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marbledog
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 Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 12:27 pm Post subject: Zombie Nation - Ch. 3 |
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Be advised that the following text contains profanity and adult content.
From the journal of Jacob Marshall
June 21, 2035
Good morning!
I don't remember but have been told that those were the first words ever spoken to me. I was carried into this world on May 3, 1980 by the careful hands of a skilled and cheerful OB/GYN who welcomed new humans to the waking world in this way: “Good morning!”
It was around that point that I began screaming. Or so I have been told.
*****
I have a therapist here, a very nice young woman named Dr. Miguez. She has refused to tell me her first name, on the basis of maintaining a professional detachment. She knows my first name, of course, as my detachment is strictly amateur. By coincidence, Dr. Miguez is Columbian, and her accent reminds me of the years I spent there, as does the smell of the prison. “You must write, Jacob,” she tells me, and I smell burning coca leaves.
Scent is the sense most closely tied to memory. Hearing, feeling, sight, and touch are interpreted in the thalamus and other areas of the brain before being allowed to intrude into our consciousness, but the olfactory nerve runs directly into the processing centers of the brain. Scent is a raw sensation, unrefined and undiluted. Some biologists believe that the brain itself initially evolved as a more powerful means of processing olfactory information.
Dr. Miguez is not a biologist. She is a skilled and cheerful psychologist, and she believes and has repeatedly explained to me that documenting my memoirs will be therapeutic. She hopes that I will find closure. I have no doubt that I will find closure of one sort or another very soon, but I write anyway. I hate to see her unhappy.
Personally, I cannot see how writing about my life could be anything but a waste of time. Of course, it is no better or worse than any of the other ways that humans choose to waste the time the time they have before death, but it still seems a little cruel to me. Surely, being forced to use the time preceding one's execution to explain the events leading to one's execution must be considered cruel and unusual punishment by any standards. I remarked on this to Dr. Miguez once, and she asked if I had anything better to do with my time.
Honestly, I have never had anything better to do with my time.
*****
The accepted method of execution here is to open the back door and push the condemned man out of it. Dr. Miguez asked me once if I thought this was cruel and unusual. For a psychologist, she has a remarkable knowledge of various methods if execution. According to the doctor, some Eskimo tribes execute criminals by stranding them on ice floes. She explained the the tribes do this to alleviate guilt. It is similar to the practice of military firing squads, who load one gun with a blank cartridge, so that each man on the squad can hold onto the faint chance that they took no part in the killing. Eskimos hold onto the faint chance that the condemned can survive alone and empty-handed on an iceberg. She believes that the prison's method of execution provides the same alleviation of guilt to the executioners.
I responded to her question by telling her about King Edward II of England. He was assassinated for the crimes of homosexuality and bad government. According to Sir Thomas More, the king died of organ failure secondary to having a red-hot copper rod inserted into his rectum. The genius of this particular technique lies in the fact that the heat instantly cauterizes any wound it creates, preventing excessive bleeding and staving off infection. The King is rumored to have died of his wounds three days after the attack. Dr. Miguez and I agreed that his execution was extremely cruel and probably qualified as unusual as well.
Zombification is a highly unusual form of punishment, combining capitol punishment with a life sentence at hard labor. Historically, its use was reserved for only the most heinous and incorrigible criminals. More on that later, time allowing.
I have few thoughts on the subject of my own execution. Though it doesn't occur so often now, many, many, people have been eaten alive in recent years, so it can't be considered particularly unusual. Whether or not it will be cruel remains to be seen. Either way, I have a plan: When the door opens, I will walk out into the daylight and say,
“Good morning!”
It is around that point that I will probably begin screaming.
I hope I get the timing right.
Last edited by marbledog on Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:28 pm; edited 3 times in total
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scissorkitty
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| Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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I LOVE THIS!!!
Wow, well written and quite hilarious! Welcome aboard, marbledog!
Great story, nice sentances, no major typos or anything.. phew! I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to learning more about Jacob, his crimes, and this zombie-punishment thing.
I THINK there might have been an "if" in place of an "of" somewhere in there, but I can't find it the second time around. And I don't know that you need the ":" in the first paragraph, before the doctor's quote.
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Black Hawk
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:14 am Post subject: |
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awsome can't wait to read more 
_________________
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
-Will Rodgers
Michael Crichton one of the greatest writers of his time 1942-2008 rest in peace
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shy_blu_eyes
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:32 am Post subject: |
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 Zombie stories are so overdone lately.
Having said that, the writing is crisp and clean and the story angle is unique and intriguing, I can't wait to where this goes. Please keep up the great work, this is a genere in deserate need of some fresh blood!
