Brain pt. 4

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     Log 4: They determined I was mentally healthy with a series of medical examinations, the majority of which were simple questions, such as “Is this card blue, or is it red?” (Being shown a green card) “When you look at this picture, do you feel happy?” (while being shown a picture of a baby laughing) and “Does this disgust you?” (while being shown a picture of a woman with a smashed-in eyeball.) I answered their little questions and was brought back to the room where I first awoke. The steel gurney had been replaced with a cot. The straps were gone, as was the IV. The TV was dusted, plugged in, and showing a gentle sitcom. I noticed that there was a window on the wall behind where the steel gurney had been. I must have been unable to see it earlier with my head restrained. There was a small night table next to the bed with a small velvet pouch on it.

     “Please enjoy your stay, Mr. Octavian.” said the attendant who had escorted me back to my room. As he closed the door behind him, I heard a decisive click. I know what you may be thinking. Why didn’t I simply rip this one off the hinges, too? I was not in the mood. That, and there was the fact that this was a solid steel door perhaps 1 foot thick, which likely had a very complex locking mechanism.

I took this time to explore the room. The first thing I did was turn off the TV. Then I opened the shades that were over the window, and looked out. What I saw defied explanation. But I’m going to go ahead and try to explain it anyway.

     Looking down, I could not see the ground, only a dim blue haze. Straight ahead was another building that looked to be roughly the same as the one I was in. I could not see all the way across very easily, but it looked like there were windows on that building as well. There may have been people in that building, but I couldn’t tell. I looked up to see if there was a top of the building. Then I noticed that the building across the way did not have a bottom. It appeared to be floating. The bottom was maybe 100 feet below where I was. The top was perhaps 300 feet above where I was (assuming that the building across the way was the same height. I had no way of knowing) and held in the air by an absolutely massive blimp. Looking more closely, I could see small airships docking on the bottom of the building, and detaching to float gently downward toward the earth.

I then checked the pouch on the night table. It was filled with 40 or 50 miniature ping-pong balls. There was a note under it. It read simply, “For your amusement.”

     I checked the floor for weaknesses, but there seemed to be a very hard material under the carpet throughout the room. An interesting consequence of my knocking on the floor was that I heard knocking come back up through the floor, perhaps from a fellow surgery patient below me.

The TV was a very old, tube-type TV. I turned it back on and flipped through the channels. There was the sitcom, and on the next channel there was a nature documentary about koalas, and on the next one there was a looping infomercial. I watched this for a bit, and the following is what I heard.

     “If you are watching this that means that you are a lucky recipient of the new, experimental, Neural Streamlining Procedure! Please stay tuned for a description for the implications of your surgery.”

     It began to play calming piano music as the image switched from one of a bed of flowers to a video of a middle-aged man standing in a contemporary-looking house with comfortable-looking furniture. “Hello, and welcome to SOFPIH, Scientists Opting For Perfection In Humanity.”

     The man began walking with a relaxed stride and continued to speak in a relaxed voice. “We here at SOFPIH believe that the human race can and should improve itself. We are above nature, and it’s time we showed it! Using the latest in room-temperature superconducting technology, we have enabled our patients to harness the massive power of telekinesis, among many, many other things! I myself am among these patients.” The man lifted his bangs, showing a very faint scar across his forehead. “We believe that humans today are weak, relying too much on technology to make life easier for them. Becoming slaves to the machines that serve us. We believe that humans can and should take back the power to do great things. To get up and enter the modern world!”

     “Among your improvements, in addition to the telekinesis that you have gained, you have also gained a tenfold increase in mental speed, increased articulation when speaking, and confidence. Isn’t progress just beautiful?”

     The image switched to that of a woman cooking in the kitchen. “Not only did my surgery increase my confidence, it inspired me to try new things.” A cook-book was floating in front of her, and she was using both hands to crack an egg into a bowl. The piano music was still playing.

   “We believe in a better tomorrow. A tomorrow with art.” A video clip of a man painting a very large wall by moving paint-rollers through the air ten or twenty feet above him, painting a serene landscape.

“A tomorrow with safety.” A video clip of a man being invisibly restrained by a police officer outside of a convenience store.

     “A tomorrow with music.” A video clip of a man playing the serene music on a piano partly with his hands, and partly by the keys near the bottom that appeared to be pressed down my an invisible finger.

     “A tomorrow with fewer deaths, and more time spent in the home with family.” A soldier stopping bullets in front of him, which cross-faded into a family, including the soldier, enjoying a family meal.

