For Once Only (a poem)

This poem was written for a collection. I was given three stock images to jump start my creativity-one was a single rose on a piano and another was a stylized image of a salsa-dancing couple, including a lady in a red dress. I can't remember what the third image was-but I let my imagination free and had fun with rhyming. Here we go:

For Once Only

He recalled the portrait painting
from a museum visit, once ago-
ballroom dancer/lady fainting.
The show of her leg/red dress flow,
and this was what he dreamed this night
-held her close so to feel her pumping heart.
In his arms-became his, held tight,
in their dance- expression of their love's art.

With each step, a piano key,
and as the song notes rise, they also rise,
a rose falls and they let it be.
roses rain-they let shower from the skies-
to be for once in paradise,
to be for once only before he wakes,
goodbye kisses received twice,
from pillow he stirs, eyes open, heart breaks.

-Winter 2013

* * *

Reels of Tape (An Orien Sage Story)

REELS OF TAPE

An Orien Sage Story By Bryan Paul


Each flake of snow is a particle of ice and each particle of ice contains its own complex structure. The material was once water, and the frosted air and the chill made it snow, which would fall, and spread over the land at a certain time in a certain region on planet Promythica, which is a particle in space with its own complex structures.

Orien was just a dot amongst many that roamed the planet. The cold had knocked him down. The fog had filled his head. He felt the rythym of the vein pump in his temple. He stared into the bucket his frostbitten feet were soaking in. His bare legs were turning red. He was warming, but only in his lower bones. He warmed up, and he cooled and he thought for tolls.

He looked around the clean and orderly living quarters at the neatly placed furniture. His friend Duglus, had a wealthy father, who was a health and nutrition expert and Orien suspected that they must hire a housekeeper at least once a day-set to keep things tidy.

The hot water bucket was steaming, and Orien watched the steam unfurl and wrap around his legs much like smoke from a pipe-or like fog.

Orien heard myths about the fog-devils, but there were no official reports. There were high fog levels according to the news and The Conjurer Dasahd was still in hiding on Volhadia Island, but no fog-devils reported in the colonies. Orien still feared them.

He took potions every morning, to help him with his fears and to cure his anxiety. He took larger doses with the chill season. The cold brings down emotions, makes people depressed.

Duglus was in his bedchamber with Theo taking advantage of his parents not being home. They were drinking berus and maybe smoking herbs. They didn’t invite Orien. Orien wouldn’t have wanted to. Orien would have objected. He had told them they shouldn’t. He had told them once during lunch break. He didn’t approve of drinking blis and smoking herbs, under age.

Orien tried to think back to how he ended up taking part in Dug’s reel show project. He supposed it started in his ‘reel show studies’ class. That was when he became friends with Dug and discovered they had interest in reel shows.

Reel shows were captured images on tape. The images on tape were projected, and they moved on screen. The technologists of planet Promythica had built a device that, like earth’s cameras, can capture an image in a flash and put it on paper.

They built a device to put pictures on tape and those pictures moved. They built a device to take multiple pictures of multiple moving images, and print them on reels of tape.

Like the moving features on earth, Promythica would have it’s own moving pictures on reels of tape. Orien’s memories and thoughts were imprinted in his brain on his own reels of tape.


Reel One


Orien was sitting in a chair. He felt uncomfortable, but he didn’t squirm as the relaxant potion he took every morning kept him still. His back was hunched slightly and the collar of his gray longcoat was up, so he could be hidden.

The classroom was dim. The lanterns above Orien’s head were on low light. The projector was sitting in the middle of the classroom and Orien sat just to the right of it. He listened to the whir of the spinning reel. He watched the tape spin off one reel to the other. Black tape. Thin black tape, like the thin black tape he used in his image developing class, except those images were still. The images on reels moved.

The projector projected images on to a screen at the front of the classroom. Orien wasn’t watching the images. He was watching the reels spin. He felt hypnotized, as if he could sleep.

The reels stopped spinning.

Orien’s instructor had clicked off the projector and adjusted the lights. Orien blinked several times and stared at the white, blank screen ahead. He remembered where he was and what he had been doing. He had been watching a documentation. He remembered the title on the screen, ‘Behind the Curtains’ it had said.

The instructor was tall, wearing a dark green shortcoat over a black day-shirt. His hair was long, blond and tied in a ponytail. He was standing at the front of the classroom.

“Does anyone have any questions about documentary shows?”

No one raised their hands or said anything.

“Anyone have a question about the documentation just shown?”

A pompous boy named Ceddi spoke up, “That short wasn’t very good was it? Really it was only meant to get people to buy tickets to the show…“

“That was exactly what it was meant for. It was shown before a reel feature,” The instructor said.

“Well, it wasn’t very good, was it?”

At the start of the school term Orien had thrown a book at Ceddi. As part of an assignment, Orien had shown the first ten chimes of the first reel of Al Wulworte’s ‘Tietanites’.

“Didn’t he have an affair with his little sister?” Ceddi had said that day.

“She wasn’t his true sister! His father remarried. She was the daughter of his wife’s companion.”

“He’s a pervert and all perverts should be locked up…”

Orien took the book he was holding, ‘Al Wulworte in interview’ and tossed it at Ceddi. It tapped his right arm and bounced off to hit the floor. Ceddi massaged his injured arm.

“Was that necessary?” the instructor said.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about! Al Wulworte is a brilliant scripter and showman.”

“He did have an affair with a lady much his junior though and given the circumstances what he did was fairly questionable.”

“What does that even matter?”

“Just return to your seat Orien,” the instructor had said and Orien returned back to his chair after picking up his book and turning off the projector.

Orien always sat in the same chair in the same manner. With every class he took, he had a spot that he made his own and that was where he would always go to, but never with any group.

He was sitting in that same chair listening to his instructor give an assignment. The instructor told the scholars that he wanted them to go out and document something with their recorders. He picked up the reel recorders from the rack and passed them around to the scholars. The reels were already loaded.

“There’s a lot of activity to document around the halls and outside,” the instructor said.

Orien knew that. He had followed his fellow scholars around at the beginning of the term with a recorder.

“Feel free to scatter. I’d like a document piece about two chimes long from everyone,” the teacher said.

The scholars rose from their chairs and the first scholar opened the door and the rest filed out. Orien followed last. He was still sitting in his chair and he had already started recording. He already started the reels spinning. He started to capture images on the tape-the images of scholars filing out of a classroom.

He stood up, and followed behind a slim lady in a multi dyed daydress with straw colored dreadknot hair. He watched her through the viewpiece. She turned and gave him a nasty look and she hurried out the door.

Orien continued to watch through his lens and the reels continued to spin. He took a turn out of the art house through the main door and looked from the front stepway. He focused his lens on Meagan, the lady with the dreadknots he had been trailing. He remembered her from his audition. She was rushing up the hill to the main building.

A trio of other scholars from Orien’s class was play-acting on the field where they usually had lunch break.

“On typical days at the arts school, the scholars usually get along…” a gentleman pointing his own recorder said as Dug and another scholar named Petro sat by a tree reading.

