“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations”

Kahlil Gibran

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”

Jim Morrison

So I was wondering.. what do you do when you have nowhere left to turn and no space that is your own to do and say whats in your head and heart, what do you do? When you're so full of hurt and unhappiness and there is nowhere safe left for you to explore those feelings without fear of intrusion and recrimination , what do you do? When the only person you wish to have a conversation with is yourself? When the only person who has the real answers is you and the only opinion that counts is your own and the decisions need to be made by no-one but you?

I am Violated and censored. Another part of me has been taken. There is nowhere to explore my truth- to try find it. Nowhere to just be me. Again.

Here too..again ... I censor myself. Dont say that its a pattern that repeats. Don't say that losing that space that was mine to grow and explore in destroys ME ..again.

An excerpt frommy abandoned nanowrimo 2008

 

Nanowrimo 2008

 

A flash of sunlight glinted off of something in the ravine below as Jaeger’s dogged march brought him to the top of the rise. Dropping to a low crouch, Jaeger squinted against the brilliance bouncing off the bleached rock, assessing the situation he’d chanced upon. Waves of heat radiated from the baked surface, burned through the soles of his boots and scorched the air above it. Beads of sweat sprang up over his entire body, drenching his skin and turning the layer of dust to rivulets of mud. A drop, snaking down his arm and dripping from his elbow, evaporated almost as soon as it hit the stone. Jaeger took hold of the hem of his tunic, tied around his head for protection from the unrelenting blaze of Charva’s mammoth sun, and wiped the stinging moisture from his eyes.

A cruiser, a tarnished wreck of a civilian transport that was probably within a judder of total disintegration if he was any judge, squatted pathetically in the narrow gorge. Clearly who ever had set it down there was hoping to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Especially round these parts. No relay towers, no patrols, no witnesses. No point inviting any opportunistic marauders, even if the cruiser already looked like a scavenged carcass.

Jaeger worked some saliva down his throat. Exhaled into his cupped hands and breathed the slightly moistened air through parched nostrils. Maybe his luck was turning. As near as he could figure he was still three days out of the nearest settlement on foot. He might have made it. But then again he’d be in no shape for anything by then. And it may have been pushing his luck way too far to expect that the patrol wouldn’t be keeping an eye open for a fugitive. Or someone fitting his description.

Besides he was sick of sucking bitter viscous sap out of frikkin prickly succulents and pulling the barbs out of his palms.

 

Down in the valley three figures manhandled a large panel back toward the craft, dropping it part way. One howled in pain and another shouted. Unseen in the tight shadows against the rock face another voice called out. Two figures materialised from the gloom, both in dark robes, shrouded from head to foot. The three workers turned, folding their hands and bowing before the pair approaching them.

So perhaps this was not just a simple civilian passage. This should be interesting.

Jaeger stood and strode toward the edge of the ridge. A shimmer of air lifted the tunic and cooled the moisture slicking over his muscled chest and back. He paused at the precipice, considering the descent. He wasn’t in great shape but worst case scenario, if he did fumble a hold, it wasn’t that far to drop. Stopping to tightening the tunic around his head again, he checked the group to see whether they had spotted him yet. They gave no sign that they had, the two in robes standing aside as the others struggled with the panel again.

A dark spot near the horizon caught his attention. He watched it for a long moment, assessing the speed , trying to identify the class of the craft. Too slow and too large. Perhaps it was too much to expect that this would be easy.

Jaeger swung himself over the rim of the gorge and descended the rock face with agile conviction. Shoulders and forearms burning, fingers tortured, he slid the final section as a foothold suddenly released and he dropped in a avalanche of pebbles and soil. Jaeger, lying with his face to the sky, challenged the rock face with a barked laugh. He must have slid near threeman down the near vertical wall.

“Any day is a good day to die. But not today.”

Raising his head a little he glanced to the cruiser. The little group stared in his direction. A grin split his dry lips. He did like to make an entrance. Better the fool than a foe.

