Fit for Life

[Kulindahr]

Introduction

This isn't the story I teased about when I asked the question "How Gay Does It Have to Be?" If anyone has been waiting for that one, sorry -- it's still locked on my old computer, though I have a plan in mind to deal with that.

The focus isn't erotic -- if you just want sex scenes, again sorry; some may happen along the way, but none are planned. I do intend however, to explore some other aspects of human sexuality -- hopefully profoundly. (Yeah, right, says my muse -- make promises you can't keep!)

The title describes the story in three ways I know of -- as Neil has shown us all, stories have their own way of taking on life, so the tale itself may develop another, or two. In fact, just while writing that, another twinkling of an idea popped a synaptic watt or two in the back of my head.

I often wonder -- why "in the back of my head"? Is there a special "idea zone" back there? A delivery dock from the universe of concepts, where Swerve's counterparts travel about dropping off bits to a multitude of minds? I really don't know, but that's not mere musing: that, too, has its place in the tale.

I don't promise romance, or passion -- though I don't forbid them; if they come, let it be with a vengeance! -- but I will promise a princess or two, and of course princes, with perhaps dragons of sorts from which they must by all means be rescued, and their hearts must, in the end, be won (if only in another story).


I don't aim for this to be short, nor for it to be long. When I write a story, I envision a beginning, and a goal, a sort of Emerald-City-like place I'll know better when I get there, but to which for the nonce I may, gathering up the characters, forces, and all manner of extras, point and declare, "Onward!" From there, it's a matter of spinning an entry into this other world, setting out a scene, and wrestling the whole menagerie onward toward the goal. How long it takes can surprise me; sometimes a tale I was sure would require twenty thousand words finds a climax in far less than half that; other times, something I meant (not unlike Neil's Watching Brad) for a short hike into the unreal world and back becomes a saga. And then, sometimes when I get to the goal to which I aimed us all, I find it wasn't the end, just a place to see the end from, and the word-wagons roll on, dragging dreams into letters for me to marvel at as they emerge, and you, hopefully, to enjoy.

Please, critique and lambast as you will; please don't lampoon. This is taken from memory of a story I began once, which hit, according to a friend with a warped sense of humor, 71,683 pages -- though I counted them as 124, in pencil on tablets of lousy, yellow, hard-on-the-eyes paper. I can find only scraps of the manuscript; with my luck, the rest got scooped up and are packed now in storage with other things in a box labeled "Summer Crafts" or some such thing.... at any rate, I'm left with a few concepts, a handful of characters, and the incredible itch to be telling a story where it can get feedback. With that disorganized base, I'm sure it will provide plenty of opportunity; I invite you to exploit whatever pops up.

With that, I have a few polishings to do on the first piece. Don't get your hopes up; the opening may be something only a geek could love. It's going to lack something in my eyes, because JUB doesn't have the cute font tricks available that I can play on my computer. You judge the result.


Until then.....


Kuli

 

[Kulindahr]

p r o l o g u e
​

[alert : hold scan : poll]

?
<intersection>

*up queue*
?
<intersection>

*up queue*
?
<intersection>

*up queue*
?
<intersection>

*up queue*
? ​

-pause-​

? ​

-pause-​

?
<approximate>

*up queue*
?
<intersection>

*return*​

[poll: end]​

-pause-​

>QUERY: energy?<

{sufficient}​

>QUERY: flux?<

{within parameters}​

>QUERY: destination targeting?<

{uncertain}​

>>>evaluate<<<

-pause-​

>INITIATE TRANSFER<

{transfer initiated}

{transfer successful}​

transfer confirmed


resume scan

{scan resumed}​

locate subjects

{subjects not found}​

*> reset <*​

locate subjects

{subjects not found}​

-pause-​

initiate full grid search

{search initiated}​

>>>analysis<<<


>>>evaluate<<<

-pause-​

initiate extraordinary measures

{initiating}​

 

[Lefty]

15

possibly

15

probably

15

nah.......for sure

30

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
I'm Sooooo Confused!

I thought I was reasonably tech-geek, but I guess I'll have to wait for the translation. lol

 

[Kulindahr]

Kuli,
I'm Sooooo Confused!