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Chinaren
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marbledog
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:45 pm Post subject: Ch. 2 |
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Thanks to everyone for the comments. This is the beginning of a much larger work that I outlined years ago and never did much with. I hope to novelize it at some point. Any advice or criticism is sincerely appreciated.
| shy_blu_eyes wrote: | | :-o Zombie stories are so overdone lately. |
I agree entirely. That's actually kind of the impetus behind the work. I wanted to write a zombie story that's not just a vehicle for splatter and geek humor (not that those are bad things, mind you). I'm just afraid that I bit off more than I can chew with this project.
Anywhos, I hope you enjoy.
Jacob Marshall. What can I say?
Several years ago, I was approached by members of the Marshall Institute and asked to assume the task of editing and annotating these memoirs. I refused flatly. I felt that my relationship with the man and the enormity of the task would prevent me from ever doing credit to the job. Now, seven years and two dozen offers later, I feel the same way. I am simply not talented enough to bring such a dynamic personality to life. (You see! I can't even stop myself from making horrible puns!) Events have conspired against me however (you know who you are, events), such that I now find myself before a blank page, attempting to build a simulacrum of Jacob Marshall out of a stack of scribbled-on legal pads, to perform some wyrd voodoo origami and scream “It lives! It lives! ...(sort of)...,” when my yellow, college-ruled golem rises from the table. Fine. So be it. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
I will attempt, and likely fail, to be as objective as possible, to let Jacob speak for himself, and to maintain some sense of chronology. In return, I entreat the reader to maintain perspective throughout the work. Jacob Marshall was always an uncommon man, and these memoirs were written under extraordinary duress. I further ask the poor, belabored reader to tolerate my own rambling and interjection. I feel it necessary to illuminate certain passages and have difficulty separating my own emotions from the events described. (That's what happens when you hire a newspaper editor to revise a personal diary. Deal with it.)
The first pages here were written in late June of 2035.
For many years, the Soviet Union executed violent offenders and political dissidents by shooting them in the back of the head. The technique was quick, efficient, economical (a forty-five caliber shell costs less than fifty cents) and considered to be very humane. A forty-five round leaves the barrel traveling slightly faster than the speed of sound; thus, the condemned person dies milliseconds before he hears the report from the gun.
The scientists who worked under my command at the prison agreed unanimously that the fastest, cheapest, and most effective method of killing a zombie is to shoot it in the head. They preferred the term “destroying” to “killing” of course, being that the subject (or the direct object, in this case) is technically dead to begin with. “Destroying” has always seemed inaccurate to me. Even after being shot in the head, there's quite a lot of zombie lying around to really consider the thing “destroyed”. I've never been able to grasp the concepts of “clinical death” and “biological death” in any case. Things that move around of their own accord and habitually eat people are certainly alive enough for me to kill them.
Another brilliant thing my scientist employees taught me: you can starve a zombie to death, if you have the time. This fact was considered quite a breakthrough when it was discovered. After twelve days without exposure to any organic substance, a zombie begins to show marked reductions in strength, intelligence, and mass. Signs of decomposition appear at an accelerated rate until approximately day forty-five. At this point, the zombie appears to be nothing more than a moldered skeleton, covered in a resinous brown gel. It shows no cognitive or external sensory abilities at this point, and will only respond if physically touched. The resin covering its bones dries, eventually turning into a grimy dust around the fiftieth day, when the zombie loses all ability to react to stimuli. It lies dormant for approximately four weeks after that. During this period, a zombie will revive if exposed to any organic material containing a sufficient proportion of moisture. Otherwise, it perishes. The entire process can be halted and reversed at any point by providing the zombie with nutrients and water. Their metabolisms are so efficient that that a zombie on the brink of starvation may be regenerated to complete health with the nutrition contained in seven gallons of sewage. The research team at my facility became so adept at managing the metabolic needs of zombies that they were able to keep one juvenile specimen in a state of torpor for over eight years, with an intake of only six calories a day!
His name was Danny.
—————
Editor's note:
No physical evidence was ever found to substantiate this claim. At the trial, Jacob's coworkers refused to corroborate his story, denying the existence of “Danny”. Whether they did so honestly or in a bid to forestall further prosecution may never be known.
—————
I would like to take a moment to apologize to the reader, living or otherwise, who may be offended by the graphicness of these memoirs or the terminology that I have chosen to employ. I understand that the word “zombie” is considered derogatory, and should not be used in polite conversation. The reader must understand that my words were born in a much different time, in which they had much different meanings. If I employ the word “zombie” rather than “non-pulsatile” or “necro-American” it is because the latter words were not born of the events that I describe and cannot carry the truth of those events. My intention is merely to describe, not to cast judgment on any particular lifestyle, whether room-temperature or above.
I will not, however, under any circumstances use the term “biologically challenged”. Every organism that has ever existed has been biologically challenged. No one holds exclusive rights to that.
