Post by lynn on Mar 4, 2010 18:31:11 GMT -5
He turned his head to the white-cold sky and drank one last long breath of his homeland. The icy cool numbed his lungs and his twin blue eyes watered in the white light. Beneath his heavy, leather-soled boots the ground crunched like a cat eating a small bird. No life could grow here, now. The sky was clear and white, no source of warmth or light. In this small place he was dwarfed by larger beings, rocky growths protruded from broken earth mere centuries ago. His forefathers would not recognise this land now, coated in white crust, defiled by rocky outcrops, no green rolling hills to be seen. The grass had died off months ago, killed by the cold. The wind whistled past his ears, cold, unsurprisingly, cold like the breath of an ice-giant, cold like death. Small columns of smoke rose into the air around him from unseen houses, like the domiciles were signalling one another, hidden in clefts of the earth from the wind, consoling each other for their solitary worlds. The wind pulled at his ear, cutting his cheek and whispering damp familiarity. He pulled down his woollen hat for warmth but it felt lacking. Who could defy an ice giant?
A movement caught his eye. Tiny white flakes were falling from the nowhere above. Still, he thought, they should not still be falling here. So long after... Men rushed to his side to pull him inside the shelter, safety from the outside world, his home. Would he see her again?
Soon he was being loaded onto his transport, the silver demon that reminded him of those old-world cigars he had seen in pictures, wrapped and lethal, with one end lit and smoking. His ancestors had done so many things to kill themselves, and their world. He took a last glance at the eeirie whiteness through the windows, familiar, lonesome. He turned to receive the viewing glasses and ear plugs that nulled his brain into sleep, fooling it that no time passed as he travelled.
He thought he was still dreaming as he stepped from his transport to the new world. Gentle hands removed layers of padded clothing that had protected him from the cold of home, no longer needed. A gentle voice informed him that he had indeed arrived, at Alice no less, and he grimaced as he stepped through the doors of the looking glass.
A heavy blow to his body forced him to stagger and sag against the wall, a local dweller slapped his arm and bared his teeth, chanting some mantra against the weather it seemed, “Otinuff forya?” He managed to walk to a nearby chair and fall in. All newcomers must feel this way, if the proximity of the chair was to be believed. The heat was a physical strain bearing down upon his body. This planet must be larger, somehow, for he felt gravity's pull as he never had at home, and the sky, so closely guarded in his memory, now stood unbounded and so ridiculously wide that his mind couldn't comprehend it. He felt he could barely breathe. The air itself was thick and viscous, but clear, unlike the white fog of his homeland this air was so clear he could see the colours of the sky and earth and plants. The deep blue of the sky ended in a haze only to admit the powerful deep red earth. He was clearly in a world gone mad. He stooped to examine a handful of this and found it dust beneath his fingers, the handful melting away across his fingers. Like I've cut myself, like I've died and have gone to some crazy painter's heaven. He tried to laugh, but the sound was a cough in this dense, unmoving air. A breath of wind, he felt, and the whole place would fly away, the sandy earth become a flying world and leave them with nothing but the bones of the earth.
Suddenly he felt he was being watched, and looked up to find some kind of creature standing before him. Its bulbous body was covered with grey-brown... it was neither fur nor the tiny delicate feathers with which he was familiar. It stood, incredibly, on two slender stalks, white, three-toed, and he noticed with the detatchment of one certain of imminent death, ending in large black claws. The Alien's head was mounted on a similar white stalk, was it some genetic mutant, or crazy construction of strange parts? It studied him with huge black eyes, the opened its triangular mouth and hooted abruptly, so low he thought it would be the sound rather than the fear that caused him to brown his pants. But the local came over and bared his teeth again, and made a sound like a cow lowing while motioning to the creature. Some form of local cow? The local made a rough barking sound and pressed a cold bottle into his hand, enjoining him to drink. The drink smelt like fresh baking bread and burnt in his mouth, but the cold was welcome.