I thought I was reasonably tech-geek, but I guess I'll have to wait for the translation. lol

Dang!

I worked for hours on that to try to get the flavor onto paper.

Did you at least get that the lines in big System font are command lines, like in/for a computer? Look:

[alert : hold scan : poll]

The System font is supposed to clue you that this is computer-type stuff. I didn't really want it that big, but with the size control JUB uses, it was either that or this:

[alert : hold scan : poll]

which just didn't have the right impact.

So you're supposed to see that, think "computer", and imagine a computer/program interrupting whatever it's normally doing with an alert. The alert is immediately followed a command to freeze a scan of some sort, and then to poll... something.

It's been a while since I did any computer programming, but back when I did, in a printout the indentation which follows would have signaled entering into a subroutine/subsidiary area.

Does that help?

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
I understand the simulated computer running.
Scanning, trying to find something but coming up empty.

As I was re-reading it, I can "see" the "system" zeroing in on a desired target early, and "initiating transfer" - I could have gotten into the whole sex scene, I think, if the Up Queue, Hold, had a corresponding Down Queue, Hold alternating pattern, maybe --
While re-reading I could picture it looking for the whole but not finding it, then processing transfer - cumming inside, If that's what you meant.

I'm sorry. It was a little too nebulous for my tired brain.

I guess I'm just dense today.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kuli,
I understand the simulated computer running.
Scanning, trying to find something but coming up empty.

As I was re-reading it, I can "see" the "system" zeroing in on a desired target early, and "initiating transfer" - I could have gotten into the whole sex scene, I think, if the Up Queue, Hold, had a corresponding Down Queue, Hold alternating pattern, maybe --
While re-reading I could picture it looking for the whole but not finding it, then processing transfer - cumming inside, If that's what you meant.

I'm sorry. It was a little too nebulous for my tired brain.

I guess I'm just dense today.

LOL

There's no sex scene -- it's just a complex computer/brain/thing talking within itself.

It noticed something, called an alert, polled a number of subsystems, took action....

and the stage is set.



I know it won't help, but here's the next piece....

 

[Kulindahr]

Intersection​

Idiots, police lieutenant 'special section' Davis Davis muttered to himself as he wound his way through the barriers around the accident scene: no one seemed to have any sense of order, so plastic tape, traffic cones, and wooden barriers thrown up to keep out curious noses turned authorized approach into a maze for access. And why they needed him, anyway! He could see the Dodge van, a 2004 job with all the goodies, the passenger's-side sliding door hanging on only by its lower corner, still stuck to the monument in the middle of the traffic circle, and nothing about it looked anything out of the ordinary.

He stopped briefly, one leg on either side of a wobbly wooden section labeled "City of D" -- the rest of the city name obliterated by damage -- looking around for the Lexus. He saw it, frame bent and body twisted, on the sidewalk just outside the town's newest fitness center. He wasn't immune to irony; the eight of a mangled car from which five bodies had just been taken blocking foot traffic in front of a huge window that declared "Fit for Life", made a sad commentary on the lives of young people who should have been inside staying in shape, not in traffic having their bodies reshaped by forces beyond the capacity of the human frame to survive. Five dead college kids, just the age of his nephew Logan. He didn't know the count from the van -- anywhere from one to fourteen was possible, with the size of the thing -- but assumed he was about to find out.

With a sigh he swung his right leg over the barrier and went over to where the county coroner had just driven up.

"Hey, Lush -- they called you in, too?" Davis hollered. Lucius Dominguez, "Lush" to those he out-drank regularly after particularly ghastly autopsies, waved him over. "And you got to drive in."

"This is where the ambulance was", Dominguez responded absently, staring at the wreckage. "Let's look at the Lexus first."

"You got it, compadre." Davis, built like an NFL quarterback, swung in slightly behind his friend, still built like the runner who fifteen years earlier had pounded to victory, all alone out in front, at race after race in collegiate cross-country -- no one tried to keep even with Lush, Davis had learned the first day they'd met; psychologically, it threw him into race mode. The police lieutenant chuckled; he'd once volunteered to go on a morning run with the man, only to discover that what for a highly fit police officer was a race pace was what the former trail champion considered a relaxing pace.

