A Year of Whimsi

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 3: 015 Explosion

It was silent far from the main of the city and in view the ever present shadow from the solid grey walls. Owls looked up at the foggy grey sky and imagined it the clearest blue she had ever seen filled with white clouds, a sky she had read and dreamed about but never seen.

There were skies like that out there, somewhere beyond the walls or above the layers of smog and pollution were the skies that held the eternal promise of tomorrow.

She breathed in and listened to the now familiar whir of the breathing mask Gears had made her. The mask worked better than the filters all the groundlings had for emergencies, she figured it worked almost as well as the scrubbers, sometimes better, the mask never broke.

She stood up as Gears arrived in his dark goggles and gear covered mask. "This way." He said as his breath caused the gears to spin and add a slight whistle to his voice.

Owls nodded and she followed him to the run down barn he had claimed as his hideout , it was not much of a place to hide but so far from the city there was no one to hide from.

"Here is the Strigidae." Gears said as he pulled an off white cloth from a large wooden ship.

"How did you get it in here?" Owls asked as she looked at the tall masts that protruded through the roof.

"Some toys I made." Gears said as he rubbed the back of his head. Owls ran. Er hand along the wood, it was smooth and solid. She smiled beneath the mask as the tales she had read of sailors filled her head. It was not the machine to get her to the sky but the sea was just as good.

She paused and ducked as the loud pop of released pressure gave her a second's warning before hot steam and metal pieces shot into the air.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 3: 016 Money
I wrote this yesterday and judt did not get around to typing it up.

Dolle reached into her pocket for a coin. Her fingers grabbed one and she pulled it out with her eyes focused on the items she needed to by, from the size she guessed it was a smaller one. She handed it to the street child who stared up at her with the thought the coin was as much as she could do. If she had given the girl anything larger she would either have gotten it stolen or accused of having stolen it when she went to use it.

The girl muttered something she guessed was a thank you in Imperial before she ran away and Dolle returned all her thoughts to the odd colored food and how she was going to figure out what the coins she had left were worth.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 3: 017 Traveling Alone

A single road of dust and dirt
to travel down the path.
A single trail of lone footsteps
travel down the path.

No shadow mars the wind blown path,
no foot disturbs the prints,
only time can keep it company;
the solitary path.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 3: 018 Irony

An old man walks through the empty space in the front of a classroom, the sound of students talking fades only when he reaches the center. He picks up a piece of chalk and writes on the board, the click and scrape of the chalk on the board emerges to break the silence.

A single word written in white on black states the topic of the day, "I have nothing to say on the matter." The man announces to the room, "You will have a test on the subject on Friday, class dismissed."  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 3: 019 Lust

A doggie stands at the window sill
Wiggling, and waggling,
She can't keep still.

Master has been away all day
He has come back
At last to play.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 3: 020 Identity Crisis

Someone says my name, I keep my head down and continue working, it was by pure luck I heard it in the first place. The person says my name again but I ignore it, plenty of other people share the name, plenty of other people react to the name.

Someone taps me on the shoulder and I look up, "Jane, do you have your part done?" I reach into my binder and pull out a few sheets of paper to hand to her. She takes them and walks off.

I shake my head and turn back to my work. Seventeen years I have been Jane, seventeen years I have responded to the name when it was called no matter how sparse the words were. Someone else at the table calls my name but I ignore it. The name sounds hollow, like a made up word with no meaning, it takes a second for me to process once again that it is my name.

"What?" I ask as I turn my head to the group of desks.

"Where is the list?"

"Check the third page." I say before I look back down to my paper, it had my name on it right above the class period and date. My name is nothing more than an identification number with letters instead of numbers, and one my computer of a brain does not recognize.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 3: 021 Being Replaced

"Hello Sir Yuop." A woman in a white lab coat and her hair pulled back in a bun said as she entered a room full of papers, tacked onto the wall, crumples around bins, strewn about the desk and tables among several computers and electronic parts.

She was greeted by a few beeps.

