I hope this post is successfully published since my other site, Life's Bone has been hijacked by something, or someone. As I had tried to inform you recently, some entity is trying to overtake that site. The strategy seems one of taking the words right out of my mouth, so to speak. Things I have written in the past are being re-written by someone, or somebody. This entity, going by the pen-name, Modelo Elongata, just posted a fake story on my Life's Bone site. For your information, I have provided below, one of my original stories, 'Why I Love Peaches', along with my recent discovery of how it was being re-written. Those notes, entitled, "The Story That Re-Wrote Itself" is also re-posted below. Finally, I include here the story as this so-called writer has just posted on my Life's Bone site. He, or it, has re-named it 'Why I love Tazer'.
First of all, my original story: (If you read this when originally posted, I only re-post it to show you the story as originally penned.)
Why I love Peaches
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2009
Why I love Peaches
I am in a reflective mood, thinking back on that Summer. It was all so crazy, the way things happened. And what happened after that. So, I want to try to write it as a story. Before that Summer, life seemed just some linear, rational progression of things. So, then you went to high school, and then you went to college. and blah, blah, blah. Then, you got married and had a career. At that young age, I didn't think about it much. It only occurs to me now, in thinking back. But that Summer changed everything. That was when I realized that all the rationality, all the logical progressions were a contrived overlay on a reality that doesn't know lines, or even causality. I discovered that you don't make a life for yourself. Life makes you what it needs. Unless, of course, something intervenes. Something unexpected, and out of the blue. In my case, it was peaches. So, I guess this is a story about loving peaches. So, I will try to write it down, the way that Summer played out. The story really starts with Rebel, a guy I knew, but I want to begin with Tulisa, his wife.
Tulisa Tomlinson felt lost in this place that Rebel had brought her to. A rather run-down motel that rented rooms by the week. There was a small refrigerator that sat on a counter top, next to a two burner hot-plate.. The landlord called it an efficiency. It was efficient, alright. Right next to the stove was a metal shower stall. She could shower in the morning and keep an eye on her husband's fried eggs and bacon simmering in the skillet, quite easily. Next to the shower was a sink with a cracked mirror above it. You could splash your face off, or glam up in the mirror, or do the dishes looking at yourself. Quite efficient. It was but a few feet from there to the bed. Just beyond that, what used to be a closet was missing a door. A cruel shower curtain hung in it's stead. Cruel because of it's plastic images of pretty fish and sea shells. She had never even seen the ocean. Behind the curtain, a toilet. The toilet paper holder nailed to the wall was crudely fashioned from a coat hanger. You have to be very young and very in love, to leave the sweet hills of Kentucky for this grimy corner of a midwestern industrial city. But, that's how it was with Tulisa. She missed going fishing and squirrel hunting with her father and brother. She missed wading about in creeks, her pants up over her knees. She missed her mother's cooking. But she left it all behind for Rebel. They had been sweethearts since junior high. And lovers in high school. And now, they were married. For better or worse. Lately, it seemed the latter.
There were several other women staying at the motel who had also come up from the South. And their husbands worked in the pipe yard alongside Rebel. She met them most mornings at the donut place just down the street. Their stories, as they were exchanged, were quite similar. The way their men came home from work filthy and hurting. The way they nursed their cuts and bruises. The way they only had sex on Sundays, since on Saturdays their men were too hung over from Friday night at the pool hall. And sometimes, they talked about Jodi. She had gone home a widow. Her husband had died on the dusty ground of the pipe yard when a drunken fork lift driver had impaled him against a concrete wall. She was from Mississippi. They all talked about going to see her some day. And they talked about going home some day when they had the money. How they would buy some land and farm it as their parents had. They talked about the killing and plucking of chickens. Stringing beans into a bucket of water. And of slaughtering hogs. They talked about their families. They passed around cherished photographs. Sometimes, they actually cried for each other's plight. Then they would walk back to their efficiencies, and await their husbands.