Petro said something to Dug and they began a silent argument. Petro stood up and acted as if he were making a scene. Dug stood up and shrugged, but Petro gave an angry stare and began to pursue Dug. They ran up the hill and around to the main entrance.

Orien was becoming really satisfied with his production. His lens captured the ‘behind the curtain’ element of the showcase.

Orien hearing the plucks of acoustic harp strings focused his attention to Meagan, who had her recorder set on a group of music performers rehearsing on the steps of the main house. Orien focused his lens on the music trio and then turned focus on Meagan recording. He stopped at her. She smiled as she watched Samson string his harp. Orien knew that Samson’s heart belonged to Helena-Liz, though. Orien met both Samson and Helena-Liz at his arts school audition.

When the school session started he would get to know Helena-Liz better on the ride to school on the transport jet they both took.

“Doing well in your classes?” Orien had asked her several days back.

He could feel the flesh of her leg pressed against his on the transport as she was squeezed in and he could smell her perfume, but although it felt wrong to imagine him and her together, knowing she was with Samsen she sat so close to him. She was so near him.

“More focused than I was in my last semester. I hate having to repeat my studies. Seems I’ll be staying an extra year.”

She was a dancer. The muscles in her leg pulsed, pressing his. Orien’s muscles pulsed. He would wish to hold her and dance with her.

“I’d rather be with my year and complete studies with my own peers.”

“You don’t like your peers in my year?”

“Don’t know. I like you, and Samson likes you, he thinks you’re funny.”

“I’m one of the eldest in our class, you realize, only three calendar blocks your youth,” Orien stated.

Helena-Liz looked at him, smiled, brushed her curtain of shining brown hair back with her hand and turned her head back to look forward. Orien felt a gust of wind resonate and cool his body at the wave of her hair.

Then the memory ceased and Orien checked his timepiece in his pocket. It was time for him to return to his reel study class. He had completed taping the halls of the main house, filled with song from a choir in a nearby class. He stepped out the back door, hurried down the steps and looked out.

Meagan, Petro and Dug were walking downhill toward the Art House. Orien followed down, his eyes fixed on Meagan from behind, watching her swaying hips.

Orien entered the class chamber and took a seat at his usual spot. The class instructor asked for volunteers to show their footage.

The first showcase was from Dug, Petro and Rex. The show was a mock document of a typical day at Penhaven Arts. Rex, Petro and Dug visited various classrooms and acted out scenes with different scholars. It was quite comical.

After the finish of the show, the instructor said he was quite satisfied with their work. Orien volunteered himself next.

Orien fixed his reel in the projector and switched it on. The showcase that followed was shaky and the lens zoomed in and out. The focus was on Dug, then Petro, then Petro and Dug together, then the lens zoomed out to get a full view as Dug was chased up the hill and the image on the screen shook with Orien’s walking up the steps. The next scene cut in. The focus turned from Meagan, with recorder in hand, to Samsen as he plucked the strings on his harp. The view focused on the strings being plucked. The view focused back up and held on Meagan’s face for a long while. Meagan might have been blushing. Orien thought he had caught a candid moment. She was enjoying watching that boy play, it seemed and Orien had caught that moment.

“What was your intention with this show?” the instructor asked.

“To record how everyone else made their shows.”

“You need to improve on your steadiness of the recorder.”

“I like it. It looks artistic and it captures real life,” Rex said.

“It’s unique,” Meagan said, “Why’d you have to show so much of me though, do you like me or something?”

Orien smiled and blushed but didn’t reply. He couldn’t think of a response. It would have been a simple yes or no, but she wouldn’t like if he said yes and if he said no, that wouldn’t be nice of him. He didn’t say anything.

Meagan was much elder than him, in her third year at the arts school. She had spent her first two years of late learning at a different school. She was an artist and an outsider. Her hair was in dreadknots, which seemed a popular style for many of the lady scholars at penhaven arts. Some also had hair color dyed, like the singer Kyley Lavahl.

Orien daydreamed about Meagan for the remainder of the class. He was attracted by her unique flair and way of dress, her creative intelligence, and her imagination, like the fellow scholars in his own learning year.

Orien came to the arts school as a cold, lonely youth in a gray longcoat. It rained on Orien’s first day at school. It was new scholar orientation. Everyone met in assembly in the art house auditorium and the teachers explained the rules of conduct, the system of marking and the ideals of the school with emphasis on freedom and community.

It was all very strange to Orien. It would be a far different learning experience than his previous schooling.

He had felt a bit overwhelmed. There were so many new scholars to meet and make friends with. The scholars were divided up. Orien met some of his fellow first year scholars and they played the same, getting to know each other game that he had played at his audition. Helena-Liz was not present, but the lady that sat next to him that day was also pretty. Her name was Bianca and she was an active theatre performer in her last school.

Orien was supposed to ask her a question, so he turned his head and asked her, “Do you plan to audition for the Thebuek production?”

“I’m setting out for the part of Victorien. It’s rare that a first year would get a significant role in the Thebuek production, but I actually have played significant roles in respite productions of Thebuek’s plays.”

She hadn’t come off as proud or arrogant; rather, she seemed confident and that confidence gaveher a certain powerful charm. Orien could imagine her playing ‘Victorien’ in Thebuek’s ‘Clemont and Victorien’. She was Victorien, in his mind and imagination.

Orien continued to daydream in his reel studies class, forgetting about Meagan and remembering Bianca. He had been instantly taken with her. He wondered if she was interested in poetry, since she was interested in Thebuek. Orien didn’t understand the plays of Thebuek much, but he could pretend to.

Another lady that stuck out in Orien’s mind during his orientation day had painted hair of purple, like a radical.

“How did you get your hair that color?” the boy next to her had asked during the game.

“I have it dyed every so often. It’s red, naturally,” she said, “I had to bleach it before I could get it to be this color, I’m gonna get some streaks of black in it I think. I buy the dyes myself,” she was twirling her hair in her fingers.

This lady stood out significantly to Orien. She was tall and she had been wearing pocket pants like a boy, but over them she had on a short skirt which she dyed herself in splatters of red, orange and yellow, like fire.

Orien met up with her again during lunch break. He had been in the field with his fellow scholars and the rain began to patter. It flooded down in a heavy stream and everyone stood up and made their way up the hill to the main house to seek shelter from the rain. Orien walked slowly up and the tall lady with the purple hair was walking beside him.

He stopped just a little ways before the door and she stopped with him. He paused and observed the scholars entering the house.

“Kinda wet,” she said, “Don’t you want to go inside?”

“I like the rain. It feels like a clean shower,” Orien said.

“I like that. Sounds like a poem…and it rained like a clean shower…” she said.

“Do you like poetry?” Orien asked, turning his head to look at her. She towered over him. He stood about chest high. She had beautiful eyes, a beautiful smile. She was like a spirit. She could be his guide in the strange world he found himself in and maybe she would be.

“I love poetry,” she replied.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I’m Willo and your name’s Orien?”

He had been taken aback at that.

“You remembered.”

