good heavenly body-bawlers!)
In Math, Misa had ten simple-simple! addition problems; for Universal Studies just to read about what different jobs there are in their galaxy; and in Job Study, to read and answer five questions about the Asteroid Patrol.
All answers were written in either pen or pencil in the book.
At 3:30, Mrs. Mara asked if everyone was done with their homework, which they were, and then took them to the rec floor–the fifth floor. Everyone was put into the large elevator to go upstairs. The doors were opened by a push of a button, and closed the same way.
The bawling alley was something like a bowling alley; mechanical setting of pins, ball returns; but lines marked where the gitters were.
At 5:30 they all filed into the free, mall restaurant in the south wing.
[Schedule:] 30 hours 10 hours of sleep 9 hours of after school therefore, 10 hours of school
8:00AM-3:00PM–school 3:00PM-12:00AM–after school 12:00AM-7:00AM–10 hours of sleep [sic]
3-3:30–homework 3:30-5:30–bawling 5:30-7:30 (at the latest)–dinner 7:30-9:30–shop or browse at mall (at 7:30 give allowance) 9:30-10:30–free time 10:30-11:30–bosketball (basketball) 11:30-12:00–free time ***END***
The following is a fragment depicting Keith’s adventures on Mouseooine, where he, like the natives, dressed in a mouse costume. It was probably written when I was about 10. I think they had to hide that they were Earthlings, and pretend to be from Mouseooine, probably so they wouldn’t get killed:
…”Hysterical, not histerical, isn’t it, Gary?” corrected Trera.
“Well, I say it histerical,” remarked Gary. So both pulled until Mike was up. She had forgotten the buttons, so she pushed the top and bottom ones, then stepped very cautiously unto the stand. The crocodiles swam away, clicking their snouts angrily, a good dinner lost. **** “Yes, King Zrooine, is who we want to see.”
“We?” the messenger puzzled, then saw the four children. “Yes.”
After hearing that, King Zrooine, a 12-year-old, asked 10-year-old Princess Zango (zayng’go), “Zango, should we send my messenger or you to tell Keith to come here?”
“Keith?” Then Zango glanced at the waiters, then replied, “If it’s so; me.”
“Then you shall be it.” So Zango walked over to them, and jumped at the sight.
“Huh? I thought only you were here, Keith! Who are these people? I never saw them before! Oh, well; King says you may go to him.”
So Keith came and kneeled, the employees following. “Do we have to kneel on one knee?” asked Mike, reluctantly.
“No; you’re not the one presenting the employees!” answered Keith, whispering but snappishly.
“So; Keith; I see you brought four boys with you. What do you want?…Speak! Don’t wait when I tell you to answer!”
“Oh…These four boys here want royal jobs. Uh…Uh…”
“Mike Grindstone,” prompted Mike. “Pilot.”
“Mike Grindstone, here, wants to be pilot,” replied Keith.
“I heard,” said King Zrooine.
“Uh…Uh…,” Keith fumbled.
“Tom Sanders,” prompted Tom. “Gun-maker.”
“Gary Lang,” said Gary. “Navigator.”
“Trera Baker,” said Trera. “Co-pilot.”
[missing pages]
“Yes.”
“And so did Gary and Tom. So come with me to the King.”
They followed, and the King said, “So? Did all pass?”
“Yea,” answered Keith.
“And so, Keith, take them to their next stations,” said Zrooine.
“Yes, sir,” replied Keith. So he took Mike and Trera to their starcruiser, Gary to her [sic] navigating test, and Tom to her [sic] gun-checking point.
On the way to the star cruiser, Mike asked, “Now what’s the name of this star cruiser?”
Keith put his arms out and cried, What do you care about the name? It’s just a test!” There, he said, “Now, Mike, you’re the pilot; climb up the co-pilot’s ladder, and stand by the controls. Trera, you are the co-pilot, sit there. I’ll be a passenger.”
So Mike climbed up the co-pilot’s ladder, Trera after her. She stood by the controls, Trera held fast to the controls by her, and Keith sat in the first passenger seat.
Mike pushed a top button, a bottom button, a middle button, and a button for medium. Then she gave a signal by pounding the controls on top to Trera, and the ship went up.
Then, when they were down, Keith said, “So, that’s all?”
“Keith!” cried Mike. “What if I’m forced to be co-pilot?”
“And I’m the only person on the ship?”
“Oh, all right.” So the test went in reverse.
Keith brought them to another ship, after Mike slid down her controls, and had them drive that. Trera went in, and Mike and Keith on top.
At Gary’s place, she navigated correct, at Tom’s, her guns were correctly checked.
