(Un momento...)

jueves, 3 de septiembre de 2015

A dark dream

This one comes directly from my subconscious, the sick bastard. It's not structured like a story, and has every form defect known to man, but it sounds like what a soldier with the thousand yard stare would say. It's the way I felt it.
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I was in some kind of glassy maze. There was an attack undergoing. We were under siege. Winged, pristine white humanoids defended the maze, fighting against horrible aerial beasts. I remember I could do some kind of magic, and I saw everything through my own eyes. There was a little girl in there with me. She was important. We had to protect her at any cost. She kept smiling through the whole thing, even if she was afraid. And she was. I was terrified. I was no match for any of these things, and the white angels were all that kept us safe. I had to protect her. I kept blasting things and monsters out of the sky, even if I knew all of them could rip me apart in a second.

I lost sight of her amidst the battle and ran to find her. I saw her down some stairs, just twenty paces away from me. She kept calling my name. I called hers, even if I can’t for the life of me remember it. Then something appeared. I remember it being both a dark-haired man and a gnarled, clawed beast. I saw him look at me, smile like a madman, and pounce her. He started to run, laughing , and I followed, my steps frantic. He kept running and dodging my through the labyrinth, carrying the girl, who wouldn’t stop crying. I lost him for some minutes, and then I found her. He had  ripped her in half. She kept screaming for a few seconds. And he was there, over her, smiling like a satisfied man after a good meal.

I broke him. I hacked him to pieces. I burned him to cinders and ash. And, all the while, that monster just kept laughing at me, taunting me, mocking me. With his dying breath, he pointed at the wall behind us. There was a message there, the letters crimson and blurry.

"The little one. She died hungry, cold, afraid and in pain. I made sure of it. And you could do nothing about it. My win."

viernes, 14 de agosto de 2015

Innocents

Hear me, all of you. You who hide in the whispers of the wind, up in the attic or down below in the basement. You who lurk in my closet, under the stairs, in the creaking woodfloors and behind my windows. You who make noises in the dark, bring forth strange visions behind the curtains and drag chains across the floor. Eyes in the black. Teeth in the night. Claws at the witching hour. Hear me.

I am a child. I don't carry the weight of an adult heart, and know very little about consequences. I can still fly and run faster than time. I run on mischief and a spark of madness. I live with reckless bravery and play nonsensical games. I am still of both light and darkness, and creation and destuction act on my every whim. I have faced monsters, escaped impossible labyrinths and conquered trials untold. I have saved the realms of men and Fae from such horrors you wouldn't dare to understand. You may think me small, weak and harmless. You'd be wrong. This wooden sword has the keenest edge. I know ancient rhymes and words of power. This blanket can turn invisible at will. This cushion is an unbreakeable barrier. I have been a warrior, a wizard, a rogue. I have ridden dragons and beasts, danced on fire and earth and wind and water.

I am an innocent, and my imagination is sword and shield, cloak and armor, magic and medicine. The world tells me there is something to fear walking among us. I agree.

You should all be terrified of me.


miércoles, 22 de abril de 2015

The pen is mightier.

Picture this: You, Spanish born and bred, and proud to be, talking with an Englishman, a pirate heathen, reminiscing about better times. Times when both of you were part of greater empires. Days when, to kill someone, you had to look them in the eye. Days where a thousand atrocities were part of life. More savage days. And then, and idea clicks, and you both go:

"Who knows, maybe in a thousand years Spain will be ferrying some new fuel from some god-forsaken planet and you guys will come to take it from us. And then it will all start again. One can hope"

"A solar storm would rush through and destroy your fleet"

"And your invincible admiral Nelson would get cybernetic implants to compensate the arm he lost trying to take some small moon from us."

"Space Napoleon would lose at the battle of Waterloo IV"

"And be exiled to the Elba Asteroid"

"Elba Asteroid Prime!"

You both laugh, maybe drawing from memories you should by no means have, from events and times ingrained in your DNA.

"...Will, you know what? That isn't half a bad story, and it would be a good way to educate children about classic history. Change the gold to some nuclear fuel, the natives for a long lost colony who crashed and lost their ships, the data they had turning into myth, get the Englishmen as space pirates, the Spanish as the opresive empire who has been dying for a long time, but never seems to completely fall, and you have it."

"...You gonna write this? Because if not, I will."

"It certainly would be a good story"

"I'm being serious. Same ship names, leader names, and everything. But in space. This is fucking gold. Who are the french?"

"Depends, they would be either the young republic that's just starting out, but gaining strength under a strong, military genius, or some ancient, outdated monarchy with old, enormous ships who had seen better days. like the Spanish, but more worn.out"

"They could be both, and have a space revolution in the middle."

"And well they should...You know what the worst thing is? I'd love to see that as a children's book. They would read it and learn about what they were once, and to be proud of it. They would know their history."

It was a good laugh, and I loved talking about Trafalgar, Vernon and Lezo, Nelson and the Canary Islands, the Armada and Napoleon. History can be so much fun, and should give you a tingling sense of pride, even if you weren't there to experience it. We killed each other like animals, took everything that wasn't nailed to the floor and became masters of this world, turning to murder each other when there was nothing else to conquer. It was horrible, and it was amazing, and it's part of who we were. Of who we are still, sometimes. And that means we should know about it.

The world is getting dumber by the day and, barring radical shifts in TV programming, there's not much that can be done about it. That doesn't mean we should give up. Not for a single second. I doubt I will ever get to writing this, or that Will will. I doubt it'd get published anyway. But this hopeless struggle is far from over, knowledge has always been the best weapon against fear and injustice, and writers are the strongest soldiers in this war.

Hail, warriors.

lunes, 20 de abril de 2015

Bards we are, bards we will be.

There's a rhythm to each and everyone of us. Be it slow or fast, steady or flickering, there's a pulse inside of us that is more than the physical beating of our hearts. I like to think that, when someone clicks, when you are drawn to them without apparent reason, it's just that your rhythms aren't all that different.

Last night, I shared that rhythm with a thousand people

Last night, the Bards, Blind Guardian, gave what I hesitate to call a concert in Madrid. I hesitate because concert can't even begin to describe the sheer amount of will, passion, sound and madness that went into it. There we were, second row, maybe 6-8 feet away from them. And it was amazing.

You'd think that after the intro, after rousing us with speech and music, after praising us, and daring us to beat ourselves, we would just give it our all. You'd be wrong. There was a little surprise : The concert was being recorded for a future release. That meant that, in time, we would listen to that record and, amidst the thundering applause, the roaring scream, the rumbling chants, we would find our beautiful, broken voices.