In one fluid move Jaeger rose to his feet. He scooped up the makeshift head wrap, which had parachuted away at his rapid decent, and wiped away some of the dirt coating his face and body as he strode toward the now shuffling workers and retreating robes.

He kept up his pace across the packed earth, heading directly toward them so there was doubt of his intent. When he was close enough, so he could see their eyes, he stopped. The three work men dropped the load between them again, one of them cursed and kicked the luminum panel.

One of the robes was trying earnestly to draw the other away, to no avail. She held her position and had her gaze locked on Jaeger.

Impassive, she stared unwaveringly, measuring his frame and face.

Jaeger met her gaze levelly and everything stilled. Beguilement radiated from her and engulfed him. He was plummeting into the dark void within her gaze. The space between them contracted to insignificance and he felt her essence pressed to his being. Deeper than the simple physical substance of his body. She ebbed away, murmered something into his ear as she turned from him.

It seemed only a moment but his lungs burned for air when she released his focus and turned away. He gasped, breathed the too hot, too dry air and blinked away the grit in his eyes. The dehydration must be getting to him, he was starting to halucinate.

He rubbed a hand over his head, the stubbly growth unfamiliar under his fingers, as he watched the pair of robed women boarding the cruiser.

The three men standing over the curved panel, which should by rights be hinged and locked to the craft and not removable, paused and watched him suspiciously; clearly weighing up his threat potential. It’d be easy for them to assume that since he was weaponless, grimy and looked like he been through the wringer he couldn’t pose that much of a risk. They’d be wrong but he didn’t need them to know that right now. The oldest one, probably the captain, sporting the slicked-back scalp-revealing greying hair and rounded paunch of glutted middle age, turned and faced the intruder, hands on hips.

 “You’re a long ways from anywhere friend,” he said, his tone too friendly, too polite. The other two in flightjockey overalls, just stood idly by the cruiser’s íntake casing.

“Looks like you could use a hand,” Jaeger said ignoring the unspoken question, gesturing at the plate that still hadn’t been replaced onto the underbelly of the craft.

“Seems to me it’s you who be needing a hand,” the captain said, nodding at Jaeger and pointing to his own elbow.

Jaeger raised an elbow and noted the steady trickle of dark blood, from a long gash down his forearm, soaking into the already filthy tunic held in his hand. No time for that now. A low hum had started to reverberate between the rock walls of the gully.

“This? It’ll heal. You might want to be more concerned about getting this cruiser airborne. Soon.”

“Oh? Why’s that now?” he said with a hint of a smirk, a glance passing between the three of them, and then back at him. The other two had the unkempt look of hired lackeys, underpaid too if the shoddy, treadbare overalls were anything to go by. No lubricant smears on the overalls or their hands.

A decrepit transported, a couple of dubious hired hands, a too-slick runner. A pair of oddly remarkable, and possibly lucrative, passengers. And an unscheduled stop in the wilds.

The situation just got a whole lot murkier and a whole lot more familiar feeling.

The hum became a roar as the freighter reached the rim of the ravine, the engines whining as reverse thrusters came online to halt its bulk.

“Kirk,” the captain yelled over the din, “get on the comms. Now!” The lanky guy with pock-marked skin and a fighters twitch flicked him a mock salute and headed for the hatch.

“Haley,” he motioned the thickset heavy over and said something unintelligable with a swift glance in Jaeger’s direction. Haley twisted round and looked at Jaeger, a grim grin cleaving his meaty jowels and baring skewed and jagged teeth.

The captain also headed for the hatch, without casting a backward glance in Jaeger’s direction.

He was going to regret that.

Haley advanced on Jaeger. Stooped briefly to retrieve a blade from the top of his boot. He was heavy and slow, his eyes flicking restlessly. Jaeger held his position, shook his head. Haley halted in his tracks, uncertain. Jaeger sidestepped a few paces and Haley turned with him, the blade held out in front of his bulk. Fresh blood oozed from his wound and dribbled over his wrist as he clenched his fists, flexed the muscles in his chest, shoulders, arms.