     “In conclusion, here at SOFPIH, we are dedicated to making the best people out of the most normal. To give greatness to those who need it most. Already, thousands of people have successfully had the surgery done and have returned to the public. And one day, you will join them. Thank you.” The image faded out, but the piano didn’t.

     And it was soon replaced by a fade-in of a bed of flowers. “If you are watching this then that means you ar-“

    I turned off the TV. And I knew immediately that everything that the man was saying was a lie. I could see strings holding up the cook book. I’ve seen pianos that play themselves, they’re quite common. The video of the man painting the wall could very well have been faked, video editing was powerful. And the soldier stopping bullets lacked a scar across his forehead. Propaganda, that’s all this place was. Brainwashing. To break people before they leave. Perhaps to create a slave race of telekinetic laborers. Or to raise an army of super-soldiers.

     I went back to the bed, and fell asleep, thoughts of the very gall of this place buzzing around in my head.

Next Log 

Sal Jackson 1-3

Table of Contents 
Part Two

Part 3- The plot begins to take on significance. (I Promise.)

Writing is significantly harder when you’re two years old and are therefore not supposed to logically be able to write. But then again, most two-year-olds have only been around for two years, and therefore lack the wisdom to want to write, the experience to have things to write about, and the perception to know what things to write about. This is my second time around the course, of course, so I am able to write, however slowly and painfully, my thoughts.

My second birthday was coming up much faster than I remember my first coming up, and so I began to plan out exactly how I would prevent my grandmother, grandfather, and uncle from boarding the train that killed them. If I could prevent this, I was certain that my life would turn out much better this time.

I wrote out ideas (kind of) of what exactly to say to them to prevent them from doing so. To say anything that would have any significant effect on them in terms of what they were going to decide (as the advice of a two-year-old must be taken with a grain of salt) would involve explaining my rather unorthodox situation plainly, and would of course, require that what I call my “cover” would be blown.

But I was prepared for it, if it had to come to that. If it would save three lives, I was prepared to sacrifice knowing exactly what the next 92 years would bring. The way I knew them now, they brought nothing but sadness and loss. I, as you might imagine, didn’t have any problem with giving up that particular future. It was more of a burden off of my shoulders than anything. I was prepared for whatever it brought with it.

I was now able to reach low shelves and take things off of low shelves, and put whatever I was currently holding on a low shelf. I know you take this for granted, but imagine being trapped in the body of a baby for 2 years with your mind as it is right now. There is no worse prison than your own body. But slowly I am regaining the freedoms of motion. Trust me, knowing how to walk and to run and to do anything really won’t help you learn how to do those things any better if you start over. It’s like being trained to fly a jumbo jet with crisp controls and nearly everything automated for you, and then trying to fly a tiny single-engine plane with a wobbly steering wheel with landing gear you lower with a hand-crank. You don’t realize how much of what you do every day is automated, like breathing.

During my first few weeks I often forgot to breathe. As you might imagine, I didn’t remember how to hold in “by products” either. Also, I forgot to blink and would always wonder why my eyes were always so dry. Of course I can do all of those things NOW, but still, it took two years. Well, almost two years.

Soon, after all of my planning was through, my birthday arrived. Many family members showed up, not nearly as many as had shown up the year before, but enough to call it a party and not a gathering. There was cake, and presents, and finally, almost at the end of the party, my grandparents and uncle arrived at last, and my uncle knocked at the door. My father answered the door, let them in and gave them each a hug. I was opening a present at the time. As I recall, it was a miniature Xylophone. At the sight of them, as I had previously resolved to do, I stood up, walked over to them, and looked them dead in the eye as I said, “Hello. Welcome to the party, I trust you’re having a good time? Enjoying yourselves?” They were struck dumb. I seized the moment and continued. “I know you’re shocked. If a two-year-old started talking to ME like this, I’d be struck dumb too. But I have something to tell you, something very important.”

“… And… what might that be, Torrey?” My Grandfather, who seemed to be taking all this a bit too well, asked me. (Two things… One, my grandfather as I later found out was senile, which may have accounted for his unexplained and frankly unwarranted acceptance of the situation. Two, my name was often shortened to “Torrey.” Only later, in my teens, did people begin to call me Sal.)

“In a couple of weeks, you were planning to board a train.”

“Ah, yes. We were.”

“Do not get on the train. It is going to crash, and everyone on it is going to die. Postpone your trip.”

“… Excuse me?”

This is where my REAL plan began. “I am the ghost of the conductor of the train, and I have possessed your grand-son. I traveled back in time to warn you. But the international laws of time travel state that I can only warn one group of people, and I cannot warn myself.” (Of course, this was complete bull. I just needed a cover story so ridiculous that it defied explanation.)

