ambiguouspuzuma

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Thank you for taking the time to stop and listen to me for a while!

Algae

"I'm sure you've hard around the Bās system," she said, in faltering Human English: pronouncing hard rather than heard, and confusing around and about. But Objects in the Mirror gave her points for trying. Most emissaries would open in their own language, and just expect him to keep up.

"The solar flare? Yes, of course. Awful, awful news."

He folded his limbs in the Bās gesture for commiseration, and she reciprocated with an appreciative click. She wasn't indigenous Bāsic - not unless she was hiding a couple of arms under her gown - but emissaries were encouraged to adopt the planet of each posting as if it were their own.

"How long do they think until... you know?"

"Forty taons, more or less. A few more sons, and it will all be gone."

"A few generations," he translated. "It almost doesn't bear thinking about. Millennia of civilisation, and then the universe does this. I'm so sorry."

"Me too."

"I do speak Eastern Bāsic, if that's easier for you," Objects in the Mirror continued, wondering which would be her preference. She might have been born in the Com belt, from the shade and texture of her skin. "Or a few dialects of Comon. I was only on Earth for fifty taons, so I never went entirely native."

His correct guess was rewarded by another click, although her tone turned apologetic. "Sorry, is my ascent that strong? I grew up on Com-5, so Honsun is my baby tongue - but I'd like to perverse with Human, if you don't mind too much. It's good to have the practice."

"English it is." He smiled in the Human fashion, with his teeth instead of his eyes. "What else can I do for you?"

"As you will know, we have enjoyed sentries of peace. A perfect equilibrium. We spawn, we die, and our populations remain much the same. Our worlds remain much the same, held in balance to exactly meet our needs. But that balance has been tipped. This solar flare follows volcanic activity on Com-2, and soon we will be two worlds down. We will need new homes, and fast."

"I'm no terraformer," Objects in the Mirror said. "I'm a cultural researcher. I study the way things are, preserved, rather than changing what they might be."

"You know Earth," the emissary said. "If we have exhausted our own planets, we must look to bring others into the fold. Make our homes amongst them, if we can. You've been there, done it. Is there space?

"Space?" He chuckled at that. "Mankind abhors a vacuum. They can't see a blank page without filling it. Men are like a culture of algae, you understand. They'll always grow to fill their cell, their dish, and overflow if you forget to replace the lid. That's why we've kept them at arm's length. We want to keep the little that we have."

"They would take our homes? Destroy the rest of our balance?"

"They might not mean to, but yes." He crossed his various limbs in contemplation. "Not all of them, of course. You won't be familiar with their hobby of keeping bonsai trees, but they follow our approach to planets: looking inwards, all effort on perfecting what you have, and maintaining it in that state, as we do with our societies. But most men are more like weeds. They have no patience for perfection. Only growth drives them: more land, more wealth. More people. They breed like haraguti, and are never content in one place for long."

That concept was foreign to Com-5 as it was here. Objects in the Mirror knew that the emissary would have been raised with the same philosophy of life: home was home, and they would build it upwards before spreading out. All resources were devoted to improving the lot of their society, raising the baseline, no individual left behind, rather than expanding it - fighting wars whilst children starved at home, and leaving more misery in their wake.

Other than emissaries like her, researchers like him, there was little desire for citizens to leave their home systems, where everything was different to their tastes. A move to Earth would be a desperate measure, born of desperate times. But humans would colonise a barren rock as soon as they were given the means, just to see it done. Whatever the hardship, they would endure it, out of some driving need to overcome each barrier in front of them, and then the next, and then the next, whatever the personal cost.

"They've been on Earth a thousand years," she said. "They seem fairy content."

"Only because we've stopped them," he explained. "Their history is one of conquest. Every state has tried to spill over into its neighbours, taking from others and churning up their land, rather than building a paradise on their own soil. Every enterprise, whatever its success, chases constant growth and profit above preserving what they have. Do you know much about sharks?"

"Are they the ones with the tentacles?"

"No, but I suppose it doesn't matter. Aquatic predators. Big teeth. A man once told me that they need to keep moving or they die, and I think that men are the same. They're irrepressible, so we decided to repress them. We thought it better to keep them there." He paused. "Of course, could use a little irrepressible now."