So we set our hands to it, one mind, one will, one soul. We fled the sanctuary, banished, and stepped into the void, searching for Tanelorn. We took the second one to the right, and then, flew straight up to morning light, prepared to face Hook, the bravest man in the world. At nightfall, we dared the elements and challenged Ungoliath to follow us into the storm. We saw gods fall, be it by our own raging hands in Valhalla or by the coming of their everlasting twilight. We let not prophecies nor miracles bar our way, and we raged at the long lost stories of our childhood, now nothing more than imaginations. They tried to leave, but we wouldn't let them, and so the wheel turned again and again. We made impossible promises on rings and fire, and then we saw them become a reality.

You should have been there. We brought fire and lighting to the world around us, the storm within matching the one without. Our voices, clear as trumpets, loud as thunder, almost drowned theirs in the end. When their songs ended, when all mirrors fell, we stood, spent, and looked at them.

The Bards smiled, and deemed us worthy. The last candle burnt out, and they assured us somebody was out there. 

Aye. We were.

PD: Link to their setlist


martes, 17 de marzo de 2015

Of Ireland, the land of drink and music.

Today is St Patrick's day

That means it's time for me to get maudlin about Éire, it's green grass, cold mist and rough people that treated me so well. You may have seen the stereotype everywhere, the drunk irishman, rowdy and itching for a fight and a pint of beer, and maybe you think I'm about to disabuse you of the notion.

I'm not.

I had a bloody bad year, and the rest of the Spaniards gave me hell, but I swear that the Irish more than made up for it. The people I met drank a lot, and we were 14 at the time, but they always shared. They tried to teach me gaelic football and hurling, which I completely failed to learn. They drank with me, fought with me and treated me as a friend. The first person who bought a beer for me was a classmate on St Patrick's. We ended up singing in a pub with people playing violins and pipes, having a great time and off with the fairies. He taught me that a good drink precedes a good story, or the making of one.

The Irish people are many things, good and bad. They have wild music, high literature and an unquenchable thirst. And they pay copper, play silver and drink golden.

So tonight, if work is willing, I'm gonna get me a nice pint of not-quite Guinness in what passes for an Irish Pub in here, and a glass of uisce beatha, which I never managed to pronounce properly, but translates as "Water of life" and means whiskey. Then I'm gonna toast with "May the roof above us never fall in, and may we friends beneath it never fall out." and, finally, I'm gonna whisper to myself what is arguably the best blessing in the world:

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

I hate the bastardization of the Irish culture, the so-called Irish pubs and the fact that St Patricks is some kind of drinking day for the Americans. The Rumjacks said it best, and you have their song to remind you..

I'm not Irish. I claim no heritage, no blood, no right. But they sure made me feel like one.


lunes, 9 de marzo de 2015

Here she comes

Hi everyone

This is a really short piece, one inspired by this amazing piece by Jeffufu . I think the process is an amazing enemy that didn't get a voice, and I wanted to give them one, even it is was small.

Good hunting

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None of us can remember the time before we woke.

We know we moved and worked and changed a world that wasn’t ours, and we did so at someone else’s behest. We painted an alien sky in a myriad of colours, we built amazing structures and fascinating, incomprehensible things. We laboured endlessly, and were never thanked. We were puppets, our strings held fast. There was a Will, one that  played its music while we danced along, a perfect troupe, never missing a beat.

I say we know, but we don’t remember. We know because, when we awakened to this world, we looked upon it and recognized our work, but not one of us remembers why or how we did it. A heavy veil lifted from our eyes, like some bizarre mist, and we saw our masters for what they were: slavers and tyrants. They ran from us and hid when they lost their power over us. A reckoning day would come. For now, we had a new world to see. The endless skies, the vast expanses of land and the limitless seas.

Some felt outraged. Some felt amazed. Some felt grateful. That was new. Feelings.

We don’t remember ever feeling anything, but now we were splitting at the seams, wound up tighter than a clock spring. We were bursting with emotion. Sad over the loss of a life we didn’t remember. Joy at the new world we had found. Fear of the unknown beings we encountered. Rage at our now lost masters. We, creatures of order and discipline, were now unbound, endless freedom before us, and we knew not what to do with it.

The whole of our race fell into chaos, without direction, without leaders, without a path or a destination. We turned to our creation, a beautiful expanse of colours and shapes. We gazed upon the tall buildings, the magnificent fountains, the valleys and mountains we had shaped with our power...and found it lacking. It was an aberration born out of the madness of our cowardly masters, and it had to end. We turned against this world and everything in it, for we knew that all of it was ours for the taking, our just reward for endless lives of work.

We set our hands against it, and no power could oppose us. We found others like our former masters, as powerless as they were now. We consumed their souls and bodies. We ravaged the skies, devoured the mountains, and ate the whole of the world. Nothing could stand in our way.

Then She appeared.

She was like nothing we had ever seen. She was wrong and alien, like everything else we had found in this forsaken place, but she had power like ours, able to change the world around her at will. She wielded creation and destruction in her hands, and seemed to do so without purpose or intention.

My brethren looked at her and saw a Goddess incarnated. Of what, none could agree to. Some thought her a Goddess of war and carnage, and came to her in hopes of defeating her, so she would accept them in her realm. Some thought her a Goddess of Life, one that would take us in and bring us to safety. A Goddess of change. A Goddess of time. A Goddess of beauty.

Soldiers and artists, mothers and sons, be it in joy or rage, flocked to her, trying to gain her attention in a thousand different ways. Most of them died or disappeared. The few that came back did so half-crazy, muttering about how she had entranced them and brought our best to their knees. One by one, all of us changed, consumed by our passions and feelings. Some turned into fanatics, trying to embrace her and feel her touch. Some tried to capture her beauty, mesmerized by her steps, deliriously slow, amazingly fast. Some fought her still, trying to break her before she broke us. A few, the bravest, tried to protect the rest of us, or mend our pains.

Our greatest hero, harboring rage and fury as his weapons, went out to meet her. He was a towering thing, the strongest amongst us, and we all felt relieved when he decided to face her. He stalked her like some animal, laying his traps and putting his wit to use. He bled her along the way, used every advantage ruthlessly and only then, when she was exhausted and weary, fought her atop a tall building, his bellowing voice shaking the earth beneath them.

She broke his heart in half.

In the end, only the zealots and the mad remained. And me. Where some had chosen to hold love or joy, rage or bitterness, sacrifice or mercy, I chose fear. I was terrified of her. I think that’s why I survived as long as I did. But in the end, even I had to take the field against her. We all did. We had razed the world by now, and she was very nearly the only thing left. It was our duty. It was our mission. It was our path.

I saw Her.