"So why are we here, looking at a wreck that killed a dozen people?"

Dominguez looked at him oddly. "Thirteen. Because it didn't, Squared -- they didn't fill you in?"

Davis Davis -- thus "Squared" to friends -- frowned back. "Nothing but the five dead in the Lexus. But what do you mean, 'it didn't'? Those cars are mangled as I've seen."

"Because it didn't. They were already dead before the first impact."

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
NOW "the sauce gets more binding" as my mother in-law used to say!

5 dead BEFORE it crashed in the center of town.

It will be interesting to see how you work back to the computer scanning in your prologue.

Glad I gave you a chuckle as I anguished over your intro! lol

You've certainly got my attention, Mickey Spillane.

Thanks - I think!

 

[Kulindahr]

Kuli,
NOW "the sauce gets more binding" as my mother in-law used to say!

5 dead BEFORE it crashed in the center of town.

It will be interesting to see how you work back to the computer scanning in your prologue.

Glad I gave you a chuckle as I anguished over your intro! lol

You've certainly got my attention, Mickey Spillane.

Thanks - I think!

I'd let you in on part of it, but I'll say this instead: you'll learn as fast as the people in the story do.

 

[Kulindahr]

We Didn't Wreck​

Rigel Stefanos Fitzhue-Winchester smelled crotch. He knew it was crotch; he'd passed out drinking and woken up with his face in enough, in his day. He wiggled his nose. Yes, here he was again, waking up with the world of his senses defined by crotch. Male crotch, to be precise; recently showered -- there were still hints of gel -- but unmistakably male. He repressed the urge to sneeze. Ah, yes: It was Ryan's crotch; he recognized the shower-gel smell, with its hints of sage and alcohol, from showering at his buddy's place often enough.

Alcohol, now there was a thought: he didn't remember there being any alcohol, so why had he passed out in Ryan's crotch? Not that it was a bad one to land in, if one were going to pass out, not at all. But his memory offered no recollection of a party, nor even anything in the cupboard. There was going to be a party; in fact, they'd been on their way to--

He sat up straight, remembering: Rita, driving, had gotten frustrated with the traffic backed up near The Maw, a great five-way intersection where the old river highway dumped into the old wagon road where they met the old quarry road just as it bumped into the trace that had become Main Street, a situation not so bad when the vehicles had been preceded by horses and no stop signs were needed, but when five converging lanes had become twelve, and too many people thought that amber meant "go very fast".... So she hooked right on Kennedy and was gunning it to dash into a spot on the Vortex, officially known as Monument Circle.... Right: there'd been the Dodge van, faces peering out of the windows, and then the jar of mayo had popped out of that cyclist's backpack; the Dodge hit the mess it made and slid, wheels greased, and Rita couldn't turn fast enough; she screamed--

No, the screaming was real. Rigel reined in his brain and looked around. Not Rita; she was awake, too, curled in a little ball and rocking herself side to side. The screamer was Lumina, a chick he'd made it with the year before and never gone back when he discovered that she was as orderly and methodical about sex as she was about organic chemistry. Blonde -- glowing, rich blonde, that made heads turn -- and slender, she stood bolt upright, topless, hands out in front of her as if to stop from hitting something.

Devon figured it out and got to her first. "Hey, Loom -- open your eyes; we didn't crash." It was going to take him a minute to get her calm, quite obviously.

It was a minute Rigel used to spin on his knees and shake Ryan. "Hey, bud, wake up."

"Go 'way. I don't want to see the blood. Just let me die."

Ryan's shirt had risen up onto is chest, leaving him bare to the waist. Rigel took a moment to admire the few, before slipping his hand down behind the band of Ryan's pants behind the belt buckle, and tug. "Open your eyes. We didn't wreck."

"Lower", Ryan responded, wiggling his hips a bit. He opened one eye. "Whoa." Surprise spun him off his back, away from Rigel, and onto his knees. "Dry climate, grassland -- no, savanna with wooded hills. No wreck -- and we aren't in Kansas any more, tutu."