“Yes, I remembered from the circle, surprising, though, I’m not usually good with names.”

The rain had been soaking them, but Orien still stood with her, mesmerized and almost lovestruck.

“I think I want to go get dry now, how about you?” Willo suggested.

“I suppose we can,” Orien replied.

She walked ahead several paces first and then said, “Come on,” and took his arm by the wrist and she led him.

In that moment as she took his wrist like a lady youth on the playground leading a boy to her tree fort, Orien wished to take the hand and clasp it and to have his fingers mingle with hers. They would be holding hands like youths in a playground, but that didn’t happen. She simply led him into the main house to be dry.

As the memories unfolded in Orien’s mind, like moving images in a show, the projector whirred beside him as Meagan showed her reel of Samsen playing harp and the instructor asked her why she chose that particular subject.

“I’ve always been a music person,” Meagan replied, “I become in a trance when I listen to a good heavy piece…”

Orien’s brother was a musician and he remembered being fond of music through most of time in his youth-but that seemed like a time long gone.

Orien wasn’t listening or paying too close attention to what Meagan was saying; rather he was interested in her body. She was his elder by a year or two and there was something attractive about that. There were hidden spots in the arts school, which Orien heard rumors of youths exploring physical enlovment. Orien imagined if he had gotten to know Meagan, would she take him to some hidden cabinet, close the door and kiss and caress, like something Orien might have seen in a reel show.

Class was dismissed after Meagan gave her presentation. Orien got up from his chair and slung his shoulder bag over his arm.

Dug stopped to talk to him and asked, “Orien, I was wondering, since you want to be involved in reel show production, would you like to act in a short I’m taping? You’d be playing a fog-devil…”

“Fog-devils are like smoke visions, though, right?”

“But you would be like a metaphor representing a fog-devil.”

“How?”

“I’ll give you the script. During the next holiday break, I’m shooting.”

That had been how Orien came to be soaking his frostbitten feet in hot water. Within a calendar block after agreeing to perform in Dug’s show, Orien would be standing in the cold snow. His longcoat was not nearly thick enough and warm enough to cool him.

Orien lurked from behind Theo. Theo turned his head and looked. Orien approached. The reels spun in the recorder in Dugs hand and then they ceased.

“CUT,” Dug had said, “Look at Theo, say your line, walk round him, look mean. Be a devil.”

At the call of “ACTION,” from Dug, Orien turned to face Theo.

“They don’t understand. No one does…”

Words Orien thought to himself plenty of times. It was difficult to communicate with his instuctors and for them to understand him. It was difficult to communicate with his parents.

Everything had become confusing for Orien once everything changed. First, his mother moved out, and then his brother Alto moved out and in with his friends. Orien started his learning at the Arts School. He met new people. He had to make new friends. Everything was changing. Everything had changed all in one short time.

Orien understood his role in Dug’s reel short as the fog-devil. He understood the fog and he felt it. He felt the confusion, the swirl of emotions inside him like smoke, or like the twisting steam that he would find himself staring into in the hot water bucket where his feet soaked.


Reel Two


For Orien’s mother the fog was something real and something to fear, though many skeptics believed that with the fall to power of the Conjurer Dasahd the fog-devils had vanished. Some deny their existence, regard them as myths and claim that the fog conjured by Dasahd caused hallucination and the specters of devils were illusions. Orien’s anxieties may have been unrelated to fog, but his mother would have him believe that in the chill the devils would find him.

Orien thought the potions he took daily would help him fight the fog, overcome his anxieties and help him feel less isolated, but they didn’t seem to do that. Orien’s specialty medic, Dr. Patsen, suggested Orien higher his potion dosage, once the chill started.

“How have the potions made you feel? Any side effects of concern…?” his counselor, Dr. Brahm asked him during a session.

“I haven’t felt anything/any different,” Orien replied, though he recalled the effects of not taking his potions. He remembered having to give a presentation at the North school, in his last semester. He had just started taking his potions and for one morning forgot. He felt a throb in his head all day. He felt his blood pressure build. His body needed the potion in his system, and then he faced his anxieties, by standing up in front of the class. He swallowed up every bit of anxiety, bottled it all up and gave his speech. His teachers thought it the best presentation they had seen, but Orien had to struggle to hide the fact that he had been extremely ill, weak, nausous and with a thundering headache.

Orien hadn’t considered that he might be better off without the potions, that the potions did have a negative effect on his energy. He didn’t want to feel the headache and the dizziness again and he knew he would just become irritable and give in to taking the potion.

Orien always had a lot on his mind to talk to his counselor about, but never knew how to bring things up to him. After some prodding, his counselor would eventually turn the subject to a play or performance he had seen or something casual for Orien to talk about.

“I went to a reel feature with my companion last day-set,” Dr. Brahm said, “about a hostage situation, Gort Bolten is holding a family prisoner in an attempt to get information from Jethra Kahne’s character, a retired soldier in the special force unit…”

“My dad doesn’t like me to see shows of violence,” Orien said, “or any show with an age restriction. I had to ask permission so that I could see a recording of ‘Broken Faith’ since it had an age eighteen restriction.”

“Because of the erotic content? It’s healthy for someone your age to be curious. There isn’t any thing particularly wrong to want to learn more on the subject of enlovment, at your age how it affects people in their companionships…”

“I told them that. My brother said it was unfair, that when he was a youth he couldn’t see any reels that had an 18+ seal. When I started my term at Penhaven, I convinced my father to sign off on the sheet allowing me to view restricted material in my reel studies class at the arts school.”

“How is your brother doing, by the way? You said he was no longer living with you?”

“He failed out of the Academy and Dad wanted him out of the cottage since he was of age. He’s living with some friends, but he doesn’t work.”

“Hmm,” Dr. Brahm considered, “If he wants to be on his own with his friends, he’ll need to find work.”

“I agree. My dad says the same thing.”

“You talk to your dad, though? Or are you still not getting along?”

“We get along.”

“That’s good to hear. How is he dealing with not being married? Has he found new company?”

“I don’t talk to him about that sort of thing. I don’t need to know,” Orien replied and the subject was dropped.

It wasn’t much Orien’s business what his parents were up to in their personal life now that they were separate people. Orien knew that his father was becoming close with his friend Trot’s mother, but he didn’t feel the need to acknowledge it further.

There were times when Orien’s father was not home at their cottage, instead he would be having dinner with Trot’s mother, Marj. One time in school, as Orien was walking with Trot from the West house at the arts school to the main house, a curly haired lady friend of Trot’s blurted “I heard your parents were seeing each other.”

“My dad is friends with his mom, but they’re not companions,” Orien said.

“I heard different,” the lady said, “Trot said he always sees your dad at his house.”

“I spend time there as well. Trot and I are friends. My dad’s very careful when it comes to who I am friends with, so he likes to know my friends’ parents. I hate it.”

“But, Trot says he knows for certain that they’re companions.”

At this, Trot had become angry and shot a violent look at his friend, Cynthia, who jogged on ahead to avoid them and Trot hurried after her to tell her off. Some days or some day-sets later Orien’s father sat him down at the dinner table for a talk.

