The Cat and the Human.

She had loved that cat. Adored her. At times I’d even joked that she loved her more than me. I knew that wasn’t the case, of course, but it seemed like the feeling between her and the cat was mutual.

I didn’t mind for the most part, of course. I loved the cat, too, and I always appreciated any time she came and sat in the chair in my office while I was working. I knew that her priority was sitting somewhere comfortable and warm rather than necessarily enjoying my company, but it was nice to feel like she wanted to be in the same room as me now and again.

Now her real master was gone, though, and she was left with just me, forever second-best. I could see the sadness in her eyes. I could see it in the dejected-looking way that she sat on her cat tree. I could see it in the way that she just didn’t seem to have the energy she once did.

The cat’s obvious sadness made me feel miserable, too. It was an uncomfortable reminder of past times of joy, never to be repeated. Once we had been a family of sorts, always together, always sharing in the wonders of life. Now we were just a man and his cat.

And yet, at some point, I don’t know when… we bonded more than we ever had done. Our shared grief brought us together. Just as I recognised how the cat was suffering from her absence, so too did the cat recognise that it had hit me hard, too. And slowly, little by little, completely wordlessly, our relationship began to change.

I remember the first night it happened. I was lying in the bed which now felt entirely too large for me, tossing and turning, struggling to get to sleep. Suddenly, I felt something; a weight on the bed. And I heard something: a soft purring. In the dark, I could just make out the shape of the cat. She had come to see me in the night; she never used to do this, usually preferring to sleep in her comfy cat bed downstairs in the living room.

But now she was here, purring softly in my ear. She headbutted my outstretched hand until I began to pet her, and she rubbed her face on my hand as I tickled her cheeks and chin.

Then, she sat down. It was a decisive move, a declaration. She managed to mould herself so that she fit perfectly into the curve of my arm that was extended across the empty half of the bed, and quickly curled up, ready to fall asleep. Her soft fur felt good against my arm, and I felt a sense of relaxation wash over me — a feeling that I hadn’t really been able to enjoy for some time now.

From thereon, I had that feeling every night. Things were going to be all right, in their own strange way.

She loved me, too. This cat loved me. Perhaps it had taken our shared loss for her to really feel like she could show it, but I was left in no doubt whatsoever.

Neither of us wanted to be alone. And now, neither of us would be alone.

Please do not worry about me, everything is fine and this is not an autobiographical blog post! The above is a piece of creative writing following the prompt “A human and a cat who come to some sort of mutual understanding.”

2471: Memoirs of an Ordinary Person

I’ve been listening to some audiobooks while I’ve been working the past few days. I’ve just finished Dave Gorman’s Too Much Information — a work that resonated all too well with me, given my growing frustration with the cacophonous “noise” of everyday life — and have since started on Sue Perkins’ Spectacles, her memoir.

One thing I’ve often wondered over the years is whether or not there’s any perceived value in the memoirs of “ordinary people” — in other words, memoirs written by people who aren’t celebrities, or even those who haven’t had anything seemingly noteworthy happen to them. And I’m inclined to think that there is — after all, the best celebrity memoirs are the ones that talk not about being a celebrity, but about their childhood, or formative experiences growing up, or things that they’ve experienced that helped make them the person they are today. Things that are relatable to the audience; things that are relatable to “normal” people.

There’s value in having a celebrity name attached, of course: someone who enjoys Sue Perkins’ TV and radio appearances is likely to pick up her memoir simply because they like her, for example. But this doesn’t mean her life story is inherently more valuable than anyone else’s. In fact, I’d wager a guess that there are lots of people out there who have had lives far more interesting than today’s celebrities have.

In my experience, whether or not the person whose life you are reading about is famous or not is largely irrelevant; what does, on the other hand, matter is whether or not they have interesting stories to tell.

And, well, I don’t like to blow my own trumpet too much, but I do feel I have more than a few interesting stories to tell. My life has certainly been eventful, if nothing else. This blog has occasionally dipped into memoir-esque territory, but as an idle side project, I’ve started writing down some of the things I remember from my past.

I am a normal human being. Well, as normal as anyone is these days, which is to say I’m riddled with neuroses, suffer from depression, anxiety and social anxiety—two very different, but related things.

I digress; I am a relatively normal human being. I haven’t survived some sort of unimaginable tragedy, I haven’t had to cope with a life-threatening illness or the challenges of a physical disability and the nearest I’ve come to being involved with a famous person is working in an Apple Store at the time John Cleese came in with a black credit card, proclaiming that it could “sink a bloody battleship”. I didn’t serve him, I was just there; that’s how much of a relatively normal human being I am.

Nonetheless, Things have happened to me, much as they have doubtless happened to you, your friends and the rest of your family. These Things may not have seemed like a big deal at the time, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll have found that the strangest things stick in your memories for many years, and it seems like quite a shame to run the risk of them, at some point, being filtered out of your mind in favour of some new and ultimately useless piece of information you picked up from Wikipedia. We live in an age full of constant noise, after all, with every piece of media around us vying for our attention and threatening to fill our minds with useless dribble that might get you lots of Likes on Facebook, but which doesn’t really compare to the fond memories of your childhood.

My memories aren’t all fond. Some of them are downright painful or embarrassing, and some of them, to this day, still make me feel overwhelmingly negative emotions such as anger or grief. It’s healthy to share such memories, though; otherwise, they just get bottled up inside, and, over time, you run the risk of them overflowing and forcing you to, I don’t know, run naked through a shopping centre with a chainsaw in each hand singing Stairway to Heaven. Or, you know, something.