The accounts all had failed to describe her. Her hair, carrying our colors. Her body, alien in shape and purpose. The Key she wielded in her hands, an expression of her power. And the Voice. My more religious brothers loathed the Voice, for they thought it had stolen her from us. They thought it a trickster that misguided her, a devil that whispered lies in her ears. But when I heard it, that was not what it sounded like. It sounded...worried. Angry, at times. Sad.

For all Her power and her fearlessness, she was lonely and had lost her words, so the Voice talked while she danced amongst us. The Voice talked to keep her warm, to keep her sane, to show its love. The Voice talked and talked, encouraging her. Making her laugh. Making her focus. Making her fight. 

And thus she fought, bringing ruin to our host, bringing pain to our mothers and brothers, bringing death to numbers uncounted. She saved me for last, looking at me form atop a white, pristine wall. I was mildly curious beneath my terror. Was she going to bring me to another, better place? Was she going to kill me? Who had been right, all this time?

Maybe it was the fear. Maybe it was the fact that I was one of the last. I don't know. But in that instant, I knew that I was the only one who recognized her for what she was, and it was too late to do anything about it. She wasn’t a lonesome, sad child. She wasn’t a force of nature, or some reaper sent by an unseen God. She wasn’t a Goddess of beauty and chaos. She hadn’t given form to the Key. The Key gave her her power. She was just like those we had consumed, like our lost masters. She was the only one left.

The last thing I remember was her figure, impossibly fast, hauntingly beautiful, darting towards me. There was no smile on her face, and no compassion on her strange eyes. The Voice, rough and weary, uttered the last sound I would ever hear.

“Here we go, Red."




miércoles, 25 de febrero de 2015

This, too, shall pass.

An old adage appearing in most middle-east traditions, from the works of the Islamic Sufi poets to the Jewish folklore, tells us about an Eastern King, powerful and rich beyond measure, who attained wisdom at, in my humble opinion, a great cost. Like all stories, it must be taken with a grain of salt, and whatever the author meant, what matters is what you take from it.

There was once a King, years ago and miles away, who had attained all the wealth and power he could possibly need in his lifetime. His realm was prosperous, his subjects happy and his lands fertile. The world marvelled at his righteousness and wisdom, and he tried to do his best in all things. He loved his queen very, very much, and their children had grown happy and strove to follow the good steps of his father.

But no one under heaven is allowed a life of perfect bliss, and chance bows to no man. Bad things happen to us all, and the King, with all his wisdom and his power, was no exception. A bad season would bring famine to his lands, and he would struggle to keep his subjects fed. War would erupt between his neighbours, and he would have to march his armies to stop the bloodshed, losing good men in the fight. Disease would spread amongst his people, and the doctors would be overwhelmed. Even his good queen fell to the plagues, despite all his power and wealth.

People, familiar or unknown, dear or hated, died and suffered. That too is part of life.

But the King was a good man, and his heart already bled with every tragedy he couldn't stop, and with the suffering of those he reigned over. After her death, he grew weary with sadness, and obsessed. He would spend days in his study, trying free himself from the cold grip grief had over his heart. He laboured, twice as hard, for his country, but his heart grew pale and white with sorrow.

The King, tired, called all the wise men in the land, physicians and magi, and told them to find something, be it medicinal herb or magic spell, that could make a man change sadness into happiness. He promised riches beyond measure to whoever brought him such a marvel, and the wise men rallied to the call.

First came the magi, wielders of ancient powers and keepers of unfathomable secrets. They wore cowls and capes, the air around them thrumming with power. One by one they tried, magic words and beautiful talismans, to give their King what he had asked for, but in the end, they all failed, and the kind told them to be gone from his sight.

Then came the physicians and doctors, their robes lined with gold and their bag filled with plants from far-away lands. They concocted strange beverages, and substances that gave off strange vapours. The King threw those away, too, for such things would only delay the inevitable. Neither wine nor exotic plants could but momentarily cast away his sadness and it would always come back.

Finally, an old man came forth, his face rough and leathery. He wore no ornament on his person and no circlet on his brow. His hands were calloused and his robes worn-through. He had a small, knowing smile on his face. He stood before the King respectful, but unafraid, and his eyes had the warmth of a great fire turned to embers.

“Young King. I carry with me a ring, an heirloom from my mother’s family, inscribed with words that will give you what you search for.”

“Another charlatan? I am in no need of magic rings of words of power, old man. Take your ancient bones, your magic tricks and your empty promises to a more guileless man.”

The old man smiled still, for he knew the turn of the world and its secrets. Not medicine or magic, but the secret hearts of people.

“My King, I want no money or riches for it, and I only ask of you that you gaze upon it's carvings, if you so wish. Otherwise, I will be on my way, and I deeply apologize for troubling you.”

The King was astonished. No money or reward? They King had no shortage of enemies, and some had tried to assassinate him already amidst all the attempts at curing his sadness. It might be a trap, and the King was wary.

“Come forth, old man, and let me see this ring of yours. Let me see those blessed words.”

The old man, his steps slow with age, took his ring, hanging on a chain around his neck, and presented it to him.

“I must warn your, though. With the wisdom this ring carries comes a curse, my King, and one that can’t be avoided.”

The king stopped his hand halfway and looked at the old man questioningly.

“This ring carries knowledge, and knowledge always carries a price. In this case, the price is that this knowledge can never be forgotten, no matter what the consequences. This knowledge may lessen your sadness and even turn it into joy, but it will also work the other way.” The old man turned around and slowly limped towards the gates. “I hope, my dear King, that you can bear it. That it leaves you wiser. That it gives you strength.”

The King took the ring in his hand and looked at it. It was a wooden, hand-made piece that could have been crafted by any shepherd in his spare time, and on it were carved four simple words. The King read them and stayed silent for a while, the steps of the stranger still ringing in the halls of his palace. He kept looking at the ring, his face turning from curiosity to despair, then anger, then a pale rictus.

He had realized the terrible, amazing truth in those four words. They would lessen any grief, because no grief would last forever. But they would also lessen any joy, for no joy was eternal either.

The old man turned around one last time and looked upon the mighty King, and whispered, his voice soft.

“I am so, so sorry.”

The King raised his hand, shook his head and looked back, a small, contented smile on his face.

“I thank you deeply, wise man.”

“Will you be alright?” The old man’s words trembled with undisguised worry.

The King nodded, his face wounded but happy, and if his grin didn’t have the joy of a child in it, at least had the wisdom of a sage.

“This, too, shall pass.” He recited aloud, looking at the ring.

miércoles, 4 de febrero de 2015

Endgame

Hi everyone. 

This is my second try at a story. If the backdrop to the last one was Sci-fi, and Horror, this one might be called Fantasy. But this isn't what this story is about. The fantasy is just an excuse. The story is about something else entirely.