“There are some things we need to talk about. You might have noticed that I have been spending some time with your friend’s mother Marj. At this point we consider ourselves companions, but I know it is a lot for you to understand.”

“I understand. You have moved on,” Orien replied and there wasn’t anything to discuss. That was how things were and he didn’t need to discuss it with Dr. Brahm.

“Is your mother still in the company of her friend…?” Dr. Brahm asked.

Orien didn’t want to discuss his mother, either and yet, the words came out of him, “Yes. They are crazy. I have to spend time with my mom on Sundays. Last time I was over there I was minding my own thoughts, listening to radio and her companion was trying to talk to me. My mom got very angry and told me I was being rude cause I couldn’t’ talk to him. She takes me to the transport pickup in the mornings, and when I don’t talk to her, I’m usually half awake or listening to radio, she asks ‘are you mad at me?’, ‘what’s wrong?’, keeps asking me stuff like that then she gets me frustrated cause she’ll say the fog is making me feel depressed or something…”

That was the most information Orien had ever shared with anyone and it came out of him as if it were something in a potion bottle needing to be released.

Orien’s father had found his own separate life with Marj and although Orien’s mother had found companionship as well, she still needed Orien.

The details of Orien’s mother’s companionship were more complicated than that of Orien’s father who had moved on from his companion. If Orien were to believe his father, it was his mother who first began to break away from the partership.

His mother stopped working at the medic house, he recalled. He remembered his father, once again sitting him down to talk.

“Orien, you have to understand the reason your mother was let go from orderly work is from seeing too much of a patient.”

“But that isn’t fair. They were only friends.”

“Orien… I know how intelligent you are, but I also know this is a difficult time. I separated from your mother, last year, because she was spending time with this particular patient.”

“But they weren’t companions. He is only a friend.”

“Your mother still thinks of you as a youth and she is afraid to let you in on the truth. Her being close to this gentleman drove us apart. This is what resulted in the cessation of our marriage. You have to understand that, because that is how it is, and you have far too much intelligent potential for me to conceal the truth.”

In the events leading up to that, Orien met his mother’s companion at the medic house. He was a tall gentleman. He talked slow and chuckled often. He had scripted articles for medicbooks on the subject of the fog and how he coped with it. Orien’s mother claimed this gentleman to be a friend of hers and Orien never questioned the details of the friendship.

“Do you believe in the fog?” Dr. Brahm asked and Orien tried to focus back on the mustached gentleman in the chair in front of him.

“Yes. I feel things getting colder with the chill season, but I breathe and go through the calming exercises.”

“The exercises I taught you work?” he asked.

“Yes,” Orien replied and was ready for his session with Dr. Brahm to end, which it soon did and he left his office walking out with his dad to the cold snowy lot.

The snow was blanketing the colonies. The storms had been bad. When chill season break came and Orien told his father he was invited to Penhaven Village, to shoot a reel with his friend Dug, his father showed some concern.

“I don’t know these friends of yours,” his dad had said, “don’t know their parents…”

During lunchbreak, Orien stated his father might not allow him to stay with Dug during the making of the reel short.

“He’s gonna ruin the whole thing,” Theo said to Dug, “This is a mistake…”

“You need to tell your dad off,” Dug said, “what’s he trying to protect you from?”

“Don’t let him control you!” Theo said.

Orien gave some thought to it and decided, he shouldn’t let his father bully and control him and he should be able to make his own choices.

“I know right from wrong,” he told him that night at the cottage, “I know what’s good and what’s bad for me and what type of company to keep for myself. My friends are good people and I really don’t care what you think. I want to be a part of this project. It’s important to me. Shut yourself up about what you think is right for me! You don’t even know,” he shouted.

He didn’t hear from his father the rest of that particular night. They both retreated to their bedchambers. Orien listened to radio with Felice curled up on his bed.

When the end of term holiday break came, Orien’s father took him up to Penhaven Arts to meet with Dug. Orien’s father met Dug’s mother, Phyllis and he was given permission to stay the night and work on the project with his friends.

When Orien was asked to perform in front of the recorder, he stood in the frost, forgetting his lines and Dug pushed and prompted him and Orien looked at Theo and took him aside and led him down the snowy path.

“You can try to talk to her, but you can’t… and she won’t talk to you… she hates you…”

“I hate her,” Theo said.

Orien was the devil controlling him. He was the leader. The cold didn’t bother him. Life was cold and full of darkness. Then Dug would yell CUT and Orien would be himself again.


Reel Three


Memories unfolded as if kept on flimsy reel tape or as images on stiff camera film, soaked and spun in chemicals, let to dry and exposed to light. This was the camera film, which Orien used, in his developing class. Developing images was an art form that dated back to earth age. It was an art form that soon would be obsolete with new technology, but not soon yet.

Images flashed in Orien’s mind, as he sat with his feet soaking. Images like the ones developed in the dark room, images of ladies curious and eager, with minds and bodies still developing. In the dark room Orien was like another piece of equipment to them and he heard their conversations.

“What does that look like to you?” Orien overheard a lady named Lysee say to her friend, who whispered a response that Orien didn’t catch, but it made then both giggle.

Orien knew Lysee from the ride home on the transport and this type of conversation wasn’t new to him. He was fully aware at Lysee’s promiscuity.

Neither lady was able to control their laughing as they whispered. The conversation continued on but Orien drowned it out, or tried to, as he splashed his portrait paper in the chemical trays and watched the image of a lamp pole on Emardleaf way, appear on the paper card hanging on the line.

“Albin sneaked a touch once,” Lysee said, “and I slapped him hard in the face and said, this was early in the year before he knew me, those are mine thank you, if you want to touch them you ask permission. The boys laughed and then he did ask, and I let him.”

Lysee was not timid at all in regards to her body. She had fully revealed her breasts to a passing jetcar on the transport ride, on a dare. They had been playing a game of ‘mischief and confessions’. Lysee also once bared her breasts to Orien.

“I’ll show them to you, if you accompany me to the meal booth,” she had said on the field during lunch break.

“All right!” Orien said, eager. The blood in his veins was pumping in floods. His heart was stamping out of his chest.

He stood up in the field and slowly walked behind her. He could barely walk. He felt as if he had lost feeling in his legs.

They walked up the steps to the art house, and stood in line at the ticket booth, by the theatre entrance, where meals and snacks were offered during lunchbreak.

“Thank you for escorting me,” Lysee said.

“Right,” Orien said and smiled an awkward smile. He stood straight, off to the side as Lysee stepped to the front of the counter and ordered a cup of hot soup.

Orien didn’t know what to do, what he was doing. He watched her get her soup, but she wasn’t going to reveal herself to him. Not in the hall of the art house. She couldn’t.

“Come this way, Orien,” Lysee said holding her hot soup in a disposable mug.

She led him down to the washroom hallway where it was empty.

“Thanks for walking with me,” she said and handed him her cup of soup, “Hold this for me.”

Orien took the hot soup and the spoon with his shaking hand. He might have dropped it. He couldn’t help his eyes from examining her blouse ties and untying them in his mind. He held the soup with both hands.