"How do you mean?" the emissary asked. He wasn't sure if she meant that last point, or if he'd passed the limits of her vocabulary, in which case he'd have to repeat that whole thing. He took a gamble on the former.

"Are you familiar with concept of pioneer species? They're often seen as weeds, but they serve a vital ecological role. Fast spreading, fast reproducing, able to adapt to virgin land, terraforming it for others to follow. You get algae on an island first, and it creates the mulch for complex plants to grow in."

"Algae and weeds again," she said. "So what do you suggest? You said we can't go to Earth, because they will come to us."

"Or we could point them in the other direction, and see what else they find," he considered; arms still crossed, face still smiling. "Perhaps it's time to open the lid."

[ambiguouspuzuma]

NO MORE POEMS

#see you next year escapril #I will start dreading it now

[ambiguouspuzuma]

tomorrow

Pascal believed that all should strive to believe whilst we're still alive so that when our last day arrives we'll have the greatest chance to thrive.

if God did not exist, he said, we'd simply die and linger dead. but if heaven was real instead believers would end far ahead.

he saw it as a coin to toss, to spend a life before the cross: on heads, left with that wasted cost; but on tails saved from boundless loss.

it seemed to him an easy choice, a slim chance at eternal joys. but when he stood to raise his voice he found it drowned out in the noise.

although he tried to spread his views he only left the rest confused for faith is not something we choose no matter what we have to lose.

belief is not so simply found. whatever worldview we expound we root it on some solid grounds. we need proof to be talked around.

Pascal had a dilemma there; a blessing left for him to bear, salvation that he couldn't share, a problem faced without a prayer.

how to connect those ancient dots when breaking bread with those at odds; take shaking heads and make them nod fake faith until they find a god?

what page or verse or curse might sway those blinded lambs who ran astray and wager paradise away; tomorrow unproven today?

a part of him was left to grieve for futures only he perceived, the rest waiting until they leave to see the forest for the trees.

for none could see it while they stayed. doubt always held belief at bay, waiting to see the bill to pay; and only hell would make them pray.

#poetry #poem #escapril

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Frozen in Time: Christophe Jacrot’s Norilsk, Siberia

[ambiguouspuzuma]

how to exist

when I was young, as young as him, a boy tripped on the treadmill. he panicked. as we all do, in times of crisis, he reached out, grasping, grappling for a steady anchor, even as he drowned. he gripped onto the handles, and held onto them fast, his legs left trailing on the faster floor, scrabbling for purchase and finding none.

it was interesting, when I'd processed the trauma. his calves shedding their skin like two milk white snakes. letting go would have released him; he would have been free, to curl into a broken coil on the floor. but his fingers only tightened the more it burned, cleaved clear from his shins; the fine film you get from peeling an onion, and with just as many tears. but still he clung on. doubling his grip as his feet flailed uselessly behind.

you drag me behind on the asphalt, retreat back into the lake, hooked on my line as I am on yours. ride and die, you have me caught. tethered by my own rigor mortis.

I can't let go, now. no matter how much it hurts. we've come too far, bled too much, to fall back into the unknown. you are my anchor, my ballast. how to exist, without mooring, without destination. I'm more afraid to wash away, forget all that we've had, than to let you pull me to the depths.

so take my skin, keelhauled along your hull, borne by a rope I tied myself. the barnacles may scrape against my spine, punching the air out of my lungs, and I may die beneath your cold and tar-soaked touch, but still I cling on. scrabbling for purchase, still believing in salvation.

#escapril #poem #poetry

[ambiguouspuzuma]

#HELLO#PUZUMA HOLY FUCK#THIS JS AMAZING#im showing this to my wife#well done

Hello! Thank you! I'm glad that you enjoyed it (but sorry if it resonates with you in any way) and hope your wife does too!

surgery

you made my murder quite discreet. you didn’t tear my chest apart, but clinical, your scalpel neat, excised a sliver of my heart.

leaving me conscious was more cruel; many would rather die than grieve, and mine is the worst fate of all to stay behind after you leave.

the first bite should have made me shy, developed my immune response, for being left is amplified by those who leave us more than once.

we carry the capricious close; we dwell upon the ones who stray. the people who stay with us most are often those who drift away.

our lives are most severely stained not by those stalwart in their bonds, but those who come now and again and just as frequently abscond.

a needle in a piece of cloth endlessly weaving in and out. you play me like that, on and off, until all that I know is doubt.

your wound is neat, your stitches rough. you've left me as a nervous wreck. but held intact, just whole enough for you to keep me still in check.

you've killed me by a thousand cuts. you didn't need my ribcage spread when you could simply break my trust by dipping in and out instead.