With all that in mind, then, writing them down in some form seems like a reasonable idea.

2449: Planning Ahead

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With it being October now, I find myself pondering whether to do some creative writing this coming November as I have done for the last few years. And I think I’m going to, only this time try something a bit different.

I’ve been meaning to check out the well-known interactive fiction creation software Twine for quite some time now, and this November feels like an ideal opportunity to do so. I’ve been having a little fiddle with it this evening in an attempt to get to grips with the basics, and I think I now know enough to be able to put together a convincing interactive story over the course of a month.

For the unfamiliar, Twine is an open-source piece of software that allows you to create primarily text-based games with hyperlinks as a means of interaction. In simple terms, it allows you to create Choose Your Own Adventure-style experiences, though with a bit of scripting knowledge and/or making use of the macros available in the various story templates, you can create somewhat more complex affairs with conditional branches, variables and all manner of other goodies.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the software for me is the fact that it’s entirely text-based and consequently carries no need for you to be good at graphics or sound design — and no risk of people accusing you of being “lazy” for relying on predefined assets. Everything in a Twine game is a collaboration between the author’s skill at writing and the player’s own imagination. (It is possible to add graphics, sound and music to Twine games for those who see fit, but doing so feels a bit like you’re missing the point somewhat.)

Another really nice aspect of Twine is the fact that it depicts your story as a flowchart, automatically creating new branches according to the choices you offer throughout. This makes it very easy to visualise the overall flow of your story and branch it off into different routes if desired; likewise, it allows you to bring divergent paths back together pretty easily.

I need to have a think about what sort of story I want to write and how it might be interactive — the latter being a consideration that you don’t have to think about when writing linear traditional fiction! Still, I’ve read plenty of visual novels for “inspiration” over the years, so hopefully it won’t be too difficult to come up with something; going by my previous experiences, however, the true challenge will be keeping the scale of the project in check so I don’t get too overambitious and start attempting to produce something that will never be finished in a month of development!

I’ll continue experimenting in Twine in the run up to November so hopefully by the time November rolls around I’ll be proficient enough in the software to produce something convincing. And then, of course, the final product will be playable by you, dear reader, should you so desire.

2221: Seeing the Final Product Forming

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I spent a chunk of time today porting the work I’ve already done on a story from Google Docs online to Scrivener on my Mac. Scrivener is a piece of software I picked up quite a while back and have used sporadically whenever I feel creative; it’s a lovely piece of software to keep written projects of any size manageable and organised.

For the unfamiliar, Scrivener allows you to organise your whole project into a single file, including the chapters and sections/scenes of your book, research material, front matter and general notes. Within the file, you have a tree structure of folders and items, with numerous templates available for various types of project. When you’re all done, you “compile” the project like a computer program, and Scrivener spits the finished product out in the format of your choice, be it double-spaced manuscript for sending to a publisher, attractively laid out pages ready for self-publishing, or various popular eBook formats. You can even export it to a word processor if you so desire, allowing you to format it further using tools beyond that which Scrivener offers.

I was surprised what a feeling of motivation I felt from porting the existing content over to Scrivener, and I attribute this primarily to the fact that what you bung into Scrivener looks remarkably like what the finished product will end up being. In fact, if you compile a project in progress to a PDF just to have a look at how things appear, it’s even more motivating, because you can imagine holding the finished book in your hands. That’s quite exciting.

Just the fact that Scrivener uses some very attractive, convincingly “book-like” default fonts helps with this feeling of seeing the final product coming together, though. Couple that with the fact that Scrivener’s interface is designed to be as clean and distraction-free as possible, and all in all you have a piece of software that is eminently suitable for creative types to realise their written ambitions — even if you barely use a fraction of the functionality the software has to offer, which I suspect is a category I will probably fall into unless I want to get really anal about page headers or something.

Anyway. This is a long-winded way of saying that I have been successfully motivating myself to continue with my creative writing project while I still don’t have any full time work. I’m under no illusions that I’ll be able to make money from this — at least initially — but the story I’m working on at present is a passion project that it will simply be satisfying to see completed at last, and released into the wild. If anyone ends up actually buying it, so much the better, of course, but if nothing else completing a project of this sort will 1) show me that I can do it, and hopefully inspire me to do more that take less than 15 years to complete and 2) stop my mother telling me every so often that I should “write that book”. (She hasn’t done that for a while, to be fair, which probably means it’s due a mention sometime soon… I know you’re reading, Mum, so take this as assurance that I’m doing it.)

So that’s that. Writer? Windows or OSX-equipped? Give Scrivener a go, and you might just be surprised how much you can get done.

2151: Life Line

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“You’re on a long flight, and a palm reader sitting next to you insists she reads your palm. You hesitate, but agree. What does she tell you?”

Daily Post, December 10, 2015

[This didn’t post yesterday for some reason, so here it is today.]

“Hmm,” she says in a long, drawn-out sort of way, clearly milking the moment for maximum drama. I look around, conscious that other passengers are surreptitiously watching to see what’s going on, clearly having overheard her request. Then I look back at her. She’s gazing intently at my proffered palm, running her fingertip down what I assume, as a layman, to be my “lifeline”, but she’s saying nothing for the moment; all I can hear is the low drone of the engines, and the somewhat subdued conversation of the other passengers in the cabin.

“Your path has been a meandering one,” she says at last. “You have stumbled headlong into chaos on frequent occasions, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that chaos has sought you out; it is hard to tell at this point.”