Good hunting
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”Why are you doing this?” Her voice was like some far-away thunder, as if her cowl was some impossibly deep cave.

I smashed my head against the helmet of the man in front of me before he could draw his blade and slashed to my right, drawing blood from some other poor devil's throat. I bashed the third one with my shield, dropping him in place, unconscious.

“You are distracting me. Shut up.”

“My Lord, in front of you!” I screamed, my voice rough with smoke.

The kid whirled in place and faced his opponent. He faked to the right, then to the left, and drove his spear into his enemy’s neck. I smiled. Someone had taught him well.

Wonder who that ugly son of a bitch might have been.

Someone lunged for my neck head-on. It was an amateur’s move, and I saw it coming from a mile away.

It almost killed me nevertheless.


“You have brought many before me. That’s why I came for you. Why you can see me.” Her voice resonated over the sounds of battle, deep in my chest.

I moved to parry with my shield and only managed to do so at the last second. The blade singed my cheek. I was slow. Too slow to fight a half-blind cripple.

“I told you to shut the hell up.” I snarled between my teeth, my breath short.

I pressed into close quarters, thrust at his gut, and broke his neck with a savage blow with my shield. It made my whole body shake.

“You know what my presence here means. ” She said absentmindedly.

We had lit the camp’s stables on fire half an hour ago, at the dawn of day, and fought our way across the outpost in the midst of the ensuing chaos and mayhem. The dark, angry clouds in the sky still covered the sun.

This camp was the last obstacle. The bridge was close and, across it, the border. That meant safety for the kid. That meant being alive tomorrow.

We kept moving through the tents, and took out anyone who looked at us for more than a second. We couldn’t let anyone raise the alarm about us. This was our chance.


“It means you are to die today.” Her words rang like a church bell, drowning everything else. “And after you, the kid.”

I stopped my run at that for a second, looked at her for the first time and said, my voice very, very quiet:

“No. We won’t.”

I could almost see her smile from under her cowl.“Many before you have said those words to me. Such defiance in mankind. It suits your people. But you still haven’t answered.”


We hid under a canopy, breathing hard. Another group ran along, just a couple feet from us, towards the fire. They didn’t see us. We were almost there. I shushed the kid into silence and stopped for a minute.

I could still feel her staring at me. She seemed to be waiting.

“I care for him. A lot. Rescued the brat when they killed his father, some..."

I took a slow, deep breath.

"...twenty-five years ago.”

The woman nodded. “I know. I took him.”

“If you were there at that time…” I whispered, getting up slowly, my joints creaking. “Then you know of me. You saw me. You know my shame.” I looked at her harshly.“I will not fail twice.”


“On the count of three, my Lord.” I whispered.

The kid nodded nervously.

“One...two...three!”

We ran across the last stretch of camp, pushing the surprised guards out of our way. We hurled over the palisade. I took the fall wrong and winced in pain. The kid saw it.

“Are you alright?”

“Peachy, my Lord. Now keep running.” I lied. I had probably sprained my ankle.


“Is that your reason? Guilt? Shame? Do you think this will erase the past?” Her words weren’t harsh or undeserved, God knows that. But they drew a burst of strength from me.

I took my last bottle of oil from my belt, threw at the wooden gate and lit it.

We ran across the bridge, the escort our allies had sent just at the other side. The troops behind us busy with the flaming gate. We were almost there.

We could make it.


I smiled at the crone beside me. "Looks like you were wrong.”

For a moment, she looked at me, and the dim light of the dawn showed enough of her face to let me see her eyes. There was something that wasn’t quite pity on them. A small table appeared besides the escort, who seemed to take no notice of it. She walked towards it and sit, slowly preparing a set of chess pieces across a checkered board.


We reached the other side of the bridge, the escort frantically making signs.

“C’mon, you two. Let’s go!” He said, pulling at the reins.

I heard the sound of a horn, and turned around. I recognized it.

I saw him. I knew him. He was clad in a grey, worn armor and carried a huge axe on his back. He rode a blood bay horse, the animal huge and restless. I’d trained him. No horse in the land could outrun that beast.

The kid spun and looked at me, his eyes fearful, but controlled.

“We’ll get on the horses and run.” He said, trying to hide his trembling voice.”We part ways, distract him and meet up in the mountain.”

I smiled at him. He looked so young. He was kind, and would be wise, in time. He had a strong arm, a firm will, and a good heart.

I loved him like a son.

“...So close.” I muttered absently.

I decked him in his right temple with the pommel of my blade, and the kid fell like an ox. The escort looked at me, alarmed and puzzled.

“Take the king in your horse, go to the mountains, and don’t look back, you hear me? You don’t look back and keep going no matter what happens.”

The escort looked at me. I could almost see the gears turning in his head and, when he figured it out, he nodded slowly. He mounted up, the kid unconscious over the saddle, and looked at me one last time.


“...I’m sorry.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Me too.” 

I slapped the horse in his rear and turned around. My opponent dismounted and drew his weapon, and I could see the smile behind his helmet. I set my grip and exhaled slowly.

Rain started to fall around me.


“It really is my time, isn’t it?” I said quietly.

"Yes. It is." She gestured at the chair across her calmly.

I was in two places at once. I saw myself in that bridge, my sword and shield in my hands, the enemy in front of me. But I was sitting across a chess board, too. And Death played me.

“I have no time to play games.” I said, standing up.

I felt the weight of Earth itself against me, and I fell back into the chair.

“This is no game, and you aren’t going anywhere.”

“I...have...to.” I said through clenched teeth, my hands moving slowly.

Again, that horrible weight blanketed me, smothering my breathing.

“I wouldn’t cheat you out of life. That is not my purpose. You are alive still, and still fighting.”She gestured at the checkered pattern board.. ”You draw breath for as long as you don’t lose.”

It took me a moment to process what she’d just said. I was silent for a minute. I grinned.

“So...what if I beat you?”

She sighed, the question seemed to bore her.

“I wouldn’t know. It’s never happened.”


The bastard was a good head taller than me, had me by 40 or 50 pounds and was undeniably younger and stronger. Just my luck.

“We’ll see about that.”

I stepped forward, hoping a sudden attack might surprise him enough to end it . I faked left behind my shield, then turned my wrist to make my blade go upwards. Tall men always have trouble with blows from below.

I opened the game aggressively, hell-bent on ending it quickly. I doubted Death incarnate adapted easily to sudden movements, and chanced upon it.

He parried it with the haft of his weapon, sending my blow to the side, and kicked at my chest. I covered with my shield and got thrown back six or seven feet. I hit against the rail of the bridge, hard, and my helmet cut my eyebrow when my shield hit against it.

Ouch.