—————
It's common knowledge that a zombie may be killed by any process that causes significant damage to the brain within a relatively short period of time. This fact was realized very shortly after Z-day and verified by the researchers I directed. As I've already mentioned, the generally accepted method of achieving the desired level of neural destruction is with a bullet, preferably a hollow-point, fired into the skull of the zombie. One of the great unmentioned benefits of this method is its versatility. It works on practically anyone, living, dead, or otherwise. The shooter does not require a high degree of discretion.
If I were Russian, I would have the opportunity to experience the great efficiency of the bullet method first hand. As a descendant of French immigrants, I will have to settle for being eaten alive. I have come to terms with the fact that i will never know the feeling of having one's mind cleanly shaved off of one's brain. It must be an interesting sensation.
My father was lucky in the manner of his death. He died of Alzheimer's Syndrome, giving him eleven years to watch and observe as his mind was peeled away from his brain, pushed out by a slow invasion of plaque. During this time, before the little language factories in his brain started laying off, he was able to make several insightful observations on the process, including:
“If there's no such thing as heaven, she's sure going to be disappointed.” (spoken in reference to Mother Theresa)
and...
"The horsemen are getting closer!”
and...
“Take me back! Take me back! There's no more room for the children!”
The last words my father ever gave to me or the world were, “I need the toilet.” Upon inspection, I discovered that he did not in fact need the toilet, at least not in the conventional sense. Upon further inspection, I found that he was dead.
What could he have meant by that?
—————
I should sleep now.
—————
Good morning!
It is morning now. I can not be sure myself, of course, as there are no windows in this cell, but Dr. Miguez has informed me that it is only a little past nine AM. She came to speak with me about my writing. She feels that my morbid tone and erratic cognitive patterns indicate impending psychosis. I couldn't agree more, but I don't see how it matters. I told her that any mental disorders that may now be developing will necessarily be nipped in the bud when zombies eat my brain. She did not appear to be consoled. I agreed to be a good boy and stick to some ordered system of thought. I hate to see her unhappy.
Let's try chronology. Here goes Nothing.
—————
I was born outside of New Orleans, Louisiana, America and spent about eighteen years being very uneventful. The only deep impressions I have of this period:
1) My brain habitually released massive amounts of dopamine into my bloodstream whenever I came into contact with Elaine Loveday. We developed an extreme interest in one another's moving parts. 2) I spent a prodigious quantity of time in the company of an intelligent young man named Darren Thompson. We became friends out of a mutual loathing of basketball. 3) In the yard behind my parents' house, a wooden porch swing hung from a corroded aluminum frame. For some reason, I loved that swing.
After high school, I enrolled in the Army Reserves. They promised to pay for my college education in return for a short expanse of indentured servitude. As chance would have it, I managing to enroll only months before the five-hundred-odd people who act as the larynx and vocal cords of America declared war on a large parcel of sand containing brown-colored people and long-decomposed dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were important, because their remains could be burned to produce energy. It was generally believed that the people were important, too, but no one ever told me why. I suppose they could have been burned for energy as well, just not as efficiently. I never asked. I do know that in the time I spent in the sand I shot a number of brown-colored people in their heads and other body parts, but I have yet to shoot a dinosaur anywhere. Perhaps there's still time.
Elaine and I decided to consummate our mutual interest before I left, on the chance that I might be killed in war and we would miss out on the opportunity. After having our blood tested to lessen the our chances of spreading disease or breeding recessive mutants, we were allowed to purchase a license to fornicate from the state of Louisiana. As a added bonus, the license allowed me to claim Elaine on my taxes.
What a great state!
We fornicated virtually everywhere over the next two weeks, until I had to leave. Elaine wept bitterly when we said goodbye. Our interest in one another was exceptionally high.
I met Sergeant Ray in the war. He was brown-colored, too, but i never shot him in the head. He did it himself before I got the chance. Sergeant Ray was an older man, gray around the temples, a career soldier who saw the task of keeping me and others like me alive as his chief priority. He never explained why, and I never asked. His first words to us when we arrived in his camp were, “Welcome to the war, boys. Try not to get hurt.”
If I were a skilled OB/GYN, I would welcome new humans to the waking world by saying, “Welcome to the world, boy. Try not to get hurt.”
or perhaps,
“If there's no such thing as heaven, you're sure going to be disappointed.”
I returned home two years later, Sergeant Ray having succeeded in his goal of keeping me alive. Elaine and I learned as much as possible about one another's moving parts. It took about six months to satisfy our remaining interest, at which point we turned the license back in. We hugged and cried a little and wished each other good luck and Elaine went on to nursing school and I joined the regular Army.
I had nothing better to do with my time.