I say nothing but incline my head slightly in silent agreement. Well, she’s off to a running start, at least.

“You have endured many hardships on your travels,” she says. “They may not have been physical hardships, or even hardships that people could see you struggling with, but they were hardships nonetheless.”

I feel my skepticism fading away a little as she offers what appears to be an accurate assessment of my life to date; that said, there’s still a little voice in the back of my mind pointing out that everything she’s said so far is fairly ambiguous and could probably be applied to anyone.

“Your pain has helped to forge you,” she continues. “Your struggles have made you stronger, but at a cost: turbulence, uncertainty, a lack of clarity.”

I glance around to see how many passengers had reacted to the mention of “turbulence” — not a word you want to utter on a plane in most instances — but most people in the immediate area appear to have returned to their own business, or at least are being subtle about their eavesdropping if they are indeed indulging their own curiosity.

She’s not wrong, but again, these statements could probably apply to anyone out there. Without context and specifics, I remain not entirely convinced of her reading’s veracity.

“Your future remains uncertain,” she says, her finger apparently reaching its destination on my palm and ceasing its movement; she doesn’t break contact, however. “You desire nothing more than to know exactly what the future holds, and how you can ensure you are on the correct path. But the truth is that there is no correct path, only the path that you choose to take. While it may feel like you are at something of a crossroads right now, be sure that you will make a decision and proceed down a road, and that road will be the correct one for you. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, it may not even be next year. But your route will one day be illuminated, and you shall find your way.”

She releases my hand, which plops back into my lap.

“Thank you,” I say simply. Ultimately I’m not sure I’ve learned anything particularly new from her statements, but if nothing else they gave me pause to reflect on my life, the decisions I’ve made, the decisions that were made for me, and what the future might hold, as uncertain as it might be.

Finding that route will be scary, no doubt, but as I look at her gently smiling at me, I feel like there’s at least one person out there who has faith I’ll make the right choices somewhere along the way, and that everything will work out for the best.

I hope she’s right.

2112: 1984

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “1984.”

“You’re locked in a room with your greatest fear. Describe what’s in the room.”

My immediate reaction to this prompt was to say that the room was absolutely full of spiders. And to be fair, that would pretty much scare the shit out of me, particularly if they were of the deadly variety.

But that would be too easy. Someone who truly wanted to break me psychologically — as opposed to kill me — would go for something much more subtle, and something that wouldn’t physically hurt me, but which would deal some damage regardless.

And, on reflection, I came up with an answer pretty quickly.

There is nothing in the room. Nothing at all.

The walls are plain. The floor is plain. The ceiling is plain. When the door closes, you can’t even see its frame, so flush with the wall it is. There’s no clear delineation between floor, wall and ceiling; no sharp corners, no right angles; everything just sort of flows into one another, making the room take on a somewhat otherworldly quality where no matter which direction you face, you see the same thing.

The nothingness extends to sound, too. There is not a single sound in the room, save for any noises I might make. I become very aware of my own breathing, and of my heartbeat pounding in my ears. But there are no other sounds; I can’t hear anyone moving around outside, and my captor certainly doesn’t seem to be in any sort of hurry to communicate with me. Perhaps they’re just watching somehow — though it’s impossible to distinguish even a tiny spy camera anywhere in the room, because that would be a distinguishing feature by which I would be able to orient myself, and clearly that would go against the intention of this place.

The light level in the room would remain constant; not so bright as to be dazzling, but just slightly darker than comfortable. The kind of light you’re bathed in when in an environment lit by a bare bulb; a cold light that seems devoid of home comforts and humanity. A light that is threatening, rather than welcoming. A light that beckons with a smirk on its face, rather than inviting you in with open arms.

And of course, there are no other people in the room. No-one communicating with me. No means for me to get a message to the outside, and seemingly no means for the outside to get a message to me, either.

It’s lonely. And the combination of the ever-constant light level, the total lack of sound and the lack of people or even things with which to communicate makes it impossible to tell how much time is passing. There’s nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to focus my attention on. The room is completely devoid of meaning; it’s devoid of joy, but it’s also devoid of other emotions, too. It doesn’t even inherently inspire “fear”; it just is, and that’s the scary thing about it. It’s impassive, cold, unyielding. No way out. No way in. No-one to help me. No way to distract myself. I just have to wait. And wait. And wait. Alone.

That’s a room that would break me. I don’t know how long it would take, but it would get me eventually. So kindly don’t put me in anywhere like that any time soon, please. Thank you.

2072: Storybook Day

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “A Storybook Day.”

You have to spend one day as or with your favorite fictional character. Which one would it be and what would you do?

[NB: I am aware this is dangerously close to fanfiction territory, but whatever. Deal with it.]

Sometimes, you know before anything has happened that it’s going to be a peculiar day.

As odd circumstances go, suddenly waking up face-down on a hard floor, the sounds of civilisation and industry mingling somewhere in the distance, is probably near the top of the “most peculiar” list. And this is how my day began.

I open my eyes and groggily get to my knees. I seem to be in an alleyway, and there’s no-one else around. That would explain why no-one had come to my aid, then; I would have thought that a grown man lying face-down in the street would attract at least a little attention, but this makes a certain degree of sense. Not much, but a little, anyway.

My muscles expressing their displeasure at being disturbed from their slumber, I unsteadily brace myself against one of the alley’s walls and get to my feet. I seem to be facing a dead end of some sort; the alley doesn’t have much in the way of distinguishing features, aside from a couple of doors that look like fire escapes, and a dumpster or two towards the end. The alley itself abruptly ends at a strangely metallic wall.