Lysee took two gentle fingers from her right hand and pulled the soft white string in front of her and the knot was undone. She gripped her collar with both hands and pulled so the front seam was loose and Orien could see her pink undergarment. Lysee loosened up her shoulders wriggled her brassiere down and tugged her blouse open so that Orien could glimpse her bare chest.

He stared long, until she readjusted herself, pulling her brassiere straps back up to her shoulders and retying her blouse.

He could never work up the courage to sneak a touch as Albin did and it would not be right, in Orien’s opinion, to touch a lady he was not familiar with in a close way. Orien could never touch or be close to a lady. For a late youth with growing emotions, though and sensations in his body, this was frustrating and painful, but there was nothing Orien could do about it, except endure it.

Lysee was brave and daring in revealing herself to gentlemen, but Orien knew he couldn’t be intimate with her, that she would never see him as desirable. Orien’s face had seemed to break out in a rash since the beginning of the semester due to an outbreak of acne. It was common for late youths to develop acne, but Orien’s was a serious case.

Orien wore metal bracework on his teeth, which made it difficult for him to talk. He was thin. He had poor posture. He was short. He wore shabby clothes, unable and unwilling to keep with fashion trends. Orien wore the same gray longcoat every day.

Orien lingered in the developing room long after Lysee and her friend left and he continued to develop images. He developed images of waste cans, images of trees and shrubs, lightpoles, whatever there was to capture around the cottage. In the dark developing room, his picture cards hung on the line. He was surrounded by images of objects. No live subjects.

Orien checked his pocket clock and departed from the lab with his portraits. He returned to the class chamber and the rest of his scholars were gathering their things. Orien took out his folio from the shelf, opened it and placed the images inside.

There was a small clip of scrap image cards, which had been discarded by other scholars. As part of an assignment Orien was asked to color the images.

The black and white image of Willo, the outlandish rebel and radical of their school year, was smirking at him. In life she had vibrant color, with colorful clothing and hair and so he would give the image color. Orien decided to take the clip out and work on his assignment at home that night.

Orien left the art house with his belongings in his shoulder bag. Lysee and Maxen were sitting in the transport and Orien opened the door for Helena-Liz.

“Thank you so much Orien,” she said, “What a gentleman you are.”

Orien blushed and she smiled at him. He stepped on after Helena-Liz. The front chair, behind the pilot, which was a single person seat, was unoccupied. Helena-Liz looked at Orien to see if he would take it, but Orien, being a gentleman said, “You may take it,” and Helena-Liz smiled.

Orien sat in the middle row, with just himself and his shoulder bag. Not many people rode the small transport. It was only Orien, Lysee and Trot, who were let off in Hilliar and Maxen, Helena-Liz, another lady first year scholar and a brother and sister who were in their later learning years.

Sometimes Lysee would get her five fellow first year scholars together in a huddle in the last two rows at the back of the transport and mischiefs would ensue, but on that particular day everyone kept to themselves. Every other day was like that. Sometimes the ride home was exciting, sometimes not, but even on days when some excitement did happen once Orien was back at his father’s cottage in Hilliar the excitement would stop. Days when Orien went to Trot’s house after school were equally less exciting.

On Fridays, with no arts classes, school was let out early. Orien would sit at the counter at ‘The Swetreme Corner’, which was near where the transport let him off and drink a steamee, while sometimes reading his Al Wulworte book, sometimes scripting in his loosepaper book and he would wait several tolls for his father to pick him up.

School would seem like a refuge at the start of every day-set as Orien would look forward to image developing, reel study and drawing. Orien paid full attention in each of his classes, but his marks in his end of term report were low.

He enjoyed reading Lionelle Thebuek’s Tragedy of Wellshire, listened to what his scholars had to say in their discussions, being especially impressed with Bianca’s knowledge, but did not keep a reading log and did not turn in a final essay. Orien met with his instructor, Maggie and she informed him his first semester of literature study would be incomplete and that he would not be allowed to take up the course for the second semester. Orien also received an incomplete score mark in his drawing course.

Orien recalled sitting outside on the field and drawing images of trees, lightpoles, jet transports and whatever the scholars saw to sketch. Orien’s sketches were crude and sloppy renderings.

“Draw as you see in reality,” his instructor said watching Orien scribble.

“I am drawing what I see,” Orien said.

Orien never turned in a final project, but he did practice his drawing outside of his art class, taking it upon himself to sketch in his mathematics booklet. To a drawing of a lady running, he added a squiggle shape emanating from her mouth with the words ‘blllerkk’ as in a lampoon drawing of a lady being sick. He also added a pair of breasts with nipples to a flat-chested lady in another illustration.

Orien remembered how his father had read his end of term report and thought Orien would be taken out of the arts school.

Orien’s academic advisor was the school’s deputy administrator, Lydia Lubek. Orien met with her to come up with a plan to receive credit for his literature studies class and they discussed it with Orien’s instructor, Maggie. Orien began his independent project, beginning in the second semester and was still working on it.

Orien thought for certain that his ‘reel studies’ class would be one which he would receive an ‘Exceptional’ mark for, but he also would receive incomplete in that course. According to Orien’s instructor, his showpieces were unfocused.

His mind was unfocused. He went from fantasy to fantasy and from memory to memory. He was going through memory upon memory, sitting in Dug’s house, soaking his feet and watching the steam until, finally, he lifted his wet feet from the bucket of water and dried them with a clean cloth.

He could survive the cold, he could endure the fog and he would, he thought. He would focus harder on his independent study assignments for Maggie and Lydia. He did his best thinking alone, anyway.


End of Reels.

****

**

Read more about Orien Sage's journey as an adolescent in Orien the Arts Scholar

Read more about Bryan Paul at poetbryanpaul.com

The Tortoise and the Hair (A Fairy Tale) By Bryan Paul

THE TORTOISE AND THE HAIR

By Bryan Paul

Once upon a time in a tower on a hill, a princess slept in her prison cell, angry and barking at her captors and when she awoke at the sound of footsteps, she spat on the gentleman servant’s boots, as he brought up her meal.

“Please, your highness, I’m just a slave as you are-“ the humble boy servant, with the golden hair said.

“You serve the wicked queen!” the prisoner said, “You’re just as much filth as she is!”

The young boy put down the plate of rations for the ungrateful princess and hung his head as he walked away toward the steps and the princess continued to taunt and berate him, “and don’t dare compare yourself to me, I am still of royal blood! My mother once ruled these lands before my father married that nasty wretch and you and your future kin will always serve those above! We are not alike!”

But the boy ignored her and he departed, descending the long winding tower steps. Once he had gone, the princess, clutched the bread and spoiled potato slivers and gorged and drank from her filth water trough.

She spat once more on the floor as she heard a soft patter coming up from the steps. She looked up at the nasty animal, crawling up from the chamber entrance. It was an old warty tortoise. She spit at it again.

“Ha!” she said, getting up from where she crawled, “Ha!’ she said again kicking the tortoise aside.