He quickly wrapped the tunic around his wounded arm, tied it off over his elbow, using his teeth to grip the end. Haley stood still and watched him do it.

A scream emanated from the open hatch and Haley unwisely flicked his attention to it. That was all he needed. Jaeger charged forward and struck Haley’s arm with the full force of his weight in motion. The blade released from Haley’s grip and arched to the dust. Jaeger spun and used his momentum to drive his elbow into the man’s gut, knocking the breath from his lungs. Haley fell, gasping like a waterless fish, to the parched earth. Jaeger retrieved the dagger, wrapped his bloodied fingers around the shaft and, dropping a knee to the man’s chest, arced the blade overhead and plunged it through the artery and into his throat.

“Today is your day comrade,” he said, regret tightening his mouth.

Wrenching the blade free, Jaeger stood beside his wide-eyed kill, wiping the shaft clean on the tunic-bandage. Blood spurted from the wound in his opponent’s neck, he gasped and choked, blood surging over his tongue as he clawed at his throat and flailed his legs. The movements abruptly subsided to a judder and insentient twitching. Pushing the dagger behind his belt, Jaeger dismissed the corpse and moved into the shadow of the craft toward the stair. He squinted up at the open hatch.

Kirk and the captain emerged from the cruiser, shoving the shrouded figures toward the steps until they had no choice but to descend or fall. Swiftly crossing the short distance toward the craft, Jaeger positioned himself at the base of a landing prop. He couldn’t see anything more than their backs descending the stairs from his post but it also meant that they would not see him. At least not immediately. Until it was too late.

One of the women was sobbing. The captian merely shoved her again, causing her to stumble and fall to her knees. Her hands were bound behind her back.

“Get up harijan!” he said pulling back the hood and yanking her upward by her hair, “we’re going for a little walk.” The hood removed and revealed grey streaked yellow hair. It wasn’t the one that had stolen his breath earlier, but her protector. She hung her head, hiding her face from the thugs. Her shoulders quivered as she sobbed and the flabby captain of this heap jabbed a blastweapon against her skull.

Kirk stripped the hood from his captive too. Black tresses, like polished jet, fell loose around her shoulders. Jaeger could not glimpse her face from his current position, could only remember her eyes. Brilliant amber glowing in a ring of black. Now she stood tall. Unflinching in the face of her companion’s distress. Silently imparting her strength and calm.

“Fuck. Haley? Haley?” Kirk had spotted Haley lying prone in the dirt and rushed toward him, leaving his charge where she was. “Haley?” he bent over the corpse. His fists bunched in to his lank blonde hair on top of his head, he turned to the captain, shouted, “son of a bitch killed him. Son of a bitch killed him, Pike!” He was scanning the blighted tract of land between the canyon walls and the cruiser. Jaegar held his position, waiting.

Pike shoved the elder woman to her knees and came to see for himself. He nudged his fallen crewman with the toe of his boot. Spat on the fouled ground beside him. “Son of a bitch, whore-son,” he said shaking his head. He peered into the distance. “Reckon he’s skulked away to lick his wounds. Won’t last long out here anyways.” He turned to head back toward the captives. “We got business.”

“You bastard!” Kirk spat at the captain, stopping him in his tracks, “he’s just one less cut to pay out. That’s it, is it?”

“What about it you snivelling little cunt? You didn’t sign up for this for honor did you?” Pike levelled the gun, still gripped in his hand, at Kirk, “and you’ve just outlasted your usefullness.”

Kirk yanked his own weapon out and aimed it squarely at the amber-eyed hostage, “you still need her.”

