Living the dream: Day 540

Standing with the day’s first coffee in hand, Damian has eyes only for the screen. What exists beyond his window is irrelevant. Fifteen projects have progressed overnight. He reads the dialogue boxes, satisfied that his avatar’s instructions to contractors in Mumbai, Nairobi, Manila and Dubai are worded exactly as he would have written them. He checks the assessment of data submitted in the last nine hours, and notes that the productivity of his Dubai operative is below the acceptable threshold for the third consecutive day. Damian clicks TERMINATE, triggering an automated invitation to a next available contractor, located in Istanbul.

It’s more than a year since his last long haul flight to air-conditioned boardrooms and anonymous hotel suites. Then his world was team-building meetings and strategic plans, mind-numbing conferences and farewell functions. He had staff that expected to be trained, reviewed, motivated, and appreciated. They inconvenienced him by getting sick, taking holidays and breaking down in his office.

Damian slips a cuff over his hand and slides it up his arm until the electrodes sit snugly against his bicep. He clicks the VitalMe icon that appears on his screen and examines the data. Blood pressure: 122/84; pulse: 67; calcium: normal; potassium: normal; magnesium: low. Duncan clicks MenuMe then removes the cuff. He selects TODAY from the options, and surveys the meals recommended by his virtual nutritionist. He initiates a scan of the contents of his pantry and refrigerator, and adding identified low stock or missing items to the list, creates an order to be delivered by his local supermarket within the hour.

It’s been 540 days since he last negotiated a crowded mall car park and queues of payday shoppers. Gone is the agony of canned music, crying toddlers and ‘have a nice day’ from a glassy-eyed checkout chick.

Damian’s recommended exercise for the day is a 60-minute walk with pulse rate maintained at 140 – 150 for a minimum 45 minutes. He moves to the treadmill and selects RESUME HAMPSTEAD HEATH from the touchscreen. Instantly, the digital walls project the path leading from Westfield Gate and past the West Meadow. A touchscreen display tells him that fellow walkers Sam and Gina are logged on and have opted for a shared session. He checks their pace for equivalency to his own, then, deciding company would be nice, selects Gina. She appears on the screen to his left and gives him a smile as he matches her step. Damian enjoys her conversation, and finding a common interest in jazz, he offers her his guest access for a Lincoln Centre concert which they agree to login to together that evening.

His dynamic screen indicates movement at his double-doored entrance lobby. Stepping off the treadmill, Damian grabs a towel to wipe his face as he collects his delivery and carries it to the kitchen. He whistles softly as he sorts the items, while his second coffee brews.



Rosemary McBryde

Time Machine

The interior was small and curvilinear and white.

Anthony and Kayda Matsushita sat down in the two white chairs and looked at each other. A vague sense of apprehension filled the silence.

‘Junko Shimada?’ he asked.

‘Of course. You only wear the best when time travelling: “timeless fashion far from the diktats of trends”.’

‘1627,’ he mused, ‘– I guess the lords will be wearing white lace ruffs and tights and puffy rompers like a bunch of woofters.’

‘And,’ Kayda finished for him, ‘the peasants will be wearing track pants and hoodies.’ She gave a little moue and wrinkled her elegant nose at him.

‘How does it work?’ he asked. Again.

‘Dude, how does a pocket calculator work? There is a reason everyone in the modern world is so alienated. For a million years everyone knew how to hunt and gather, and which stones made fire. Now no-one understands how their toaster works. “How does it work?” – you enter the time and place, and press “go’’.’

*

The Jaktorow Forest in Poland in 1627 was not entirely as they had expected. The trees were huge – giant oak and linden, such that if the pair of them had held hands they could only have encircled half the trunk. Fallen trunks and branches, thick undergrowth and many pools of water made movement deeper into the forest almost impossible, but, on the edge of a clearing, the sun poured down and the most striking thing was the number of butterflies – they swirled through the air like flakes of paper rising from a fire, a many-coloured shimmer of vibrant life. Everything was green, birds called, and everywhere flowers of all kinds bloomed.

It took them a while to find the aurochs. It sat darkly at the edge of the clearing, mostly obscured by vegetation.

Kayda straightened her pale-yellow skirt and squatted down a few metres away from the great, dark bulk. Rheum had collected around its eyes and its wet nose flared and its laboured breathing rattled.

The two humans watched. They sat in the long grass. After a while, they held hands.

At last the flickering of the giant cow’s eyes ceased and everything was silent.

The pair sat for a long time in silence before creeping forward and tenderly stoking the dead beast’s shaggy neck.

‘“Moved by the infinite pity,”’ Anthony quoted, adding – ‘Saint Isaac the Syrian.’

