Thread: Non Omnis Moriar [Some Language]

Fugue

Blurred glass, twisted objects and an intense light filled my half-shut eyes.
My limbs were inflamed with hot pain, stiff as lead. The more I tried to raise my heavy eyelids, the more the scathing luminosity burned my eyes.
Blinking intermittently, I tentatively lifted my eyelids and tilted my head down to look at my body: body appears atrophied, as if post-surgery; joints thin, anemic-looking, and have this aura of starvation and privation and neglect, I thought.

Despite this, I wore a calm demeanor.
I had frozen myself – in other words, underwent cryosleep– in the shelter’s cryogenic machine, and this pain was to be expected after remaining in stasis for six decades. The cool metal on my dry skin was more noticeable now, the machine’s heating having run up to room temperature.
Sixty years, and now the machine’s function had expired; it had worked.
My slow-beating heart leapt in my thin chest and I managed a dry, one-sided smile that tired me as soon as I achieved it.
But before anything I have to regain the function of my body. A grueling task I expect.
I attempted lifting a finger and the pain shot up to my brain from my lanky digit with uncomfortable briskness. I attempted several meditative breaths and gathered whatever strength I could accumulate. I tensed both hands simultaneously and flung them upwards, but with such vigor that they shot up and hit the smartglass with a soft thud, and then collapsed painfully back into their original recumbent position.

The smartglass must have been programmed to boot up when touched, because I heard a distantly familiar humming of a comp component spinning like mad somewhere in the hull of the machine underneath me.
Moments later a lukewarm-green “Welcome” etched itself across the smartglass, throwing a temped glow across my body, giving them an eerie appearance in the sharp viridity.
In a few moments the “Welcome” transitioned to a light blue window with a bright green triangle turned on its side to indicate “play.” This meant another thunderous tremor of pain. With a deep sigh I ruefully slung my right hand, limp-wristed, at the sideways triangle, hitting it with the back of my fingers.

The video started playing: A CGI model of the cryogenic machine, along with a dummy inside appeared onscreen. A soothing, androgynous, computerized voice poured out from the sides and wrapped me in a sonorous blanket: “Nice to see you awake and moving those arms. You must be feeling pretty sore from the cryosleep. Don’t worry; an adrenaline-inducing gas will be released to aid your struggle. Don’t be alarmed if you feel an uncontrollable urge to vomit or defecate while the gas is entering your CNS; this side effect is perfectly normal in all men above the age of forty, and some women above the age of thirty-five.”
Onscreen, the CGI cryogenic machine filled up with this translucent gas or steam and the dummy inside writhed spasmodically like an eel, afterwards falling back into his original supine position.

As soon as the video finished, a scarlet red countdown timer began to diminish ominously, and thirty seconds later, a clearish gas shot up through my nostrils, into my cranium, and through my nerves.
It felt as if a dozen defibrillators were placed on every joint of my body and set to an unnecessarily caustic voltage, shocking and jerking me violently.
I did not feel uncontrollable nausea, or the need to defecate; just unbearable white-hot electric pain.
I felt like a galvanized ragdoll.
After a brutish thirty seconds of this the pain died down substantially, and my breathing became more metronomic. I smiled dreamily and felt reinvigorated; the gas had worked.

There was a mechanical whir and an acute hiss as the smartglass cover lifted upwards.
When it was at a perpendicular angle to the machine, the androgynous voice said “enjoy your new life,” and the machine abruptly shut off.
My eyes were removed of their blurry veil and the room came into proper view. I lay in my supine position on the machine and looked around the room.
It was a mess; yellow computer paper was ubiquitously scattered about the shelter. It was on bureaus, desks, chairs, walls, on the floor, and all around the machine. The walls of the shelter were an industrial grey, thick with concrete, or at least what I could make out of them behind the anemic-yellow sea of pasted paper.
It looked like none of the papers were actually full; most just had a line or two of presumably unsatisfactory text; the byproduct of my yet unfinished novel.
I had begun work on the book in the shelter, a month before I went under cryosleep.
But I was far from finishing it; I figured it would leave me something to do after I had woken up.
I sort of craned my neck about the room, scrutinizing individual papers and small details. My head movements were smooth and precise from the adrenaline gas.
I tested my limbs – lifting my right hand, then my left hand, then right leg, then left leg.
I was elated to discovered that they moved fluidly, like graceful twigs. After a moment of meditative breathing, I pushed myself out of the cryogenic machine and stepped into a thicket of yellow papers.
There was no avoiding this; nearly every inch of the floor was shrouded with brainstorming and rejected ideas and creative blunders.