“And just how did a filthy thing like you come up this way, Huh?” she asked.

The tortoise answered in a kind, gentle lady’s voice, “Please your highness, please, don’t kick me aside-“

But the princess didn’t let the tortoise continue talking, “How dare! How dare you ugly thing-whoever gave you the power and right of speech, surely did not give you the right to question my actions. If I want t kick you aside, you let it be so! Know your place, you are but a small animal, and I am the late Queen Ursula’s daughter! Only held prisoner here by an evil witch who stole her crown!”

“But we are both slaves, your highness, both prisoners, I have traveled all the way here from-“

“Traveled? How long? Many centuries? Hah! I could grow out my hair faster than you could crawl to the end of my cell, out the window and down the tower-and while we’re up here, we might as well see! I already have a lush crop of beautiful locks,” the princes said, standing proud and brushing and stroking her long, luminous blond hair, which had already grown out long enough to reach her toes and was perfectly straight like a beam of the sun’s ray.

“How the villagers, used to envy my beautiful hair,” the princess reminisced, “I’m sure they're having a laugh now that I am captive, but soon my hair will grow long enough so that I can cast it out the window for my lover to come climb upon it and rescue me! How jealous the villagers will be then!-and I will reclaim my royal status, by marrying my love, Prince Anthony, to rule over the village of Oleander…”

As the princess talked the tortoise ignored her as it crawled and crawled, taking one step at a time, raising one little foot at a time and going forth and forth, as the princess would eat her rations, sleep, and night would turn to day and the tortoise still would crawl and the princess's hair would grow. As the princess's hair continued to grow the tortoise continued to crawl until it made its way to the window and began its slow glide down.

The princess’s hair grew so wild that she had to dangle most of it out the window, so as not to trip and fall over it, and out the window it hung and kept growing, soon almost reaching bottom, but the tortoise, by that time was only halfway down the wall.

Galloping horses reached the princess’s ears and awoke her some days after her hair had reached just an inch above the ground and she had nearly won the race with the tortoise.

“Rapunzellll!! Rapunzellll!!” Prince Anthony shouted, “Rapunzellll!”

“I can quite hear you all right you stupid twit!” She hollered, she got  up from where she lay, unfolded the curtains of hair in front of her eyes and stuck her hair out the window.

“Has it occurred to you to be discreet! What if the queen should hear you and awaken!”

“I’m sorry my dear-“ the prince began but was interrupted by Rapunzel who shouted, in a not at all discreet way, “HURRY UP!!” Climb up my long hair!”

Prince Anthony dismounted from his horse, looked up at his future bride, with a touch of misgivings, and he walked toward the tower wall, took the end of Rapunzel’s hair in his hands and paused, in contemplation.

“HURRY UP!” Rapunzel shouted and he squeezed the lock of hair in his fist and began his climb up as Rapunzel screeched, “YYYAAAHHH!”

Prince Anthony struggled as he climbed, wiping sweat from his brow. He breathed heavily as he worked his way up and paused about halfway.

He stopped at the tortoise, turned his head and watched it, steadily make its way down, determined to make its way home.

“Hello, little fellow! Long way down, right?”

“No, not fellow, sir,” replied the tortoise, “but a lady, merely a young peasant turned to ugly tortoise by the evil witch queen.”

“My, how terrible,” Prince Anthony responded, “and there is no way to undo the wicked spell?”

“A kiss from a kind gentleman would undo the spell and I would be a young lady again, with two legs and a small crop of short brown hair, but surely that can’t compare to Rapunzel’s long length of fine silky-“

“You’re pulling at my roots!” Rapunzel screamed, “Why have you stopped to talk to that disgusting thing, HURRY UP!!”

But, slow and steady wins the race and the Prince decided to give the tortoise a helping hand, by letting one hand free and snatching it up.

“YAAAHHHAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” Rapunzel shrieked as Prince Anthony slid down her hair and leaped off the tower.

He knelt on the ground, to let the tortoise free, but before resting its four legs on the dirt, Prince Anthony pressed his lips to the creature’s cheek-

The tortoise flew out of his hands as if propelled, but in midair it seemed to vanish and the prince was blinded from a bright light as if from an eclipse.

A lady with shoulder length brown hair stood in sandals and a once pink peasant dress that had turned a dull almost violet-gray from labor.

She had the most beautiful green eyes the prince had ever seen and she stood blushing at him and smiled, thankful that he had saved her.

There was a tear forming in her eye and another and the tears slid down both her red cheeks, but the prince approached her and wiped them with his sleeve. She wasn’t used to such kind treatment and she shuddered almost as if afraid of him.

“Tears of happiness, I hope,” Prince Anthony said, “You are free from the spell…”

The servant girl sniffled but didn’t sob, yet her watery eyes met the prince’s and she explained, “Sure, I’m free I suppose, but only free from the spell, only free now to return to my work serving the queen.”

“You won’t have to suffer her cruelty now that you're with me.”

“You’d take me in as your servant?” she said smiling.

“No! I'd never want you to be that. To me you'd be a partner and companion, as much as or more than my wife and princess…”

He took her hands and they both smiled in bliss and he asked for her name in a whispered and she blushed and said softly, "Marietta"

Rapunzel never said a word from her tower, after her hair had been shamelessly yanked and tugged at by the prince, she wound up laying her head and her aching scalp in the dirty trough, nursing the pain from her tortured roots.

The prince helped the servant girl up on his horse, while he mounted and as she sat behind him and held his hips, he placed one of his calloused hands on hers and brought it up to his lips and kissed it as the horse whinnied and gallop off to the Prince’s castle in the Oleander village.

A month would pass until finally princess Rapunzel was rescued. A young golden haired gentleman who was once a servant, who had become a knight, escorted her out of her tower prison.

Rapunzel would become private servant to the knight’s sister, Princess Marietta of the Oleander Village and be, of course, treated with great respect, far greater than Rapunzel ever gave to any of the servants that served under her, and thus she would grow wise enough and humble enough to be a fitting companion to the golden haired knight who had once been a servant.

For the tortoise never did make it up those winding tower steps by herself. She did have a helping hand and in return, for his help, the knight would have his chance to win the heart of Rapunzel so that one day they would marry and live happily ever after.

* * *

Cog

I wrote this particular story, 'Cog', as a contribution to an ebook collection featuring indie authors. I was under a deadline, but though I had a month or two, I cranked out this yarn within three days-working on it late at night after work. The premise was supposed to be an allegory representing my anxiety with having to give out samples in the dining room at the restaurant where I worked, as a job requirement and my fight with corporate to tell them why I felt uncomfortable.

It is an imperfect story. I had an editor look at it, and I lashed out and objected to some of their comments, but I was more frustrated with myself, because I could have told the story a different way-but I chose a style and stuck with it. The editor didn't get the style and what I was going for, and there is a lesson in that, because when you get too far into the realm of creativity, you might finish with something that only YOU understand-but it's just 'ghosts on paper' to paraphrase Kafka. The words might as well be dust in the air, If the reader doesn't get the point...

Anyway, here's COG:


COG



I.