The U.S. Government made good on its promise and paid for my education. I excelled in mathematics and gained a degree in game theory, after which I was recommended for Officer Academy. By the age of twenty-six, I was a lieutenant of the U.S. Army, assigned to analyze data and make recommendations at a military prison in Columbia. A few short years later, I was commanding the prison. Sergeant Ray had since retired from soldiering, and I hired him as an independent security consultant. This is what the Army calls soldiers who don't work directly for them. In earlier times, they would have been called “mercenaries”, but the world just keeps moving on.
Although I was in charge of the prison, my duties there were light. A warden ran the day to day operations. My task was to expand and strengthen U.S. military presence in the area, to create a more habitable climate for U.S. economic presence. I was a combatant in the War on Drugs. I never shot any of the brown-colored Colombians, but some of the men I commanded did. I don't know whether or not they shot any Drugs. I never asked.
I returned to Louisiana sixteen years ago, after learning of my father's impending death. I brought Sergeant Ray with me. He was very good company while he was alive. Darren had grown up to be a doctor, and Elaine had grown to be a mother. Her son, Seth, the only worthwhile product of her second marriage, was seven years old. We all had a nice time together, considering the circumstances.
After the funeral, the dead began to rise from their graves and devour the living. Sergeant Ray again did a fantastic job of keeping people alive for several days, until we took refuge in an abandoned prison.
Eventually, the government (my employers, your employees) were able to kill enough of the dead people to allow some sense of normal social function to return in urban areas of the country. Pretty much everyone else was fornicated. I was given the task of converting the prison into a research facility to learn as much as possible about why dead people had begun walking around, which they hadn't done since they had been alive. I performed this duty fairly well (if I say so myself, which I do) until I was convicted in military court of crimes against humanity. The research lab was converted back into a prison and I was sentenced to be executed. In a few days, someone will open the back door and push me out of it. I will say, “Good morning!” A large group of dead people will eat me. That will be:
THE END
See, chronology isn't so hard. Dr. Miguez should be pleased.
Thank G/god(s) that's over with.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Mary Miguez was not pleased. After reading the preceding passages, she wrote in her medical notes, “Mr. Marshall exhibits symptoms of profound avoidance and gross disassociation from his present situation.” Though I have no medical training beyond the band-aid level, I would venture that “avoidance” may be the healthiest possible reaction to impending death. I would further venture that “Disassociation (From the Present Situation)” is a fantastic title for a funk song.
Even without Dr. Miguez's grim synopsis, reading Jacob's account of his life is difficult. His tone is severe, emotionally barren, and ultimately hopeless. He doesn't appear to display traditional depression: no self-pity or self-hatred, no projection of his own emotional state onto his environment. His tone is so disturbing simply because it defies description. He is neutral but not stagnant, gray but not blank. He speaks as authors of previous eras have imagined the dead to speak. Perhaps he was practicing?
Postulation on his mental state aside, we know that Jacob suffered no cognitive, sensory, or perceptual impairment. He consistently performed well beyond the accepted norms in aptitude and cognition testing. Regular baseline psychiatric function exams showed him to be an intelligent and rational entity. Regardless of what may or may not have been wrong with Jacob Marshall's mind, his brain was a perfect machine.
As we would expect, Jacob had a bit to say on that subject...
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scissorkitty
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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Okay. I am well and truly sucked into this story!
Great job!
Hmm more on the brains.
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shy_blu_eyes
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| Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm hooked. Can't wait for the next fix.
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Black Hawk
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| Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 5:07 am Post subject: |
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I'm hooked completley now I love Zombie stories 
_________________
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
-Will Rodgers
Michael Crichton one of the greatest writers of his time 1942-2008 rest in peace
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marbledog
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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The next fix (thanks for that, by the way) has finished cooking in my little mental crackhouse. (Meth labs are so nouveau, you know? Crackhouses have character.) I hope you enjoy.
The big-brained primates that we call humans have been around for about 2.5 million years, at best guess. Given a few numbers concerning birth rate, death rate, lifespan, etc., we can apply a little of Mr. Newton's calculus to determine that there are about one hundred thousand million dead human bodies on planet earth. Of course, the bulk of these corpses returned to dust long ago, but it's still a sure bet that on Z-day, with a living population around 6.8 billion, we were heavily outnumbered.
*****
Homework assignment:
Call your local department of health and find out the annual death rate in your home town. Divide this number into the total living population. Assuming that there are no dead bodies lying around right now and that the living population doesn't vary too much, the dividend that you arrive at is the number of years it would take for the dead to outnumber the living in your area if we readopted the burial custom. Discuss.
*****
When I speak with members of the younger generation, I am often confronted with deep bewilderment, if not outright disbelief, when talking about the sheer numbers of zombies we faced on Z-day. Today's youth simply cannot imagine the surplus of human bodies that existed in even small communities, and today's history teachings speak little of the practice of human burial.