"That's Toto", Rigel remarked absently. He hadn't really taken in the scenery until his friend described it. They were, indeed, surrounded by very gently rolling land that would have been plains had it not been for the scattered clusters of trees, with hills rising here and there, every one of them wooded. Almost directly to his left one of those clumps of hills had small companions, and beyond those rose more -- a sort of finger of hills pointing at them across the countryside. "Hey!" he protested, notcing Ryan had taken off to examine the nearest tree, and took off after him.

"Quercus garyana!" Ryan exclaimed delightedly as Rigel caught up. "Oregon oak -- sometimes called Oregon white oak." He thrust a set of leaves into his friend's hands. "Rye, these don't grow anywhere near home!"

"So we're not at home. Where are we?" Rigel caught his upper lip in his teeth and gnawed at it as the shock of the situation began to get to him. Ryan shook his head. "Not yet. C'mon." He summoned Rigel with a toss of his head as he jogged over to where Devon sat with Lumina and Rita -- between them, actually, almost protectively. Rita wore Devon's shirt. Both girls were trembling, but had their eyes open. All three looked up at the others' approach.

Ryan motioned Rigel to sit with the others while he dropped to his knees, plucking a low vine out of the grass. "Fragaria vescana", he observed, plucking at the small flowers and leaves. "It should be fragaria vesca, the wild woodland strawberry, growing out here, or fragaria virginiana, the wild North American strawberry. This is a cross between the woodland one and the one farmers grow, which is.... but that means", he went on with a frown, "that somehow.... Look", he said to four puzzled faces. "That tree over there is a quercus garyana, an Oregon oak. All this" -- which he indicated by a wave of his left arm all around as he held a small green strawberry in his hand and looked at his friends -- "is an oak savanna."

"Mostly level grasslands with scattered trees, only rarely close and thick enough to call woods", Lumina offered. "Characterized by seasonal wildfires, often maintained by humans. I took biogeography last term", she added in response to the puzzled look Rita gave her.

"Bingo", Ryan agreed. "Savanna is often maintained by humans setting annual fires to drive wildlife; otherwise the trees have a chance to start forests before another major fire comes through. That suggests there are people here. Now", he continued, holding up the berry, "we have something else that says 'people': this is a crossbreed, and it can't be done in the garden; they come out sterile. It has to be done in a lab -- okay, it might possibly happen by accident if someone got outrageously lucky, but, well, what it means is that wherever this is, it isn't home, but there are probably people here."

"Yes", Rita said, pointing. "There".

 

[DonQuixote]

Reminds me of a coule of book series I'm reading - time travel between 21st century and 13th or 19th, depending on the series.

Scotty, Beam me up ~ we're definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Curiouser and curiouser. Our friends find themselves teleported from near certain disaster and death in the traffic circle, to a remote Oak Savanna with hybrid strawberries that wouldn't produce in the wild . . .

Very Interesting sayeth the Artie Johnson in me - for those old enough or Cable TVLanded enough to know Laugh In.

You are making this intriguing.
Thanks.

 

[Kulindahr]

Reminds me of a coule of book series I'm reading - time travel between 21st century and 13th or 19th, depending on the series.

Scotty, Beam me up ~ we're definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Curiouser and curiouser. Our friends find themselves teleported from near certain disaster and death in the traffic circle, to a remote Oak Savanna with hybrid strawberries that wouldn't produce in the wild . . .

Very Interesting sayeth the Artie Johnson in me - for those old enough or Cable TVLanded enough to know Laugh In.

You are making this intriguing.
Thanks.

But so far I only have one fan.

 

[Kulindahr]

If anyone is paying attention...

I finished the third chapter a few hours ago, but as I just finished editing it I realized that it isn't the third chapter after all; it may be the fourth or even fifth. So now I get to write what I now know comes between.

There will be something before I turn in tonight.....






[write]

{initiating}

 

[wyndhampaul]

Count me in as a fan as well. This is very intriguing, and I will now be watching carefully for Sci-Fie with botanical sex side effects.

 

[Kulindahr]

Count me in as a fan as well. This is very intriguing, and I will now be watching carefully for Sci-Fie with botanical sex side effects.

Are you trying to give the writer ideas?

 

[Kulindahr]

Others​

Lumina reacted first. "Omigod that's the chick from the van!" she screamed, and headed down the rise they were on toward the next, where a group of people hardly moved, some sitting motionless, others standing similarly, one slamming his head over and over into the dirt....