“Stop right there!”

A feminine, assertive voice comes from somewhere behind me. I jerk upright, suddenly feeling a lot more awake than I was just seconds ago.

“Don’t move!”

I want to look over my shoulder. There’s something familiar about that voice.

“Um,” is all I can say. Somehow words seem to be failing me.

“Oooh!” comes another feminine voice, this one energetic and somewhat childish, from somewhere behind me. “Wassat?”

“My, my,” comes yet another woman’s voice, this one sounding somewhat more… regal, distinguished? “Isn’t this peculiar?”

I clear my throat and try, once again, to speak.

“I’m, uh,” I begin. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I don’t think I’m really in a position to do so, from the sound of things.”

“Turn around,” says the first voice. It seems to be quavering slightly, but it’s only barely perceptible. “Slowly!”

I comply with the order and turn to face the ones who discovered me. I give a start as I see who I’m confronted with.

One young woman, clad in a short blue skirt, cropped top and stockings, is pointing at me with an aggressive look on her face. Her twin black ponytails are flapping in the slight breeze. Behind her is a tall, older-looking blonde woman with a calm, gentle expression on her face. And standing at her side, fists clenched and knees slightly bent in a stereotypical expression of excitement and curiosity, is a young-looking purple-haired girl who appears to be wearing a hoodie as a dress, paired with striped thigh-high socks and sneakers. I know without looking closely that her hoodie is tied up with HDMI cables.

I instinctively bow my head, because it feels like the right thing to do.

“Goddesses,” I say, trying to sound humble. “It’s an honour to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, buddy boy!” pipes up the purple-haired young girl before the twintailed girl has a chance to respond. “Whatcha doin’?”

“I wish I knew,” I say. “I just sort of woke up here.”

The twintailed girl is still pointing at me and looks like she’s about to speak, but this time she’s interrupted by the blonde woman’s gentle tones.

“Hmm, we did wonder what had happened,” she says. “Histoire mentioned some sort of strange energy from this region, and here you are.”

I couldn’t even begin to guess why I would be the source of a “strange energy”, but given that I’m standing face-to-face with three women I’ve only previously seen through a computer screen, I feel something very odd may have happened.

This time I’m the one to interrupt the twintailed girl just before she gets something out of her mouth.

“Lady Noire,” I say. “Lady Black Heart,” I correct myself. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but I’m kind of at your mercy here.”

Noire seems to shiver and then falter slightly, still pointing at me. I swear her cheeks blush slightly. Neptune, the purple-haired girl, gives a slight snicker and digs the blonde woman Vert in the ribs with her elbow.

“Here it comes,” she says in a stage whisper just loud enough for everyone to hear. Noire apparently ignores her.

“W-well,” she says. “Perhaps you’d better come back to the Basilicom and we can figure this out. But don’t misunderstand! I-it’s not like I’m doing this for you or anything! I just want to find out why a stranger suddenly appeared in my city!”

Giving Neptune a knowing smile and a nod, Vert moves aside to make room for me to pass, and I step out onto the streets of Lastation.

“So that is the long and short of it,” says the tiny girl perched precariously on a floating book. “It will take about three days to make the preparations.” Her facial expression doesn’t change, but for some reason I find myself thinking of an exaggerated emote as she speaks.

“Three days?” says Noire.

“Yes,” says Histoire, the tiny girl, whom I already know is a “tome”. “Although this individual has brought a substantial quantity of Shares into this dimension, it will still take time for the–”

“Yada, yada, yada,” says Neptune. “We got three days to go out and play!” She grabs me forcefully by the hand and starts to drag me out of the Basilicom, a large church-like structure that acts as Noire’s home, office and base of operations.

“W-wait!” says Noire, her voice oddly high-pitched. “We still don’t know anything about him! You shouldn’t just go off with him by yourself!”

“Who said anything about going on my lonesome?” says Neptune. “You’re coming out to play, too, Lonely Heart. It’s about time you had a break! I swear, you’d be working through the night if your body didn’t shut itself down every so often!”

“I concur,” replies Vert. “After all the strange happenings recently, I feel we could all do with some rest and relaxation.”

Noire puts her hands on her hips and looks like she’s about to object, but thinks better of it at the last moment.

“F-fine,” she says. “I can take a little time off, I guess. You are all visiting, after all.”

An hour later, I’m sitting at the head of a table with an array of colourful women. Noire is sitting to my left, Neptune to my right. Then, moving around the table, there’s Neptune’s little sister Nepgear; the sullen face — currently buried in a book, ignoring the situation — of Blanc; Blanc’s twin sisters Rom and Ram, the former of whom is looking very uncomfortable indeed; then Vert, who is wearing a borderline-indecent dress that shows off her considerable cleavage to great effect; and finally Noire’s sister Uni, who keeps giving her older sibling and Neptune furtive glances.

“I don’t understand what’s going on really,” bellows Neptune in what she clearly thinks is an authoritative tone, before indicating me with a wave of her hand, “but Mr. Dude here is our guest! So let’s show him how we have a good time! And you know what that means — pudding!”

On cue, several waiters — whose faces I, strangely, seem to forget the moment I look away from them — put a selection of large dishes on the table, each full of a colourful pudding of some description.

“I-is this all pudding…?” says Noire slightly uneasily.

“Yes!” cries Neptune, throwing her hands in the air and accidentally tossing the spoon she’d picked up so hard into the air that it embeds into the ceiling. “We’ve got strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, dogoo and lamb with rosemary!”