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Life drawing

We took inspiration from each other. Resurrection was as much an art as a science, and - just as a life drawing class might each take turn to sit as model, for the rest to capture in charcoal and ink - we had no better muse than our peers. I watched the way that Hugo walked, studied anatomy at Sebastian's feet. We learnt to draw life in a different way, channelling it into our constructed bodies, and we always made them in the image of our classmates.

They were a good bunch of chaps, more or less. I had arrived at the College not knowing what to expect, but they soon had me feeling right at home. That was day one, and for three years it has been: the Royal College of Resurrectionists, with me among their number. It sounds awfully grand, but then I suppose it has to. There would always be those who questioned our trade, if it we didn't have the Crown's seal of approval on the doors.

We were never grave robbers. They took pains to make that clear. Not robbers of any kind, any more than those who plumbed the Earth for the coal of withered conifers, the crude oil of a million shellfish. We simply extracted a natural resource, and turned it towards industry: animating bodies to work the turbines, deep within the city's catacombs, or to serve in a workhouse production line. It was more ethical, they said, than making the living suffer that. We were the liberators of the working poor, and their puppeteers in death.

Our corpses were simple automatons, but we had to make them as functional as possible. There had been... experiments, before our time, but the College had long since settled on a normal human form. I suppose they couldn't argue with millennia of evolution. Where bodies were damaged, we had to patch them back together, with parts from elsewhere. The deceased mind never returned, but there was no excuse not to find four working limbs.

It was seen as a respectable career. Most of us were the second or third sons of wealthy families, you see, sent to make something of ourselves, or at least out of parts of other people. It wasn't that we needed the money. But then there was Vincent. He arrived with nothing but the clothes on his back, some orphan from the city come to try his luck. He thought he'd find his fortune here, I supposed at the time. I perhaps didn't think on that enough.

Vincent was an odd fish. Out of place amongst the old boys, certainly, when he arrived in our second year. He spoke, moved, held himself in different ways - at first, anyway. Henry was the son of a viscount, and Vincent didn't even know who his father had been. Not that there was any speculation. If he had any aristocratic blood, it was in the samples in his vials. A wretched creature from the street, playing at academia.

Oh, but he was an artist. Gifted in a way that none of us had ever been, even with a year longer to learn. He had the neatest, most delicate stitches, and the vision to do things the hard way, combining fragments from a dozen bodies into a single masterpiece. Our corpses were poor imitations of life; Vincent's creations were almost something better. He knew exactly how to mix the paint to capture something new.

Not that he had nothing to learn from us. I helped him to find his feet, even lent a hand from time to time, when there were none left in the ice house. Within a week, he'd learnt my walk; after a month, I heard his accent change. He became one of us. A resurrectionist, and a gentleman. We might not always have been as welcoming as gentlemen should, but we embraced him then: an outsider no more. Things were easier, all being on equal footing. If anything, his footwork was better.

Whilst we all tried to capture each other in flesh, sorting through the assembled body parts for eyes that were Sebastian's particular blue, a character study to hone our craft, only Vincent could capture my essence. It was as much about impression as accuracy, he told me once: in the way that a good caricature is more recognisable than a poor attempt at realism. After a dozen tries, he got my smile just right, as if he'd studied it for a thousand years. He became my artist, and I found myself his muse.

"I should cut my hair," I told him, looking down at the slab like a mirror. We were in the icehouse, where we're standing now. The College had its own catacombs, and filled them with our choice of body parts, a sort of delicatessen-cum-morgue. "It falls too much over my eyes."

"Don't you dare," he said, adopting that well-bred tone of playful arrogance. My tone, perhaps. The rest of us all sounded the same. "I want you exactly as you are."