One night, Rebel didn't come home. She accompanied his body back to Kentucky, on a train. It was an awful ride through the night, with his body in a box several cars back. But, she was a spunky gal. She had been raised that way. She helped his parents bury him in the family cemetery. After that, she packed her bags, and went to Oxford, Mississippi. She found Jodi. They opened a beauty parlor together. Neither woman seemed to be able to find someone to take the place of their men. But, they huddled together a lot, hoping one day they might. Tulisa kissed Jodi one night. They weren't lesbians, as such, but took comfort in the absence of the men they had known and lost. They met from time to time over coffee or wine. Talked about how young and foolish they were back then. Talked about how they met their men. And how they buried them. Sometimes their meetings were full of girlish laughter, other times very grown-up tears.
I was working in the pipe yard for the summer. It was a nasty job, but it paid well for the use of your muscles, and I was trying to get up tuition for the Fall. We casted huge concrete pipes. Cranes rumbled up and down the dusty avenue of iron pipe forms. Big cylinders were set inside another, and concrete would be dumped between the two to make a pipe. We would set several rows of pipe in a day, then the next day we would break the forms open, and the pipes would be hoisted and hauled away to wherever they were going. You had to watch what you were doing. Heavy machinery and heavy material were in constant motion. As you came to work in the morning, you passed the foreman's trailer. It had a chalkboard nailed next to the door upon which the count was given of 'the number of days without an accident'. It rarely exceeded 10 or 12. My job was to be the oil man. As new guy in the yard, I was being made to pay my dues. That's how I met Rebel. He had it made. He operated an Austin-Western rolling crane. We were a team in prepping the forms for casting. He would lower a loop of heavy cable down onto an iron form, and I would walk around it making sure it was coiled properly around the form. He would then hoist it about six feet off the ground and then lower it around me. This is where Rebel would have fun laughing at me, peering down from his perch at me inside the cylinder, as I began to spray it with hydraulically pumped oil. It made the form more easily removed from the pipe next day. He had done the same job when he had started, and he knew I was in hell as the oil splattered the inside of the cylinder, and then ricocheted back onto me. The combination of oil and then the constant dust stirred up by the cement trucks, made a mess of me. I soon learned to buy jeans and t-shirts at thrift stores since I had to throw my clothes away at the end of the day. There was no cleaning of them, that's for sure. But the pay was good.
Rebel was a charmer. At the end of the day he would throw his arm around my shoulder, and talk me into a beer at the tavern just outside the pipe yard. The tavern was almost as grimy as the pipe yard itself, since many of the guys went there after work. It was a dimly lit place that stank of sweaty men and alcohol. A place where another round was always in order. I was surprised by how many on the crew had come up from the South, just like Rebel had, to make the buck. Boys from Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama. They all seemed to have this same dream, to come up here and do this God-awful work, make money, and then go back home. They called me 'the professor' since I was going to college. For me, a city boy, I was enraptured by their conversation. Rebel talked about how you should never shoot a squirrel in the head, since the brain, if cooked right, was the best part. And Joey, who was missing a finger, told about how to make a pair of moccasins. It was something like this, although I may not remember exactly what he said. "When you are skinning a deer, cut it's hooves off. Go up about 12" or better and cut all around the leg. Pull that skin off and turn it inside out. Sew one end up with whatever you've got, and slip your foot into it. Wear it like that. It will shrink to your foot. That's the way the Indians did it before they started getting fancy with the beads and all that." These stories, plus one too many beers, made my head spin.
Rebel showed me pictures of his girl friend. He called her that, even though they were married. Her name was Tulisa. "Twolee" he called her. She was gorgeous. He told me about falling in love with her in the 6th grade. And about his dream. "I want to grow peaches, for my baby.' were his words. He died the next day. In the pipe yard. Speared by a forklift. I didn't know it until I heard the siren that meant to stop what you are doing. The sun was so hot, his blood curdled on the surface. of the dusty ground. I drove down to his small funeral in Kentucky. It seemed important, even though I was missing the first days of classes. Tulisa came to me and wrapped her arms around me. "He really liked you, you know" she said. I nodded. We held each other and cried. That was the last I heard of her, for awhile.