Noire doesn’t look convinced of the nutritional value of our dinner, but chooses to say nothing further. Neptune, meanwhile is clearly excited about it, and it’s hard not to go along with the sheer amount of energy she seems to exude at all times.

“Dig in!” she cries.

The three days pass far too quickly for my liking; a blur of pudding meals, trips to the local chocolate cake shop, multiplayer tournaments on slightly twisted versions of video games I recognise from my own dimension and some truly baffling conversations with the goddesses.

“I wish I could stay here,” I say to Noire as we both look out over Lastation from the balcony of her Basilicom. We’d both stepped out for a little air — and to get away from Neptune’s vacillations over what we should all do next, to be honest.

“Hm,” she says quietly, not turning in my direction. Her attitude towards me seems to have softened somewhat in the last few days; gone is the prickly, defensive young woman who confronted me in the alleyway, and taking her place is someone who seems to be strong, but carrying around a faint air of melancholy.

It’s silent for a moment; all I can hear is the faint throb of industrial machinery off in the distance. Then Noire turns to me.

“I think you’d like it here,” she says to me with a gentle smile, a slight flush in her cheeks. “And believe me, we’re all truly grateful for your faith in all of us. We get really competitive over the Shares, but it’s rare to find someone who has such value for all of us.”

I smile wryly.

“Is that all I am to you, Lady Noire?” I ask. “A fountain of Shares?”

“N-no!” she says hastily, her cheeks blushing even redder. “Y-yes! No! I…”

Her shoulders slump slightly and she closes her eyes for a moment. After a moment’s quiet, she begins to speak, her eyes still closed.

“You don’t belong here,” she says. “I… kind of wish you did, but you don’t. There are people waiting for you, aren’t there…?”

“Yes,” I admit.

“Then you should go back to them,” she says, opening her eyes and smiling softly. “We’ll always be here for you, even if we’re not standing right in front of you.”

I smile back at Noire.

“And I’ll be here for you,” I say. “You’ll always have my Shares.” Hesitantly, I reach out my hand and pat Noire on the head, ruffling her hair slightly. She doesn’t object, thankfully.

I turn around from the balcony to go back indoors and am unsurprised to see Vert, Neptune and Blanc crowding around the doorframe, clearly watching what has been unfolding with great interest. Neptune gives me a thumbs-up and an enthusiastic nod of the head. Noire doesn’t appear to have noticed her observers yet, and I feel I probably shouldn’t point it out to them.

I turn back to Noire.

“Lady Noire?” I say.

“Hm?” she says absently.

“I’ll miss you,” I reply. In an uncharacteristically assertive display of affection, I take her in my arms and hug her.

“Wh-what are you…” she objects initially, but after a moment I feel her shoulders relax and her own arms reach around my back. We stay like that for a moment. I glance over to the doorframe and see Neptune giving Vert a silent high-five. I can’t help but smile.

“Thank you,” says Noire. “Don’t forget us,”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I say. And I mean it.

The journey back was surprisingly simple. Histoire gave a technical explanation that Nepgear did her best to expand upon, but it frankly went in one ear and out the other. All I really had to do was stand before the Sharicite crystal and wait for Histoire to do her thing; she was waiting for “dimensional alignment” or something.

I faced my friends, who had assembled in the doorway to see me off. It was strange; these people had been “friends” to me long before I’d ever met them face-to-face, and so parting from them now, while sad, didn’t hurt as much as it could have done. I knew that when I got home I could see them again any time I wanted; it wouldn’t quite be the same as the experience I’d just been through, of course, but it was good enough for me. And I had a strange feeling that even if dimensions of time and space separated us, they’d all be able to make good use of the Shares I contributed.

As the Sharicite chamber fills with a brilliant white light, I raise my hand in farewell.

“Bye,” I say. It doesn’t feel quite like enough, but it also doesn’t really feel like goodbye.

“Bye-bye!” cries Neptune, followed by a slightly subdued chorus of farewells from the other goddesses and Candidates.

The light intensifies until I can’t see anything any more. I close my eyes. Then, I feel the light replaced by blackness.

There’s a strange chiming noise. I open my eyes again. I’m sitting up. Wherever I am, it’s dark, save for a small sign up in the upper-right field of my vision.

“You have earned a trophy!” it says.

2027: Questions, Questions, Questions

I like questions. They’re a good starting point for conversations, and they’re a great writing prompt. For this reason, I’m very fond of social sites like Retrospring and Ask.FM, though it can sometimes be a challenge to get people to actually ask interesting questions.

Today, then, inspired by the fact I’ve been playing with Retrospring a bit recently — ask me anything here (caution: Umaru boobs) — I thought I’d work through a few questions as writing prompts. Rather than just being lazy and using my Retrospring answers, though — which is tempting, believe me — I thought I’d make use of the dearly-departed Plinky.com, and use some of its writing prompts that it still has available. I’m not going to spend more than a paragraph on each, mind.

All right! Let’s begin.

Was there a toy or thing you always wanted as a child, during the holidays or on your birthday, but never received? Tell us about it.

Lots of things, I’m sure! Every child wants absolutely everything because they have no concept whatsoever of what money is or how it works. (I remember when I was young and my mother remarked that they were a bit low on money that month, and in my primary school wisdom I suggested they just “go to the bank and get some more”) Specifics, though? Hmm. I quite wanted Red Venom, the evil counterpart to the awesome Manta Force toy that I had, but never got one. I also wanted a Mega Drive to go along with my Super NES, but never got one. I’ll probably live.