“Um… Eh?” I think my grandfather at this point was at his wit’s end. “Oh… er. Well, then, yes… I believe… Hm. Alright, Torrey. We can postpone our trip if it will save our lives.”

“My time here is finished. I must return to the sand-lords of hell, to which I sold my soul to return here.” (Now, I was just toying with them, I was having too much fun with this.)

“Oh… well… good luck with that, as it was.”

I then, finishing the act, plopped onto the floor, and tried my best to look as though I had begun to cry. My family dismissed it as a freak incident, and never spoke of it again (I think not, at least).

The party soon ended with a bit of a tense air surrounding the departing guests. My parents remained wary of me for several days following that incident. And two months later, my grandparents and uncle were still alive.

Table of Contents

Poetry-
War Poem
Cat Poem

Sal Jackson-
Prologue
Chapter 1 Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Mud-
Prologue


Fog-
Part 1


Steel-
Part 1
Part 2

Ocean-
Part 1
Part 2


Brain-
Log 1
Log 2
Log 3
Log 4
Log 5

Brain pt. 3

Table of Contents
Part 2

Log 3: The second I realized that I was being attacked, it was as though time was slowed; in that I could actually see the air bending around the darts as they came at me. I was moving accordingly slowly, but I found the darts, at this speed, quite easier to dodge, akin to dodging a thrown baseball from a hundred feet away. As they continued to fly out of the holes in the walls, I noticed that the rate at which they were coming towards me was increasing, as was the number of holes. I soon realized that there was such a great volume of darts that I wouldn’t be able to dodge them all. Instead, I tried to knock them off course, which was very difficult. Again, like deflecting a thrown baseball with your bare hands.

     And that’s when I noticed that the darts were curving away from my hand before I touched them. I was causing them to curve with my focus alone. Once I realized this, I expanded my focus to include the darts that weren’t heading toward me. I brought them to a stop, and brought them into a large sphere, which I used to shield myself. Once I was sufficiently protected, I continued to make my way across the room. 

     Time returned to normal, and my ears began to ring with the sound of darts clicking against each other as my makeshift shield did its job. This was an interesting side-effect of time slowing down… it was as though someone had flipped a mute switch on reality. And sound I did hear was of very low pitch, so it was barely audible.

     I found a door, and this time, instead of looking around mindlessly to find a key, I used my power that I felt coursing through my mind to rip it off its hinges with a flick of my finger. The darts immediately stopped flying toward me from the walls seconds after the door hit the ground. I let my dart-shield fall to the floor, which resulted in a satisfying clattering. Before taking another step (which would have been suicide, as the darts were coated with synthesized black widow venom) I waved my hand and all of the darts littering the floor went flying into the wall next to me.

     I, at last, took the opportunity to look into the room I had just opened. I saw the man who had put me under the last time I was awake, along with a number of other medical-looking people. “Ah, you’ve survived the first day of rehab.” The short man with the glasses said. “And not a scratch on you. Good, good, good. Those darts were coated with synthesized black widow venom.”

     “What kind of rehab IS this? And what did you do to me!?”

“We simply improved you. No cause for anger.”

     “… Improved me?”

“Well, I’d certainly call the addition of telekinesis to one’s skill-set to be an improvement. You do like your new abilities, correct?”

     “Well… yes.”

“Good. I can see that you are the first person for whom the surgery has worked so flawlessly. Some of our test subjects descended into madness after realizing how much power they had.”

     “What happened to them?”

“We had them killed. An angry person with your abilities would be… unstoppable. Law enforcement simply would be no match, and countless people would die without cause.”

     “What exactly did you do to my brain?”

“We streamlined the connections between the neurons, allowing your brain to generate massive electromagnetic fields. The mathematics behind your abilities are extremely complex, so of course to allow them to be practical, we had to ‘program’ the set of mathematical laws associated with your abilities into your subconscious so your abilities would be useable. Perhaps when we completely perfect the method, we’ll make the telekinetic effect weaker. There’s no practical use for abilities of your strength.”

     “Yes, I can’t imagine any.”

“So, you feel alright, John? No headaches?”

     “No, no headaches… And my name is Neligula.”

“What an odd name… Is this your last name?”

     “No. My last name is Octavian.”

“Neligula Octavian? Okay, that’s a great deal more eccentric than John Smith.”