I walked over to a mahogany bureau near the lavatory and opened each drawer and found clothes, more yellow paper, and a water bottle and a can of beans. I thought it curious that I could not remember the exact position of all my supplies.
What worried me more, however, was I could not remember the precise reason for freezing myself or building the first place.
But what I could recall was a sick and deplorable feeling that the cryosleep and the shelter were a necessity; that I absolutely had to get away and forget whatever happened sixty years ago.
Back then, I had several close compatriots and a part-time job at a nearly defunct, but stimulating, magazine, and of course I had my designer drugs, hallucinogens, and the occasional prostitute to feed my hedonistic tendencies. But what was there now? I had been an anachronism in my time, shunning most technology that was not essential. Why go under cryosleep and lose the people I knew, the job I actually enjoyed, and the illicit escapes?
I ceased lingering on the thought, however, knowing full well my drastic actions were, in some strange way, necessary. At least enough for me to sell everything I owned, purchase the machine, and hire someone from the Underground to build the shelter.
For now, I needed to focus on the present.

I paced around the room, thinking what to do next.
I had to use the lavatory.
Sixty years without defecation or urinating horrified me, but to my surprise the adrenaline gas did its job of getting me back into equilibrium, and I did my business without much anguish.

I opened the bureau beside the lavatory and took out a dusty water bottle and some canned beans. Luckily, the can’s top was one of those lift-up lids that did not really require the use of a can opener.
I tilted the can of stale beans into my mouth and sipped the water despite its slightly viscous, plastic taste.
I wasn’t particularly hungry or thirsty after the cryosleep, but the sight of my anorexic limbs somewhat scared me.

I looked at a desk near the cryogenic machine, on top of which an electric typewriter stood idly, serving no function in the past sixty years besides being a superlative dust collector.
I came over and blew some dust away.
The typewriter was unplugged, and still had a yellow paper inside the roller.
I plugged the typewriter in.
When the anachronistic device was revived, I held the return key until the paper rolled out and was loose enough for me to pull out. On it was a self-addressed, schizophrenic message that read:

You (me) probably guessed that I (you) am not going to write why you put yourself under cryosleep for six decades.

The selective amnesia is voluntary, induced by a chemical that you obtained from the Underground. It is vital that you take a second dose of this chemical within a day of waking up from cryosleep, or you will remember everything. This second dose will permanently erase the particular memory. If you do not erase the memory, the shelter, the cryogenic machine, and the cryosleep would be for nothing.

The chemical may have also affected your short-term perception, and you may have forgotten the layout of the shelter. The aforementioned chemical is in the bureau to the right of the exit ladder (not the one beside the lavatory; that one contains your clothes) – it is in the bottom drawer. There is a high-powered walk-in industrial fridge, (the door to it is at the far right of the exit ladder) which contains about a year’s supply of food, drink, and lavatory utensils ... The clothes you’ll need, are in the bureau beside the lavatory ... Further left from the exit ladder is a door that leads to the kitchen ... The desk with the typewriter has a small drawer containing several slips of bank information. If those banks have not perished in the past sixty years, you should have a decent sum accumulated by now.

That’s all that needs to be said. Good luck my friend.