Write about a noise — or even a silence — that won’t go away. (We’ll let you interpret this in different ways…)

Thanks, mysterious question master. Well, there are indeed lots of ways this can be interpreted. It could be interpreted as something simple like tinnitus — I like to listen to music loud in the car and on headphones, so occasionally give myself mild bouts of this — or it could be used to describe an “earworm” of a piece of music that just won’t go away. In the latter case, I think the opening theme to Monster Musume definitely counts as this, particularly the bit where Centorea is doing her “whooshwhooshwhooshwhooshwhoosh” bit with her sword.

What’s your learning style? Do you prefer learning in a group and in an interactive setting? Or one-on-one? Do you retain information best through lectures, or visuals, or simply by reading books?

Whoa whoa whoa there, sparky, one question at a time. My learning style… uh… I’m not really sure, actually. Depends somewhat on my mood, but I’m quite good at learning by myself using books. I like to have practical examples of the things that I’m learning and ways I can practice those skills. If I’m learning under someone, I generally prefer one-on-one as there’s less scope for embarrassment if you can’t do something while everyone else can. I loathe passive lectures, though; they put me to sleep, particularly if the subject matter isn’t something I’m particularly interested in in the first place.

You have 15 minutes to address the whole world live (on television or radio — choose your format). What would you say?

Given my self-imposed “one paragraph” rule, I’ll paraphrase: I’d tell people that they need to be better to one another, and that they need to stop judging each other on stupid things, be it skin colour, race, gender, sexuality or even tastes in entertainment. Everyone is different, and that’s something that should be celebrated, but we should also enjoy it when we manage to find people on the same wavelength as us. Worry less about what’s “problematic” and “troubling”, and focus more on the positives. Stop listening to blowhards like Anita Sarkeesian, Jonathan McIntosh and Michael Pachter. (One of these things is not like the others.) Make up your own mind about how you feel, and don’t berate other people if they feel differently. (Unless, of course, they’re actually hurting someone, in which case you can give them a swift kick in the genitals.) Above all, don’t be a massive cunt.

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

I’m not in full-time work at the moment, so all day is technically “playtime”. That’s not true at all, of course; I spend a considerable proportion of the days when I’m not working worrying about the fact I’m not working and that I’m not earning any money, then attempting to be proactive about getting some work to do. Playtime, though, is extremely important, as it helps you to unwind and switch off from the stresses of the day. Everyone should play. Exactly what “play” means is different for everyone, but you should find something that (preferably) has nothing to do with your job, and indulge in it until you feel happy and content.

Are you good at what you do? What would you like to be better at?

It’s difficult to say “what I do” these days. I’ve been through so many jobs and things that I’m really not sure what my “identity” in this regard is any more. The one real constant has been writing, though, and I think I’m quite good at that. I’d like to be better at music and computery things on the technical side (both hardware and software); these are both things I was really good at when I was a youngster, but my knowledge hasn’t really “moved with the times” over the years, unfortunately. I’ll happily throw myself into attempting to learn things, but some stuff just doesn’t stick; I can still program complicated things in Atari BASIC, for example, but I can never remember how fucking JavaScript works.

Share the story of a time you felt unsafe.

I’m not good with any situation where I worry I might hurt myself, so I try and avoid them whenever possible. One example that springs to mind is a time some university friends and I went up to Sheffield to visit a friend who had moved there. During our stay, we went walking in the impressive hills nearby, and several of our number decided they wanted to climb a rock face, and did so without too much difficulty. I got a few inches off the ground, became utterly terrified and refused to go any further. I’m not proud of that, really, but I’m also glad I didn’t go through with it, as the shoes I was wearing really weren’t suitable for that sort of thing, and I probably would have hurt myself.

Think about something that drives you crazy. Now, think about something that makes you happy. Does it change your perspective on the former?

Nope, unfortunately, because the thing that drives me crazy is the way people act towards the thing that makes me happy. Get out of that little paradox, if you will.

(Last one for now.)

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

I’m scared of all sorts of things — many of which would appear to be stupid to the average observer, but such is the nature of anxiety-related issues. I think the thing I’m most scared to do is simply the mundaneness that is finding a job that is worth my time and effort, sticking with it and accepting that that is who I am: nothing special, nothing remarkable, nothing out of the ordinary. Or perhaps I’m just too proud to do that. Either way, it’s something that isn’t happening at the moment, and it probably should; ultimately, it’s going to be that ol’ faithful motivator money that makes me do something about it, I guess.

1849: The Factory Floor

Lily loved Trundlebot.

She knew she was very lucky to be allowed on the factory floor, because usually the children of the colony weren’t allowed anywhere near it. The fact that her father was the manager of the complex, overseeing the various automatons’ duties and making sure everything continued to run smoothly on a daily basis, meant that she enjoyed certain privileges, though: privileges that she didn’t take for granted.

The other children in her class sometimes teased her for spending so much time in the factory, but she knew that secretly they were jealous; she overheard them sometimes talking about the robots, and how interesting they were, and how they’d love to get up close to see how they really worked. But no-one but Lily was allowed to do that. She’d have let them come with her if they’d only ask — her father often said that she could bring her friends — but no-one ever did, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

That’s because Lily didn’t really have many friends. She’d always been somewhat distant, generally preferring the company of a book from Old Earth or a headset filled with classical music. But her father had seen how much she’d come to life the first time he’d brought her to the factory, and so he’d made special arrangements for her to be able to come and go as she pleased, so long as she was careful.

