Tag: amWriting

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (3)

Part 1 is here: Coming of age, 2484

Dervlah sits in silence. For the first time in her life, all she could hear was the sound of her own body. Nothing else. In Space, silence means death. With none of that fancy machinery around to keep her alive, Death comes stalking.

The cart named Kit wasn’t really dead, but everything that moved within it was. Kit had an enormous amount of energy wound tightly around the conduction coil in the back. But that energy was silent.

‘If I take no action, Death will come. But how is that different to living?’

Dervlah realises her eyes are closed only when everything turns orange red. Slightly flashing as though someone was shining a light at her. She opens her eyes, wipes away the gathered tears, to see someone shining a light at her. From another cart. In space.

With every thing shut down, the light begins to blink. ‘I think it’s morse!’

MORSE_CODE_DICT = {
    'A': '.-', 'B': '-...', 'C': '-.-.', 'D': '-..', 'E': '.',
    'F': '..-.', 'G': '--.', 'H': '....', 'I': '..', 'J': '.---',
    'K': '-.-', 'L': '.-..', 'M': '--', 'N': '-.', 'O': '---',
    'P': '.--.', 'Q': '--.-', 'R': '.-.', 'S': '...', 'T': '-',
    'U': '..-', 'V': '...-', 'W': '.--', 'X': '-..-', 'Y': '-.--',
    'Z': '--..',
    '0': '-----', '1': '.----', '2': '..---', '3': '...--',
    '4': '....-', '5': '.....', '6': '-....', '7': '--...',
    '8': '---..', '9': '----.',
    ' ': '/'
}

inverted_dict = {v: k for k, v in MORSE_CODE_DICT.items()}
text = ''
for code in morse_code.split(' '):
    if code in inverted_dict:
        text += inverted_dict[code]
    else:
        text += code

‘R U OK’. ‘Am I ok? Well I’m not sure. No I’m not ok. Why are you shining a light on me. Is the vastness of Space, the great beyond not enough to get a bit of, well a bit of space?’ Apparently not.

Fingers start pushing in the circuit breakers, one by one. A quarter the way in, the alarms start their clamour. Three quarters of the way through, they cease, but the noise. The whoosh of the air filter is back. The tics and buzz of electronics and heaters are back. The sound of life is back.

The click of the radio is back. ‘Cart named Kit, cute. Eh, cart named Kit, this is Punice, do you hear me?’

‘Punice? What the hell is he doing here? I better respond. Hmmmm. Oh yes’:

‘Fuck you, Punice Milord.’

Continued in Coming of age, 2484 (4)

Categories
Coming of age, 2484 - Series stories

Coming of age, 2484 (2)

Part 1 > Coming of age, 2484

Pop. Well no pop, but there should have been a pop. Black tunnel and pop, the whole universe. Is this what the big bang felt like?

Although not reccomended, Dervlah knows what has to come next.

Her hand drops to her right, fingers feeling for the small, roughened plastic rocker. Finger tip pushes back.

The whole chair gives a slight jar and slowly moves back, with a hum of gears and electricity. Dervlah has dreamed about this moment ever since she can remember. Her eyes stay fixed and the jewelled universe unfolding outside her cart’s canopy. ‘There, that’s enough’. Her right hand now has access to the small fusebox panel set close to the floor.

Dervlah’s heart races, her head races, but her hand is steady, it knows what to do. The panel falls open (bottom hinged for easy access), revealing row upon row of small, round, circuit breakers.

How she has dreamed of this. Barely breathing now, her fingers grip the first breaker, and pull.

Tiny pop. Warning light. Second breaker, pull, pop, new warning light. Repeat. About half way through now. The alarms start their clamour. About three quarters through now, the Alarms stop their clamour.

The last pop. Dervlah exhales. Tears begin to swell on her eyes. It doesn’t matter. The light of the cosmos distorted through tears on wet eyes with no gravity to wick them away. It doesn’t matter. The panels are all dark now, and the controls are dead. It’s not about her eyes now.

She was born on the moon. Her whole 24 years were on the moon. Air cleaned by filters and pumps and shifted in a never ending cycle. People crowded the few percent of the suface capable of holding human life. Constant fucking noise.

For the first time in her life, she had it.

Silence.

Part 3 > Coming of age, 2484 (3)

Categories
stories The Shouter Series

The Shouter (7)

The Shouter part 1 is here -> The Shouter

The Guards, Guarding..

“Yea did wha?” “Like, year not dumb fellas, clearly, but ah, what are yea even at playin wit dis stuff, sure yea coudda lost an eye!” Donegal Guard happy he has enough down in his notebook for the insurance company, nods at Dublin Guard. The nod said “We have enough, now lets get outta here before there’s more paperwork”.

Dermot, Declan, Tweedie Dum, Tweedie De; lookin at eachother. Not a tight squeeze anymore, not a shed. Quite airy now with the rather large hole punched in the wall. “Here, I know we said no strings attached, but…” Dermot, who saw this coming, says “Ah I fuckin knew it, no strings me hole”.

The equipment wrapped up and carted off. Summer ending approaching like a small ball of energised air on a collision course. Like a truck now. Dermot figured out it was Thales, a “we make satellities, but also we make missiles” company from across the pond, who had rented the building.

School starting again. The final year. Time to get the head down and start studying for real.

Radio Wow back on the air, two lads in the shed, bit of a squeeze, sharing a can of Dutch Gold. Dermot sighs. Declan, who knows about sound, says “Well look, I was thinkin…”

The end

This was my first series and first try at writing for public consumption. I hope you enjoyed it! You can follow me on mastodon if you would like to be notified of new stories”- https://mastodon.ie/@roomey