It was nine o'clock the electric church belled tolled.
Bong.
The light filtered through Christ's open arms- grey, red and smoky.
There was a fire burning in the third pew underneath a hanging celebrating "The Rebirth of Christ-- Happy Easter 1928" in gold script.
< Over a hundred years old> I thought.
The smell of fakin bacon drew me towards the cookfire just as a bullet whizzed passed my head. I ducked, but unworried. No one could find us in here. The cook was a lump of an old navy snow parka, matching beanie, and black soot jeans. The feet were bare and all the skin that could be seen was brown.
I sat.
I rolled my eyes, being telepaths had added an advantage to hiding but like Deanna Troi in Star Trek, I could almost not stand my mother. Two telepaths in a crowd.
"RINNNNNG!!"
Someone was on our property we read their mind, suddenly alert-- but moments later relaxed--it was a squirrel.
My mother lifted the pan to me in a gesture of Hungry?
I was taking my first bite when the SWAT team found me.
Amid the smoke screen I felt her go. They didn't know we were telepaths. She sent me a picture of his face. But it was so short I didn't put two and two together, thinking he was my father. It's ironic now that Ididn't pick up the warning- only infinite waves of trust-that's the problem with the dying- you can't trust the path par of them- it's too overwhelmed with God to see anything wrong in a situation.
The golden hair hung stringy just about out of reach of his eyes. His brow was furrowed and he had a smattering of freckles like wrinkles in a 45 year old face.
His eyes were electric blue, his complexion ruddy and I called him Father.
He was leader of the Special Weapons and Tactics squad, though, as I was soon to learn, that was just a cover.
You would think that being able to read his mind I would've picked up his malintentions sooner. It wasn't until I found out the ugly, amost Oedipal truth that his actions finally cleared up his motivations.
My mother wasn't always right but, God help her, at least this time she had given me the information I needed to survive even if it wasn't accurate. Okay it was downright falsified, but it did its job.
"Dad," I said. We were now in a train weapons base--our compartment lanterns were swinging slowly back and forth shedding blue light on blue metal wall and cotton bedding-- everything was blue here, mesmerizing, calming, hypnotic.
I had kept my head down after the capture at the chrch and now was Orphan Annie adopted by the Jubal of the SWAT team. Joining the team may not have looked like my choice, but it was better than prison and I was a natural born charmer--it came with being a telepath, you just knew what other people expected.
"Dad," I said again, "what's for break---?" He was at the tiny sink and freezdried packages compartment wedged next to the mini microwave.
"Berries, again, orangbread, hands ground..."
"and, of course, corn syrup," I finished for him.
We exchanged tired smiles, had no idea where we were and enjoyed the moment of familiarity.
Our door peeped, the red light--showing our locked compartment--flashed green as Ben Rok stepped in. Dark short hair styled with glue over thicker black eyebrows, his face--freckled darkly--was frowning over a clipboard in his earthworn hands. He had on a faded mechanic jacket, jeans and steel toed black boots. He was speaking.
"--looks like we'll be delayed here which won't make the boss happy but you know people are people." As he carried on --he was my father's best friend--the way he said people are people iw eas like he said people are animals. He put me on my guard. One with that beliefe would likely also act like one of these people. I did my basic on guard- check: Time- Unknown, Place-Unknown, Date-Unknown. We were in the blue zone, but our neutrality was fading fast. I looked back at Ben. He was shaking hands with Dad and leaving- I watched his ass go wondering --as I did now and agian, who had killed my mother?
"Time to go," my father said. Our lamp light was changing from blue to red. Work time.
That day in the corridor I passed by two grunts complaining and recieved the shock of my life.
" Man, it's not C-Watt team, it's See What? team"
"Na, na, na, na, na ,na, na, dude. Don't you get it? No matter how stupid you sound I can't tell you the acronym's meaning here-I'd get killed."
"Come on, whisper it."
"No."
Except what he was doing was thinking it-- thinking it so hard it was like he wanted the other guy to absorb it through osmosis. I sensed a purpseless death and see for the dumb one--it seems his companion didn't want him to die in vain.
S.W.A.T. She wants a tortoise. That was a blow-- my knees were stiff and my smile suddenly forced. Anyone who knows that children's rhyme would balk at even the idea. How had they kept it this secret for so long?
Daisies are Red
Because the Great King is dead
The Great King is dead
Great King is dead
Daisies are Red
Because the Great King is dead
What the little girl wouldn't do
Without a tortoise tortoise
What the little girl wouldn't do
Without a tortoise tortoise
Oh little princess she wants a tortoise
Her father was a mean old man
Who gave her candy but hit her hand
And never ever let her ran
Away Away
So one day when in from the forest crept
A slow tortoise step by step
She placed him in her father's path
For hopes of injury
For hopes of injury
Everyone knew, of course, that the girl was freedom and the tortoise was the hidden, slowly building bomb which would bring the fall of the king and the return to the wild and freedom.
I had kept time with my monthlies-- yet it was hard to believe that I had lived in no man's zone two years without knowing we worked against the government--and all this time I thought I had been playing it safe in beurocratic, gun wielding hands.