The stranger felt that his body was melting, that his internal juices made some attempt at escape through his pores as his sweat dripped onto the red beneath him. He drank from the brown bottle and watched the locals swarming under what appeared to be a tree, but the leaves were mere strips of green and turned down, not up, to escape the heat he supposed. They grew taller here, lanker, and were a deep red brown like the earth, burnt so by the heat. He compared his own pale skin, white like the sky of his homeland, and wondered if the burning process hurt.
He felt better, and stood to stretch his legs, taking two steps to see around the side of the building.
He was blinded, and nearly fell to his knees once again, by a laser light trained directly on him. He shaded his eyes and begged his assailant to stop torturing him. Gradually, after no response, his eyes got somewhat used to the blinding and he looked beyond his burning fingers, and realised that it was no laser light but the sun! Here the sun was truly the blinding ball of light that it was said to be on his homeworld, here the light shone so brightly he felt he could taste it, here is was not hidden behind the milky whiteness of cold and shone forth to burn the earth and the people. This sun must be closer, he felt it filled this half of the sky. He felt he'd never see again through the ache of that light's brightness. And yet soon he was able to see sky beyond that burning, to see a dark bubbling object moving towards them faster than even the trasport he had come in. He motioned and questioned the locals about the fast-moving object, fearing some other hostile beast was approaching, as he heard a growl from its depths. But they seemed unworried, mentioning what sounded like rain to his unfamiliar ears. Rain? He knew rain, soft grey clouds, pitter patter on rooftops and the wet slushy ground. This whole area would turn into a marshland if it rained here, as it did back home, for several months at a time.
But this was no cloud, it was almost upon them already, and as he watched great flecks flashed from it and the growling grew louder. In less time than it took him to think of shelter the beast was upon them. He knew rain. This was no rain! The sky opened and simply poured a flood of heavy water upon his back, no drops but a solid sheet of precipitation. The locals remained under the tree, unconcerned, as the rain fell but not the temperature, the sun obscured but its power not broken by the black beast above him.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wet was gone, and the sky was filled with harsh yellow light once more and the blue was once more boundless. The earth had swallowed the tide and was dusty red, thirsty still, and the water steamed from the roof of nearby cars. He felt he would dry soon. Or die soon. Who could live in such a place?
A local bared his straight white teeth and annointed the stranger's head with a wide-brimmed hat made of some sort of animal skin.
“Welcome to Australia.” he barked.
A movement caught his eye. Tiny white flakes were falling from the nowhere above. Still, he thought, they should not still be falling here. So long after... Men rushed to his side to pull him inside the shelter, safety from the outside world, his home. Would he see her again?
Soon he was being loaded onto his transport, the silver demon that reminded him of those old-world cigars he had seen in pictures, wrapped and lethal, with one end lit and smoking. His ancestors had done so many things to kill themselves, and their world. He took a last glance at the eeirie whiteness through the windows, familiar, lonesome. He turned to receive the viewing glasses and ear plugs that nulled his brain into sleep, fooling it that no time passed as he travelled.
He thought he was still dreaming as he stepped from his transport to the new world. Gentle hands removed layers of padded clothing that had protected him from the cold of home, no longer needed. A gentle voice informed him that he had indeed arrived, at Alice no less, and he grimaced as he stepped through the doors of the looking glass.