On their way to Zrooine’s palace, Gary said, “Sand people there–or worse! Hurry!” as a joke.
“So!” said Mike. “You saw Star Wars on Earth, huh?”
“On Earth?” said Keith. “Oh, yeah.”
Trera whispered to Mike, “You dummy! You’ll get us into trouble by-‘n’-by!”
***END FRAGMENT***
When I was twelve and in seventh grade, I wrote a story about Earthlings going to live on Mars. I used my already-established universe of living heavenly bodies, in this story.
The people were in some vehicles which were suddenly lifted into the air and put on Mars; they could hear around them:
“Yes, Mars, my girl, put them on you and they can live! Trust me, I know these things!”
“Aw, but Nereid, I wanted them to be enlarged by the Sun’s sun-hat and let them live like that while I pray of God that he change my obliquity to 30 degrees and I prepare the air around me!”
“I’m Nereid, Neptune’s moon! Would I ever steer you wrong?!”
“Well, you sure seem to steer yourself wrong a lot in that you never seem to stick with Neptune and/or Triton!”
“Yeah, well, Earth always steers me right again! I go to him for his superior advice!”
“Ya know, I think you have a crush on him!”
“I have for the last thousand years had a crush on him!”
“Then it isn’t a crush or infatuation, it’s love! Go after the boy! He’s God’s pick for you!”
“But I’m shy!”
“Well, then, it’s simple! Earth doesn’t like you yet, but what you do is go on that planet-moon picnic with him next picnic day! Have you noticed? You two have been paired on the schedule! Impress him; act sweet and nicely yourself! When he’s started to notice you, write a note a week later and put it in his mailbox–ask him to go with you! Simple as all that! Remember, I caught the tenth planet, Ihfundit, that way, about three of Venus’ years ago, and notice we’ve been married a year so far!”
That gave hope to the one voice, Nereid, as she said:
“See me married to Earth in two Mercury years–176 Earth-days! For Earth, less than a year!”
Then it sounded like someone was walking away on metal. Then the person came back, saying: “Oh! I forgot! Give this to the Earthlings! Open your hand!”
“No; they’ll die if I do!”
“Then move a finger a little! Now, you wouldn’t want those Earthlings to become Marslings just yet until they have their explanation! Here, lings!” And something black fell what seemed out of the space there. Then the walking-on-metal was heard again.
Someone got the paper, which was written on in white chalk. It must be whoever wrote it knew how to write American or something, because that’s how the words were written. The person, Cyndy Ferraro, read out loud and very loudly so all could hear:
You lings obviously are wondering what’s happening here, so I’ll tell you. You see, to someone small like you, the universe looks as you imagine it. But grow to our size, and you can see the planets as people.
We used to call each other our own name, but your names for us are so nice we call each other by your names for us.
Well, you know Mars is barren. Earth isn’t. Mars saw you on Earth and asked God what you were up to.
When she found out, she asked God for permission to get you from Earth and be her own lings, which Earth allowed. You can’t see us, but Mars had to put you in her hands to keep you safe.
When you’re put on Mars’ head you can build even spaceships if you want! If you wonder how I know, that red planet told me.
Neptune’s moon besides Triton, Nereid.
A scientific breakthrough! The planets obviously were alive, though drilling like for oil or digging or such didn’t hurt them!
They were now free from planetary laws, but not from human laws, so the Bibles, until the Judgement, would always be studied. Well, now it was 70 degrees on Mars’ equator, and everyone was put on the equator.
They found a pile of boxes, labeled in Sheeshu (a fast-writing and saying language in space), and on top was a booklet of instructions written by the planet and translated by the moon. It told everyone about the money in the boxes, sun-chips and star-chips.
It was easy to collect in space–asteroid workers were always producing the money and sending it into space to just float around.
The universal money was also used as food and building materials, and such as that.
(Oh, if I forgot to tell you; the lings were given oxo-hats, hats that fasten to the neck with a drawstring, and have two “antlers” on the top to convert air with plant-like mechanisms in the balls.
(It was also explained how to make more of this, besides how to build a “sunbuilding” (building made out of sun-chips) in an hour because in about 90 minutes the temperature would start to drop to dangerous temperatures.
(When it was read how long they had, everyone who could, started immediately to build!)
***END***
On August 29, 1986, when just starting eighth grade, I had to write sentences to go along with vocabulary words. I wrote:
2. Citizens of Mouseooine were noted for their steady practice of deceit when it came to the moons and planets.
6. Mouseooinelings capturing moons and/or planets was a frequent happening. [This explains why Nereid kept ending up there with Keith.]
19. The moon finally had triumph over the planet Mouseooine.
