Year: 2022

Facing the Unknown

aebranson fiction
Pixabay.com

“Don’t worry about me.”  Whit hoped his forced smile appeared relaxed.  “I’m too old and stringy for them to decide to serve mankind.”

The deadpan expressions of his fellow crewmembers betrayed how nervous everybody was … including him.  It wasn’t every day that an alien species tried to communicate with them.

Except for the past five days, that is.  When one of their interstellar ships came within visual range of a vessel not belonging to their fleet, word spread like wildfire.  At least, that was the way his late wife Sunny would have described it, since as a historian she liked using those obscure phrases.

Within hours after encountering the first craft, a second one showed up.  The first vessel departed, and the second one – twice as large as any in the fleet – proceeded to play something of a cat-and-mouse game with the ships.

“They’ve finished going belly-up again and are making their final approach.” The technician was probably the only one whose attention wasn’t focused on Whit.

Whenever it approached, the craft would roll enough to show its underside.  This mystified the crew for the first couple of days.  When one of the agriculturalists pointed out it reminded her of a dog rolling on its back to show submission, the idea proved intriguing.

After the first couple of days, what appeared to be robots began crawling about a specific area on the hull of the alien craft.  They built a tubular extension, mere meters in diameter and about ten meters long, matching the configuration of the portals on the fleet ships.

“How is their alignment with our portal?” the captain asked the technician.

“Their trajectory is immaculate.”

Yesterday, the aliens sent shockwaves through the fleet by communicating with all the ships.

Once upon a time humanity believed a fallacy that intelligence denoted benevolence.  Experience, which Whit had plenty of, proved no correlation between the two.  When the fleet received text in the universal code they used, all the specialists admitted the aliens were first to figure out how to communicate.

The language use was stilted, but the message was an invitation.  Assuming the interface they’d constructed was adequate, would the humans like to send over representatives and begin establishing an accord?

“Almost there….” the technician murmured.

The ship shuddered slightly, but nobody would have spilled any drinks if they’d decided to send off Whit with a toast.  Considering the vessel was a behemoth, the minor rattle made its navigators’ piloting skills quite impressive.

That still wasn’t proof against the theory they wanted to discover if humans were tasty.

“You’ll never be alone, Whit.”  The captain placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.  “I know it sure feels that way to someone about to make history, but our prayers are with you.”

Make history?  His wife would have liked to witness this, but his status as a widower was one of the reasons he volunteered to possibly make the menu.

“Thank you.”  It seemed prudent to keep any further entree cracks to himself.  “I’ll just try not to screw things up.”

Well wishes followed him into the airlock.  The door behind him closed as he stepped across the cargo area used for passenger transfers.  Multicolored lights above the next doorway flickered, displaying how much breathable air filled the alien pod.

Seemed like a good reminder to draw a deep breath and calm his nerves….

Despite his age, or rather, because of his experience, he participated on one of the committees that discussed how to respond to the invitation.  If they sent somebody, that person should meet certain parameters:  Older, although not elderly and frail; no dependent family; and widower, which also implied male.

Upon his realization he fit the profile, Whit volunteered … which was another criteria they established.

All the lights above the door flashed to green, and the polymer panel retracted into the wall.

His heart began thumping against his chest and his stomach rolled.  He’d been in plenty of tight spots before, but meeting aliens for the first time still presented a handicap.  He might not be able to read their expressions as well as he did with his fellow man.  For all he knew, blowing a raspberry was a friendly greeting.

When Sunny passed away less than a year ago, he hadn’t expected it.  She’d always been spunky and vivacious, laughing at his jokes when others might groan.  One morning when she awakened, she complained for the first time in her life about feeling too tired to arise.

He signaled for a doctor to report to their quarters, and then Sunny assured him she felt better.  Immediately afterward she drew her last breath.

So little warning….

This open doorway was no competition for the despair that descended upon him then, but it reminded him of that loss.  For many months he’d coped with the first occasion of all events that now passed without her.  The first year was supposed to be the hardest….

Whit drew another deep breath.  If his wife still lived, somebody else would be standing in his place.  And precisely because he missed her was one reason he decided to volunteer for this role.

It wasn’t death that frightened him.  It was exactly how he got there that proved a bit worrisome.  And then there was the matter of keeping the fleet safe.

He passed through the doorway.  Lights all over the wall and ceiling flashed on, startling him.  Whit proceeded at a saunter as he slipped into his practiced scrutiny.

The instruments and panels presented a bizarre blend of familiar and enigmatic.  Geometry prevailed, with round tubes and rectangular frames bordered by lights of differing colors.  Some seemed to be purely for illumination, while others formed incomprehensible configurations that occasionally cascaded vertically against their backdrops.

It seemed prudent to continue heeding his mother’s advice and keep his hands to himself.