Young people, this is the truth: For hundreds of years in America, the prevailing method of disposing of dead bodies was to bury them in the earth. The practice carried strong religious connotations, not only because of the passage in the Bible, the holy book of Christianity, concerning ashes and dust. Burial of the dead has been practiced for millennia, in various cultures. It appears to be a compromise between destroying the corpse and allowing it to decay in public. Obviously, any society that values its health cannot allow dead bodies to be left lying around, but the average person's belief in the body as a symbol of the self was so powerful that the vast majority of bodies were not destroyed. In fact, many major religions specifically forbid the destruction or mutilation of a human corpse. Americans spent billions of dollars every year to have the bodies of relatives and loved ones disposed of by professionals. Morticians, as they were know, specialized in methods of chemically preserving human remains.
They actually wanted to keep dead bodies around longer!
The mortician's skill was generally measured by his ability to make a corpse appear more lifelike. After preservation, corpses were typically sealed in metal burial boxes and buried in graveyards, areas designated for such practices, at a depth of at least six feet. The depth was apparently arbitrary, but I have always believed that it was born out of practicality. Six feet is about the deepest that a man can dig and still be able to get out of the hole without too much difficulty. The burial itself was most often surrounded by elaborate religious services called funerals. These services allowed the people to express grief and experience self-pity under the pretense of honoring a loved one. Finally, the body would be left to decompose underground, out of sight and out of mind.
The last funeral I attended was my father's, sixteen years ago. My parents were both Roman Catholics (not to be confused with Orthodox Catholics. Roman Catholics cross themselves from left to right, and Orthodox Catholics prefer right to left). The funeral ritual was typically long and elaborate. After applying the appropriate incenses and prayers and readings, the priest delivered the eulogy, a traditional speech of remembrance for the dead. He told stories from my father's life (gained by interviewing family members before the service; he had never actually met my father). He explained what a good and generous man Dad was and exhorted us all to do well for ourselves, to be happy, to honor his memory. He told us it was what Dad would have wanted. Us, who knew him and loved him. He spoke of my father's twenty-eight years of service to the US Postal Service and told anecdotes that illustrated his loving and kindly nature. He spoke of his dedication to his family and his community and his exemplary service in the Viet Nam Police Action. (The US Congress never actually declared war that time.) He said that god had made a special place in heaven for my father. He said nothing about the last fifteen percent of my father's life.
*****
Alzheimer's disease is marked by three distinct stages. In the first stage, the subject becomes forgetful and occasionally confused. He may forget what drawer he keeps his socks in or become lost in a familiar place. In my father's case, we first noticed a problem when he began cooking Thanksgiving dinner, then undressed, took a shower, and went to bed. Mom noticed the smoke in the kitchen before any serious damage was done. It was truly a shame; my father was an excellent cook.
The first stage of Alzheimer's is often marked by severe depression and mood swings. The subject is fully rational, and normally recognizes the dysfunction. It must be a very frustrating experience, being barred from the knowledge in one's own brain, understanding that the information, the experiences still exist, but lacking the ability to access them. Dad had to give up cooking after the Thanksgiving episode. He and Mom both were forced to endure her culinary misadventures for the next eleven years. He simply couldn't be trusted to do it anymore.
The depression of the first stage usually gives way to either calm prosaiety or bitter belligerence as the second stage sets in. My father had episodes of both, along with the temporal regression that typifies this period of the disease progress. Aide from the loss of everyday skills (bathing, dressing, driving, etc.), the victim of second stage Alzheimer's begins losing memory at an ever increasing rate, beginning with the most recent memories and regressing into the selfish illogic of childhood. The process is not perfect, of course. The subject may still experience moments of clarity, and may occasionally remember what's happening to them. These moments of lucidity tend to last just long enough to allow the subject to recognize what they've lost. Inevitably, the lucid periods come with less and less frequency, and the childish mentality prevails more and more often.
By the time they enter the third stage, Alzheimer's patients have regressed completely into infancy, incapable of speech, bladder and bowel control, or self feeding. The patient is not comatose or vegetative; he retains the capacity to observe and respond to his environment. We knew this about my father. He would occasionally look toward a familiar voice, and sometimes he cried for no apparent reason. Patients may linger in this state for lengthy periods of time, until the brain finally forgets to tell the lungs to breath. The human body is an incredible machine for survival and is capable of maintaining itself for years with only the basest instructions from the most primitive areas of the brain.
*****
The eulogy seemed pointless to me, after the fact, almost passe. I had grieved the loss of my father eleven years prior. The priest told me and my mother and my father's Kiwanis club friends that he knew, in his secret heart, that my father's last thoughts were of his family and their wellbeing.