I would explore the shelter later today; for now curiosity held a tight grip and I had an urge to see how the world had changed in the past sixty years.
I took out the clothes I had found in the bureau earlier and changed from boxers to brown slacks, a loose shirt, and a baseball cap. They all felt several sizes too large.
I opened the drawer of the desk with typewrite on top, pushed aside several dozen ribbons, and found the two slips with my bank information.
I then retrieved a water bottle from the industrial fridge and stuck it in my pants pocket.
I left the amnesia chemical behind.
After some meditative breaths, I approached the exit ladder, ascended it, and turned the handle on the hatch, pushed it open and emerged into the scorching world above.

Styx

I peeked out from the hole, hunched and alert like a gopher. The hatch was implanted in the center of a bushy knoll that overlooked a barren desert and two parallel strips of highway; both ends of each strip extended indefinitely, ending only where the blue yonder met the arid dirt of the desert. The scene made it hard to believe the world was round.
The knoll was densely packed with creosote bushes and thirsty grass.
A lone mesquite tree directly above me shaded my head. The air was thick with heat and the smell of dry plants.
I was in the Mojave. I felt oddly cozy amidst the draughty vegetation.
I suddenly remembered that precisely for its scenic seclusion, its distance from the roaring din of city life, and its furtive and practical location that I chose to build the shelter here.

The machine itself was purchased in Underground – the black market – but I still could not fathom the reason for the purchase, only the feeling.
The Underground was a wonderful place despite it’s hellish title, and I frequented its markets often (as did my literary compatriots), purchasing designer drugs and natural hallucinogens for inspiration. It was in the Underground where I had met the man that would sell me the cryogenic machine as well as introduce me to the architect and engineer that would produce the shelter in the Mojave, below the grassy knoll at the side of interstate highway fifteen.
Now, there was virtually no way to find the Underground, or its pleasant debauches. Or if my compatriots were around. Or my magazine.
Gazing out at the interminable highway, I could still recall the finality and conviction of my decision to sell everything I owned in order to afford the shelter and the cryogenic machine, and stash whatever meager amount was left into Mors United.
But my machine was unregistered, and I was safe. However, this meant that I did not have access to any readjustment centers, which were newly erected structures back then. Their purpose was to reeducate the cryosleepers until they were ready to tackle their new world solo.
I had no need for this.

I crawled out onto the hot earth on all fours and held onto the mesquite tree to straighten myself up.
With a quick 180 degree sweeping glance I spotted what was wrong with the picture: a dark blue plastic pole with a tilted monitor attached to its top jutted from the side of the strip of highway nearest to me; it was an information booth. What was it doing out in the desert?
Back then, they had sprouted like wildflowers in major cities about a year before my cryosleep – part of some educational project enacted by the mayor. They were not actual booths, just seventeen inch touchscreens on poles. They were largely irrelevant to the general public; any information the pedestrian needed to obtain was already accessible at faster speeds through a phone. Curious tourists, bums, and myself were the booth’s most frequent users.
They had an encyclopedia application installed, along with bullet train schedules, movie times, a built in GPS, and celebrity gossip. I only used the encyclopedia at times.

I tentatively made my way down the knoll, pushing away the creosote bushes in my path, and went over to the booth, checking for cars in either direction.
The scene was too docile; the air around me was holding its breath. Stepping around the information booth and onto the side of the road to get a good look at the screen, I noticed there were no buttons or switches of any sort on the monitor. Besides that, the model looked no different that it had sixty years ago. I brutishly thumbed the monitor, making the entire thing shake.
Nothing happened.
“Piece of shit,” I muttered.
There was a smooth whir and the monitor lit up light blue. On the screen, in crisp black text was written:

shit /ˈshit/ n. v. interj.

1. v. to defecate
2. n. fecal matter; a worthless person; a Charon.

The booth was voice activated.
Beside curiosity, I really had little to do out here and the sun was beating me down with a steady luminous fist with each passing minute.
A cryogenicist might give some sound post-cryosleep advice. And Ontario is nearby…
I said “Cryogenic centers,” and the screen listed three of the nearest labs in the vicinity, along with their phone numbers (now with twelve digits instead of the past era’s eleven) and a small map that pinpointed their locations in California - the most proximal being in Ontario. I said “taxi.” The screen remained sedentary. I said “car.” Nothing happened. I said: “transportation,” and at last a single result appeared: a Jamaican vehicle service on the outskirts of Barstow. I thumbed the twelve-digit number and the screen dissolved into three lone intermittent dots in the center, calling the service.