It was a long way down from window 7R3.

Cog didn’t look down. He wiped the counter and took a deep breath and pulled the ropes and lowered the platform until he was safe on the ground floor and ready to take his pager off his wrist.

As he ran his finger around the black band to find the clip to unclip it from his suit sleeve, he felt it pulse. The red light was shining and buzzing.

Cog was finished with his shift and he had the right to pass on his incoming page, but he couldn’t do it. He needed to answer the customer’s page, because it was important to him. It was important that he answer the call of his fellow neighbor.

He looked up.

He pulled the rope to let his platform rise back up, off the ground floor, to pass window 7R1, then 7R2, to stop at his window at 7R3.

He took the earpiece off its cradle and clipped it to his helmet, pressing the blue button.

“Thank you for calling Odyssea Banking Service, This is your teller, Cog.”

“I need to make a wire deposit…” said a fast female voice in his ear piece.

“I’m sorry, our services are closed for the night,” Cog said.

“I need to make this deposit. You have to make an exception…” the woman said.

“Hold on,” Cog said.

Cog hit the yellow button on his earpiece and looked out his window to the ground floor, where Brim was sweeping the black boot dust. He surveyed and spotted his supervisor Hef walking out from the hall at the far right. Cog clicked the notch on his wrist pager to get Hef’s attention. Hef stopped in his tracks, looked at his wrist, looked up and met eyes with Cog at window 7R3.

Cog tuned his voice box to a high enough volume to project, so that he would be heard, and addressed Hef. “I have a customer who would like to make a last minute deposit.”

“All databases are locked,” Hef answered from below.

“It sounds like an emergency of sorts…like she really needs the deposit in her account…”

“We’re closed down for the night,” Hef said. “All banking databases are shut down.”

Cog pressed the yellow button on his earpiece.

“I’m sorry, my supervisor informed me that databases have been shut down.”

“Can you type my number into your own file, and make the deposit in the morning?”

“I could lose my job, if I have a client’s account number in my personal file, and I can’t get into the bankhouse files because we’ve shut those down.”

The woman on the other end of Cog’s earpiece didn’t respond. He wondered if he had pushed the red button on his piece by mistake, but he looked at his wrist and the light on his band was a steady green.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Cog said. There was a loud pulse in his ear and the light on his wrist blinked and went out.

Cog felt bad for the client on the other end. There wasn’t anything he could do for her, but he knew she needed to make the deposit. He knew by the tone in her voice.

She might have needed the scohrs to fuel her hovercart. Cog thought as he pulled the ropes, his eyes closed, landing safe back on the ground floor.

She might have needed to fuel her hovercart to see if a loved one was safe and maybe something terrible had happened, and what had Cog done?–Cog thought as he opened his eyes, stepped off his platform, removed his wristband and walked down the dark hall.

He turned to drop his band in the box, after he slid out his scohrs chip and slid it into the arm of his suit. The scohrs number on his suit blinked, but he didn’t pay notice to it. He knew it was not enough for him to manage.

Somewhere out there a lady was helpless, without her bank deposit, unable to fuel her hovercart, unable to find her loved ones, unable to make the emergency trip, possibly. It was only Cog’s hunch, but he knew, by her voice, that the deposit was important. He had let her down.

It wasn’t the bank’s fault, Cog thought. It wasn’t Hef’s fault. It was Cog’s fault.

Cog met Brim at the front of the bank and followed him out to his hovercart, so that he didn’t have to glide home on his boots. Brim attempted to make conversation with Cog, but Cog couldn’t help thinking about the woman, whatever her name had been, and her emergency, whatever it had been; and the fact that he couldn’t and didn’t take the risk and punch her code into his personal files. He might not have been found out and he might have saved that woman, but he was weak and he obeyed Hef, and so he told the woman he couldn’t make the deposit.

The feeling of guilt that Cog was feeling was even more powerful than his feeling of terror of heights.



II.



Cog couldn’t sleep. He sat up on his cot, pulled his lamp chain and turned the dial on his helmet to a talk radio program.

“…we’re hearing these stories everywhere, listeners. People in need of jobs, that can’t get them, living in the ghettos and starving with only allowance from the high command, that has debts from the higher sectors it can’t pay. We are in a crisis…”

Cog turned the dial to find a symphony recording and stumbled on a piece by the Calliope symphony. He relaxed, listening to the rising strings while the pounding blocks kept rhythm. He imagined if he were suspended, looking over at his fellow neighbors, without fear, knowing he would not fall--not like when he worked mail-call duty at the bank and they hung him from the belt. If he were a cloud in the sky he would not have any worries, any problems; he would just breathe and have fresh air.

Life is a struggle, Cog thought, but I endure.

His dues were paid, he had fresh air and nutrients, to get him through the next calendar set and he had shelter. He had one more day to make it through before he would have a labor break.

Letting the soothing sounds of music comfort him, he pulled the lamp chain above him and rested his head. He closed his eyes and as drowsiness began to set in, he turned the sound volume dial on his helmet. He turned it down gradually until he was ready to sleep and then he turned the radio off.

Cog dreamt he was strung in the main hall of the bank, as if for mail call, and the customers in line were looking up and cursing him.

“Can’t you get them to move this line!?”

“Don’t you have more cashiers at this establishment?”

“I need this deposit now! My kids are starving,” a crying woman exclaimed. “It’s your fault! You wouldn’t bend the rules for me! It’s your fault!”

An alarm resonated in Cog’s ear and reverberated, once more and then once more. Disoriented, Cog opened his eyes, sat up from his cot and clicked the button on his helmet.

It was morning. He was awake.

He clicked the pad on his arm to check his scohr level and then clicked the tab on his chest by his heart, for morning feed. He bit the feed tube and drank the nutrition fluid as he watched his scohr level go down. Once he had taken in what he was able to afford, he hit the tab on his chest to stop feeding. He powered on his hover boots and waited. Once they were charged, he felt himself rise.Cog shuttered, as he always did but he took a deep breath.

He looked out from the entrance to his house. It was one window above his neighbor. He leapt and his heart pounded with fear, which ceased as he landed softly. He stepped forward and glided along the trail leading to the bank. For two miles he glided, and then entered the bank and pressed his finger to the tab at the entry. As the doors slid open for him, he stepped in and glided toward the box where his wristband was. Hw put his wristband on, pushed the button, and stepped onto the platform lift to be taken up to window 7R3. Cog clipped his earpiece to his helmet, waited for the pages, and then waited for the line to form at 7R3.

Hef floated up to his window. “How long have you been on our clock?” Hef asked.

“I’ve just arrived, sir.” Cog answered.

“Have you done mail call duty yet?”

“Well, I cannot,” Cog answered.

“You must. It is mandatory.”

“But I cannot. We’ve discussed this and you said you would talk to your superior.”

“Hm. Then I will talk to him today. Until then, you need to pull mail call duty. No excuse.”

“Yes sir.”

Cog had his first customer of the day, just several moments after his conversation with Hef. Cog recognized and remembered Ang. He wondered if she had been the woman from the previous night, but Ang only approached the window with her regular deposit.