It was the first and only time that I have ever seen someone punch a priest. I had seen Sergeant Ray under combat conditions, of course, so the speed with which he moved did not surprise me. The priest, on the other hand, had never seen Sergeant Ray before in his life, to his detriment. When he awoke, he said he understood, that everyone dealt with grief in their own way, and that he didn't want to press charges. Sergeant Ray told him that he certainly didn’t understand and used some phrases I learned in the army. I'm sure the priest didn't understand any of them. My mother cried, of course. Dad waited patiently to be put in the ground.
Ray said that he couldn’t stand listening to the little priest lie to my family about my father. If memory serves (and it may not… we are born with a finite number of brain cells that never heal or multiply) Sergeant Ray was raised in a strict Baptist household. That could explain the whole affair.
I like to believe that my father's last thought before dying was this:
“I'd better check on that turkey.”
But it was probably:
“Huh?”
Or perhaps:
“If there's no such thing as heaven, I'm sure going to be disappointed.”
I can say with certainty that my father's first thought after death was this:
“Brains.”
As cathartic as all this reflection may be, it is woefully unhelpful to the reader's understanding of obsolete burial practices. Please, disregard my ramblings and know this: We bury people so that can't come back.
And this:
We should have dug deeper.
*****
In the sixteen years since, I've only lost my temper once, when Sergeant Ray nearly shot me. Or, I suppose “shot near me” is more the truth of the matter. Sergeant Ray was very proficient with practically any firearm. I suppose I was never in any real danger.
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Chinaren
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shy_blu_eyes
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| Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:56 am Post subject: |
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 What can I say?
_________________
A Mysterious Witch, A Bloodthirsty Noble, A Druid with one personality too many, and An Assassin with a price on his head...
and those are the "Good Guys".
Welcome, to the Barony of Wyndshire!
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marbledog
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| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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I'm still not sure where this is going. I know where it want it to go, but... well, you know how it is. I hope you can enjoy the scenery until I fix a tiller on this thing.
The “Sergeant Ray” that Jacob continuously alludes to is one Clarence Raymond Leray, born in Alabama in 1961. Raymond was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother. His father, Anton Leray, died in 1963.
Little is known of Clarence’s early life, as his school and medical records were largely destroyed during the War. It is known that he was arrested at least twice as an adolescent and spent time in a juvenile detention center in Montgomery. He enlisted in the US Army on his eighteenth birthday.
Army life suited Raymond, and he steadily climbed his way up the ladder of enlisted infantry, commanding squads in at least four separate campaigns before being forced into retirement.
It is regretful that information about Sergeant Leray’s life and character is so sparse. Any person whom Jacob respected so highly must have been worth knowing more about.
—————
The old sergeant fit in well at the prison (the one in Columbia, my first). Naturally amicable, he also possessed an undeniable obstinance that was at once frustrating and endearing to anyone who didn't take themselves very seriously. “Real people,” Sergeant Ray called them. “I can always make friends with real people.” I always meant to ask him what an unreal person would be like. I brought him along for companionship and “moral support” (a ridiculous term that means “fear of loneliness”), but his abilities with people proved indispensable.
My job in Columbia was primarily concerned with managing people: prisoners, guards, cooks, drivers, politicians, etc. I was supposed to convince all of them that, although I was not a citizen of their country, had very little money, and could only present the few rifles kept locked in the prison armory in physical force, they should generally do whatever I told them to do. What I told them to do came from my superiors in the US, who got their instructions from the Department of Defense, who got their instructions from the White House, who got their instructions from the citizens of the United States of America. The whole process seemed complicated to me, but essentially, Sergeant Ray and I were translators. Thus, when the citizens demanded that a major athletic shoe manufacturer be allowed to build a factory in the country, we translated that fact to local zoning officials. When oil companies wanted to drill exploratory wells off the coast, we translated their wishes to industrial regulators. What the citizens demanded, we delivered. Sergeant Ray did most of the translating for me. I busied myself with gathering and analysing data. Besides the peculiarly specific requests of the American citizens, my superiors were always interested in refined information, market analyses, political conjecture, anything that would bolster our position in the War on Drugs. At the time, Columbia was a developing nation. The citizens never told me exactly what it was developing into. Predictably, I never asked.
I've always regretted not taking the opportunity to learn Spanish.
—————
Some explanation may be necessary at this point. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the United States government initiated a program intended to forstall the production, distribution, and use of certain chemicals within the United States. The program was intentionally dubbed The War on Drugs and was met with general approval from the public. The War was not fought against all drugs, of course. Certainly not chemotherapy or glucose. For the purposes of the program, “Drugs” were generally defined as chemicals that profoundly affect human perception when they are introduced into the human body and that lack significant medicinal value. It wasn't a hard and fast definition, but was close enough for government work. The War on Drugs was forty-billion-dollar-a-year government work.