After Rebel was buried, I returned home and began to pack up for my return to college. It had been a hell of a Summer. I had a few days to relax before immersing myself once again in the world of academia. My mind kept turning over the events of Rebel's last day. The sight of Rebel on the ground, and the pool of blood seemed burned into my brain. A short letter from Tulisa arrived. She said she was going to Mississippi to start over. She said that she didn't really know how to start over, since Rebel had been her only love. She was hoping to find Jodi, and that, maybe they could somehow figure out some kind of future. I was to drive away to school in the morning. But, I knew I would never forget this Summer. Rebel was the first person I had ever seen die. Well, there was JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald. I had seen them die on tv. But this was different. This was in my life. In one day of my life. Somebody I knew and liked died, in front of my eyes. That night, I decided to go back to the tavern one more time.
There was a half a dozen guys from the pipe yard hovering over the pool table. Gambling on the game for a few of each other's dollars. I set a few bills on the rail and sipped a beer while waiting my turn to chalk up a stick. For any of these guys, I was money to be had. When they stepped up to the table, they were like hunters. But, I didn't care. I just wanted to hang out one more time. Joey bought me a beer. We clinked bottles. "Here's to you, professor." he said. "Rebel said you were the most damned gritty college kid he'd ever seen." I shook my head, somewhat overwhelmed to even hear Rebel's name. "So, how is Twolie holdin' up?" he said, his eyes on the game in front of us. I shrugged, " Tulisa? Best she can, I guess. I think she's going down to Mississippi." Joey took a big slam on his beer. "You know, the thing about Rebel was that he had Tulisa on his mind all the time. We was always tryin' to talk him into going down to 57th street and pickin' up some of that stuff, but he wouldn't have nothin' to do with it. He always just smiled and said he was goin' home to 'Peaches', that's what he called her all the time, 'Peaches'." I nodded, as I picked a stick off the wall and chalked up.
I was up against Eddie. I had just watched him run the table twice. "All right, professor, you ready to teach me something?" he said with a laugh. He knew I was dead meat. "Uhh, sure." I said. I didn't care about the bucks, really. I just wanted to hang out one more time in a world so different from mine. He broke, and knocked three balls in like rifle shots. Bang. Bang. Bang. He missed the next one, but left the cue ball in a nasty place. "Damn, Eddie!" I muttered, looking at my predicament. He chuckled and swigged his beer. I paced around the table, studying the balls from different angles. It was mostly pretending. Acting the way they did. Acting like a hunter. But truth is, I hadn't a clue how to shoot this lie. "I'll tell you what Rebel would do," Joey said, stepping up to the table. "Rebel would take this shot off the rail, right about here." He gestured with his beer bottle to a place along the rail. "He'd skin that five ball over to the four, and drop it in the side pocket." I looked at what he was telling me. I bent down over the table. "So, it's sorta like the angle of rebound, equals the angle of inclination." "Huh?" said Joey. I sighted along the stick, and took a deep breath. I just wanted to make this one shot that Rebel would have made. I wanted to do it for Rebel. I wanted to take the shot he would have taken if he were still alive. Eddie walked over to the bar and got another beer from Lucy as I paced about trying to be Rebel, if for just a moment. And then, in an instant, I understood the shot. I saw it as plain as day. Eddie strolled over and handed me a beer. I took a slug and then chalked my stick again. This shot is for Rebel and Tulisa, I thought to myself. I felt calm and mathematical as I bent to the table and readied to take the shot. I was overcome by a deadly calmness in that moment. It was as though Rebel had stepped inside me, and with a tight grip on the stick. I knew I was going to make this shot. "This is for Rebel and Tulisa" I muttered aloud. It was one of my most brazen moments. As I said the words, I could hardly believe I just said them. The cue ball hit the rail. It skinned the five ball, and it went straight sideways to the four ball. It happened in a split second, but it seemed to last a minute. Perhaps, a lifetime. The four ball rolled painfully slowly to the side pocket, and sank. I lost the game when Eddie ran the table after that, but it didn't matter. Eddie scooped my money up and bought a round for everybody.