Jaeger hurtled forward, lifting the luminium panel en route and holding it infront of himself like a shield. They barely had time to react before he was on them, swinging the convex plate at the weapons hastily aimed in his direction. He brought it back around and impacted the side of Kirk’s head edge-on. He released the heavy metal sheet and it propelled itself toward Pike, who’d stepped backward. The panel smashed into the paunchy captain throwing him further off balance and delivering him to the dirt. Kirk held a hand to the side of his head, blood seeping between his fingers and dripping onto his boiler suit. Jaeger clenched the dagger in his fist again. Kirk’s gun still dangled from his other hand. His eyes never leaving Jaeger, he lifted the weapon away from his side, rotated his wrist and fired. Pike slumped back to the ground. What was left of Pike anyway. The panel recoiled from the blast and skidded away. Jaeger looked back at Kirk. Was he going to take a shot at him? Or did he think they where on the same side now? Jaeger stood his ground.

The blast gun slid from Kirk’s fingers and clattered to the ground. A damp patch spread from his crotch down his left trouser leg. The whites of his eyes gleamed as the pupils peeled back up into his brain. Like an imploding tower Kirk toppled backward. He was dead before he hit the dirt.

 

 

Jaeger didn’t spare a moment for the kid, he replaced the blade in his belt and went to get the intake casing. It didn’t look like the blast had done it any damage, other than a scorch mark. He hefted its not inconsiderable weight toward the underbelly of the cruiser. The hinges were in place but the nuts were missing. It should hold. Checking the intake manifold he couldn’t find anything that looked in worse shape than anything else.  He swung the panel into place and refastened the catches.

That freighter wasn’t going to wait for their cargo all day. They’d be sending someone to investigate very shortly and he wasn’t going to be the welcoming committee. He didn’t know if they’d make it out of here with that thing on their tail, but he sure as hell didn’t have too many other options.

“Time to go,” he barked as he passed the bewildered captives without so much as a glance. They weren’t his problem, they could get on the cruiser with him, or take their chances with whatever was waiting for them on that freighter.

He didn’t have to ask twice. Raven-hair was dragging the now silent gray-hair up the steep flight as quickly as the voluminous robes would allow. They tumbled through the doorway virtually simultaneously to his finding the stair retracter and jabbing it. Amber-eyes was heaving the door into place and locking it down as he took a seat in the pilot seat. Quickly scanning the instruments he checked a couple of vital guages and fired up the engines.

The comms display light up, ‘Pike. What the frig are you doing? Where’s my passengers?”

“Sorry buddy, no deliveries today,” Jaeger said disconnecting the channel and disabling the relay. 

Releasing the throttle and flaps as soon as the revs were running high, the scruffy transporter lurched forward. A startled yelp came from behind him. “This ain’t the scary part ladies,” he said, and engaged the accelerator. Towering stone loomed by as he steered the craft along the floor of the canyon. He veered around an outcrop and took a sharp exit from the main channel into a tributary.

Space rapidly got very tight in the gorge. Jaeger pulled them up over the rim but stayed low. On the horizon heat shimmered and great boulders littered the landscape of fissures and tors. Sparse vegetation clung to life in little pockets. In this landscape the freighter would make an easy target of the cruiser. He could set it down and try to hide but then they’d be sitting ducks, how long would it take them to give up or move on? No, this little flyer would never elude them again without the element of a surprise take off. 

He flicked on the geotracker screen and autoplotted their destination to grid fifty-six, Durga- his nearest safe harbour. The craft ascended to the tropopause, making a ninety degree arc and increasing velocity to eighty percent. The freighter hadn’t caught up yet but it wouldn’t be hard to guess their destination if they’d managed to get a bearing on the cruiser’s heading. Not much else but Durga heading into the centre of the wasteland of Arun. But it was the nearest major port. And since he had the means at his disposal to abridge the journey to a jump off point he wasn’t going to be choosy about which way he got there. Besides he needed a new Pass and Brammer still owed him a favour. Jaeger shut his eyes and leaned back in the chair, had to reach into the small of his back and remove the knife from his belt. He dropped it beside his boot and closed his eyes again.

an exerpt from a spicy novellette