To modern readers, it may seem strange (if not simply silly) to declare war on inanimate substances of indeterminate definition. Truth to tell, declaring war on intangibles was a common practice in those days. There was a War on Drugs, a War on Cancer, a War on Illiteracy, a War on AIDS (A contagious and terminal disease. Many feared that it would bring about the end of the human race. Heh.), and a War on Poverty. The practice is grammatically atrocious, but it was highly effective in engaging public interest in various topics. I suppose there's no better way to display your dedication to a cause than to declare war. By all rights, The War on Drugs should have been “The War on Manufacturers, Distributors, Users of and Other Persons Associated With Certain Chemicals”, but the latter name is simply not romantic. The use of the word “war” is still questionable as well, being that wars are typically fought against organized groups of people, most often nations, and not against entire categories of unassociated persons.
Syntactically correct or not, the War quickly spread around the world. As with most consumer items at the time, the majority of Drugs consumed in the United States were produced abroad and imported. In order to stymie the production of Drugs, the powers that were took to destroying production facilities in other countries. As one can imagine, this course of policy led to tense diplomatic relations with countries whose major industries included Drug manufacturing. In many countries, Drugs were akin to a second national currency. For example, in the 1980's, the government of United States sold weapons to certain middle-eastern rebels. Some of the rebels opposed their government, which happened to be unfriendly to the United States. Some of them opposed the Soviet government, which invaded their country in order to acquire their decomposed dinosaurs. The rebels paid for the weapons by selling heroin, a highly addictive Drug refined from flowers. The United States government then gave the proceeds of these sales to other rebels in Nicaragua. These rebels financed themselves chiefly through the sale of cocaine, a Drug processed from the leaves of a tropical bush.
These facts created quite a scandal when they were evidenced to our notoriously fickle citizens. The citizens claimed that they had never demanded that the government use weapons or Drugs as currency. and they didn't care that the rebel groups were trying to establish new governments. (As it turned out, the new governments were no more friendly to the United States than the old ones were. Funny old world.) Persons involved claimed that they were only doing what the White House demanded. Representatives of the White House claimed that they were only doing what the citizens demanded, whether they knew they demanded it or not. The President at the time, a retired movie actor, claimed that he had forgotten everything that he had ever known about the whole situation. Unbelievable as this may seem, he was very possibly telling the truth. That president, like my father, suffered from Alzheimer's disease, the principle symptom of which is forgetfulness.
In America, anyone can be president.
Unlike my father, the President did not kill his wife by tearing a large hole in her neck with his teeth. The President's wife lived to a respectable age and died peacefully in her sleep. She was well remembered as a powerful and dedicated combatant in the War on Drugs.
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Black Hawk
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:10 am Post subject: |
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um wow?
_________________
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
-Will Rodgers
Michael Crichton one of the greatest writers of his time 1942-2008 rest in peace
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shy_blu_eyes
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:03 am Post subject: |
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As always, Incredible!
I work with alot of primary sources as a history major, so I really enjoy the way this is written.
You may want to consider not trying to put "a rudder" on this. Just keep descibing events in the voice of your character and leave things for your audience to puzzle out. Historical "truth" is never clear or concrete, that's what makes the past so compelling. Why not write a sci-fi memoir of the future's past?
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Black Hawk
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| Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:28 pm Post subject: |
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your majring in History?
thats what I am plnning to do from High school to College
_________________
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
-Will Rodgers
Michael Crichton one of the greatest writers of his time 1942-2008 rest in peace
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marbledog
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| Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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I need a little advice on this one. Is there a sufficient difference between the two narrators' voices? If not, does anyone have suggestions on how to make them more distinct? It's hard for me to tell, objectively. Thanks.
I heard a song on the radio once, a low-down swingtime tune. The singer, a backwoods hollering gospel queen was educating the enthusiastic congregation on all of the things that the chosen will not find in heaven: doctors, policemen, landlords, welfare checks, phone bills, salesmen, collection agents, food stamps, minimum wage, taxes, unemployment lines and assorted other and sundry consumer boogeymen. (The fact that collection plates didn’t make the list gave me a chuckle.) The way she sang it, I envisioned heaven to be the perfect Marxian commune, utterly divorced of economy. The idea seemed strange to me, considering the capitalistic nature of modern Christianity. The saved-to-be work without reward or recognition, investing in grace and good works such that they may cash out at the end. Indeed, heaven is the ultimate 401K, the spiritual equivalent of a well-planned retirement account. After a life of toil and trouble, we may be rewarded with ultimate rest.
These sentiments run deep in American society, even now. The ideas of onus and reward are inextricably intertwined and permeate every aspect of our lives, from child-rearing to church, finance to fatherhood. Heaven is a celestial ice cream sundae after a lifetime of spiritual brussels sprouts.
The apostle Paul was a prolific huckster. Given the chance, he might have been equally as successful in selling life insurance. Of course, a great deal of his success must be attributed to the indisputable quality of his product. It’s awfully easy to sell eternal bliss, whatever the price.