She sat down at the desk and stared at the robot that was the source of the beeps and bearer of the name. "I have some new software for you today." She said as she plugged a cord into the side of the robot's head, or the part she thought looked like his head. She received a beep and a flashing light to tell her he was connected to her computer.

Yuop was her first success, her first attempt at an AI. He had come out with something she immediately recognized as a personality, not something on the level humans had or that she later developed but one still the same.

She made certain to keep Yuop running, he was a pet. She upgraded his systems with better codes but she could not help but feel that every time she did so she was replacing a part of him with someone else so she stuck to only what was necessary for him to run. And that was why ten years later she had made androids that people had remarked were straight from science-fiction, she had a robot who spoke to her with flashing lights and beeps.
 

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 4: 022 Jealousy

Gears tugged at the arm thick rope that kept the Strigidae tethered to one of the floating islands. The vibration spread from his hand and down his arm, he released it and the ever present hum resumed.

"Alan is going to show me the bubble gardens today." Owls said as she walked over to where he stood in a dress he never would have expected her to put on. "Do you want to come with us?" She asked.

Gears quickly turned his attention back to the rope and the whir of the machines on the deck of the ship, "not today the gears on the rigging got jammed and the condensation maker is spewing out black goo."

"Shame." Owls said as she spun a free standing gear he had left lying around, a gust of wind blew through the ship and made her short hair rustle like bird feathers.

"Are you ready?" Alan said as he walked onto the deck in an outfit Gears would have expected from one of Owls books not a floating island. It was far from the soot covered and torn clothing he had worn and he suddenly did not like the idea of them going off together, alone.

"You know this ship is not going anywhere, I can spend a day looking at bubbles." Gears said as an explosion he knew was the boiler below deck shook the ship. "Not going anywhere." He said with a smile.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 4: 023 Insanity December 13, 2012

Dolle threw back the flap to the green tent tavern and froze. Sitting at the farthest table was the one-eyed shaggy-haired man in need of a proper shave she searched for and blond man in a dark green coat along with what she assumed was a trader. "Kirsch," She snapped as he looked up and stared at her and she kept her eyes off the blond man, "Do you know how hard it is to track you down?" She ignored his response as she crossed the room to sit at the table.

"Why are you here Dolle?" Kirsch asked as she got a good look at the man, he resembled her brother more than the others but he was still just someone who happened to look like him. He was too thin and gaunt, like someone had taken her brother and stretched him. She blinked to clear the thought from her head, she had been comparing every blond haired man in green to what her brother had looked like as of late.

She answered Kirsch and as she had expected he agreed to help her.

A sound at the entrance drew her attention to it and caused her to freeze when she turned to look. Blocking the sun and cast in shadows with a tall trader was a man with blond hair pulled back into a tail at the top of his head and a red coat the color she had expected Kirsch to be wearing. "Fren!" The man said as the woman pulled him to the table causing the shadows to shift and Dolle to get a good look at the man.

He was less stretched looking than the other man, the one she assumed was Fren and his twin, but he was not her bother. She stood up and left the table; she already saw her brother everywhere she went, she did not need someone who looked like him to help her.

I had everything handwritten, and I finally got it all typed up and am now going to post it.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 4: 24 Snow Day December 14, 2012

I wake up not from the sound of an alarm clock or any other number of noises an old house full of humans and pets can make but from a lack of sound. There is an unnatural silence that permeates the house and I rise from my bed to search for the reason. The blankets fall away and I quickly grab the handmade orange and pink quilt some old lady at church had made to keep the cold at bay.

I open the door and poke my head into the hallway where no one has bothered to turn on the light, I catch faint sounds of a television turned down and the flashing lights light up the far end of the hall. As I walk towards it I look into the bedrooms of my parents and siblings were all the beds but one hold their sleeping owners who are all blessedly snore free. Crumpling my my face together as the situation strikes me as odd I make my way into the front room.

I keep my face contorted in confusion as I enter the room to find my youngest sister sitting in front of the television with it turned to the news. "It's Snowing!" She tells me as she turns to see me and breaks the silence, "We have a snow day." She says as she bounces to the window and the curtains that she had attempted to open.