He couldn't help but make me blush. Whilst the others moved on from such imitation, trying to challenge themselves with different forms, Vincent's bodies always seemed to mirror mine, as if his mind was always pregnant with those thoughts of me. I reddened at this sincerest form of flattery, and his mimics learned to flush their cheeks as well. He fell behind in his other studies, and I fell deeper for his charms.

We often met in the icehouse, a way to repress my blush at his words, and I suppose that's where this story ends. He invited me to meet him there on some pretence: a project gone awry, perhaps, as if that were ever likely to be the case. I do not remember; may not have even cared for the details at the time. I confess I was an easy catch. If I had stopped listening after 'Vincent needs you', I would not now be surprised. At that stage, he had me dancing in the palm of his hand. It's such a shame that wasn't enough.

"You are due to graduate soon," he said. No introduction. It felt that this was something he had been meaning to speak about for some time, and I felt my heart swell at the thought. Vincent was never carefree with his emotions. Would he admit to missing me? Implore me to stay?

"I am," I admitted. "I have a role lined up with an old chum of my uncle's. He owns some form of factory. Glovemaking, I think. But it will only be a year before you are free to leave as well, and I'm sure you'll have your choice of offers."

"I fear I am impoverished when it comes to uncles, relative to some. Not to mention chums."

"Oh," I said. I often forgot about him humble beginnings, so skilled was he at disguising them. "Well, if it's doors you need opened, you can come straight to me."

"You know, that is precisely why I have invited you here today."

"It is?" I reacted as if he'd given me a gift. I was still so eager to help.

"I have no desire for some second-string role, to labour under you or any of your kin. One aspect of your role is not enough. Having worked alongside you and the others for these past two years, I have observed such laziness, such privilege, that no amount of hard work seems to overcome. It seems far easier to dispense with you and live off your inheritance."

"Dispense with me?" Finally, I felt the chill in the air. "You mean to kill me, Vincent?"

"Alas, no," he said, in that tone which would be called well-bred on anybody else's tongue, and had been well-purloined on his. "We have mastered the art of replicating the human body, but still lag behind when it comes to the mind. I must keep you here, at least until you've told me everything: your childhood memories with your family, the heart of your relationships, the levers I might pull. All that your replacement needs to truly take your place."

"A replacement?"

"After many failed attempts, which you have so gallantly helped me to hone, I have finally perfected your simulacrum. He will keep your head down in the meantime, whilst I extract the information I will need. Then you can die, and I'll take your spare parts for storage, and drain away your blood. But have to siphon off your memories first. It would be such a waste to take your life, without first taking it for my own."

"I won't talk," I said, eyeing the various tools the icehouse held. Meat hooks. Rib spreaders. Scalpels. Bone saws. "Even if I do, how you can trust that what I say won't be a lie?"

"Please," he snorted in Sebastian's derision. He'd always had a habit of acquiring habits from others, as if trying them on, learning how and who to replicate. "Your body holds no secrets from me! I, who have taken it apart a dozen times, and put it back together again. I have studied your tells with your manner of breathing, your frequency of blinks, all in the interests of fidelity. I know what your truth looks like, and I will recognise your lies - even if I have to peel open your cranium and check your prefrontal cortex for myself. I think I'll start by taking your pulse, and, if I think you're lying, I'll start taking your skin instead."

"Then I'll never tell the truth!" I told him. "You promise to kill me when I give you what you need? Forgive me, but that seems an odd bargain indeed. Under those terms, my survival depends upon retaining the very secrets you desire. How long can you keep me hidden, I wonder? Longer than I can hide the truth? My incentive is surely to keep silent, or to offer you only my screams."

"If it's death that you fear," he shrugged, a gesture he'd learnt from Hugo. "I'd be loathe damage your body too much, as you know. If your echo doesn't pass muster, I might need to supplement with one or two authentic parts - and of course it's always good to keep a spare. But I can take those parts off, to pack in the ice for a rainy day. It's your choice whether I do that after you die, or whilst you're still alive. I know your body better than anyone. I estimate that I will barely begin taking you apart before it starts to beg for death."

"Please," I said. He was right. He was always right, and I already knew that I couldn't even throw myself upon his mercy. Vincent had always been the least squeamish in his work. Cold but beautiful. Beautiful but cold. I tried to meet his gaze, but his own grey eyes simply stared back at me, as if assessing mine for quality.