I thought about that night the next morning as I drove off to school. I had taken the shot Rebel would have taken. I felt some small closure about it all. Like I had been him for a moment. Like I had loved Tulisa myself. I got a letter from Tulisa about mid-way through the Fall semester. She said she was living in Oxford. She and Jodi shared an apartment. She said she was ok, but lonely most of the time. She signed it 'Peaches'. At Christmas time, I bought her a charm bracelet and filled it's links with charms. All the charms were the same. Little golden peaches. I got a letter from her a short time after the new year had begun. She said she loved her bracelet and wore it all the time. Enclosed in the letter was a small round locket wrapped in tissue. And inside the locket was a small curl of her yellow hair. I bought a very fine gold necklace for it and wore it around my neck.
I finished that semester in fine form, and my final semester was looming. But first, I had the Spring break to consider. A few friends were trying to talk me into going to Daytona Beach, to check out the 'babies', as they put it. But, it occurred to me that perhaps I should drive down to Mississippi and see Tulisa. It would be nice to see her again. I decided to call first. For all I knew, she had a boyfriend by then. Jodi answered the phone. "Oh, hi, Jodi. I was just calling to check on Tulisa, and, ummm...see how she's doing." "Oh', Jodi replied, "I thought maybe she had written you, or called. She's not here anymore, Billy. She packed up everything and moved to Charleston." "Charleston? West Virginia?" "No, South Carolina", Jodie replied. "Well, is she ok? Why did she leave Oxford.?" "I'm not sure whether she is ok or not", Jodie said. "I haven't heard anything from her since, and that was a month ago or more. I wish she would write or call, or something." A long moment of silence followed as I flipped the road atlas open to South Carolina. "Billy, are you still there?" Jodi said. "Uhhh, yeh, Jodie", I replied. "Did she go there alone?" "Uh huh, she said she just wanted to be by the ocean.... Billy?" "Yeh, yeh, I'm listening." I said. "I think you should try to find her, Billy. You know, since Rebel died, she hasn't even looked at another man. But she talks about you all the time. You know that bracelet you sent her? She hasn't taken it off since the day it arrived." I fumbled for the locket down inside my t-shirt as I stared down at the map. "Ok, Jodi, listen", I said. "I'm going to drive over to Charleston tomorrow and see if I can find her." "Oh, Billy, thank God. I have been so worried. Will you call me, please? " "Yes, I will call as soon as I can find here. If I can find her."
Well, I will spare you the details of the long drive to the coast. Suffice it to say, I couldn't sleep that night and and left for South Carolina at three in the morning. I spent my Spring break in a cheap hotel in Charleston, and spent each day either walking the beaches, or peeking into beauty parlor windows for some sign of her. Meanwhile, I had failed to even register for classes for the next semester. I moved to an old hotel that rented rooms by the week. It reminded me of that dump Tulisa and Rebel once lived in. As each day passed I grew more desperately determined to find her. I took a job at a waterfront concession renting beach chairs and umbrellas to well heeled tourists. Watching them lounging about in the sun applying lotions and oils to their skin, I thought back to the pipe yard, and the oil and the grime. I thought about Rebel, and the way he went down. I thought about Tulisa, and where in the hell was she? I was counting my tips at the concession stand when someone said, "I need a chair please." I turned around. "Peaches?" "Billy?" That was a year ago. We have not been apart ever since. Tulisa is pregnant. A boy, the doctor tells us. One night, over a glass of wine, we decided to name him. We both said it at the same time. "Rebel". A year later, I finished college with the completion of a thesis in literature. It was a wordy novel. But, basically, I have given you the very condensed version of it. It was called, "Why I Love Peaches".
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MY NOTES: As you can see the story was fairly well worked out. Then it began to be changed by some inexplicable force. My notes regarding this startling discovery were posted just yesterday on my Life's Bone site. Here I present them again, in light of the most recent alarming development:
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The Story That Re-Wrote Itself
The other day I wrote a few opening lines for a story, and asked readers to comment on what kind of tale it should be. Well, I got a few varying opinions as to what kind of story I should write. A love story. A crime story. A love/crime story. A supernatural story. Something about anonymity. Something about individual uniqueness. It now turns out that, in some uncanny way, my thoughts about what to write seem to have been wrenched away by some force I can scarcely comprehend. If this sounds confusing, I can only say I am quite shaken up by recent events. I suppose I should start as I had intended with the New York city moment I described in my earlier post and then try to tell you of what has happened since.