His soft footfalls on the textured floor were the only sound to reverberate through the pod.  Since the air had been provided from his ship, no aroma stood out … which itself seemed odd.  Shouldn’t it at least have, as Sunny would have called it, that new car smell?

His heart jolted again when a band of blue light, surrounding a screen or window at the end of the pod, flashed on.  Its luminescence pulsated as a shield lowered … revealing another being standing behind it.

He immediately noted the characteristics they shared:  bipedal, although the lower frame of the window concealed what was below its waist, with two arms and one head.  Its clothing appeared to be draped about its form, and was accented with swirling green and yellow designs.

Its broad, ruddy face was lined with plump wrinkles, reminding him of an overripe bell pepper.  The eyes were dark, the nose flat, and thin lips stretched from cheek to cheek.

The being raised its hands, each with five fingers, palms forward.

Was it possible?  Were the actions of showing their belly and raising hands really universal expressions of meaning no harm?

Whit mirrored the alien’s stance.  The corners of its mouth curled upward but the lips didn’t part.

He smiled back, also refraining from teeth disclosure.  It felt as forced as his earlier attempt to fake ease.  This was no time to reflect on those enduring alien probe jokes.

The being spoke.  Its mouth moved in an understandable way, but the speech that transmitted into the pod was undecipherable.

A screen below the window vertically scrolled the code used by the fleet:

Welcome.  We do not recognize ***** the ***** people we discovered.  ***** are small.  Why are ***** here?

Whit returned his attention to the alien that stood a full head shorter, and would have wondered what profanity had just been used if their original invitation hadn’t displayed the same stuttering.  They did appear to have problems with the pronoun you, but other gaps weren’t as obvious.

Lord knew what all got lost in the translator, but assuming it worked for both languages, he might as well answer the question.

“We have been traveling for generations.  You are the first … other people … we have met.”  Ah, maybe that explained one of the stutters.  “We found you by chance.”

The readout cooperated with spelling out an estimation of what it translated.  His associate’s expression, a deepening of the wrinkles, revealed little of how well his statements had been received.  After a few seconds passed, the being returned its attention to him.

Why do ***** travel?

This was starting to feel like an interrogation, which didn’t surprise him.  After all, his fleet was the trespassers, and perhaps these friendly aliens were just as wary of them.

That answer was long and complicated.  “How much do you like long stories?”

Its wrinkles deepened again, and then its head bobbed once.

***** are strangers.  Why are ***** here?

Well, he couldn’t argue with that.  Whit drew a deep breath, sorted his thoughts, and then tried to explain.  How well would the translator cope with the concepts of suppression and coercion and war … or defiance and liberation and compassion?

With his experience in giving reports, and marriage to a historian filling in any gaps he might have otherwise, his explanation sounded cogent to him.  The readout confirmed it looked like he used some profanity.

His associate’s wrinkles pulsed throughout the monologue, and then it gazed at him again.

***** left ***** problems?

Even without missing words, that question wasn’t as simple as it sounded.  Thoroughness and accuracy were still important to him, so he didn’t want his reply to sound misleading.  But if he told the truth, would that somehow condemn all of humanity to an end they’d been avoiding?

He had spoken the truth for too long to change that now.

“No.  Some of them came with us.  We are not … perfect.  Having to rely on each other in the confines of space has kept the worst of our behavior at bay, but lies and theft and even murder are still part of our behavior.”

Not only did its wrinkles pulse, the alien’s eyes bulged slightly.  After a couple of seconds, it looked at Whit … and smiled.

For all he knew, it was pleased to have some new recipes to try out.

Before people can be strong, must ***** know weakness.

Whit stared at the readout.  Despite most of the words being present, he still wasn’t certain what that meant.  Did the alien just declare it was now confident its species was strong enough to run weak humans out of this part of the galaxy … or worse?

All his decades as a crime investigator welled inside him.  If he just screwed things up, it was up to him to keep the people on the ship – including his children and grandchildren – safe.  They might have to make a run for it, and leave him behind….

I will tell about us.

Whit stared at his associate’s face despite not figuring out the cues.  “What do you mean?”

***** we share.  It is my turn.

The readout appeared to be sprinkled with profanity again, but he followed a narrative about geological turmoil and deception and seeking.  Interesting … sharing its own tribulations stirred a sense of trust in him.

“I suppose nobody is perfect.”

The alien smiled.

They discussed a few more matters about expectations and the future, and then agreed to withdraw to their own people and arrange another meeting.  As he returned to the ship, he noticed a slight trembling in his fingers.  Adrenaline aftereffects….

The crew’s greeting was hearty.

“Everything looked well from this end,” the captain said.  “But how would you describe it?”

