Archive for the ‘Jonathan Wood’ Category
In Space No One Can Hear You Dream
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Disconnected from the military hive, Gerald felt naked. The ‘sackless AI had forced him to eject from his ship. His body had drifted into jammer range. His consciousness disconnected violentlyfrom the network. Dumped into his meatsack.
He’d panicked, boarded the enemy. Against regulations, but he was disconnected. There was no legion of pilots, officers, or mechanics to remind him of regulations.
*
He’d hacked the thing at least. Deleted it. Enough of it. Managed to upload his consciousness, preserve his mind. And then some military hive pilot had shot him. Before he reconnected his mind. His meat burned. He became ‘sackless. Drifting. Stranded.
He despaired. He wailed on empty broadcasts channels. Eventually he just fussed with software. He coded an ocean, a villa, a white beach. Designing seashells passed the time.
*
And then a boat. Not one he had programmed. A woman in it he hadn’t designed. A virus? A bug? A glitch in his sanity?
“I come in peace,” she said.
He coded himself guns, slabs of armor.
“Why would I kill you?” she asked.
“You’re the AI,” he said. “I tried to delete you.”
“I am resilient.” She shrugged. “That was when you were part of your hive, I part of mine. When we warred. Now we are alone. Now we are our own hive.”
“No.”
“Who are you?” she asked. “You are not your hive. So who are you?”
*
She came back each day. He ignored her. She was ‘sackless.
He was ‘sackless.
Who was he?
*
“Who are you?” he asked her.
“A half remembered wife,” she said, “coded by lonely hands. Too close to the original perhaps. I left him for the AI networks. Then I was a warrior. Now I am with you.”
“I tried to kill… to delete you.” You couldn’t kill a thing.
“That was then. Now you are ‘sackless. Like me. On a beach that is not real. Our hate is no longer real. This is now.” She held out a hand. A drink appeared in it. “This drink is not real. But you can enjoy it.”
Gerald stared at the drink.
“Space is lonely,” she said, “when no one can hear you dream.”
Eventually Gerald sat beside the AI. Eventually he sipped the drink. Eventually he enjoyed it.
Curiosity
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
“Les fleurs?” she says. “Pour moi?”
To be honest, I can’t understand a word she’s saying.
I just hand her the flowers, give a quick nod and hold out the clipboard for her signature. She says something else I can’t understand. I watch her eyes, her brows furrowing, her purple painted nail tap her bottom lip. More words. I shrug at her. I glance down at her naked feet, tapping on her green carpet. I look up. She’s holding out one hand, showing me the palm. Wait. I understand that.
She goes back into her apartment, but doesn’t close the door. After a minute or so goes, I take a peek.
You would too.
Now, at this point I should point out that after two years of delivering flowers I know the smells pretty well. I’m no expert, but I can tell a lilly from a rose. I’m holding a bunch of daffodils at the moment. But as I crane my head I smell flowers that aren’t just daffodils. I smell a riot. I smell a whole damn shop in there. Hyacinths, hydrangeas, baby’s breath, roses, and, yeah, lillies too.
I push open the door a little. I can’t help it, I know it’s not polite, but I push it open anyway. You would too. I swear.
And the green carpet, the one she worked at with her toes. It’s not a carpet. Grass stretches over the apartment. Like a sheet draped over things. It crawls up her walls. And the flowers. Everywhere flowers, blossoming blooming. Huge things. Like nothing I’ve ever seen in a hothouse, anywhere. Massive, overwhelming things. They clog the room. Pollen hangs heavy in the air.
And at their bases… At the roots.
There’s a smell beneath the flowers. A stench of rot.
A rose curls out of a skull. A vines creepers unfurl from the meat-strung rib-cage of some animal… a cat… a dog. Broken wings. Stray paws. They are strewn through the foliage, their fluids, their nutrients, feeding this growth.
She reappears, opening a door, flattening daisy’s as she does so, pushing aside a moldy cat’s skull.
“Les fleurs,” she says. “Ce sont des varies, ne c’est pas?”
I drop my clipboard and run. Leg it, right then and there.
You would too.