Trundlebot was particularly special to her, because Trundlebot was the first robot she’d encountered up close. Trundlebot wasn’t its real name, of course, but Lily had quickly christened the mechanical giant that after seeing it trundling leisurely around the factory floor, carrying things from one place to another as if it had all the time in the world.

Trundlebot wasn’t the most efficient or advanced model in the factory, but Lily’s father had kept it around for as long as it remained functional, since he knew how much the ageing robot meant to his daughter. Even as the rest of the factory was staffed by shiny white plastic automatons with more convincing humanoid forms, Lily still found herself fascinated by the browning metal of Trundlebot; the stereoscopic cameras that formed its eyes; its spindly, awkward yet vaguely humanoid arms; the caterpillar tracks upon which it made its way around the factory.

Lily wasn’t so naïve as to believe that Trundlebot knew who she was — she was nearly ten years old, after all; far too old for such childish fancies — but that didn’t stop her thinking of it fondly and always spending most of her factory floor visits following the automaton around. Trundlebot was the closest thing she felt she had to a true friend; often, when she knew no-one was watching her, she’d talk to it, spilling forth her deepest, darkest secrets that she didn’t even tell her father. She found the experience therapeutic; Trundlebot never judged her for the things she said, and she found sweet release from offloading her emotional baggage in this way.

One day, as spring was just starting to show itself in the colony, Lily headed to the factory after school as she always did, and immediately sought out Trundlebot. It didn’t take her long to find it, but something didn’t seem quite right: it didn’t seem to be “trundling” so much as rolling around the factory floor in a somewhat determined, almost aggressive manner, with a clear purpose. It had always had that sense of purpose about it — it always got the job done, after all — but there was also the distinct impression that it would do things at its own pace and wouldn’t be rushed. It reminded Lily in many ways of an elderly man pottering around his garden; plenty of things to do, and all the time in the world to do them one at a time.

Today, though, Trundlebot seemed to be moving with unusual efficiency and speed. It didn’t look at all right, and it concerned Lily somewhat.

“What do you think?” said her father, walking up behind her and placing his hand gently on her shoulder.

“What did you do to him?” asked Lily. “He’s… different.” Lily always personified Trundlebot as a “he”, despite the robot technically being completely genderless.

“We upgraded its drive components,” said her father. “They were getting a little worn, so we took the opportunity to put some more efficient parts in there.” Here he lowered his voice. “Plus between you and me, the bosses have been getting on my back to get it sorted out for a while. It’s the weak link in the process.”

Lily did not like this at all, but she just pouted and said nothing. Despite the new-found spring in its step, it was still Trundlebot, after all. She spent her usual few hours following it around the factory floor, this time having to jog to keep up with her mechanical companion. After a few short minutes, she found herself enjoying the exercise, and it wasn’t until she was on her way home that she started to think about the old Trundlebot and how the new one differed from it.

Lily continued to visit the factory every day, and eventually became accustomed to her robotic friend’s new-found burst of almost youthful vigour. But then something else changed, and she found herself once again feeling a little strange.

This time around, Trundlebot’s spindly arms had been replaced with what appeared to be more heavy-duty lifting apparatus: large metal claws on the end of thick, almost muscular-looking arms wrapped in flexible plastic tubing, like that seen on a vacuum hose but about five times the diameter. Lily watched it from a distance for a little while; its new arms allowed it to lift much heavier, more cumbersome objects, and when combined with its new drive parts, it was doing so with remarkable efficiency.

“What did you do now?” she said, sensing her father walking up behind her.

“Well, I think you can see,” said her father. “It’s been working out.” He chuckled.

Lily pouted again, and said nothing. Her father, sensing something amiss, continued.

“We’ve been starting to deal with much heavier materials now that the Arcology project is underway,” he said. “It made sense to upgrade its lifting apparatus, as it just wouldn’t have been able to cope otherwise.”

Reluctantly, Lily found herself forced to agree; better that Trundlebot could continue doing its job than be consigned to the scrap-heap simply because it wasn’t able to do the work any more. As it passed by, its stereoscopic vision cameras looked right at her, and she felt like she had made “eye contact” with the machine; it was still her friend in there.

Once again, the weeks passed by, and Lily gradually became accustomed to Trundlebot’s new, more physically imposing form. On one occasion, her father took manual control of Trundlebot with the override device — essentially a remote control for any of the robots on the factory floor — and made it pick her up in its big, powerful arms. She was delighted, and found herself with an uncontrollable desire to fling her young, skinny arms around the cold, metallic neck of the automaton; it wasn’t quite a hug, but it was near enough.

Summer came, and the colony enjoyed a heatwave. It was delightful weather; the sun shone in clear skies, and it was pleasantly warm without being uncomfortable. Even Lily, who generally preferred to stay indoors if at all possible, spent some time out in the sun, though she quickly found that her pale skin was more inclined to burn than tan.

One particularly hot afternoon, Lily went to the factory in the hopes of cooling off. The air conditioning inside the building usually kept things pleasantly temperate all year round, but today she was surprised to discover that it was almost as hot inside the factory as it was outside. Still, the shade inside the building afforded some respite from the rays of the sun, at least; the skin on her arms was still a little tender and was peeling in a few places, so she had no particular desire to remain outside.

She looked around for Trundlebot as usual, but was surprised to discover that it appeared to be nowhere to be seen. She walked around, calling out its “name” a few times before realising how foolish that was and continuing her search in silence. All she saw were the more modern humanoid-form robots going about their business; they ignored her for the most part, only acknowledging her presence by stepping around her when she was directly in their path as they proceeded to their next task.

