Cassivelaunus

“Cassivelaunus”

a prologue

Gary Baker, November 2013

(a part of the 'Song of the Julara' excerpts)

[(Sorry this piece is so late!)]

Stars! Look, there are stars!

Hya lifted his chin, breaking chunks of condensed dust and lichen in long stretch marks that hadn’t been moved in centuries. It took his eyes a second to realize what exactly he was looking at, the jungle that had grown around him turning much of the scene into scratches of darkness over the brighter backdrop of pinhole points that speckled the greater backdrop. He didn’t think they were stars, despite the voice so deep within his blessed consciousness telling him so. Hya would have said they seemed more like fireflies, if anyone so much as asked him, not that anyone ever had. 

Sure enough, however, there they were, blazing orbs of fusion and energy aloft in deep space somewhere, eons from his little rock, and yet so very close just then. Their spectroscopy lined up along the edges of his vision, numbers and letters, all characters of an age long gone and long since deceased, that seemed to hover where his eyes couldn’t comprehend; almost along the perpendiculars, though still accessible enough.

MOTH

“MOTH”

a projected end to an old project

Gary Baker, November 2013

Gusts of air caress the lobes, singing of truth beheld in weeping fallacies and of lost hopes in the dying age of the modern man. With our feet so high above us we plummet like jettisoned matter expelled from crumbling masses as the heat breaks apart the teeniest particle and disrobes the faith we once had that this might all end up with smiles and cheery grins.

Not this time. No, certainly not this time.

Siv was falling. From so high and far from any terrestrial surface that nothing seemed to indicate that he had ever so much as looked at this globe before. And here it was coming at him like a godly marble shot from an even godlier cannon, wondering just why he had come here at all.

Condensation pressed against the facial visor of the jumpsuit, Sivs breath cleaned and re-oxygenated by nanos in the sealed space around the skin, just a centimeter, but one that spanned the whole head minus the ears. The ears were the crucial part, it had turned out, able to sense the most minuscule change in vibrato as the jet-stream mounted passed as if on a cavalry charge into space.

And still the ocean-side forests sped ever-closer.

Phone Booth

“Phone Booth”

a short story

Gary Baker, November 2013

(one of several tests for an idea for a larger project; check back often to see the other pieces as they come about)

Amir slid his arm over the payphone wall panel, carefully making sure he could see the taxi and it’s current occupant without anyone being able to say for sure. “Yeah, I know it’s not a good idea,” he began with a sigh, “but just think of the money! Can you even imagine what this much money can do for the business?”

Gerald, his boss, grumbled on the other end, “and what happens if he kills you along the way, eh? What then? You think I can just sit by and allow the man to murder my best driver? Well I think not. No way in hell, buddy.”

“Well he won’t, so stop worrying,” but the truth was: he wasn't entirely sure about that, himself. Realistically this trip had taken a sudden left turn out of nowhere as soon as he’d picked up that paper in Santa Fe and now, at the last gas station for miles upon miles into the desert, Amir was starting to admit how terribly bad the next day or so might end up; namely with his rotting corpse left in a ditch between dunes to be eaten by maggots and vultures alike.

The Drowning Man

“The Drowning Man”

a short story

Gary Baker, October 2013

The date was August seventeenth, two-thousand and twenty, and I walked the pier leading out over the lake, knowing that I had a major problem. This was the second time this month, the seventh this year, and had accumulated into who knew how many after what, three years?

And that was just it: three years had officially passed, today, almost to the exact hour, where the sun so high in the sky cast deep rays into the crystalline waters. Down there, amidst the rippling molecules, at the bottom where fish and weeds could clearly be seen living their lives, I had lain for little more than four minutes without breathing.

I know, that seems like a lot, but hear me out, alright? This is a confession, after all.

You see, I had gone out for a swim that day, three years back, but had misstepped my dive and slammed my right temple on the edge of the redwood planks on my way in. I had been so cocky then, that I just assumed doing a full cartwheel off the end to hurtle myself in feet first would be a good idea.