"Shards", Ryan swore, and started after her.

"C'mon, all -- let's go with", Rigel said after a moment. He looked at Rita. "You okay?"

She shrugged. "Better than I was. I know I killed us all, but I don't feel dead, so I can live with it." She frowned briefly, then laughed at herself. "If we are dead, can I 'live' with it?" Her laugh got a hysterical edge, but only for a moment. "Maybe this is punishment for people who die in car wrecks -- no pavement in the whole world."

Devon snorted; Rigel just shook his head. "Whatever. We're here, anyway. Now let's go there", he concluded, motioning toward the other group where Lumina was just arriving. They went, Devon leading with a brisk jog.

Rigel stopped to take in this new batch, while Devon went straight to a girl just standing and staring, and began talking quietly to her. Rita did the same. He saw that Ryan had a hold on Lumina's arm; was he restraining her? It was as good a place to begin as any.

"... watch out for bicyclists, bitch!" he heard Lumina screech. The way Ryan's body braced suddenly answered his question: he was holding her back.

"C'mon, let's chill, huh?" he suggested quietly, pushing between Lumina and her target. The latter, blond and thirty-something, stood with tears running down her cheeks, wincing as those on the left crossed fresh, bloody scratches. "What's the deal?" he asked her, shushing Lumina with a wave.

"I was driving my van. Hauling the new kids. It was dinner. I had to rush. That biker. He was going to clear. No problem. Then a jar... splat.... No control. Couldn't swerve. Hit a Lexus. Not my fault." She practically hissed that last at Lumina. "I tried. We're dead anyway. Epic fail." Rigel couldn't help reaching out to offer comfort at the sight of the total desolation on her face that came with the last phrases; it got him close enough to catch her as she collapsed, into tears and onto the ground.

Ryan helped catch her. "She said her name was Ocean. Want we should stay with her?" he offered quietly, looking at Rigel.

Why am I suddenly in charge? Rigel wondered, answering with a tiny shrug. "Yeah, you and Lumina. I'll go... um, meet the others, I guess." Lame, Winchester, he told himself. But he went.

He had no luck with the first person he came to: he smelled urine before he got close, and the kid just stayed curled in a ball, muttering and whimpering, no matter what. Rigel tried shaking him by the shoulder, feeling foolish as he did what was in the Red Cross training videos, saying "Hey, are you okay?" over and over; he tried jabbing the guy to bring him out of it, too. He quit when an attempt to pry a hand from over one eye got him slammed by a knee.

Standing, he saw that Devon was doing better, as was Rita: Devon had the other two girls in this group sitting, holding each other and him, sobbing but talking. Rita stood behind a guy, wrapped around him, rubbing his chest and speaking into his ear. One of the guys in the van group -- it was who they all had to be, Rigel figured; they all had died, or maybe hadn't died, in the same wreck (a dark fear started to boil up from deep inside at the thought of his own death, but he squashed it. Later, he said to that inner self) -- had wrestled the one who'd been pounding his head against the ground onto his back, and those two were talking. The last member of their bunch was off by himself, standing, and Rigel decided to gather him in.

As he approached he saw a slender, even skinny teen he guessed at seventeen. His skin was almost pale, his hair practically black but with golden flashes when the young head moved in the sun. It was moving, too, animatedly, and Rigel soon learned the reason: the kid was talking, his hands moving as well in gestures sharp and animated, all close to his chest so Rigel hadn't noticed -- he'd thought the wiggling of the half-cape the guy wore was due to a breeze, but it was really caused by the pair of active elbows moving along with those hands.

When Rigel could understand words, he stopped, planning to listen. But the guy turned to him, a broad smile on his face. "Brother oak says your spirit is sturdy, though more like that of the spruce than of his own. You will provide support in the storms." Two quick strides brought the teen almost nose-to-nose with Rigel. Deep, deep green eyes searched Rigel's, then dropped as the guy knelt and took Rigel's right hand. "I am Anaph, the Branch, and I am yours."