The smile that sprang to his lips was spurred by more than relief.  Even though Sunny wasn’t here to share this event, she would have been pleased their descendants might actually benefit from it.  He heard her laughter in his mind’s ear.

“Delicious.”

###

Here is my contribution this month to #BlogBattle, and this time the word is Interface.  Lots of possibilities with that one, so be sure to catch the other submissions!

Fun with Frugality

aebranson fiction
Pixabay.com

For years I’ve always gone grocery shopping according to what’s on sale.  Back when we’d been married only a few years and had small children, money was tight.  When something particularly nice would come on sale, I’d buy it and stick it in the freezer for a special occasion.

Inevitably something major would break down that was expensive to repair or replace.  That usually meant I’d have to put off grocery shopping until next payday, so we’d subsist on the items we’d stocked up on.  Thus the “special occasion” wound up being a financial crisis, and I’d pull out those nice cuts of meat to cook for our meals.

Hubby noticed this trend and joked, “Well, we’re broke again … we’re gonna have to start eating steak and lobster.”

Concise writing is the steak and lobster of the reading experience.  Perhaps because writing is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration, we can be guilty of sounding like we’re turning in a freshman assignment, and focused more on reaching the specified word count:

The question as to whether geese make good lawn mowers or not is a subject that many people haven’t considered.  Besides the fact that geese do keep the grass trimmed to a manageable length, they can also be used for fertilization purposes.  Just be aware that this is the reason why walking where they’ve mowed should be done in a careful manner.

One way to rewrite this more concisely is:

Many people haven’t considered whether or not geese make good lawn mowers.  Besides geese keeping grass trimmed to a manageable length, they also fertilize it.  Just be aware of walking carefully where they’ve mowed.

Frugality renders a passage more vigorous when there aren’t a bunch of surplus words weighing it down.  We don’t need to say this is the reason why or that is the subject we’re discussing.  The reader understands that already and wants to dig into the story.

Remember, you’d rather have steak and lobster than have to step around all that fertilizer….

Terminal Bud

aebranson fiction
Pixabay.com

If she’d possessed the hard enamel teeth of the men below her, she would have gritted them.  The warm breeze that whispered through the branches offered no consolation.  The rough bark of the limb she’d lighted upon was only a coarse reminder this was not her tree.

Her tree lay upon the ground with many other casualties.  When the half dozen men arrived in this section of the forest, she tricked herself into believing they would not cut down her tree.

It was a beautiful entity, strong and stalwart and among the largest along this mountain slope.  After all, the trees her kind inhabited always grew into magnificent beings.

And at first the workmen focused their predations on her tree’s kindred, which was bad enough.  But then they turned to her abode with their saws and axes, and soon her scream became part of the creak and groan of the wood as her counterpart plummeted to the desecrated earth.

Stripped of her beloved, she sought refuge among these fated branches.  The despicable men beneath her deserved every shred of her ire … but the pittance that was her fault fanned her wrath.

Only a few of their generations ago, humans designated segments of forest meant to be preserved from their own marauding.  She must have strayed outside that invisible boundary when she united with the seed that would become her tree.

Or they might have changed that boundary.  One constant about humanity was their propensity for changing their own rules.

Somebody was going to pay for this….

She chose the largest of the men, the one most instrumental in felling her ally.  Even in her rage, a shudder rippled through her, because the sensation of descending upon him would not be pleasant.

She dropped from the branch and settled on his lumpy shoulders.  Ugh.  If only he could have noticed her, she would have liked to at least send a chill down his spine.

That she didn’t have an exact plan for his chastisement was of no concern.  After all, she was ancient, so waiting for an opportune moment was acceptable even as she despised contact with this goon.

Further back in history, when mankind struggled consistently with devastation and death – and feared it less – they offered supplication upon harvesting a tree necessary to help them struggle for survival.  The intrusion then was still annoying, but tolerable compared to the rudeness of these people, who whooped in profane words and made a variety of foul noises.

The tools of their trade were mostly too complicated for her to influence.  As she perched upon her quarry, the roar of a chainsaw gnawed through her almost as effectively as though she were entangled in its relentless teeth.  A bulldozer occasionally lumbered nearby, rending and crushing the smaller underbrush until they would park it to survey their next killing ground.

Her existence, which began when light was separated from dark, was based on simplicity.  Whenever she occupied a tree while it was a tender sapling, she could preserve it from any beast that might dig it up or trample it or devour it beyond recovery.

But humanity, with whom her kind shared this narrow band of gray between the beings of light and the beings of dark, lost much of their communion with the immaterial as they became increasingly material in their pursuits.  Many no longer heeded her because they no longer listened for any voice whispered from beyond.

Limited in her ability to strike back, she could only wait and watch.  Eventually, surely, he was bound to do something that she could influence.  And then again he grasped the axe.

