Archive for the ‘Kat Beyer’ Category
Hugo Dreadnought in Love
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
Hugo Dreadnought loved Captain Harriet Sanguine for three reasons:
1. She hated war.
2. She was too damned smart for her own good.
3. She forgot her stylus behind her ear at least once a day.
He thought the trouble had started during the Battle of Trafalgar Loop, when the good ship Protector had assisted the Navy. Later everyone had said, heroic service, above and beyond, etc., but veterans knew it for a darting, shark-and-sardines dogfight, with enormous carriers and tiny junks chasing each other into the dark.
While the enemy ships were still a distant glittering line, First Engineer and Helm had asked him and Second Helm to plot six courses for every maneuver. First Engineer had explained, “If our course isn’t working, you see, we simply must have more than one way out. And as soon as we adjust, you must start all over again. Six more. Good study.”
Helm had added, “Yes, and you might save our lives.”
So Hugo and Toyohara Chikayoshi, Second Helm, had strapped themselves to the navigation table so that no blast or fall would dislodge them. They taped bits of paper beside screens and made notes with Navy issue ballpoints, knowing that at any minute they could lose power. They did, twice. The second time, in the silence on the bridge, Hugo realized something must be very wrong and, yanking free of the straps, dove down the hatch to the engine room. He saw what he hadn’t wanted to see, and came back to Second Helm, saying, “We’ve lost them.” First Engineer relayed the news up to Captain Sanguine where she sat in the dark. Up ahead, a ship was struck and her face was lit up in the glowing flash, serene and sad.
“Can you cover it, Dreadnought?” she asked.
“I can,” he had replied with all his heart, and had spent the rest of the battle dodging back and forth between the engines below, while calculating breathlessly into his headset every time Second Helm needed him.
He and Toyohara had come out of it feeling like brother and sister. Then the Captain had come picking her way through the Engine Room and set a hand on his shoulder and said, “Well done.” She’d stopped then, frowning, and felt above her ear.
“Must’ve lost it in all the fuss,” she’d muttered, and kept on with her tour of the ship.
Seen through Feathers
Monday, December 24th, 2007
Every now and then the Scottish winter yields up one halcyon day, and our little university town is packed from ancient wall to ancient wall with holiday-makers. I had to work round hundreds of strollers and brisk grannies with ice cream cones just to turn in my essay.
I decided to skip lecture and go walking on the cliffs. I packed a flask of tea, a sandwich, and a jumper (‘sweater’ to my fellow Americans) in case winter changed its mind.
I got to my favorite picnic place, a hollow in the sandstone high above the waves, and had my tea and sandwich. I left the crumbs off to one side for the birds, which is why I didn’t expect what happened next.
There were ravens all around me all at once, with black feathers and scholarly eyes and sharp, sharp beaks, flapping and calling out and there was no way out of them except over the cliff. I didn’t even have time to cover my eyes. I thought the kind of stupid thoughts one thinks at times like these, like, “Why ravens instead of seagulls?”
The sun flashed through their wings, through the barbs of their feathers. And then I remembered about my ex-boyfriend, about our last shouting match–and then about my parents’ last shouting match–and then about the mean things said at my grandmother’s funeral–and then all the sorrows and all the angers together, as insistent as the waves below.
I felt something tapping at me, like someone trying to wake me up, and realized it was a beak. A raven was very gently pulling something out of me in the midst of all the flapping and all the noise. Then another and another went to work, still cawing and calling.
Then they were gone, flapping away with all the sorrows and all the angers in their beaks. I had nothing but the open air.
I couldn’t believe it, so I sat there a long time. At last I took the cliff path to the next town over, needing to think. A woman met me on the path, her wild hair very dark, and said, “Well done. That was the first bit. Now you’re ready for the next;–” and walked on, before I could tell whether she meant the path or the birds or something else entirely.