From nowhere a loud jabbery voice spat “Banton Recreational Historical Wheels Service, how can we service you?” and the screen transitioned again into pleasant blue. I hesitated for a good ten seconds before saying “I need a… recreational vehicle from…” I looked around; all I could ascertain was that this was I-15 from a battered signpost further down the road.
“Where am I?”
After a pause the voice said “We know where you are, where do you want to go?”
I said “the cryogenics lab in Ontario.” The voice replied “we’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Can I just give you my bank information when you get here?”
But the man hung up before I even began the question.

I noticed I was being steadily desiccated by the peaked Mojave sun, and trudged up the knoll and down the shelter’s ladder, to cool off.
When I got down there I noticed there was nothing remotely comfortable to sit or sleep on, besides the cryogenic machine and a lone fold-up metallic chair.
I sat down on the fold-up and took out the water bottle from my pocket, quickly downing the water, and then dragged the fold-up up to the electric typewriter and grabbed a matted yellow paper from under my foot. I stuck the paper in prose-facing-front (none of the papers were blank), so the cylinder would rotate the paper to its empty face.

Tentatively, I moved my fingers just above the keys, typing airborne for a moment, in quasi-preparation, but I didn’t know what exactly to put down.
I lowered my fingers and automatically punched out what happened? on the paper.
The bureau containing the amnesia chemical furtively sneaked into the corner of my left eye; curiosity was eating me.
I shook my head therapeutically and punched was it really that bad? onto the yellow paper. After that, I promptly unplugged the typewriter. For an inconceivable amount of time I sat in limbo, sort of seesawing on whether to remember or not what I chose to forget sixty years ago. I had never really shielded away from reality’s morbid candidness; in fact, I basely accepted the Harsh Truth as dogma. I shook my head.

BEEEEP! It was the anachronistic, unmistakable sound of an automobile horn.
Jarred and shaken, I floated out of the shelter, closing the hatch behind me and pushing away the creosote bushes. I walked down towards the two interminable strips of highway.
Parked on the side of the road was a ravaged, peeling black Ford van with its windows tinted. The driver – an old black man with stoic features, unkempt beard, fierce sordid eyes full of impatience – had his window halfway down.
He turned his head in my direction and jammed at the car horn, signaling for me to make haste.
With an airborne semi-circular finger-wave, he motioned for me to get into the front seat, shutting the tinted window afterwards.
So I went around the raped van and opened the right-hand front door and entered the leathery interior.

The driver turned the key and wordlessly drove off, reaching ninety miles per hour within minutes.
Nothing was too odd about the car – a metallic cross atop the dashboard, several long strands of green and red beads wrapped indifferently around the rear-view mirror, the distinct smell of pine-trees, and a bobble-head of a vibrantly dressed Jamaican bobbing unceasingly beside the cross atop the dashboard.
There was no advanced GPS system, no rear-view high-definition camera, no voice activation, not even touchscreens. I didn’t mind this at all.
The road ahead remained empty for the several hours we drove to Ontario, the landscape flat and unchanging and the sun screaming at its crest.
There was an overwhelming sense of endless sand, rock, and dry vegetation, and I was overtaken by the delusion that the car was, in actuality, standing still, and the yellow highway stripes that were speeding underneath the van were in fact caused by the earth revolving, not the van moving.
But I came to enjoy this infinite vastness of uncomplicated dreamscape – technically my home for six decades.

