April, 6021 (692 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.47 on 28 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (View user info) at 2009-04-03 14:10:18 EDT
She was in the center of the vast open space. I stopped counting my paces at one hundred as I walked to the raised slab of black granite bearing her small form. My light did not reach the vaulted ceiling far above me, and when I shouted I heard a distant echo.
Her open eyes were the color of amethysts. Wild green strands of hair the vibrant hue of spring grass hung down from one end of the bier upon which she was displayed. Her mouth was open, eyes and mouth forming frozen shock. Her tongue was forked, the split running so deep she seemed to have two tongues. Her teeth were tiny, with the silvery luster of pearls. Her lips were painted, her lashes darkened.
Hanging from each lobe was an earring made of tiny finger bones, surely the bones of infants. They formed complex designs and were held together by threads of gold. Narrow lengths of blue silk crossed her hips and breasts. Her skin was as pale as the exposed surface of the moon. Her nails, both fingers and toes, were painted the same indigo as the silk draped over her slender body. There were crescents of crusted blood under her fingernails. If she were any smaller in stature she could be mistaken for a child.
It was hard to believe she had wrought such destruction... if one believed the tales told by old women, used up and confined to dying stalls. In one corner of the vast underground tomb I had passed a pile of desiccated organs mummified by millennia in the stale air of this chamber. Penises and tongues. Her customary trophies, according to legend.
I touched her cheek with my fingertips. Her skin was as cold as the thick hilt of the silver knife protruding from her chest. The knife pierced the silk between her small breasts. I could see no blood. I lifted the silk covering her pubis and saw a wild tangle of hair as green as the hair on her head.
My breasts ached.
They were heavy with milk and needed to be emptied. They could never be as full of ache and anguish as my heart, and my heart could never be emptied, not after seeing the taskmaster swing my girl-child by one foot and dash her head against the poured concrete floor of the birthing room, all that she was and all of her possibilities becoming a small fan of gleaming red gore at my feet. The numbers of girl-children were carefully, cruelly controlled.
I had fallen back onto the birthing bed and looked up at the false blue sky under the dome. I looked beyond the dome, seeing the same yellow-gray clouds scudding across a distant, dead Earth. I had recalled the legends of the Woman in the Moon and wished, for only a moment, that she were real and could avenge centuries of male tyranny and domination under these lunar domes.
Soon enough I was back in the mines alongside my fellow women, working with pick and shovel.
We have lived this way for thousands of years.
Early in a month some say was once a sacred time, a time to acknowledge female deities, a time of seasonal rebirth, I had uncovered an ancient door in a deep shaft, the door to this great open space under the skin of the moon.
I looked at the woman, the girl, on the granite slab. She was so small, so delicate, so frightful. She could be my daughter. She could be the mother of us all.
I pulled the knife from her chest, realizing only now that the heavy silver haft was the length and thickness of an erect penis. I tossed it away and it clattered like thunder.
I bent and kissed those cold parted lips, not knowing if I was following my own will or some playing the puppet in an act preordained. I breathed a hot wind into her mouth, looking at those amethyst eyes, exhaling the warm, strong breath of a woman tempered by a life of back-breaking labor.
The eyes fluttered, the twin ropes of her tongue writhing against mine.
Her skin flushed with warmth and she cried out in hunger, tears falling from those lovely eyes.
I opened my filthy tunic and gave her my swollen breast, feeding her and easing the ache of body and spirit.
The soft sounds we made echoed around us. We stirred dust modes that had been idle for millennia.
I suckled her and cradled her and stroked her hair, watching her grow strong, this ancient monster, this Queen of Death, this Woman in the Moon.
User Reviews
Submitted by MajulCartoons (user info) at 2009-04-06 09:20:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
good sentence structure...
Found it very difficult to get through this.
This story is nearly 800 words, yet if this was to play out in real life, it would last about 15 minutes/half an hour...?