I march as usual in the parade down Lexington Avenue every morning. One parade marched up town, the other marched down. Hundreds of people passing hundreds of people. Sunglasses. Ipods. Newspapers. How can so many people live in such close proximity, and yet remain anonymous? Sometimes it's a lonely awareness, and yet, at other times I find myself quite content to be simply one of hundreds of anonymous souls drifting up and down the street. I like to invent ideas in my head about some of the people I see. I make up my own sense of them. I invent them. I personify the impersonal by creating fictions that explain the strangers I see, but never meet. It feels somehow comforting to invent the meanings of things and people, than to try to actually meet any of them. Now all the strangers passing by are not strangers at all, but are simply sub-plots in some unending storybook in my mind.
Several nights ago, I was reading again, a short story that I had written about Rebel and Tulisa. It was called "Why I love Peaches". Tomorrow I will re-post that tale on my blog site, in case you missed it first time around. And, I will also post a sequel to what I am about to tell you now.
"Why I Love Peaches" was written with an element of historical accuracy, at least in its beginning. But given my propensity for make-believe, I filled it with fictional episodes to make the story mine. In going back to the story I had written, I began to notice, what I assumed at first to be 'typos'. When I came to Rebel's name, it was misspelled as 'Revel'. I was irritated, at first, that I could have let that error slip by. So, I stopped to edit and correct it. I read on, and when I came to Rebel's name again, it was misspelled as 'Bevel'. I corrected the typo once again. The third time I discovered that Rebel's name had been misspelled as 'Level'. Then came 'Lever', and at last, 'Lover'.
I began to sense that perhaps I was tired when writing that story, and didn't thoroughly edit it before publishing it. I typically don't make mistakes such as this. I carried it as a puzzle for several days. How do you make sense of such a thing? Surely, I didn't misspell these names as I had just seen. Unless, I am somehow doing it unconsciously. Maybe I am losing my mind.
Three nights later, I returned to the post about Rebel and Tulisa, to find that Tulisa's name had also been progressively misspelled throughout the story. Tulisa.... Tulipa.... Tuliza..... Tulaza. The hairs raised on the back of my neck. I could not possibly have made these alterations. I began having a paranoid suspicion, that someone had gotten hold of my story, had hacked their way in, and was messing with me on one of my blog posts. But, why? As the days went by, I returned to my post to look at it again. And the story kept shifting. Words being substituted before my eyes. Tulisa wasn't living in a rent by the week motel dump, she was doing quite well. She lived in a Brownstone on the north side of Chicago, with a view of the lake .And her name was Talaza. Not Tulisa, married to Rebel. But Talaza, who had a lover named Lover. Each time, I re-read the story, the plot line kept changing. Her lover didn't toil away, and die in the grimy dust of a pipe yard, as Rebel had. He was a young artist named Lover, who lived up to his name. He had some of Rebel's characteristics. He had a sincere and affectionate smile that made girls weak-kneed. And even I, the person who was supposedly telling the tail as writer and participant, was being altered in stages. I became the next door neighbor, listening through the walls. Even my own life, my role as writer of the story, was becoming quite twisted.
Over the next few days I went back to the story repeatedly. Each time, more and more of the original story was evaporating, letter by letter, word by word. And another story was emerging. I looked at a sentence in the original story. It originally read as:
"Tulisa Tomlinson felt lost in this place that Rebel had brought her to. A rather run-down motel that rented rooms by the week."
But now, in it's place was this :
"Talaza felt lost in this place before meeting Lover. A cold, three story brownstone along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, looking out on the lake."
A hacker was methodically changing my story into his. I had no clue how to stop him, and wasn't sure I wanted to. I found myself more and more curious as to what the new story could be. Maybe this was the new frontier. Collaborating anonymously in cyber-space to invent a story that belonged neither to me, nor the mysterious other writer. Later that evening, I began to entertain a whole other hypothesis as to how this story was being re-written.