I was startled when the driver’s strident voice broke the hypnotic pine-smelling stillness: “say your name,” he said, while holding a small black touchphone-looking device near my mouth.
“Say your name into the box.”
“Pascal Hospes.”
He asked me “What’s your bank?”
I said “Mors-United.”
He asked me “Do you accept the charge of two thousand dollars?”
I paused.
“Yes.”
The driver put the small black box in his pocket and drove his foot nearly straight through the acceleration medal.
Soon two-story bourgeois houses and broken and battered grocery stores and large malls were enveloping us. There were maybe two or three old, decrepit Ontarians standing indolently on the sidewalk, but the building practically devoid of any life.
I let out an imperceptible sigh; I was expecting something slightly more advanced. Spontaneously, a peculiar thought struck me; there were only a handful of people out.
I turned to the driver, and asked him where everyone was. The driver neared to a stop and glanced at me dully.
“You are serious? Are you and idiot? It’s noon, they’re linking.”
“You mean online?” I asked.
The driver shook his head sadly and unlocked the doors.
“This is the lab building, you can go now.”
“I’ve just been in cryosleep for six decades, so you have to forgive if I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
The driver raised his bushy eyebrows in amusement.
“Oh, a cryosleeper? For sixty years?”
“Yeah.” I said.
He bobbed his head in understanding and smiled.
“You are right with ‘online.’ But these people, they not only use it to talk with themselves, but to live their lives and establish reputation and all people now work their jobs through linking. You only saw a couple people out? They are the old generation, seventy plus. They don’t do this linking thing.”
“And you?” I asked.
“I just stick to my historical vehicles. We usually get lucrative clients that like to ride around… anyway, most people have no need to go out or anything, everything’s done through linking.”
“And how do they eat?” I asked.
“Buildings have pill dispensers… and those get replenished every year or so.”
The information fascinated somewhat, but I was more appalled than interested.
I said thanks and opened the van’s archaic door and stepped on the sunny curb as the black van made a broken U-turn and sped off.

Purgatorio

I turned around to look at a greyish-white, low rise building. On the left of the crystalline autonomic doors, (these were just in their fledgling stages sixty years ago) a blue-lit screen was displaying quasi-holographic text reading Ontario Cryogenic Depot. I stepped through the self-aware doors and entered the foyer, a desaturated sprawling reception area with a lone silky grey couch against the west wall and a smartglass coffee table beside it (It was playing a muted music video in its right hand corner, clearly seen from where I was standing). There was a bowl of what looked like horse pills on the coffee table.

There was no reception desk. Instead, at the north wall, opposite me, there were several thirty-inch touchscreens built into the wall. There was another set of autonomic doors on the far east corner, near the touchscreens. An elevator on my immediate right stood buttonless.

A twenty-something year old thin girl with short black hair and a slightly repelling widow’s peak was prodding at one of the blue-lit touchscreens on the north wall. When she finished, she sat on the couch and began poking the coffee table, engrossed.
I noticed her breathing was arrhythmic, as if she forgot to inhale one second and then remembered the next. Tentatively, I walked over to her, not knowing how to ask what I wanted to ask without looking like a galoot.
She was playing with the smartglass, popping the white pills from the bowl like candy.
“Excuse me-”
I started but she cut me off without looking up: “I don’t think you are linked with my cloud,” she said abruptly.
I stiffened.
“Is there a receptionist or some-”
She cut me off again: “I’m the receptionist! Don’t talk to me or I’ll call the police, you’re not in my cloud, I don’t know you!”
Not once did she look up from the smartglass.
She did, however, stop swallowing the pills.
I gave up and passed her and the coffee table and approached one of the touchscreens at the north wall.
“I want to see the doctor” I said, and the screen lit up with light blue background and large font: State Your Name And Purpose Please.
“Pascal Hospes. I was under cryosleep for sixty years I want a consultation from the doc-” but before I even finished new text appeared onscreen: Do You Accept The Charge Of Twelve Thousand Dollars Pascal Hospes?
I paused.
The text remained still on the blue-lit screen. There was nothing else I really needed the money for, so I said “yes.”
A new line materialized: You Do Not Have the Required Funds For A Consultation. Thank You For Visiting The Ontario Cryogenics Depot. Have A Nice Day.