The only other style of writing this descriptive is either poetry or a romance novel. (see my post; http://www.ubersite.com/m/120294 )
...story starts nowhere and ends nowhere... again, hated the poetic phrases, can't express this enough... so very, very dreadful
no plot, no direction, random penis mention, no character development, no clear conclusion
Try again
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2009-04-06 08:53:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-04-03 20:49:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jack parts of this were just ridiculous. It was an entertaining read though.
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-04-03 20:45:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
ha - the first thing I saw was 'my breasts ached'. I'm going to actually read it now.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-03 20:34:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
SKYNET is closer than ever http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6024880.ece
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-04-03 19:45:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2009-04-03 17:36:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by cheerios (user info) at 2009-04-03 16:42:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
didn't read, but it doesn't look like the usual horseshit you post.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-04-03 16:02:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You give good fiction.
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2009-04-03 15:38:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2009-04-03 13:19:27 CDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Pretty damn good, although I felt it was a little heavy on unnecessary description and light on exactly what the fuck was going on.
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Ditto. Some of the descriptions got a little bit repetitive. Like the line with the tongue- give us a little credit to be able to envision it. We know that it's split, but we don't need the description that it looks like two. If she's dead, maybe you could do something where one fork is going the other way.
I got a little confused by the first paragraph, but I think that was just word choice. When I picture an open space, I picture open air, so then when I read that she couldn't see the ceiling I got a little confused. I think the woman's despair and desire to nurse needs to be expounded beyond the fact that her breasts are full of milk. It's 6021. They will probably still have breast pumps. I'd read more for sure.
Submitted by no1hasdis (user info) at 2009-04-03 15:33:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by bozznc (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:39:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of the best prologues I've read. I especially enjoyed the images you presented, and the hint of backstory. Please, bring us part 2
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A hint of backstory is all you're going to get. McCallum is completely incapable of forming a detailed coherant plot that isn't full of more gaping holes than a George Lucas script.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2009-04-03 15:32:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you are SUCH a mysogynist!
SCREW YOU, JACK... IF THAT *IS* YOUR REAL PEN NAME!
ahem.. I like this, so far.... but chances are it may get TOO gory for me in the first 'real' instalment
Submitted by no1hasdis (user info) at 2009-04-03 15:30:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:11:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
McCallum, you write like a girl!
=======================
No you don't. You write like a pathetic lonely virgin with a complete dearth of any form of substance or talent.
I take it it's going to be another netflix night with a plethora of cats for companionship at the McCallum residence tonight?
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-04-03 15:14:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WTFINRAT!
POINTS!!!!!!
Submitted by HateMudkips (user info) at 2009-04-03 15:13:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Look forward to the next segment.
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2009-04-03 15:00:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Weird story.
Submitted by bozznc (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:39:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of the best prologues I've read. I especially enjoyed the images you presented, and the hint of backstory. Please, bring us part 2.
Submitted by Caulaincourt (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:36:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
cease and desist
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:35:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-03 13:23:19 CDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:20:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you use Kali as the inspiration for the moon woman?
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No. I've had this image in my head for a while now of a... well, a nearly naked purple-eyed, green-haired scary dead chick. On the moon.
Why are you looking at me like that?
=====
Because you're a freak.
Anyway, Kali was the first thing I thought of. The similarities between your moon woman and her are striking.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:29:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
SHE'S BACK!!
Submitted by Yozz (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:24:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:11:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
McCallum, you write like a homo!
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:23:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:20:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you use Kali as the inspiration for the moon woman?
--
No. I've had this image in my head for a while now of a... well, a nearly naked purple-eyed, green-haired scary dead chick. On the moon.
Why are you looking at me like that?
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:20:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you use Kali as the inspiration for the moon woman?
http://www.marymacgregor-reid.com/art/gallery-images/Kali_by_The_Magdalene.jpg
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:19:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yes, but... it's Friday.
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Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:19:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 McFiction
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:19:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Pretty damn good, although I felt it was a little heavy on unnecessary description and light on exactly what the fuck was going on. I'm all for not spelling everything out either but some backstory would have been helpful, if only to ease my curiosity.
Submitted by SkullBiter (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:15:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What... the... fuck...
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-03 14:11:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
McCallum, you write like a girl!