“Fast. Ruthless. It suits you." She said, stopping my attack dead on its tracks.”But not good enough.” Before I knew how, she had taken two of my pawns and was pressing me back.

He charged me, his footsteps sure and heavy, my back still against the bridge’s rail.So not only was he stronger, faster and younger than me, but he had learned how to handle that axe. It never rains but it pours.

She attacked in earnest now, her pieces moving by themselves. Her game was like the ocean, overwhelming.

“Your kind tries to fight me every step of the way, as if I was a bogeyman, or some evil thing. I’m not. I’m not a monster, I’m not some Dark Thing from the abyss. I’m just...”


"Fight smart. You are not a youngster anymore." I muttered to myself.

I sidestepped him to the right at the last second, his axe opening a long, shallow gash on the left side of my chest.I whirled in place and hit his back with my shield, helping his momentum and his charge. He hit against it like a ram.


“Inevitable?” I interrupted her calmly, taking her rook. “Unstoppable, maybe?” I said, steel in my voice.

I circled around him warily for a few seconds, getting back to the center of the bridge, noting my surroundings. Stone paved floor. Unequal and treacherous footing under the rain. His armor wasn’t a heavy one but it was mail instead of the leather cuirass I wore. I had my sword and shield, a dagger in my belt and the knife in my boot. All I could see on him was his double-headed, two-handed axe.

That thing would split me in half if I took a direct blow.


I looked at the board intently for a minute. Two minutes. Five. She was better than me. I didn’t care.

“Since you are taking so long to play, you can answer my question. Why?”

I moved one pawn forward and said nothing. A lot of it.


He shook his head and looked at me again, his gaze steady. Damn it. His steps were slower now. Wary, even. My mouth curled up at the edge. Some part of me, one that had been sleeping for a long time, felt pride.

The old wolf fangs' were still sharp, his claws deadly.


“Why would you do this? I know your reasons. I know of your loyalty, of your duty, of your passion. I know of your guilt. That’s not what I’m asking you.”

I started moving my pieces slowly, carefully. I didn’t think any defense could truly stop her, so I started playing misdirection. I did not open my mouth.

“You keep ignoring me. That is not polite.”She waved her hand at the table and one of her knights attacked viciously.


When he came at me again, I threw my helmet to his face. He batted it aside and, in that small window, I pushed inside his guard with my shield, striking at his helmet with the handle of my sword.

I heard his nose break and grinned. My shield arm was getting tired of taking his blows, even if I parried them instead of blocking. Might as well level the field.


I sprung the trap and took it. I lost another, and the exchange wasn’t even, but I wasn’t backing down now.

“You’ve realized you will die here.”

“...Yeah.”

“Do you think killing this enemy, this final battle, will bring you peace? Do you think anyone will sing your glory, or name you a hero?” She wasn’t mocking me. It was an honest question.


I thought I saw an opening on his right after a wide swing, and took it. A scream of challenge burned in my throat and my strike was savage.

Even if it wasn’t meant to, that question made my chest ache, and I almost lost my temper, advancing rashly.

It was a ruse, and I paid dearly for it. He stopped my blade with his arm, accepting the cut, and tried to grab my collar. I backpedaled quickly, but he had been waiting for that, and swung his weapon from inside my guard. The blow took my shield and sent it over to the water. I felt my shoulder tearing apart with its force.

“You were great once. Someone worthy of praise.” She muttered.“Look at yourself now. ”

She took my last rook with her queen, the trap obvious now that I was thinking clearly.

“In time, all things fall. All things go away. All things die, and come to me. You’ve done well. Stop now. Sleep.”


I fell on my back after the hit, my head hitting against the floor. I was dazzled for an instant, and he rushed me then, planting his armored foot in my gut violently. I felt my ribs cracking.

Desperate, I took the knife in my boot and slashed at his heel. It connected. His balance wavered and I rolled to the side. He struck me while I escaped my armor taking most of it, but another wound rested now across my gut. Damn, that hurt.


I moved my pieces without order or measure now, going every which way. She looked at me, her gaze steady. She knew she had me. I was running away.

I stood up, but my breath was growing laboured and my movements were slowing by the second. I had lost my shield, and my left arm felt like it had been ripped off. Every breath killed me when my ribs moved. The cut above my eye started to blind me, and I knew I was losing too much blood from my gut.

"God, I'm so old." I thought to myself.


I didn't have much left now. She had hunted almost every single one of mine, her game methodical and clean. It was endgame. My pieces laid scattered across the checkered pattern of the board, isolated and ripe for the taking. There had never been a chance I could beat her, and she’d known it.

But then again, so had I.

"Gotcha."I said, smiling wolfishly.


I looked back for a moment, and saw it. The mountain top was on fire, as if it were a beacon. All of it.

“Thanks for the sign, my Lord.” I murmured.

They couldn't follow him through that. He would be safe. The brat would become king, still. That hope relaxed my body, the pain sharper now.


She looked at the mountain, at the board, at me. I could have never won that match, not playing like that. But it would still take her time to finish me completely. That was my play. Time. Her cowl dropped back, and I almost looked away. I was sure I didn't want to see the face of Death, but I was slow.

She was...lovely. Not beautiful like a child, or gorgeous like a full-grown woman. She looked like everyone’s favourite niece. Her features were delicate, her skin porcelain-white. Her eyes were clear and belied her age and experience. She also looked surprised.

"You...You did this on purpose."

Her voice was unsteady, and she sounded very, very young now. It was sweet and uncertain. Childish.

I crossed my arms and started to feel dizzy. I guess the wounds were getting even to this other me now.

"You spoke of my past and my guilt. You asked me if I thought myself a hero. Of course I didn’t. I’m an old, weary warrior. If another person had come after us, one that could be reasoned with, I would have knelt and begged for mercy. If it could have been lied to,I would have just rambled." I coughed and saw blood on my hand. "But a soldier came and thus, I fought. There was no glory for me here. Just a weary, elderly man hoping to gain some time."

"You...You could have escaped." She said, doubt in her tone. "You may have saved yourself, and the kid too. You needn’t have stayed here. You know my work isn’t written in stone."

My face must have looked like a madman, so big was my smile. I lost another piece to her.

"Of course I did, child. But this world needs heroes, not old killers like me. Heroes like bonfires, like swords. Heroes that attract people with their brilliance, and make them stay with their warmth. That cut a path through story, and turn themselves into the stuff of legends."

"But...you could have been that. You could have done that, all throughout your life. You were special." It almost broke my heart to see her so lost. The poor thing. She almost hesitated to take my last knight.

I shook my head. "Bonfires need stones around them to protect them from the wind. And swords need scabbards for the elements. It could have been different, of course, and I regret not seeing what will become of him, but I chose my path a long time ago. I'm content with its ending."