Part of Rigel wanted to laugh at the lunacy of it. But as Anaph finished his words, heat rushed through Rigel, setting him afire -- energy, exuberance, celebration, joy, and lust filled him, and a deep conviction arose that if he dropped to the gras here, now, to fulfill the matching lust he felt from Anaph, the world would explode with life, and they would stride as conquerors wherever they went. He trembled as with is left hand he stroked Anaph's cheek, and Anaph's began to slide up inside his thigh.

Images thundered into his mind: Jake, his best friend in seventh grade, whom he found hanging from his aunt's apple tree after no adults would believe that his 'baby sitter' from church had molested him, introducing him to all kinds of sex; the funeral, where a distant uncle of Jake's, who hadn't heard that part till he got into town for the funeral, pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, put it to the crotch of that 'baby sitter' and pulled both triggers at once; Jake's parents divorced, his dad killed later in a drug bust by a SWAT team that wasn't taking surrenders, his mom alone in the house becoming a ghost of herself, wandering the streets, brought home by the police for stalking kids who looked like Jake, until she kidnapped one and vanished; Jake's sister turning promiscuous at college, his older brother in Afghanistan turning into a cold killing machine without mercy, a risk-taker who'd earned three medals....

Something from a school play slipped into his mind, and Rigel grabbed at it for deliverance. Wrestling back control of his own left hand, he seized both of Anaph's between his, forcing them palms-together. "Do you, Anaph, make yourself my man of life and limb, to serve me, and obey me", he began, trying to get the words the way he remembered them, stumbling over it, but then the words came smoothly, "with all the life is that in you, to serve mine with yours, for the sake of life, now until rebirth?" And where did those words come from, a cool, rational part of his mind asked through the still-raging passions to reach the sharply-forged bit of will and awareness that was the only part of Rigel that he, Rigel Stefanos Fitzhue-Winchester, commanded. But there was no time for any questions; words were coming back from the kneeling teenager.

"By Oak and by Ash, by thorn and all that lives and is strong, I, Anaph, the Branch, surrender to you my life and will, and become your man faithful and true; to serve you as you require and need, to obey you gladly and in faith, for the sake of life, until my last breath returns my spirit to the great All, and beyond."

As hot as the energy before and the passions it lit, now came a wave of cool and calm, of peace and wholeness. Agony and fury over the line he had almost crossed filled him; he stood trembling for a moment, then jerked Anaph roughly to his feet, pulling their eyes closer than they had been before. "If you ever", Rigel growled, "touch me in that way again without permission, I will thrash you until you can't sit, or walk, or lie down. Do you understand me?"

"Your will", was all that Anaph said, quietly. When Rigel let him stand freely again, he made an addition. "It wasn't my wish, but the spirits."

Rigel snorted. Spirits were for superstitious dims. Though... he pushed the itch of thought aside. "Then tell your spirits to behave themselves."

Everyone else was gathered, a half-circle watching them. "What was all that?" Ryan asked.

Not knowing how much Ryan had seen or heard, Rigel decided to not answer. Instead, he looked around the group: everyone was there, and all at least moving. "Everyone okay?" was what he finally asked.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well, I promised it before I turned in, and there it is.

Hopefully I'll dream the next chapter -- the one that was supposed to be next still isn't . . .

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
This is proving to be a very interesting tale, indeed. Some think they are dead, for, what else could it be? The whole greater mother nature, great Oak, spirituality is also very intriguing.

Thanks for bringing us this interesting tale. I look forward to seeing how you develop it further.

It looked like the branch was trying to "take root" and latch onto something to provide liquid nourishment and protein.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kuli,
This is proving to be a very interesting tale, indeed. Some think they are dead, for, what else could it be? The whole greater mother nature, great Oak, spirituality is also very intriguing.

Thanks for bringing us this interesting tale. I look forward to seeing how you develop it further.

It looked like the branch was trying to "take root" and latch onto something to provide liquid nourishment and protein.

The whole "by Oak and Ash" thing wasn't planned. When I got to the last kid from the van, all that was planned was that he was a little off, and talking to the tree. But with the recoil of Rigel's withdrawal from the passion/lust thing, it just sort of flowed out. But it fits perfectly into the story world, though it tugs at the story line as sketched out.

BTW, I hope you noted Anaph's age. Rigel certainly did.