<Crap> was my first thought and then I thought of my mother, how she had worked so hard to protect us. It was time to kill my mother's murderer.
Father was in a bored room--a kaffeklatch meeting of sorts. By the looks of it they'd been at it for hours when I finaly found him. I'd been at it for hours looking. He saw me and I took in a breath. He was thinking and for once I let myself listen to his thoughts even 4,5 layers deep--thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. I closed my eyes adn found my mother's face. Except he had labeled her Traiter- Government Conspiritor and Aider #1. She was a prize to him.
I knew that now he was a bounty hunter and he'd murdered my mother.
There is a trick we telepaths learn to kill people from a distance. It's called The Plaugue by us because it wounds like a million egyptian crickets are inside your head making that high pitched sound. Except inside your head it's piercing. It liquifies your brain. When we bend The Plaugue on someone we have to sacrifice something though it only gives me a nosebleed. More people die, more pain. But filled with rage as I was at this new information I desided to liquify the whole room- only I saw Ben slomping down the corridor which meant I couldn't. So I consentrated quickly knowing now I'd have just enough time to liquify father-murderer only, and hide but --stupid adolescent brain I was swamped instead by Ben's braind and his thought of me-only me--as a child!
What was this? He had known me for only a brief time before taking up with SWAT--it seems there was around an eighteen year age difference between him and I that I hadn't picked up on thinking he was decades younger. It's amazing how blind a telepatha can be.
It seems Ben was my brother or father but he kept thinking of mother as the President's wife and me as Bomb #1.
I vamped up the pitch of The Paugue. Saw my father collapse at the table--blood pounding out his ears. I didn't have time to run away, Ben was right on top of me. I changed my face to nonchalant.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," I replied.
"Whatcha doing in this sector, Annabel?"
"I don't know Ben-ja-min," I stretched out his name, annoying him, "stretching my legs."
"Okay," he said.
We walked together back towards my sleeping area.
In the middle of the corridor Ben stooped down and lifted up the floor tile, below it I saw the track going by.
"What?" I trailed off.
He was pointing a black revolver at me, "Jump."
Simple as that.
<What she really wanted was a telepath> I thought as I jumped, as I lay still on the track for hours as the train passed over me, and finally as I stood up and walked into the wilderness.
Get in. Get out. Get Free.
Bong.
The light filtered through Christ's open arms- grey, red and smoky.
There was a fire burning in the third pew underneath a hanging celebrating "The Rebirth of Christ-- Happy Easter 1928" in gold script.
< Over a hundred years old> I thought.
The smell of fakin bacon drew me towards the cookfire just as a bullet whizzed passed my head. I ducked, but unworried. No one could find us in here. The cook was a lump of an old navy snow parka, matching beanie, and black soot jeans. The feet were bare and all the skin that could be seen was brown.
I sat.
I rolled my eyes, being telepaths had added an advantage to hiding but like Deanna Troi in Star Trek, I could almost not stand my mother. Two telepaths in a crowd.
"RINNNNNG!!"
Someone was on our property we read their mind, suddenly alert-- but moments later relaxed--it was a squirrel.
My mother lifted the pan to me in a gesture of Hungry?
I was taking my first bite when the SWAT team found me.
Amid the smoke screen I felt her go. They didn't know we were telepaths. She sent me a picture of his face. But it was so short I didn't put two and two together, thinking he was my father. It's ironic now that Ididn't pick up the warning- only infinite waves of trust-that's the problem with the dying- you can't trust the path par of them- it's too overwhelmed with God to see anything wrong in a situation.
The golden hair hung stringy just about out of reach of his eyes. His brow was furrowed and he had a smattering of freckles like wrinkles in a 45 year old face.
His eyes were electric blue, his complexion ruddy and I called him Father.
He was leader of the Special Weapons and Tactics squad, though, as I was soon to learn, that was just a cover.
You would think that being able to read his mind I would've picked up his malintentions sooner. It wasn't until I found out the ugly, amost Oedipal truth that his actions finally cleared up his motivations.
My mother wasn't always right but, God help her, at least this time she had given me the information I needed to survive even if it wasn't accurate. Okay it was downright falsified, but it did its job.
"Dad," I said. We were now in a train weapons base--our compartment lanterns were swinging slowly back and forth shedding blue light on blue metal wall and cotton bedding-- everything was blue here, mesmerizing, calming, hypnotic.
I had kept my head down after the capture at the chrch and now was Orphan Annie adopted by the Jubal of the SWAT team. Joining the team may not have looked like my choice, but it was better than prison and I was a natural born charmer--it came with being a telepath, you just knew what other people expected.
"Dad," I said again, "what's for break---?" He was at the tiny sink and freezdried packages compartment wedged next to the mini microwave.
"Berries, again, orangbread, hands ground..."
"and, of course, corn syrup," I finished for him.
We exchanged tired smiles, had no idea where we were and enjoyed the moment of familiarity.