‘They had already been hunted to extinction in Greece by the time of Herodotus,’ Kayda said.

‘And now we’ve seen the last one die.’

He stood.

‘Where to from here?’


Dhiraja

Becoming God

‘Coffee’s getting cold,’ she called from the next room, not that it was, it was half a second in the cup.

‘So, how’s it going?’ she asked when he appeared with “it’s not going well” in the hunch of his shoulders and in his gait.

‘Well, it’s not going to work.’

‘I’m sure it will.’

‘I’ve got one stanza done.’ He waved a piece of A4 paper.

‘Strong ropes constrain his tossing head,
the great black bull is harshly lead
by small cruel men whose hearts are dead
towards a cave of deepest dread
to kill him far from sight
of those from whom they stole
something something something roll
Something toll.
This evil fills the night.'

‘It’s a weird rhyme scheme – aaaabcccb. Not that I can’t do it. It’s just that the deadline is getting closer a lot faster than satisfaction or … quantity. I’ve got one other line: “His eyelashes are made of flame” – for later on when he has become God. All cattle have awesome eyelashes and the Tibetan pictures all show Yamantaka with flames coming out of his eyes. But there’s too much to get done – the details of the thieves killing the bull in the cave. I heard a woman on the BBC who had watched two bullocks being killed – there was a huge amount of blood and thrashing of legs and so on. And then their finding of the holy man in the back of the cave. Ian Baker describes him as begging for his life but surely he would just calmly request not to be killed because he had further spiritual practice to undertake and then accept with equanimity when they decapitate him? And then the moment when the dead saint gets up and seizes the bull’s bloody head and puts it on his own shoulders – that could be a page or two in itself. Then his raging across the universe, wrathful and furious. It’s interesting from a Christian interpretation – kind of the resurrection combined with the driving out of the money changers: God with a whip, savagely attacking evil. Money changers, those who oppress widows and orphans and the poor – or immigrants. Vice-presidents who instigate wars of aggression, reality television personalities who grab ’em by the pussy … National-Party voters. Christopher Logue in his Iliad put it “those who bear false witness … and judges divorced from justice by contempt of those they judge, plus the accomplices of both, perched on their fences”. I see him blazing across the galaxy like a flaming comet, though I guess astronomically that’s not possible – things only burn in the atmosphere, I guess. See, there are too many things to apply one’s thought to.’

‘Drink your coffee or it will be getting cold.’

They both gazed out the window.

‘I like the eyelash bit though,’ she added.


Barnaby McBryde

It's getting closer

There was a change in the breeze that morning.

Whether it was its direction or strength, Melinda was unable to pinpoint exactly what had changed.

She kept walking towards her school building, a shiver running down her spine as the cool air hit her,when she realized that there were only a handful of days before she would put on her graduation cap and leave.

There was a Christmas tree in the hallway that morning. A great one that stood tall, ornaments arranged neatly on each of its tidy branches. A golden ribbon was wrapped around its green body, shimmering in the lights. She grinned at it, taking out her phone to take a picture.

Today was her last Christmas party at school.

“MEL!” A voice suddenly shot through the hallways. “I LOVE YOUR SWEATER! Can you believe it’s our last Christmas party here? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?”

Melinda didn’t know any other way to respond besides a slight smile and nod, accepting Haylee’s ecstatic embrace. Haylee laughed excitedly as she dragged Melinda towards their main auditorium.

“We HAVE to sit at the front, it’s our last year! Look, Jay and Santana are already there!”

After a few more hugs and laughter, the entire auditorium grew silent as the Principal stepped forward to introduce the assembly. There was a unison of applause as the first performers began stepping on stage. Santana gave Melinda a wide grin, her pearly white teeth showing. Jay waved overzealously, whisper-shouting.

There were a series of performances, all purely showcasing extreme talent or humor, which Melinda thoroughly enjoyed. But what she enjoyed just as much - if not more - was the company of her three best friends as they sang, their voices muffled with laughter and bodies warm from countless cuddles.

Their graduation day was approaching, any of them could easily count the number of days they had left with one another.

They felt it, deep inside of them, under their smiles and behind glimmering eyes, that it was nearly the end.

But for a few moments, as they chanted out Christmas tunes at the top of their lungs, they enjoyed the precious memories they were making.



Katya Tjahaja

November

The end of the year approaches and with it, chapters will close, activities will cease. There will be pause. Perhaps change. This blog too will come to an end after three years, so if you have a short short story inside you demanding to be written, now's your chance. For November, your starter idea is "It's getting closer."

Stories to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by 30 November. Happy writing.