I slumped, slightly defeated, and turned around. The girl had resumed eating the pills. I noticed she hardly blinked.
I walked out, passing through the autonomic doors, and stepped into the gleaming soft sunshine of the curb. With a deep sigh, I looked to my right and saw a booth, and trudged over to it.
I contemplatively looked at the booth, and after a minute or two said “modern fiction.”
Eh, why not?
A tall list of articles appeared on the contemporary state of fiction.
I read through the titles quickly, pausing only on one; A Myopic Society’s (Black) Eye: The Cloud Impasse and Its Influence on the Modern Novel. I thumbed the title, and the screen instantly opened the article. My Eyes darted spasmodically over the sharp, dreamy text of the future, finding nothing I could really get a grasp on.
And at last my eyes fell limply on two words: white walls.
I felt a small chunk of my brain galvanize; a memory of four stark white walls came about. But it was not a visual memory, it was only the feeling of four white walls enveloping me.
I walked away from the booth, shaking my head in a meditative fashion. I thought about the amnesia chemical in my bureau. I was having second thoughts.

The sun, still at its peak, shone hard unto my back as I stood still, sweating profusely near the Ontario Cryogenics Depot. I turned around to observe; no human in sight, not even the twitter of a sparrow or crow.
Across the cracked curb and uneven street stood an archaic and dilapidated playground, swings frozen in time, monkey bars hungry for warm hands, the slide slumping lugubriously from neglect.
Not a single car had been parked in the vicinity. I had seen a few junked carcasses on my way here – sedentary, near curbs or crammed in alleys – but no functional vehicles were on the road.

At its zenith, the round hellish orb was steadfastly desiccating me.
I walked back into the Ontario Cryogenics Depot; I could not take the heat any longer. The girl had stopped popping pills again.
I walked passed her and proceeded to the autonomic doors I had seen before, at the far east corner, near the touchscreens. There was no other option than to get ahold of a doctor.
The autonomic doors didn’t seem to care if I had paid or not and opened smoothly as I walked towards them.

I proceeded through a gray, lucent hallway, with a touchscreen every five feet or so on either side. There were several doors to the left of me, but they were locked and had no handles. I found a door with a glass pane at the far east corner, near a set of double doors that led deeper into the depot.

I squinted and looked through the glass, making out a banal, gray, lifeless room that occupied a large, enclosed metal work desk, a counter with an autonomic sink in the corner and a small touchscreen – apparently projecting a holographic diploma – on the wall opposite of me. Behind the large metal desk was a bald and severely average looking man with no creases or folds in his face.
Every feature on the bald man’s face was symmetrical, correct in a systematic and manufactured way, almost rubbery. He was slumped over the desk, rhythmically prodding at a slab of propped-up, tinted smartglass with his index finger. It was as if he was poking at a sleeping animal, trying to aggravate it.

I knocked on the pane. The bald man shot a glance at the door and lingered stoically on my face for a moment before going back to listlessly poking the tinted smartglass. Frustrated, I shouted at the pane: “I have an emergency! Please open the door!”
The bald man did not look up again. I knocked on the pane again. He seemed to furrow his brow, but not creases appeared near his thin eyebrows, and he mouthed something at me, but no sound escaped; the room appeared to be completely sound-proofed on either side.
“I can’t hear-” I started but stopped as I noticed the pane transposing the bald man’s words onto itself in sharp, dreamy black text: I do not have an appointment with you. You have to wait in the waiting area after you pay your fee. I am very busy linking with my associates, please wait patiently in the waiting area.
“I just woke from a sixty year cryosleep, I just have a couple of questions… are there any other doctors? Cryotechnicians?”
The bald man seemed to furrow his brow even more, but there was still no signs of creases.
He spoke, and the smartglass transposed: I will call the authorities if you don’t leave now.
Slapping the smartglass pane a final time, I let out an exasperated cry and trudged back down the hallway, through the autonomic doors and into the gray foyer, and out onto the scorching curb where the booth stood idly by, waiting for me to bark commands.