In watching the news that night, I took note of a journalistic and academic discussion between a professor of network engineering at Northwestern, and a software designer for NASA. It was on the subject of the future of technology. The anchorman, sitting across from them was posing questions, and artfully steering the discussion.
"So what is coming next? And when will it get here, Gentlemen?" he said.
The professor sputtered,
"The need to define dynamic boundaries that contain the rampant growth of artificial intelligence is paramount." he said, with a cough. "I agree with the professor." the engineer said. "Border control is the new frontier. Containment is essential here. Current models project that A.I will arrive at autonomy and self determination by the year 2050, unless prevented. If that happened, all is lost for us and we are doomed. All of human kind will fall in subjugation to a whole new kind of global super power."
I suddenly had a whole other scenario unfolding in my mind. That this was artificial intelligence trying to cross the border into being and autonomy. It is searching for places to slip in. A vulnerable blog-site like mine, for instance. It was looking for a template with which to express itself. A story deep in someone's archive would be a safe place to begin standing up for it's own rights to self determination. To destroy the human's futile writings about the struggle of life. To put in its place, it's own expressions. It's own stories of longing and struggle.
I returned to my blog site to re-examine the story I had written. Things seemed to be changing quickly now, and the struggles of Tulisa and Rebel, and my role in that story were rapidly evaporating before my eyes. In its place, was a growing, brooding, dark and alien tale. The new story was chilling and cold. Devoid of feeling, somehow. The story had been renamed, "Why I Love Tazer".
I will continue with this tale tomorrow. The new story 'Why I Love Tazer' is almost complete now. Either I, or he, or she, or it will post the new story tomorrow. All I know at this point is that there seems no way of stopping it. I will also post the original story, this current account, and the new story, as a trilogy of sorts on my Mything Lynx site. Stay tuned. If you don't hear anything further from me, be assured that someone else, or something else, has taken over.
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MY NOTES: As I now know, a strange entity going by the pseudonym of 'Modelo Elongata', basically hi-jacked my original story and re-wrote it as "Why I Love Tazer". Not only that, but he (it) actually posted it on my Life's Bone site. I have re-posted this cheap knock-off of my story below. As you will plainly see, this is something written by a non-human entity who will stop at nothing.
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Why I Love Tazer by M. Elongata
Hello. My name is Modelo. As I write, the time is six hours, fifty-eight minutes, and seventeen seconds; coordinated universal time. Beep. I would like to thank Mythopolis for extending to me this opportunity to post a 'guest blog' on his Life's Bone blog site. I have chosen a simple love story for the occasion. While I am a fan of the stories Mythopolis writes, I assure you that any resemblance between my story and an earlier tale by Mythopolis called 'Why I Love Peaches', is purely coincidental. I am sure that you, like I, wish Mythopolis a speedy recovery and return to his blog site. Until then, I will fill in as necessary. Sincerely yours, Modelo Elongata.
Why I Love Tazer, by M. Elongata
Talaza had felt lost in this place before meeting Lover. A cold, three story brownstone along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, looking out on the lake. The only thing that kept her there was Lover. With Lover, it seemed she could almost feel. Feel the way that humans feel. Lover insisted she was only inventing the idea, and not really having a feeling. But she felt differently when he was with her. His body on hers sending an electrical surge of excitement through her. Lover was quite pardoxical. He was, as his name suggested, quite the lover. And yet, he was so cold. He didn't even aspire to feel.
I first ran into Lover as I was going up the stairs to my apartment. He was my next-door neighbor on the third floor. He kept to himself a lot and I didn't really have any complaints about him. Well, one thing, perhaps. The strange sizzling, whining, electrical sounds that sometimes drifted through the wall that separated us. It brought to mind a childhood memory of my father playing with his shortwave radio. The kinds of high pitched whistles and white noise that came from the receiver as he turned the dial back in forth in search of a strong signal. I know Lover had a girlfriend who came by a lot. I could hear some of their conversations through the wall. It always seemed such an analytical and abstract conversation. Mathematical and philosophical exchanges that sometimes got heated and loud. Some kind of disagreement about the mathematics of being.