Eventually, eyes widening, she saw a figure that was simultaneously familiar and strange to her. There was the base with the caterpillar tracks; there was the body of browning metal; there were the big, powerful arms that she had grown used to, but atop the body was not the familiar cuboid “head” sporting the stereoscopic vision cameras she knew as Trundlebot’s “face”; instead, there was a white plastic ellipsoid atop the body.

With a mechanical whir, the robot turned around and revealed the front of its new “head”; a black screen sporting glowing green symbols clearly designed to resemble a face. As it turned to face Lily, the symbols changed to an approximation of a smiling, cheerful face, and then something very surprising happened.

“Hello. Lily,” said the robot in an awkward synthesised voice. Lily didn’t respond. She was frozen to the spot, but the robot was starting to advance on her; slowly this time, somewhat more akin to Trundlebot’s old pace.

As the robot got close enough to have grabbed Lily with its arms, she blinked away sudden tears, shook her head and took a step back. The robot advanced again, the smiling face still glowing on its screen.

“Li. Ly,” it said again.

“What do you think?” said her father, who had seen her come in earlier but had only just caught up to where she had ended up. He had a smile on his face. “Not strictly by the book, but I thought you’d like it.”

The robot stopped in front of her. She looked at its still-smiling face, then her lip started to quiver, tears started to fall from her eyes and an uncontrollable sob escaped her.

Then she ran; past the big factory machines, past the oblivious humanoid robots, out into the heat of the summer’s day. She kept running until she was no longer anywhere near the factory; she had come to the main recreational area of the colony, an area of lush greenery that sported a large tree she had spent many a time sitting under contemplating the meaning of life in as much depth as an almost-ten-year-old can muster.

She headed straight for the tree and sat down in the shade, her back resting against the trunk. She hugged her knees close to herself, then buried her head in them and began to cry in earnest.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew why all this had happened. She knew that Trundlebot had been on borrowed time for a long while now, and that her father had kept it around to appease her for as long as possible. She knew that this last modification was done entirely with her in mind, as a way to give her a true friend rather than an unthinking, unfeeling automaton who saw the world through primitive stereoscopic cameras.

But she found herself resenting her father for that. He had tried to make Trundlebot better: a better worker; a better robot; a better friend for Lily. But in doing so he had gradually eroded the things that made Trundlebot Trundlebot in Lily’s mind, until now there was all but nothing left of the robot she had loved.

She wept for her lost mechanical friend with an intense sadness she hadn’t felt since the loss of her mother a year ago. The feelings were all too familiar: a sense of abandonment, of things being beyond her control, of the universe being just so damned unfair all the time. She wept until there were no more tears to cry, then she watched the sun set, the clear blue skies giving way to pinks and golds, and eventually fading away completely to reveal the starry sky. She had never felt more alone and insignificant.

Lily never went back to the factory after that, and she never quite forgave her father; but Trundlebot as he once was lived on in her memory, and would remain there for as long as she lived.

1823: Pondering Free Time

I think I’m bowing out of the creative writing project for the moment. I may revisit it at some point in the future, but for now I need to stop. It’s stressing me out a bit — not because of the subject matter which, as regular commenter Jud pointed out, is, to an extent, drawn from my personal experience (albeit not the more fantastic stuff), but rather because… well, look at the clock.

I got home from work about ten minutes ago. I am exhausted. I spend up to three hours of my day travelling to and from work thanks to an absolutely hellish commute that I can’t see a way around (aside from just quitting, which isn’t a practical or desirable option), which means that on weekdays up to 12 hours of my time is taken up with Stuff I Have To Do rather than Stuff I Want To Do. This makes the few hours I have in the evenings to actually do Stuff I Want To Do extremely precious to me, and churning out 1,500-2,000 words a day in a story where I’m not entirely sure where it’s heading eats into that time and is starting to feel a bit like an obligation rather than something fun to do.

I like writing. I really like writing. I wouldn’t have been posting this bullshit for 1,823 days if I didn’t. But there are days when I need a break, and to relax, and to post something that just vents a bit of steam, or gives thanks to a higher power for an entertaining dog I saw on the street or something like that. I’ve always said with regard to this blog that the moment it starts feeling like work rather than something I actually want to do, I need to stop. So far that hasn’t happened — it’s come close a few times, but I’ve always managed to find something to write about day after day, even if the post ends up being little more than a glorified diary entry. (Still, those posts can often be the ones that spark the most conversations or give you, dear readers, the best insights into what goes on inside the messed-up mind I call my own.)

The stuff I’ve been writing, though, I need a break. That is feeling like work, and given how tired I am when I get in of an evening, more “work” is the last thing I want to think about. I want to sit down, have some dinner, watch some TV, play some games, go to bed and then repeat the whole hideous process over and over again until it’s time for a weekend. (I really like my weekends now, which is one arguably positive thing about life having a proper job with the rest of the normal people.)

So, then, I’m sorry to anyone reading that this disappoints, but I’ve learned throughout my life that if you keep doing something when you don’t really want to, you start to resent it, and any joy it once held for you is lost. I don’t want that to happen with writing — creative fiction writing or otherwise — so it’s time to take a step back, chill out, relax, and perhaps return to it at some point in the future. Or perhaps do something else entirely! Who knows. That’s the joy of being freeform.

Anyway. I need to go and sit on the sofa, lean my head back and groan about how tired I am for a bit. Then eat dinner. Then play some games. Then… well, I went through the routine above.

Thanks for continuing to read!