"Tell me everything," he said. "We'll start with your life story, running up to this moment. Even our time together: your impressions of me, when I arrive at the College, in case my clone needs to introduce me later on. Speak as if I was a stranger. Leave nothing out."

#writing #short story #writeblr #creative writing #original writing

[ambiguouspuzuma]

surgery

you made my murder quite discreet. you didn’t tear my chest apart, but clinical, your scalpel neat, excised a sliver of my heart.

leaving me conscious was more cruel; many would rather die than grieve, and mine is the worst fate of all to stay behind after you leave.

the first bite should have made me shy, developed my immune response, for being left is amplified by those who leave us more than once.

we carry the capricious close; we dwell upon the ones who stray. the people who stay with us most are often those who drift away.

our lives are most severely stained not by those stalwart in their bonds, but those who come now and again and just as frequently abscond.

a needle in a piece of cloth endlessly weaving in and out. you play me like that, on and off, until all that I know is doubt.

your wound is neat, your stitches rough. you've left me as a nervous wreck. but held intact, just whole enough for you to keep me still in check.

you've killed me by a thousand cuts. you didn't need my ribcage spread when you could simply break my trust by dipping in and out instead.

#poem #poetry #escapril

[ambiguouspuzuma]

the absolute limit

sometimes it feels that you and I are being stretched to breaking point.

our wallpaper peels from bricks ruined by the love hearts we etched into fragile joints.

underneath it reveals, hidden from human eyes, the future we once sketched with a home to anoint.

signed in blood long since congealed, stale promises euthanised, faithful hearts failed by their flesh, that fundamental disjoint.

perhaps doom was part of our deal. we pledged to ride and do and die, but it was always too far-fetched; now we can only disappoint.

that disconnect never seems to heal. our fissures just grow wider with time. our attempts to bridge them overstretched until we no longer fit together at all.

#poem #poetry #write a poem that flows nicely? #no #write a poem which sounds awful #but in a way that reflects the discordance of its topic #get streeeeetttched #escapril

[ambiguouspuzuma]

faun

the debutant takes to the floor like nothing I have seen before, with goat-like legs but human torso, and human muscles, only more so, homespun clothes and cloven hooves, a tail that flickers as he moves, cheeks like a rose, replete with thorns in a small pair of twisted horns, but dances in my empty hall as if it's him who owns it all and I'm the one who's out of place, with ruffled hair and reddened face, all of a sudden ill-at-ease and swaying on unsteady knees. he is the monster. nonetheless, as stray hairs fall over my dress, watching the swirl of mismatched limbs he has me fauning over him.

#poem #poetry #a bonus poem for you today

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Some of artist Anna Sim's work really gives me Piranesi vibes - I LOVE IT (Susanna Clarke's book and Anna Sim's paintings of stairs and halls and vestibules!)

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Humanity has finally reached the stars and found out why no one had contacted us. The universe is in a sad state. As such, Doctors without Borders, Red Cross, and many othe charities go intergalactic.

#Doctors Without Gravity #other people's writing

[ambiguouspuzuma]

modernity

the chippy offers discount scran, yesterday's cuts in last week's news, whilst humming cabinets of cans, proffer refrigerated booze.

the counter helps him count his pence exchanging copper coins for gold: one cod and chips at great expense, a can of something cheap and cold.

he takes his polystyrene loot back to the awning where he begs, imploring from the passing suits some surplus for a pickled egg.

but no-one stops to meet his gaze; none of them have the change to spare. all money's plastic nowadays with no way left to gift his share.

he eyes the sheets beneath the news and wishes them less soaked in grease, but beggars aren't allowed to choose or sleep in blankets lined with fleece.

he used to have a fresh supply; broad sheets enough to line a bed. the suits used to provide them dry, discarded to the ground once read.

but they don't buy them anymore, neither the broadsheets nor the rest; no longer leave them on the floor for him to form that makeshift nest.

he used to make a living here when news and cash were things to hold, on tabloids, bargain fish and beer, before that life was bought and sold.

so though his broken lips are stung by chips bathed in vinegar baste, even without salt on his tongue the world would hold a bitter taste.