"Then I guess snow men and hot coco is in order." I say as I look out the window to find the yard, the street, and everything else in sight covered in a thick layer of the fluffy white stuff. "Or more sleep." I add as the sound of my alarm I had neglected to turn off echoes through the house.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 4: 025 Sculpture December 15, 2012

A bust atop the dusty shelf
a plaster impression of someone's self
with eyes too wide
and head too tall
it makes me want to hide.

My Grandmother says it is some famous man
my grandfather says its my weird uncle Dan
Whoever it is this is what I say
"He freaks me out
so put him away."  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 4: 026 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder December 16, 2012

Qiv tapped the stone railing that encircled the grassmount enclosure and counted out the clicks of her nails.

"Would you stop that..." Ktk said as he arrived at the enclosure and she glared at him.

"Look at them." She said as she tilted her head in the direction of the mounts. They all were on the ground with their tufts in the air blowing in the wind.

"What about them?" Ktk said

Qiv clicked her nails on the stone again, "They are silent, no clicks, no trills, no chirps."

"Turzdkds." Friv said as she arrived from the ridge of the next hill with her hand on the hilt of her sword. "On the ridge, and crossing the three hills on the other side."

Qiv nodded and sent a pulse of magic through her hand as she hit the stone with the heel of her hand and caused a section to fall away. "Gather the others, there is a cave where we can hole up."

"Why hole up?" Ktk asked, "We have swords and we are not children who do not know how to use magic, we can fight them."

"Because you are still students and I will not risk your lives." Qiv said with a stretched pause after students, "I will not let you use your magic for the same reason we cannot teleport back to the city." She siad as the constant wind gusted again and tossed her unbound hair around, she grabbed the reins of her mount and climbed into the saddle and watched as the rest arrived and mounted, tapping their number out with her nails on the saddle. They all brought news of the Turzdkd, and a horde in the path of the cave.

There were reasons few ever left the safety of the city walls, and reasons she had not wanted to take a group out. The wind continued to blow as she counted the last of the group and set off towards the cave.

(and then I lost the other napkin that had the other half of this written on it, but it basically ends with Ktk dying from zombiefication and then Qiv developing OCD.)  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 4: 027 Monsters Under the Bed December 17, 2012

Kirsch rolled over in his bed and threw the blankets off himself, they made it far too warm for him to sleep. He turned over again and shoved the pillow to the floor. With the blankets missing and the pillow absent he was left to sprawl out, the sprawling was not as effective as he thought as he still sunk into the soft mattress. He slammed a fist into the cloth and rolled off the bed to hit the ground with a thud. He reached around for the blankets he had thrown off when the cold from the stone seeped into his body. Out of a habit he had picked up from the streets to avoid the wind, the snow, and the rain, he slid between the space of the bed and the floor.

The next morning while he slept soundly a scream echoed through the hallways of the training quarters as a blond prince screamed at the sight of his friend having been caught by the monsters that lurked under beds.
 

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 4: 028 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami December 18, 2012

Lell De' Lae pulled on the net and felt the familiar pressure of the rope on her hands and the rocking of the waves. She pulled the net in and watched the fish flop on the bottom of the small boat she had. She looked up to the sky that was just beginning to lighten under a layer of dark clouds. A wind stronger than any she had seen the Imperial Mages let blow in a long time blew across the water and turned the normally gentle waves into white capped monsters. She stood up and straightened her back and peered into the direction of the wind, to her surprise the magic laced wind came from the coast and the dark mountains that loomed over it, not the open sea where floating cities covered small islands and the surrounding water.

She stared at the mountains and quickly felt along the magic in the wind, her reach and control of the weather was legendary, she had kept the shores of Carene against a fleet of Imperial Mages, but the magic that caused the wind was a monsoon to her single drop of rain. With fear of the cause and the possibilities of what the wind would bring she hurried back to shore. With the mud still stuck to her feet and the salt covered clothes she woke the king from his slumber with news that no one liked.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 5: 029 Wonder December 19, 2012

There once was a white window sill
where a child would sit so still
with a wish and a prayer,
and a dream with a dare
as the stars fell over the hill.