     “Yes, so am I.” I was rapidly regaining my memory. I was remembering why I wandered into this shady clinic in the first place. I had been disowned by all of my closest friends after I slit that man’s throat and tried asking them for help disposing of the body. None of them would help, so I burned the body, and after I learned from the last friend that stayed true to me that the police were after me, I ditched my car and my job. And I wandered the streets for weeks before coming across the flyer on the side of the Dumpster. It changed my life, of course.

     I wandered in, hoping to score some money with which to begin building a new identity. They didn’t ask any questions save, “Are you ready to begin a new life?”

Of course I said yes. And then they brought me into the room in the back. And that’s when my memory ended.

     I couldn’t let them know of my past. I was sure even then that there was more dirt in my past than I remembered. Even the name had been made up. I still didn’t actually remember my name. I know that if they found out what kind of man I am, they would try to take these powers back.

And I wouldn’t have any of that… I liked these powers.

Next Log

Brain pt. 2

Table of Contents
Part One
     Log 2: I awoke in a room with no windows and no doors, with nothing in the room but a puddle of oil. I would only see it because of the light that was firmly bolted to the ceiling. I called out several times. There was no answer but my own echo. It was cold. I was hungry. But I was curious. So I began to explore my little jail cell, and found nothing in it but the puddle of oil.

     However, I did find one interesting feature of my prison.  There was a little vial near the puddle of oil, which looked like it was connected to some intricate mechanism. I tried to touch the vial, but my finger was too wide for the little hole it was set in. It looked like it was meant to hold a liquid of some sort. So I spat into it. And nothing happened. In fact, the saliva appeared to pass through the bottom of the little vial as though it were not there.

      So I looked back to the oil puddle, which was the only other thing in the room, other than the light, which was far above my reach. So I walked back to the oil puddle, and an idea began to form in my head. Was this some sort of puzzle? Maybe the oil was supposed to go into the little vial.

     I then tried to scoop the oil into my hands and carry it to the vial. It didn’t work, the oil found its way through the tiniest gaps between my hands. Then I tried pushing it along the floor, but found that that wouldn’t work either, as the oil was resting in a wide depression in the floor and simply flowed around my hands back to its original position.

     But I didn’t give up because I was desperate and I couldn’t think of anything else to do. So I pushed at it again, focusing very hard. This time, it actually made it out of the little dip. I was surprised by this, and that’s when I saw something that made me realize my life had been drastically altered by whatever operation it was that took place under my head.

     The oil was over the edge of both of my hands, but it was moving as though there were an invisible wall pushing it. I was so shocked by this that I lost my concentration and the oil went back to being a puddle. Some of it sloshed back into the depression. I caught my breath, and tried again, this time putting more focus through my mind. Slowly but surely the oil began to slide out of the depression. I then cupped by hands and found that with this newfound power, I could hold the oil as though my hands were a seamless container. I walked over to the little vial and poured the oil from my hands. It settled into the vial and didn’t pass through the bottom. Then, a small spark leapt across the top of the vial, causing a little bang, which resulted in a series of whirs and clicks inside the wall, ending in a panel falling off of the wall, opening a lit chamber wide enough for me to crawl through.

     I entered it and found myself blocked about 10 feet into the crawlspace by a transparent acrylic pane. Yes, I discovered it by ramming my face into it. On the other side of the pane there was a little ball, and a slot large enough for the ball to roll into. Remembering what had just happened in the previous room, I tried focusing on the ball, while running my hand over the pane close to it. Sure enough, after a few minutes of intense focus, the ball moved into the little hole, and after a few little humming noises, the pane slid upward into the wall of the chamber and I was able to crawl through the rest of it.

     It ended abruptly and I found myself on the floor of a large room. More specifically, I found myself inside of a locked, barred, wooden cell in the corner of a large room. The key was just outside of my reach, on the floor outside of the cell. I strained and reached for it before a strange realization struck me. These were a series of tests. Specifically, a series of tests designed to affirm that the surgery had gone well. Having gained a noticeable boost of confidence from realizing this, I pointed at the key and, using purely my new-found abilities, slid the key toward me across the floor, until it hit the bottom of the set of bars locking the cell. I bent down, picked it up, and unlocked the bars.

     I stepped out into the large room, and that’s when the darts started flying towards me from the walls.
 Part Three

NaNoWriMo

This is a month-long thing. When you write a 50,000 word novel in a month. The longest thing I've ever written so far was only 10,000 words, and it took me a year. So I'll be uploading parts of my story (We're not allowed to start writing until November, but I'm excited as piss.) about twice a week over the month. I want you all to do me a favor. Just COMPLETELY lose all respect for me as a writer if I don't finish this. I need motivation in the form of fear of humiliation.
The tentative title is "A Stroll." Will keep you posted.