#poem #poetry #escapril

[ambiguouspuzuma]

dark secret

my darling's fearless, so she boasts. she's not afraid of vengeful ghosts or creatures creeping from the mist or many things that don't exist.

she doesn't like to get on boats but that's a sickness, as she notes, just like the others on the list of things she can't as well resist.

not that there's shame in fear of sharks just like her caution of the dark; it's not that shadows give her fright, only the things they keep from sight.

she'll greet the strangers in the park and meet the gaze of dogs that bark untroubled by their threatened bite so long as leads are tethered tight.

out of the sea, she doesn't fret whilst others worry to get wet; on swimming trips she's known to thrive as long as they don't make her dive.

and it's not fear that makes her sweat when challenged by such major threats as swarming bees around their hive; it's just her instincts to survive.

just like the thunder of the swarm it's wise to hide away from storms or likewise rumbling motorbikes in case of sudden lightning strikes.

a fear of dentists is the norm, but not for her, so I'm informed; she simply hates their metal spikes as one of her astute dislikes.

she isn't fond of modelled clay, and hates Wallace and Gromit, say, whilst always letting vomit spout at just the scent of Brussels sprouts.

and if one spider creeps her way she'll then be wracked with fear all day. she's brave, or something thereabouts, save for the things that creep her out.

#poem #poetry #escapril

[ambiguouspuzuma]

unexpected transmission

the choirboys sing in dead languages, but, like the blackbird in the maple, I understand exactly what they mean.

#“but today's poem is too short” #oh #you mean UNEXPECTEDLY short? #gotcha #poem #poetry

[ambiguouspuzuma]

simulation

she dressed, if not quite to impress, to go unnoticed, more or less. in simple treasures, barest bones, the studs of semi-precious stones, with middling silver filigree and gilding of the last degree, her diamonds still encased in rough, her linings just velvet enough, and though much of it counterfeit it passed just well enough to fit amongst the nobles gathered there with one or two appraising stares though they were able to afford to dress as walking dragon hoards, but most important, as a thief, was how she'd dressed up underneath, with pouches underneath her skirts to store the buttons from their shirts and cufflinks snatched at any chance to join each suitor in the dance, whilst all the earrings that she took when asking for a closer look were hidden swiftly up her sleeves as if in fear of other thieves, although she knew the greater threat was having had her hunger whet and not wanting to leave the ball until she'd fully fleeced them all; the taste of such low-hanging fruit addicted her to their pursuit wanting to strip each robe and belt so they could feel how hardship felt, and feeling a failure with less than full regalia and dress as if unfinished with the theft until her marks had nothing left, and asking what else they had stored and what it cost to make a lord or how much she would have to steal to make her simulation real.

#poem #poetry #escapril

[ambiguouspuzuma]

desire

I saw a robin today. the sun was out, and so were the birds. jackdaws. blackbirds. blue tits. others. but robins too.

he pecked at the crumbs around my shoes and my thoughts returned to December, when I would hang his likeness in my home, on a card, and sing songs in his honour. but now it is April and he is a stranger at my feet.

robins are sedentary birds; all weather friends. we venerate them in winter, not because they are anything more, still the same small ball of feathers, curios and brave, but because our options are less. the other birds fly south, and we turn, lonely, to the redbreast in the snow.

the trees are the same, but green against that white. evergreen. spruces and firs and pines each just as lush in summer heat, but unappreciated, unremarkable; until the others are gone. we bring them into our homes, draped in baubles and tinsel and lights for their company, their rich, winter beauty, which doesn't earn a second glance in spring. in April, the other trees have blossom. flowers. decoration of their own.

this is what I am to you, I think. a December comfort. you turn to me when others fade, a hearth to warm the bleak midwinter of your heart. you kindle me to fill that void, adorn me with desperate love, hold me up as more than the simple person underneath. so that, come the warm light of spring, when the air is filled with petals and birdsong, I can only disappoint. in a world of options, I am easy to discard, less visible in sunshine than in shadow, though standing by you just the same. but your loneliness is gone, and mine can wait until that winter next returns, and I might be worthwhile wanting once again.

I am used to shivering in the warm.

#poem #poetry #escapril