The sun seemed to show no remorse, and continued its yellow insolence as I marched over to the booth. “Banton Historical Wheels,” I said and thumbed the twelve digit number. The familiar jabbery voice emanated from the booth, asking me what I needed.
“I want the same guy that drove me to drive me back!”
They told me three minutes.

I let the flaming orb work away at me. Three minutes later I was drenched with sweat and feeling slightly less edgy.
When the beat up black van and its ragged driver with his scraggly beard showed up by the curb, my cloud of frustration lifted somewhat.
I got in and asked him if the charge would be the same.
“You don’t need to pay for the way back,” he said coolly.
“I insist,” I said, but he remained silent during the entire trip back.

The bleak desert surrounded us once more, and a smile crept up on my wet face as an almost ecclesiastical feeling overtook my tired body.
As I looked out at the tawny grass, the draughty trees, the prickly bushes and the occasional Mojave cactus, I felt the internal struggle of the purest kind all around me; this was survival in its rawest form. The Mojave vegetation was continuously fighting the Unending Battle.
With little rain, hellish sun, and arid soil, Mojave life was left for dead; there was no escape in this beautiful hell, and I embraced its beauty and loneliness.
This is the only place left for me.

The car broke its smooth trek and skidded by the information booth by interstate fifteen.
“You can go now,” he said.
I thanked him and he sped off.
My thin joints were screaming with plosive fatigue, and I panted slowly up the knoll, pushing aside the creosote bushes, and lifted the unlocked hatch, submerging into the cool confines of the shelter below, still covered in the sea of yellow paper.
After obtaining and emptying several water bottles from the industrial fridge, I laid out a sheet of clothes on the open cryogenic machine’s chilly shell, laid down inside, scooped up several dozen unfinished pages from the floor, and read them till I fell asleep.

Paradiso

The next day at noon, I opened the bottom drawer of the mahogany bureau to the left of the exit ladder, and took out a cold metallic box.
It felt nearly weightless in my hands. I undid the keyless latch and took out the syringe. The clear liquid inside looked anything but promising.
Don’t take it.
I didn’t listen to my thoughts this time. I plunged the needle into my arm.
There was no pain.
After several minutes, the dreadful feeling dissipated, evaporating into the air. The sensation of the enveloping white walls melted away.

I brought my fold-up chair, several boxes, and some food, water, and the typewriter, and set these up under the mesquite tree. The sun was at its zenith, and the vegetation was surviving.
And so was I.
I smiled dryly and began work on the second chapter of my novel.

Pascal's tale is a delicately symbolical story of one man's goal to survive despite strong impulses to be isolated.

Alex, the symbolism you give this story is very strong and yet it still could do with some weeding out. If you take out unnecessary parts, the strong elements of the short tale will surface to us readers. You have painted a wonderful futuristic world for Pascal and your audience to thrive in, now use it to expand on more climactic elements.

I enjoyed the way you used setting to reflect mood in plot. I also adored the simple mythology you have carefully intertwined in your futuristic text. Such a union resounds in a very pleasing manner when done correctly. You have succeeded in that and it grants your story all the more prowess.

Also you might want to take out the boldface on "shit" as it muddles with the text of the section headings.

Thank you for another wonderful piece.

right on point elenagance

I could not stop reading. I loved the headings how they seemed to convey both a sense of exotic text and the feeling of the following paragraphs. I got a little hung up on the spelling errors but that's just from my way of reading I'm sure with a later draft it will be just fine. I was amazed at your use of words and how well it fits into the story. It was well spaced for easy reading and within the first few lines I was ready to hunker down for a good read. My main concern is the way you insist on the sun. I know you want to convey that it is very hot outside and its not comfortable, but I still feel like you could cut down on how much you mention the sun and use instead environmental markers of the heat. Such as, a blurry haze seemed to settle over the landscape." well it could be better written than that but you get the general idea. That is about it for me, once again wonderful writing.