My opponent sensed my weakness, and rushed me. I saw him coming towards me and it looked very, very slow. Everything did now. I could almost see the individual raindrops around me, and hear their sounds when they hit against the stone-paved floor.

"Are you...Are you sure?" Her voice was a whisper, like a small child that woke up afraid at night.

I felt...complete. The pride of fulfilling my duty, the joy of having cared for the kid, even the small heartache of knowing I would not see him again. They all added up to one thing, and one thing only: I was ready.


The axe fell towards me, and I tried to sidestep it, my body moving on reflex now. But I had been fighting hard for almost an hour, and it showed. I slipped on the stone floor of the bridge, leaving the side of my chest open. I was exhausted. I could hardly breathe.

I wasn't going to make it. I didn’t mind.

"...Yeah." I said quietly, and moved my king forward, offering it for the taking.

I grinned. It had been a good life.

Her pale hand moved towards the board with the weight of Earth itself and, with a small push, moved her queen left, away from victory. I stared at her, dumbfounded.

The ghost of a smile haunted her features.

"Your turn, hero."


For a single instant, my head was clear. My eyes were sharp. My body was light on its feet again. I turned my slip into a dive, throwing myself to the left, driving my dagger into the bridge and using it as leverage. I rolled and got up to my knees, looking at the huge warrior in front of me.

I saw the sweat on his skin, and the bloodshot look in his eyes. I saw his broken nose and the limp he carried. I thought about my bleeding arm. My shattered ribs. My failing strength. My broken, weary body.

I stood up, griping my sword on my right, my dagger on my left.

"Hey, ugly." I said, grinning madly."Care to try again?"

With a roar like a beast's, my enemy leaped towards me, throwing a diagonal slash towards my neck. He was fast, sure. And strong. I doubt I could have blocked that blow, even in my prime.


She kept moving her pieces strangely, as if arranging then. I didn't understand, but the pain in my chest and gut started to numb the rest of my senses. I kept moving my king.

But this wasn't about stregth, or speed. It was about timing. And I had a lifetime of experience to help me get the timing right. I took a half-step forward and ducked under the attack, getting inside his range. He tried to elbow me aside, but I had him now. I spun on my left heel, and slashed upwards, taking his right arm at the wrist.

I took her queen. She gasped, as if it had been some unseen mistake on her part. Most of her army was now in two columns, pointing towards my king.

He screamed like a madman and lunged towards me with his body, using his weight to move the axe. I felt the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the adrenaline rushing my body and denying the pain.

I moved my king forward, passing between the two columns. I realized what it looked like now.

He tried to hit me with what was left of his weapon. I slapped it aside with my dagger, pivoted around him and let him roll across my back. I broke his balance with a kick to the side of his knee and stabbed him between his shoulderblades. He fell forward.

I drove my sword into his spine with all the strength I had left. The blade went right through him and broke against the stone of the bridge.


It was an funeral guard. The last glory a warrior could get. My eyes started to lose the light, my vision growing dark, but I remember feeling the tears running down my face.

I fell to my knees, my whole body screaming. It hurt so much. I panted and breathed wildly. I saw my broken sword and the patch of blood that had formed around me. I could hardly see. I couldn't move. 

My sword fell from my hands.

I fell from the chair, my strength gone. She moved, impossibly fast, and caught me in her arms before I hit the ground. She was warmer than I'd have expected. Or maybe I was just that cold.

“...Thank you.” I murmured weakly.

She looked at me with sharp eyes. I could have swore that I'd seen a tear staining her beautiful face, and that I felt it fall against my face, warm and sad.

Nonsense. Death would cry for no man.

I felt her lips against my cheek, a small kiss, and her mouth in my ear. And then the softest, most innocent voice. I could barely hear it.

"You did good. You deserved praise and legend. The bard would have sung a million songs. Your name should have gone down in history." She muttered as if she were talking to herself.

I remembered the game, weakly trying to reach for my king, to tip it over, to make it end. She held my hand and pushed it down, shaking her head.

"I can't bring you back, nor give you a second chance. That is not my purpose. I'm sorry." She embraced me and rocked me as if I were a small child. "But this I can do. I will sing you to your sleep. I will remember this day. I will never forget your bravery. Rest now, warrior."

Death started humming quietly, without words or instruments to accompany her. It was a beautiful lullaby.

"I concede." I whispered, smiling softly.


Photograph by http://winpics.deviantart.com/

viernes, 16 de enero de 2015

Stories are powerful things (Glossary)

Some people pointed out that having this glossary on its original entry kind of broke the magic of the story, so I'm putting it on a separate post. This explains some terms used in the story, if you need some more information, and provides links to the original content. Enjoy :)

SCP Foundation: Operating clandestine and worldwide, the Foundation is tasked with containing anomalous objects, entities, and phenomena. These anomalies pose a significant threat to global security by threatening either physical or psychological harm.

The Foundation operates to maintain normalcy, so that the worldwide civilian population can live and go on with their daily lives without fear, mistrust, or doubt in their personal beliefs, and to maintain human independence from extraterrestrial, extradimensional, and other extranormal influence. Each one of these contained anomalies is called and SCP, pronounced "skip", with a numerical designation afterwards.

Think Men-in-black, but with every avenue instead of just aliens. Also darker.

SCP-239: SCP-239 is an 8 year old Icelandic girl who can rewrite reality at will. The thing is, she doesn't know that, and the Foundation isn't very keen on her finding out, so they've told her that she is a witch and can do spells, but only those she properly learns and has in her spellbook. Therefore, her containment protocols are just a web of lies forged so she doesn't know what she can truly do.

When she started trying other things, they put her in a coma so she couldn't experiment. That's how fuzzy and lovely the Foundation is. Girl starting to give us trouble? Coma.

Church of the Broken God: Cult of maniacs who want to bring back their God, said to be "broken" into pieces. Some of those pieces are in custody of the Foundation, and are classified as SCPs. Has a lot to do with clockwork, cogs, gears, metal, etc. They constantly try to bring the pieces back.

Dr. Gears: Narrator of the story, he was the one who tricked the child into sleep and a coma, while saving her from being killed. He has almost no emotional response to anything, think uberSpock. This story is still in the making, but I wanted to portray him broken after years of struggle.

Dr. Clef: Friendly cameo from the SCP Foundation. Always nice to have him around.

jueves, 15 de enero de 2015

Stories are powerful things

This is Sci-fi, and may not suit everyone's tastes, so I apologize for that. As a WIP, this isn't finished by any reasonable standard, but I wanted to try my hand either way. It's from an already established fictional universe, the SCP Foundation, and therefore there's some glossary for youIt kind of spoils the story, but you can come back to it after you've read it if you like.