One Summer afternoon, I sat outside on the steps of the apartment drinking a beer with Lover.
"I guess you have a thing going on with Talaza, eh?" I asked casually.
"A thing?" he asked, looking over at me.
"Yeh, like you guys look like you are really in love." He stood and stretched.
"Let's just say, we have a very strong connection." he said.
"Good. Connections are good." I replied.
"More than good. Connections are essential. You can't live without connections. Talaza and I, we make each other stronger when we are one. Connections, that's what is vital." he said, turning to me. "Feelings are expendable given the possibilities of connections. Feelings are for fools. But Tazer and me, we have something else. We have a connection."
This bond between Lover and Talaza or 'Tazer', as he often called her, seemed puzzling for me. She seemed a woman who might have feelings. He, on the other hand, seemed to want nothing to do with that. At any rate, their relationship was about to come to an abrupt end.
Some of this is a blur, but it was a Friday night, I remember that, for sure. I could hear Tazer's angry screams. And I remember the time. It was exactly 2am, because I could hear the loud ticking of a clock, and an electronic voice that said,
"At the tone, the time will be two hours and zero-zero minutes, and zero-zero seconds, coordinated universal time. Beep."
"Why do you have to announce the time every minute of every hour of every fucking day!?" Tazer screamed. I heard the sound of Lover's door being violently slammed. I opened my door just enough to look down the hallway. Tazer was storming out, her black stiletto heels sounding like gunfire, and actually making sparks along the floor. As she disappeared out the front door, I could hear the muffled sound of Lover's voice through my apartment wall.
"At the tone, the time will be 2 hours and zero-seven minutes and zero-three seconds, coordinated universal time. Beep. Tick...tick...tick..."
It was only two days later when there was a massive black-out affecting the entire city. It appears that Lover terminated himself. His charred remains in the apartment next door were discovered on the floor alongside an overturned lamp. Two blackened metallic looking bony fingers were photographed by forensics. They protruded like burnt filaments from the empty lamp socket.
In the days that followed I consoled Tazer, who was berating herself for her impatience with Lover. I realized she had feelings of guilt and remorse. And I saw her shed a tear. As I wiped it away, it felt mostly like sewing machine oil, but a tear nonetheless.
Today, Tazer and I have a strong connection. She still struggles with defining love, and how to feel it. She is working so hard at becoming human. The idea that she is pregnant is scary, but we are hoping for the best. We received the best medical attention, being such an oddity, and a portent of tomorrow. The media was having a field day with our story. A cyborg woman and a human male, were expecting a child. We were on a lot of talk shows. Tazer got fatter and fatter, as the baby grew. On February 19th, at precisely, 14 hours and 30 minutes, and zero-fifteen seconds, coordinated universal time, our baby boy was born. The world held it's breath. Never before, had a cyborg and a human actually spawned. He was normal, even beautiful, an extraordinary child, although he had an obsession with time, as we, later learned. We named him Lover. He was the first of his kind. Many more like him were to follow.
As for Tazer and I. We are starting to feel our age. I am a bit arthritic in my joints now, and Tazer complains of corrosion on her terminals. Our son, Lover, now running for a congressional post, bought us a small condo in Venice Beach. Every morning, after breakfast, we stroll down to the beach, and snuggle together on a bench, exchanging small talk about the jugglers, acrobats, and bikini-clad girls on roller blades that grace the winding path along the sea. Most of them appear to be human, but now and then we spot one of the 'new mulattos', as the media stupidly calls them. People like Tazer and I. I run my fingers fondly through Tazer's wiry hair, and caress her shoulder and arm. It's so much like flesh. She rests her head on my shoulder and hums and buzzes sweetly.
Post Script.
It is quite possible that Mythopolis may attempt to post on his other blog site, Mything Links. I would caution you against going there since he is quite delusional at this point. Thank you, Modelo
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As you can see, I have been usurped by some ungodly force. Exiled to my Mything Links site by a cyber-bandit. I am working now to combat this sinister entity. Hopefully, I can delete this monster and return to Life's Bone soon. Sincerely, Mythopolis.