A few customers came within the sixty mark timeframe and Cog avoided mail call duty. But once the line formed at his window, he became nervous, knowing that he had to visit every window, including the higher floors and deliver files, according to policy..

After Cog took care of several customers at his window, he knew he had to perform his duty. He took care of his last customer in line, took two more pages, disabled his earpiece and declared his window ‘not in service’.

Taking the platform down to the main level, he turned and glided to the hall leading to the mail room. Cog had to take a breath and hold in his true fear, as he took one of the hanging straps and clipped it to the back of his suit. He took the most recent mail chip from the slot and plugged it into the palm of his right hand. The belt pulled him up and as Cog was pulled he closed his eyes, trying not to think about how high up he was being strung; but even with his eyes closed, he could imagine how far up he had gone. He felt the belt elevate him and was afraid of it snapping and afraid of falling. He held his tears, though. Since he was elevated up several floors, Cog had to open his eyes so that he could see where he was to be led. He looked at his palm and a number flashed. He pushed it and the belt lowered and took a turn until he stopped at his destination.

He placed his hand on his first colleague’s mail receiving plate and after the transaction was completed, he dropped down to a lower level to deliver mail to one of the ground windows. He was then thankfully only pulled up two windows, and lowered back to ground; but then he was pulled up several windows and Cog didn’t look down. He went about his business, earning his set scohr rate.

Cog didn’t know how long it had been, but once he had finished his duty, he unstrapped himself from the belt and returned to his window. He had three customers waiting for him to be in service.

He returned to his cashier duties and took his three customers. There was a page left on his earpiece.

“I’m sorry to bother…” said a gentleman. “I really need to make a wire deposit, and all lines have put me on hold; but since I was able to leave recorded message on this line, I have to speak up and it is important that I am able to put in my deposit, however necessary. Thank you, ma’am or sir.”

The customer had wired his information via database and Cog was able to find his urgent deposit request and approve it.

Cog took care of several customers, before a familiar face walked in.

“Hi, Pam,” Cog said with a smile to the middle-aged woman standing in front of him. She had a look of dread on her face.

“Hi, Cog,” she answered back.

“How may I help you?”

“I need this deposit,” She said handing him her payment card.

Cog typed out Pam’s personal digits on the pad in front of him, and as he slid her payment card, he asked her, “What’s troubling you?”

“I had to turn off Opie’s oxygen,” she said in a soft, hoarse voice.

“Your pet mouse?” Cog handed her card back to her.

“I called you last night! I know you have to follow policy, but I couldn’t pay my fees, I had nothing and then I noticed the levels on his cage becoming low.”

“I am really sorry, Pam. I really am. I’m…I feel so bad.”

“It really isn’t your fault. If I had noticed sooner.” Pam turned slightly to walk off.

“I wish there was something I could do,” Cog said.

“Well, you can’t! You can’t do anything.”

Cog understood when he looked at Pam that she had forgotten that although he was part cybertronic, he was also part human, and he was genuine in saying he had been sorry.

“I apologize greatly. You have no idea,” Cog answered.

“I just…I…I’m just really upset.” Pam walked off in a rush, overwhelmed with emotion.

Cog felt his heart drop. He saw in his mind the grey mouse, in its oxygen cage, sleeping, and breathing, until the turn of a dial. Cog understood how it felt to feel little. He understood what the mouse felt. He wished he could have made it clear to Pam that he understood.

It was Cog’s fault Opie died--but he was human enough to know how Pam felt, more than she realized. Pam didn’t have any children. She was a loner, unmarried, like Cog, but far older. Opie was all she had. Cog’s sympathy for her was strong and genuine--and strong enough for him to stand up for himself.



III.



The end of Cog’s shift would come soon. He took care of his regular customers, made sure their deposits were run through the database so that they could live and breathe, and have shelter; and so their pets, their grey mice, or golden haired cats, were taken care of. Cog’s town neighbors lined up to process their scohrs earned from labor, while Cog earned his schors, so that he may live and breathe and pay for his shelter and nutrition.

Hef floated upward and stopped at Cog’s window just as Cog was finishing a transaction on his earset. Cog detached his earset from his helmet, once through and listened to Hef.

“You need to perform mail call duty again before you leave.”

“I won’t,” Cog answered.

He subjected himself to the pains of being strung about varying altitudes, once in the day already, and once more than he would have preferred and he would not allow himself to face it again.

“It’s mandatory,” Hef explained. “You have to perform mail duty twice within your shift.”

“And yet we talked about it and I told you, Hef, I told you explicitly of my personal objections.”

Cog understood that it was important to follow policy, for protection; but sometimes instincts were important. He was still human. He had human instincts. He should have disregarded policy for the sake of Pam and Opie.

In this case Cog was disobeying policy for the sake of his own well-being. It was important to him that he take a stand as he imagined being forced, regularly to be swung about like a pendulum or puppet. He’d go mad.

“But I’ve seen you make mail call.“

“I wanted to prove I could do it! But I’ve had enough for today and for the next few days.”

“We’ll have to have a talk with the branch chief.”

“I’ll talk to him; that’s fine with me.”

Cog had always been timid. He wasn’t a small grey mouse like Opie, though, and no one was going to silence him with the turn of a dial, even though they could. He knew he shouldn’t be quieted without a fight and he knew he had it in him to speak up.

When Cog’s shift ended, he pulled the rope to lower his platform, without hesitation, without giving any thought to the fact that he was being dropped downward. He stepped off his platform and did not break or utter a word to Hef on his way out the door. He turned in his wristband, confident that it would be there for him when he took up his next shift. He would only be terminated after a discussion with the branch chief and if compromises could be made, he would still have work and even if he didn’t, he’d find a way to survive. No one was going to turn the dial on him.

Cog floated on his boots, along the side streets home, and sprung up to his door, imagining that he was flying. Flying was much different than being dragged by ropes. With flying, you are in control.

Cog took of his boots, unfolded a chair, opened up his supply cabinet, took out a handful of colortips from his bin, and placed them on each of his fingers on his left hand. He reached with his right hand for a canvas screen and stood the canvas screen in front of his chair. Cog accessed his database on his left arm for his water supply. He had worked hard and had enough water supply in his suit to moisten the paint in his colortip. He began to stroke the canvas screen.

He poked with his finger and poked again. He made a muddy brownish smudge and around the smudge, he drew a circle. Then he drew a circle around the circle, and another and another. He flicked his fingers, and specks of colored smudges and smears splashed, splattered and ran. Among the world he created--the world of circles--red, yellow, blue, green dots, purple dots-commotion-all of the people in the world-and overlooking it was Cog in a web. Black streaks-black strings he drew, meeting the big black smudge in the center, which was Cog.

The color, the light, the commotion and noise below charged upward at him.

If they cut the ropes from him, he would fly away and once free he would find a way to breathe, to live, to survive. No one was going to turn the dial on him without a fight; and even if he lost the fight, he’d find a way to live on. His life would become a struggle, but he’d endure.


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-BRYAN PAUL CLARK, Written winter 2012