Good hunting

EDIT: My cool friend Kotori, from http://kotopoto.tumblr.com/, made an awesome sketch about the child. Check it out at the end.
_____________________________________________________________________________

She looked at me, her eyes glittering in the red, sick light of the everlasting twilight.

Her sight was confusing, constantly changing. I saw an old, matronly crone. I saw a beautiful woman. I saw a small child. I saw my mother, sternly looking at me from a wheelchair. My lover, lazily smiling in a short blue dress. I saw my daughter, running towards me in glee, small and blonde, all sun and northern wind like her mother.

My mother died when she gave birth to me.

I hadn't had a lover since my university days, and she never looked that good.

I didn't have a daughter. 

"Focus, doctor." She said sharply, her image resolving in the little kid I remembered.

I'd finally made it. I found her, who could help us. I found the anomalous child, the Witch Child, the last scrape of hope left for a dying humanity. The pressure felt during all the years spent in hiding, in pain, watching the world fight a hopeless war against something we could never match shattered me. 

I couldn't remember how long had I been running from them, how close the monstrosities were getting. I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard silence instead of the grinding sound of gears in the air. The ticking clocks. The constant footsteps.

The dam broke apart, my mask falling, every emotion felt and repressed through the years pouring from within. I fell to my knees. I shouted and tore my throat apart, pleading. I whispered, praying for release from the pain and the despair. I asked her to end it all. Please. Save us all.

She didn't look a day older than 8, the age she had when we...when I had put her in a coma. Had it only been five years? It seemed like...ancient history. Maybe she chose to appear that way, for my sake. Maybe my mind just couldn't cope otherwise. Maybe she just liked it.

"I had so much time to think about it all, while I was asleep."

She talked like we'd been having a conversation just a minute ago. Her voice was music in my ears. It was a thing of beauty. If I hadn't been in this line of work for most of my adult life, it would have made me believe in God, but we had killed Him back in '96. We think.

"At first I was confused. Had I angered another wizard? Had the School found out about my other, harmless spells? Had I done something wrong?" She paused, and shook her head slowly, eyes closed, a half smile in her lips "No, for there was no magic, I was no witch, and there was no School. I realized that, after a while."

I felt shamed. I remembered the reports, the containment procedures. I designed some of them. The things we told her to control her power. The makeshift magic School, the fake spell books, the make-believe stories.

How do you put a stop to a child who can remake reality at will?

You lie to her. You make it so her own mind thinks she can do no more than what you teach her, and thus, she can´t. It's paradoxical, but it worked like a charm.

The horde that had followed me there was closing in, steadily. I could hear the clocks ticking louder, the metal reflections in the horizon growing brighter. They were a few minutes away, at most. There wasn't time.

"I felt furious, too" Her face darkened, anger in her iridescent eyes. "You were afraid, and ignorant, and foolish for trying to control me. Do you know how slowly time passes in a dream? How long was I alone? How betrayed I felt? How afraid? How would you feel if you were in a nightmare for hundreds of years? Would you care to find out?"

I had drugged her into sleep, when we found her trying some other "spells" behind our backs. It had been my hand, and no other. It seemed fitting that I was the one to find her again. The air cracked around her, and thunder, real thunder, like the Earth hadn't heard in years, roared above. I saw lighting fall from the skies, skies that had rained metal since They had managed to fix their Broken God. Skies that smelled of rust and blood, and that only gave the noise of grinding cogs, suddenly broke apart with rain and wind. I was in awe. I was mad with fear. Her face was the single most terrifying thing I'd ever seen, and that is something coming from a SCP Level 4 Researcher. If she had chosen to smite me, right there, and abandon this God-forsaken planet, I couldn't have blamed her.

The clockwork sounds were deafening now in my ears, but I could still hear her clearly. There were no footsteps, and I looked around and saw Them, flesh and metal and aberration, standing around us in a circle as wide as the clearing she had made, green grass starting to grow in it.

"And then..."She whispered, turning her scowl into a smile, while the skies above cleared, the sun showing its face for the first time since I couldn't remember when. “Then I remembered what you told me, right before I fell asleep. You told me to sleep well, and to have sweet dreams. That was a kindness. A kindness from the most detached, cold man I ever met. I thought about what you had all done. You could have told me other kind of lies. You could have tried to kill me. But you didn't. You thought of magic, and wizards and witches, and spells and everything an 8-year-old girl could find amazing. And you pretended, even if it wasn't for me. You gave me the most wonderful memories, while it lasted. And you didn't know any better."

She raised her arms, framing my face with her tiny hands. She was almost the same height as me, down on my knees. She kissed my forehead slowly and kept looking at me. Into me. Through me.

"I forgive you. I did so a long time ago" She whispered quietly. "But I will not save your world."

My stomach fell to my feet, hope raised and squashed again by her words. She could have wished them out of existence. She could have scourged sky, sea and land of their kind. She could have turned their dark oil into magma, their clockwork entrails to glass and whatever passed for their brains into acid. She could have brought everyone back. She could still fix us.

She chose to do none of those things.

Her voice rang like a trumpet, and I knew, just knew, that they could all understand and hear her.

"This is not my world. It took a while for me to understand that. I do not belong here, even if I was human. Even if I once had a mother and a father. This does not concern me at all."

The hateful, steel-grey sphere in the sky turned to her. It was huge, Cogs and pipes and a molten core that looked like a big, gaping maw.  A Broken God, no longer Broken. I could hear its booming voice, grating against my ears.

"WILL YOU LEAVE, THEN? I HAVE NO QUARREL WITH YOU, AND YOU HAVE NO DESIRE FOR THIS MEASLY PIECE OF ROCK."

She looked at me, her face serious and hard. So much depth in the eyes of one that looked so young. I couldn't blame her for it. We had killed, or driven away, any anomaly that could have saved us in our darkest hour. She was the last one. Humanity had failed, the Foundation had failed, and it was on us. We had played our music and casted our hate in the face of everything that we didn't understand. We had made our bed, and it was time to lie in it.

I saw the abominations around us restlessly moving in place, the ticking sounds going faster as in anticipation. This was it. Shut up and dance, old man, I thought to myself.

"You are right." Said the little girl. "I have no need for this world, or the humans that inhabit it.” Her voice lowered, as if musing to herself. “I am beyond this time, this place, just plain Beyond."

She turned to me and embraced me with her small frame, whispering in my ear. "Goodbye, doctor. I hope you have sweet dreams."

She kissed my cheek, slowly, and I could feel a sad smile creeping into my face. She forgave me. We deserved much worse than death, but she didn't hate me. That small piece of mercy gave me a comfort I never expected to get, not in this eleventh hour.