A heavy blow to his body forced him to stagger and sag against the wall, a local dweller slapped his arm and bared his teeth, chanting some mantra against the weather it seemed, “Otinuff forya?” He managed to walk to a nearby chair and fall in. All newcomers must feel this way, if the proximity of the chair was to be believed. The heat was a physical strain bearing down upon his body. This planet must be larger, somehow, for he felt gravity's pull as he never had at home, and the sky, so closely guarded in his memory, now stood unbounded and so ridiculously wide that his mind couldn't comprehend it. He felt he could barely breathe. The air itself was thick and viscous, but clear, unlike the white fog of his homeland this air was so clear he could see the colours of the sky and earth and plants. The deep blue of the sky ended in a haze only to admit the powerful deep red earth. He was clearly in a world gone mad. He stooped to examine a handful of this and found it dust beneath his fingers, the handful melting away across his fingers. Like I've cut myself, like I've died and have gone to some crazy painter's heaven. He tried to laugh, but the sound was a cough in this dense, unmoving air. A breath of wind, he felt, and the whole place would fly away, the sandy earth become a flying world and leave them with nothing but the bones of the earth.
Suddenly he felt he was being watched, and looked up to find some kind of creature standing before him. Its bulbous body was covered with grey-brown... it was neither fur nor the tiny delicate feathers with which he was familiar. It stood, incredibly, on two slender stalks, white, three-toed, and he noticed with the detatchment of one certain of imminent death, ending in large black claws. The Alien's head was mounted on a similar white stalk, was it some genetic mutant, or crazy construction of strange parts? It studied him with huge black eyes, the opened its triangular mouth and hooted abruptly, so low he thought it would be the sound rather than the fear that caused him to brown his pants. But the local came over and bared his teeth again, and made a sound like a cow lowing while motioning to the creature. Some form of local cow? The local made a rough barking sound and pressed a cold bottle into his hand, enjoining him to drink. The drink smelt like fresh baking bread and burnt in his mouth, but the cold was welcome.
The stranger felt that his body was melting, that his internal juices made some attempt at escape through his pores as his sweat dripped onto the red beneath him. He drank from the brown bottle and watched the locals swarming under what appeared to be a tree, but the leaves were mere strips of green and turned down, not up, to escape the heat he supposed. They grew taller here, lanker, and were a deep red brown like the earth, burnt so by the heat. He compared his own pale skin, white like the sky of his homeland, and wondered if the burning process hurt.
He felt better, and stood to stretch his legs, taking two steps to see around the side of the building.
He was blinded, and nearly fell to his knees once again, by a laser light trained directly on him. He shaded his eyes and begged his assailant to stop torturing him. Gradually, after no response, his eyes got somewhat used to the blinding and he looked beyond his burning fingers, and realised that it was no laser light but the sun! Here the sun was truly the blinding ball of light that it was said to be on his homeworld, here the light shone so brightly he felt he could taste it, here is was not hidden behind the milky whiteness of cold and shone forth to burn the earth and the people. This sun must be closer, he felt it filled this half of the sky. He felt he'd never see again through the ache of that light's brightness. And yet soon he was able to see sky beyond that burning, to see a dark bubbling object moving towards them faster than even the trasport he had come in. He motioned and questioned the locals about the fast-moving object, fearing some other hostile beast was approaching, as he heard a growl from its depths. But they seemed unworried, mentioning what sounded like rain to his unfamiliar ears. Rain? He knew rain, soft grey clouds, pitter patter on rooftops and the wet slushy ground. This whole area would turn into a marshland if it rained here, as it did back home, for several months at a time.
But this was no cloud, it was almost upon them already, and as he watched great flecks flashed from it and the growling grew louder. In less time than it took him to think of shelter the beast was upon them. He knew rain. This was no rain! The sky opened and simply poured a flood of heavy water upon his back, no drops but a solid sheet of precipitation. The locals remained under the tree, unconcerned, as the rain fell but not the temperature, the sun obscured but its power not broken by the black beast above him.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wet was gone, and the sky was filled with harsh yellow light once more and the blue was once more boundless. The earth had swallowed the tide and was dusty red, thirsty still, and the water steamed from the roof of nearby cars. He felt he would dry soon. Or die soon. Who could live in such a place?
A local bared his straight white teeth and annointed the stranger's head with a wide-brimmed hat made of some sort of animal skin.
“Welcome to Australia.” he barked.
