I had a very passionate, caustic, insane creative flow in my late teens and- though powerful- it was chaotic and unfocused. I have focus now but lack the maelstrom I once had. I'm experimenting with sounds and smells to unlock some of that by recreating some of the atmosphere I was surrounded by then (without the angst thanks very much). I need some more black cavendish pipe tobacco and heather-scented candles, still. And somewhere my wife won't kill me for using either. Primarily I'm rebuilding my college rock playlist from that era. I was skimming the web for some reminders of bands I liked that maybe I never owned to augment the many albums that were seminal and that I still have. This header image from www.slicingupeyeballs.com  alone almost provides the sought after jolt! The familiar titles and the cassette format definitely puts me in the frame of mind! Guess I better switch from The Church's piest=aura to starfish now...

I know as a writer I should be writing stuff that I'd like to see. Thankfully, though, there's plenty worth seeing that didn't have to come from me when I want to escape and recharge.

Of late, I'm enjoying the slimmest of downtime moments catching up with the Moya crew in the most recent Farscape comic books. I only recently watched the series but did so in massive chunks at a time. It rapidly shot to the #2 spot in my fave-genre shows list (although the tragically short-lived The Middleman I have also recently discovered and love about as much!). The fact that series scribe Rockne S. O'Bannon is also the chief writer for the comics means the comics are steeped in the flavor of the show- a great substitute since the series is long over and the purported Webisodes are still MIA...

Here endeth my daily geek moment...

For the third time Reckess checked its reflection in the shop window. The hologram was in perfect order. To anyone nearby the assassin would appear to be a harmless grandmother clucking over the outrageous fashions of the day.

 

Reckess hissed the equivalent of a snort of derision through its nasal tube which, in reality, extended six inches below the granny disguise’s chin. The ngaduk found Terran culture rather frivolous. The art and aesthetics were haphazard. Undisciplined. 

It flexed its four arms, one at a time, glorying in the omnipotent feeling the Earth’s meager gravity instilled in the heavy-worlder. Still, it was time to set aside indulgent thoughts. Reckess’ mark approached from the far side of the market square.

A very proper-looking human male- attired in one of those three-pieced garments which signified wealth and importance here- was pushing an equally proper-looking perambulator. The man wore a derby that perfectly matched his dark blue suit. Round, tinted spectacles shaded his eyes from the noonday sun.

Reckess hissed again. Had they thought to hide themselves in the barefaced mundane of a backwater world like Earth? On a prior sanction here it had made much study of humans and their homeworld- a sort of hobby for the assassin, collecting the cultures it melted in and out of. A small pleasure but also a practical aspect of the work. It had not taken long to pick up the trail.

The target was almost directly across the square now. Beneath its holographic exterior Reckess started forward in the Dance of Knives. Its timing was perfect. The ngaduk’s strength in Earth’s gravity had accelerated the Dance to blurred, whirlwind speed as it reached the pram and its guardian.

Too late, the assassin noticed something odd about the man in the derby. He was aware. His face was hard- not the soft, round face of an upper-class businessman or manservant. The once-benign spectacles- now pulsing an ominous red- and gloved hands fairly screamed that this was a fellow professional.

One of those hands, faster than should have been possible, interrupted the Dance of Knives, jarring the rhythm as it seized a rough, leathery ngaduk wrist. Shocked, Reckess dropped the six-tined gulat blade from that hand. The spectacles waxed silver in cold fury.

A hum, a vibration, pulsed from the adversary’s hand into Reckess’ body. It bleated in brutal agony as, all at once, every bone of its skeleton splintered into dust. Its death trumpet warbled then faded as it collapsed into a gelid heap.

The pram’s fastidious guardian took a moment to brush off sleeves and gloves before bending down to examine his charge.

“Are we alright?” he asked gently, his glasses shading into a milder hue as he pulled back a blanket. A warm glow suffused him and, very briefly, a soft smile flickered across his hard features.

“Alright, then.”

He tucked his tiny passenger back in and continued on his way.

Behind him, an old woman doddered in front of a fashion boutique’s window, disapproving of what she saw there.

 

 

 

I tend to be really annoyed by films and stories with mysterious or macabre titles- the kind that reference myths or monsters and thus pique my interest- only to discover they are tacking them onto some mundane drama. Hey, I HAVE a life and I am full-up with mundane drama! Unlike my missus and others like her, absorbing other people’s problems is not cathartic for me. Don’t tease me with the hint of escapism and then never go near it.

Sorry, was I rambling? Well, that said, you won’t be surprised to learn that the title of this story is NOT allegorical. Well, not entirely…

 The Fingerprints of Cain

Prologue

He did not think he would ever forget that smell. Those countless years he had toiled upon it, wandered over it, and he had never known this. The smell of earth after rain, they would call it.

Smell of the earth drowning, more like. Forever that smell to him, yes.

He would discover later, after this second curse on Creation, how the world had been cocooned in a canopy of warmth and cloud, the windows of heaven sealing in the raw energy that had infused the world at the start of it all. Those windows now wide open, loosing what was left of that power.

As they climbed, he looked back over Nod as it trembled as if in anticipation of its own ruin. Strange- the tremble and shake of his spirit inspired him to name it so but now it seemed prophetic.  Sprawling behind were the cities he had built for his children, with his children. Further off, on the horizon, he was sure he could see the spires of Enoch against the blackening sky. His daughter kept looking back to those spires, back to where he and the one leading them had fetched her and her boy. She stumbled to a halt. Their guide fixed his terrible eyes upon her until she turned and again walked, baby clutched tightly to her breast.

Chedzekiel. Of the fallen. Always they had wished an alliance with him yet kept their distance- the mark- the oth- upon him kept him blessedly free of their influence. Until this madness had begun. Now Chedzekiel took perverse amusement in using the oth as an excuse to preserve him yet again from much-deserved wrath.

Beneath their feet the ground hummed, numbing their legs with its vibration. Every eighty breaths or so it would shake enough to trip them. Eventually the numbness was so severe, the tremors so frequent, that he took his grandson up in his arms after his daughter had nearly crushed the babe in a fall.

The cave they were led to seemed an artificial thing, a place prepared rather than discovered. Looking out from its mouth he watched the waters flow across fields and into the cities. His world had never seen water in any form other than running streams and rivers. This invasion into home and country was a sickening betrayal of the order of things.

As he watched, a shockwave rumbled out of the depths, washing over his bones as the flood burst over the land. He saw the ground tear open and split through the city. He was thrown back into the throat of the cavern. Just before Chedzekiel shut them in he witnessed the most maddening thing of all- as the abyss widened through the flatlands below an entire sea erupted from it. It fountained in an instant through, then over the cities. He could no longer see Enoch in the distance.

Before they were entirely swallowed by the earth the wind blew a final smell to him, one he would forget, try as he might to retain and recall it. An aroma that had permeated all existence until that day and he’d barely noticed it until the deluge had torn it away. It was only then that he cried.

I smell Eden…

 

Coming Soon- well, Coming Eventually:

When controversy threatens Dr. Adam Malake's archaeological excavation (and his reputation) because of the biblical significance it may hold, someone runs the ancient fingerprint found in the site's cave paintings through an international database to prove the site is a fake. The fingerprint belongs to a man alive today, seeming to prove that Malake's find is, indeed, fraudulent. But all other scientific evidence says the long-forgotten cave and its contents are definitely millennia old. Including the fingerprints.

Then the deaths begin...

"The Fingerprints of Cain" by S. George Lee

(photo from http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text-MonteAlegre/text-MtAlegre.htm)