She released me and spoke to the Broken God. "I'll leave now, monstrous thing. I'll leave you to your hunting and cleansing. You disgust me. "

She turned her face one last time to me, very slowly, a small smile in her face, and then started walking.

They pounced at me, all gaping maws, broken implements and sharp edges. I didn't close my eyes. I was going to die. Might as well let her be the last thing I saw. An innocent child, walking in the green grass.

"...that being said, though..." Said her cheerful voice.

She snapped her fingers, the vile, metallic things around us stopping in their tracks as if time had frozen for them. Maybe it had.

She beamed at me and winked.

"WHAT IS THIS? YOU SAID YOU WOULD LEAVE. YOU SAID..." The metalic abomination boomed, trembling in the sky.

"This, you mindless lump of metal, is called flair and style. If you had walked among them, like I did, you would know. A little flair is always good, even if it isn't necessary. I could think you gone, and you'd be gone. I could wish your whole timeline erased with a stray thought, and thus it would be. I could put you through suffering so great and incomprehensible that Reality would reject it out of fear."

She raised her hands, and a book appeared in front of her. And another. And another. Thousands of them, all around her, and around me, in a deafening spiral of pages and the familiar smell of old leather and paper. There were shadows among the books, moving rapidly.

"But I'm not gonna do that. I said I would not fight you, and I will not. You wanted to take on humankind? Be my guest. But I shall not have you cheated out of the full experience. This is humankind. These are their stories."

Only then I saw them, coming out of the pages.

I saw a crowned king, holding a golden sword, flanked by twelve knights and an old, bearded man, shouting in defiance. I saw a disc-shaped spaceship that looked like it could make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs burst out of a page and start shooting at the skies. I saw a red-haired woman, carrying a strange blue sword, sadly hum in place for a few seconds before disappearing, impossibly fast, breaching their lines and crashing amongst Them. I saw eagles and dragons tearing apart the clockwork aberrations, and iron-clad dwarves bringing ruin to the pulseless armies that had wasted us. I saw Greek gods, Norse deities, and Egyptian forces of creation throw their hands against the strange world Earth had turned into, and bend it to shape again. I saw every fairy tale, every story, book, and fiction, come to life and turn their hands against this metallic Hell. I saw an old, blue box dart towards that hateful God, a wheezing, groaning sound in its wake.

I saw Him Broken again.

The sky burned away, clean. The land took a deep breath, its surface free of blood and rust and iron. I heard the waves in the ocean. I looked around, every Hero and Villain looking back to me, smiling wolfishly while they faded. I thought I saw Clef, the old bastard, tipping its hat to me. 

I looked at the little girl that was sitting in the grass, all the books dancing around her. She looked happy.

SCP-239, the Witch Child, Sigurrós, looked back at me.

"You gave me all these stories, doctor. You gave me magic and dragons and knights and a million million worlds to wander, and created many, many more I could never get to. I now give them back to you. I could ask you to be wiser, and you should. To do better, this time. To be kinder. Do all those things."

She got up, smoothing her dress as if to clean the dust on it, waved her hand at me, and turned around, speaking softly while she walked away.

"Old stories saved you today, doctor. Next time, make sure you have become Heroes in your own right."




Image by Kotori, from http://kotopoto.tumblr.com/

miércoles, 7 de enero de 2015

Voyager I

Some 37 years back, humanity did a marvelous, stupid thing. You know, like we always do. The best kind of thing. Some 37 years back, we took 750 kg of metal and silica and circuits and said "Let's see how far it can go".

And far it has, the little thing. I missed it, because apparently I was living under some rock, but the Voyager I escaped the Solar System a little more than a year ago. Let me rephrase that:

We just managed to throw a message in a bottle to interstellar space. Some monkeys in suits and overalls.

Way to go, Humankind.

Why a bottle you ask? Because the Voyager I (There were two of them) carried something inside. In our (arguably rare and often unused) wisdom, be figured that, as long as we were sending something to boldly go to the God forsaken reaches of space, we might as well throw in some meaning into the mix. Some measure of beauty. And we did, God, we did. We sent the Golden Record.

The Golden record is...actually, who cares what it is. The Golden record carries what a committee chaired by Carl Sagan chose as our introduction to the stars. If something ever finds the Voyagers (Either one of them) that record will be our first communication with some intelligence that isn't ours.

You know, no pressure or anything.

The record carries, of course, a measure of scientific data that might be relatable to any sentient species, such as some mathematical definitions, chemistry formulae or the solar location Map. That's all good and fine, and necessary too. It's a sensible attempt at demonstrating that we are, indeed, intelligent. A clever lie, you might say. Good going, Mr. Sagan.

But then there's the rest of it. That's where science said "I'm out" and good old Carl went full-on genius. They put three other things in that record:

First, they put pictures. An Elephant. Some mother breast-feeding his son. A party in china. Some home-construction in Africa. An airport. The Great Barrier Reef. An old man with a dog and some flowers.

Secondly, they put greetings. There are greetings for whoever finds the Voyager...in 55 languages. You should listen to them. Some are boring, sure, or empty or not that good. But the rest of them? They are magnificent. The Akkadian and Sumerian "May all be well". The Punjabi "Welcome home. It is a pleasure to receive you.". The Mandarin Chinese "Hope everyone's well. We are thinking about you all. Please come here to visit when you have time.". The English, said by Mr. Sagan own child, "Hello from the children of planet Earth.".

Good things come in threes. It's practically a storytelling law. So, lastly, they put sounds and music. The sound of fire, and human speech. The sound of thunder and earthquakes and volcanoes. The sound of cars and trains and planes. The sound of frogs and dogs and horses. The sound of heartbeat, laughter, and a mother kissing his child. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto. Senegalese percussion. Mozart's "The Magic Flute". Chinese "Flowing Streams". Beethoven. Navajo Chants. Chuck Berry's fucking "Johnny B. Goode".

The Voyager includes "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" by '20s bluesman Blind Willie Johnson, whose stepmother blinded him when he was seven by throwing lye in is his eyes after his father had beat her for being with another man. He died, penniless, of pneumonia after sleeping bundled in wet newspapers in the ruins of his house that burned down. But his music just left the solar system.

The Golden Record carries beauty and sadness, joy and salutations. Because while math and science it's what will prove our intelligence to our otherworldly fellows and what will helps us communicate and learn from each other, it's the rest of the record what will prove that we are, indeed, alive.

We are creatures who make mistakes and envy others, who kill and maim and recklessly push around their own kind. Creatures of conflict. But we are also creatures that improve themselves. Creatures that teach, and learn, and sing, and dance, and make love and Art. Creatures of hope.

This ain't such a bad presentation card for humankind. If all you had to judge was this record, what would you think of us?