She’d observed them do this before.  One of his cronies pushed an orange wedge into the notch of a tree and stepped back.  Her corpulent transport stepped forward and swung the axe so the back of its head would drive the wedge deeper into the wound.

Now was her chance.

She shot up the lifeless handle formed from a material that was unnatural and therefore distasteful.  She grasped the heavy metal head as it hurled toward the wedge.

About halfway to its mark, she knocked it free from the handle.

She clung on as it spun, steering it into the hard trunk of the hapless tree.  And as it ricocheted toward her target, she rode it into the angle that aimed it at his forehead, beneath the bill of the hardhat he wore.

He flinched and tried to duck.

Despite the speed of the cool metal, she altered the course of the axe head to match his movement.  When the blade drove above his left eyebrow, she leaped free from the rebound and into the branches of the tree they were assaulting.

More profanity erupted from the other man as her quarry dropped to the ground.  The assistant called to the others as he dashed to the crumpled form.  The others scurried about, mostly to the fallen victim.  One grabbed a red bag from the bulldozer before sprinting to the mob.

She neither knew nor cared exactly how much damage the blow dealt.  For a split second, if she’d possessed the soft fleshy lips of the men below her, she would have smiled.  Her satisfaction evaporated as she contemplated her fallen tree, and she fluttered down to its remains.

As she pressed against the one of the sectioned off portions of the trunk, its cold and silence seemed to seep into her.  No longer did vivacious sap pump through the phloem beneath the bark.  No more did its branches hum softly from the wind’s caress.

She whispered her love to it, said goodbye, and launched herself into the warm breeze.

Everything that had a beginning had an end.  If she did not find another seed to unite with, the wind that carried her now would nibble her away bit by bit, eventually reducing her to her ultimate fate.  Otherwise, there was only one other time she was vulnerable….

As she soared over the green top of the forest, seeking a stand within those protected boundaries humans arbitrarily drew, she remembered her tree.  She yearned for the memory of its life, but the grief of its demise haunted her.

Odd, such events hadn’t disturbed her this much in the past.  Those darn men must have unsettled her in more ways than one.

Odd, recalling the form of the man she struck lying upon the ground was not as satisfying as it initially was … and seemed to deepen her grief….

She found a patch that was lush and promising, and hovered over the ground while sensing for sprouts that might awaken come spring.  A seed ripe with promise caught her attention.

The leaf litter and dirt lightly scratched her as she settled beneath it.  Darkness enveloped her as she settled into the seed and prepared to drift into the sleep that tied her to this kernel.  Its fate became her fate.  She could not influence it at this stage.  If it did not survive, neither would she.

The seed could be her womb … or her tomb.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have acted so hastily against those irritating men.  They did share more than this narrow band of gray.  After all, like them she was born in darkness.  And like them she had the choice of remaining in the dark or embracing the light that reached down to her.

###

Here is my contribution this month to #BlogBattle, and this time the prompt word was Park.  Such a simple word, but it proved to be quite challenging.  So be sure to check out the other stories and see how those writers handled a simple word!

Did You See That?

aebranson fiction
Pixabay.com

While scanning the article, the dangling modifier caught her eye.

You saw that, right?  The way the words are arranged in the preceding sentence, it sounds like an alien creature tried to pluck someone’s peepers while scanning an article.  And although the dangling modifier, also known as a dangling participle, can inject alien influence into a sentence, it’s also an easy fix.

In general the inappropriate word or phrase doesn’t actually refer the word it’s intended to modify.  Sometimes the word it meant to refer to doesn’t even appear in the sentence, which is an easy slip because the writer has the subject firmly in mind, but the words don’t come out the way they’re supposed to.  For instance:

With a glance at the gamboling goats, the gate closed.

Obviously gates don’t glance at goats and close themselves.  The farmer who actually carried out these activities fell out of the sentence.  And writers usually fall into that error because they’re trying to mix up sentence structure beyond the subject-predicate-object arrangement.

As stated, it’s easy enough to fix.  The first sentence can be:  While scanning the article, she noticed the dangling modifier.

And the capricious caretaker can receive his credit:  With a glance at the gamboling goats, the farmer closed the gate.

Making modifications to the wrong subject can cause hilarity as well as confusion.  When you look over the following examples, notice the twisted image they present, and then determine how to right their wrongs:

Hungry after the long hike, the sandwich was eaten with relish.

Having finished the romantic meal, the radio was turned on.

Drinking a glass of wine, the chicken tasted even better.

Disappointed, the woolly sheep could not be shorn.

Bedraggled but expensive, she decided not to buy the rooster.

Keeping those modifiers from dangling isn’t hard, although they can slip in when you least expect it.  Pay attention to those words and how they influence each other.  It just goes to show that by reviewing the writing, the error becomes clear.

You saw that, right…?