The modern consumer, however, is a bit more jaded, if not better informed. Life after death has changed completely and irrevocably by becoming an inconvenient reality. Now we more often speak of world-views and paradigms and cultural mindsets than religions. Our media reports that every spiritual congregation worth reporting has experienced attrition unattributable to the general culling of humanity, excepting the nouveau-sacred “Dead Churches”, of course.
In the precious time that I knew Jacob, we spoke very little of religion. He does, however, treat the subject in several areas of his memoirs. The following excerpt is a later entry, written approximately one year after his escape.
*****
Vodoun is, by most accounts, a unique religion. I made a study of it after the discovery of the Houngans. The plan, Sam’s plan, was to learn as much as possible about them such that we would be better prepared to speak to them. I advised Sam that I was ill suited for the job, having had little experience with such things.
My resume:
1998 – 2000
Infantryman
Job Responsibilities:
shooting brown people, not dying
2000 – 2005
Took leave from employment to pursue further education
2006 – 2010
Analyst
Job Responsibilities:
developing more efficient methods of shooting brown people, not dying
2010 – 2019
Prison Director
Job Responsibilities:
overseeing the shooting of brown people, not dying
2020 – 2035
Research Director
Job Responsibilities:
overseeing the shooting of gray people, not dying
2035 - ?
Zombie
Job Responsibilities:
brains, dying
I informed Sam that my former diplomatic successes were largely due to Sergeant Ray and the imperative of the US army. Sam reminded me that Sergeant Ray was dead with a bullet through his brain and the US Army wished I were in the same condition. I suggested that the US Army would be happier if they were the Russian army. Sam didn’t seem to understand what I meant at the time. He didn’t ask.
Nonetheless, we made an effort to learn all we could about Vodoun and, to a substantial degree, succeeded. We had most of the great libraries of the world at our disposal, after all. Sam called them “islands of knowledge”. Presumably the hordes of meandering zombies between one island and the next represented a sea of ignorance. Sam seemed proud of this metaphor, and he referenced it often.
I have never had a taste for poetry.
One of the things I learned about Vodoun was a recipe for making zombies. The coup poutre required only three ingredients: the skin from several triggerfish and one stalk of Devil’s Trumpet, a weed locally known in Haiti as “zombie cucumber”. This is a sharp contrast to the zombie recipe I was familiar with, which requires apricot brandy, light rum, dark rum, 151 rum lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, and grenadine.
Sam has suggested that I should endeavor to be more humorous.
One other thing I learned about Vodoun is that it is a syncretistic religion. I had to look this word up when I first read it, but I will save the reader the trouble. It simply means that Vodoun is cobbled together from pieces from other religions, mostly animistic folk religions of Africa and Roman Catholicism. Large parts of it are also made up. For instance, practitioners believe that Houngans (sorcerers) must have a patron loa, or spirit. One would assume that, as the religion grew, it would have eventually run out of spirits to pass around. Not so. Houngans simply discover new spirits to sponsor them. For this reason, loa tend to be highly localized. While the religion does certainly honor spirits of such large concepts as death, war, and agriculture, there are many more spirits of “that cave over there” and “the tree behind my house”.
As I believe I have mentioned before, houngans, at one time, reserved zombification as a punishment for heinous offenders. Such people would be psychologically traumatized, neurologically maimed, and perpetually drugged while being forced to work as laborers on the houngans farms. One can only assume that, like the Inquisitors of Europe, the houngans began seeing heinous practically everywhere once they realized the profits to be made.
I realized this fact while seated comfortably on the second floor of a large book outlet in Grand Island, Kansas. I remember looking down at the piles and piles of cheap, grey labor milling about on the floor below me. I suddenly wondered if that was how the Raj felt when first it arrived in India.
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shy_blu_eyes
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:56 am Post subject: |
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I see what you mean. The two voices are still distinct in my mind, although they are getting more similar. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. I know I've had situations in historical papers where I've developed a sympathetic bond with one of the subjects, and the historian character has already stated that (s)he knew Jacob. Perhaps it would be best to embrace the fact that the "historian" has lost their objectivity and work that into the story's subtext. I think your only other option is to rewrite the "historian's" section with the more detached voice you had been using previously and try to incorperate the bulk of what you currently have into Jacob's writings.
I'm not sure if that helps at all, but I hope so.
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Chinaren
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| Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:35 am Post subject: |
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I F5 Sbeyes on the voices.
| Quote: | | the houngans began seeing heinous practically everywhere once they realized the profits to be made. |
Love this line! 
_________________
Neil Hartley Books.
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marbledog
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry for the lack of updates. The recent hurricane has knocked me off of the grid for the time being. I promise to get this show back on the road as soon as possible. Thanks to everyone for their patience.
marbledog
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