Our door peeped, the red light--showing our locked compartment--flashed green as Ben Rok stepped in. Dark short hair styled with glue over thicker black eyebrows, his face--freckled darkly--was frowning over a clipboard in his earthworn hands. He had on a faded mechanic jacket, jeans and steel toed black boots. He was speaking.
"--looks like we'll be delayed here which won't make the boss happy but you know people are people." As he carried on --he was my father's best friend--the way he said people are people iw eas like he said people are animals. He put me on my guard. One with that beliefe would likely also act like one of these people. I did my basic on guard- check: Time- Unknown, Place-Unknown, Date-Unknown. We were in the blue zone, but our neutrality was fading fast. I looked back at Ben. He was shaking hands with Dad and leaving- I watched his ass go wondering --as I did now and agian, who had killed my mother?
"Time to go," my father said. Our lamp light was changing from blue to red. Work time.
That day in the corridor I passed by two grunts complaining and recieved the shock of my life.
" Man, it's not C-Watt team, it's See What? team"
"Na, na, na, na, na ,na, na, dude. Don't you get it? No matter how stupid you sound I can't tell you the acronym's meaning here-I'd get killed."
"Come on, whisper it."
"No."
Except what he was doing was thinking it-- thinking it so hard it was like he wanted the other guy to absorb it through osmosis. I sensed a purpseless death and see for the dumb one--it seems his companion didn't want him to die in vain.
S.W.A.T. She wants a tortoise. That was a blow-- my knees were stiff and my smile suddenly forced. Anyone who knows that children's rhyme would balk at even the idea. How had they kept it this secret for so long?
Daisies are Red
Because the Great King is dead
The Great King is dead
Great King is dead
Daisies are Red
Because the Great King is dead
What the little girl wouldn't do
Without a tortoise tortoise
What the little girl wouldn't do
Without a tortoise tortoise
Oh little princess she wants a tortoise
Her father was a mean old man
Who gave her candy but hit her hand
And never ever let her ran
Away Away
So one day when in from the forest crept
A slow tortoise step by step
She placed him in her father's path
For hopes of injury
For hopes of injury
Everyone knew, of course, that the girl was freedom and the tortoise was the hidden, slowly building bomb which would bring the fall of the king and the return to the wild and freedom.
I had kept time with my monthlies-- yet it was hard to believe that I had lived in no man's zone two years without knowing we worked against the government--and all this time I thought I had been playing it safe in beurocratic, gun wielding hands.
<Crap> was my first thought and then I thought of my mother, how she had worked so hard to protect us. It was time to kill my mother's murderer.
Father was in a bored room--a kaffeklatch meeting of sorts. By the looks of it they'd been at it for hours when I finaly found him. I'd been at it for hours looking. He saw me and I took in a breath. He was thinking and for once I let myself listen to his thoughts even 4,5 layers deep--thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. I closed my eyes adn found my mother's face. Except he had labeled her Traiter- Government Conspiritor and Aider #1. She was a prize to him.
I knew that now he was a bounty hunter and he'd murdered my mother.
There is a trick we telepaths learn to kill people from a distance. It's called The Plaugue by us because it wounds like a million egyptian crickets are inside your head making that high pitched sound. Except inside your head it's piercing. It liquifies your brain. When we bend The Plaugue on someone we have to sacrifice something though it only gives me a nosebleed. More people die, more pain. But filled with rage as I was at this new information I desided to liquify the whole room- only I saw Ben slomping down the corridor which meant I couldn't. So I consentrated quickly knowing now I'd have just enough time to liquify father-murderer only, and hide but --stupid adolescent brain I was swamped instead by Ben's braind and his thought of me-only me--as a child!
What was this? He had known me for only a brief time before taking up with SWAT--it seems there was around an eighteen year age difference between him and I that I hadn't picked up on thinking he was decades younger. It's amazing how blind a telepatha can be.
It seems Ben was my brother or father but he kept thinking of mother as the President's wife and me as Bomb #1.
I vamped up the pitch of The Paugue. Saw my father collapse at the table--blood pounding out his ears. I didn't have time to run away, Ben was right on top of me. I changed my face to nonchalant.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," I replied.
"Whatcha doing in this sector, Annabel?"
"I don't know Ben-ja-min," I stretched out his name, annoying him, "stretching my legs."
"Okay," he said.
We walked together back towards my sleeping area.
In the middle of the corridor Ben stooped down and lifted up the floor tile, below it I saw the track going by.
"What?" I trailed off.
He was pointing a black revolver at me, "Jump."
Simple as that.
<What she really wanted was a telepath> I thought as I jumped, as I lay still on the track for hours as the train passed over me, and finally as I stood up and walked into the wilderness.
Get in. Get out. Get Free.
Author's Note
hands ground: like ground beef, meat origin unknown, probably monkey, 1 part meat, 2 parts fat
Ben Rok: brother
King in poem: tyrannical government
Annabel: the king's daughter was a telepath, someone like that could easily rule the world and was therefore in exile
Mother: Former mistress of the king, unsure whether actual mother or wet nurse of Annabel
No comments:
Post a Comment
what you give is what you get. think before you type.