A Warm Place

**Bayamos** · 03/10/2007 18:16:28

He knew the time, but twilight was not the right word to describe his surroundings. High above the crag, firmament shifted with fury. The disparate clouds of ash and smoke clashed into each other like warring chariots. Their violent collisions could be felt from the tremors that shook through the lightning-scarred ground. He squinted to barrier his eyes from the onslaught of dust tugged by a chilling wind that pierced through flesh. The breeze had a lingering sense of humidity, like an afterthought; the faint residue and imprint of something that once existed, a whisper of the past, of something right about this place. Columns of mist floated over the ground, shaped and shifted by light and shadow dancing through the breeze. Beyond the ravaged fields he could see a massive network of towers reaching into the clouds. Like fire orbs in the black sky, the spires were a spectacle to behold. Allowing himself to retreat into memory, he floated across the plains and ascended into the air.

The first time he had witnessed this place, his eyes had been filled with shadow and fear. Over the edge of his pod he had glimpsed, and beheld the sight of millions of capsules stretching as far as the eye could see, up into the heavens, down into blackness, and around him on all sides. He was surrounded by inanimate, expressionless bodies. He had later learned that those pods held the majority of the human species. Yet in that moment, he lived high in the overcast haze, a part of the breeze that felt freezing to his clammy arms. The thunderous din above became increasingly loud, and a light rain began to fall. Soon, like the noise, the droplets became torrential. These were moments of intensity he would never forget. Like how a barb punctures skin and allows blood to rush forth, so did these times lance through the soft recollections of his prior life and unleash a cascade of wretchedness. Upon this ridge, hovering over an alien landscape, he had never felt so alone in his life. With water running down his face, isolated and powerless, he tried to cry out but could not. A prisoner in his own body, he was reduced to a shivering heap, and laid there for what seemed like days as hail rained down upon him and attacked the body he could barely recognize.

No, twilight was not the right word. There was no warmth in this place, only gloom and a feeling of restlessness. Aside from the storms, silence pervaded these stretches of barren earth. After pausing in thought he began to murmur words under his breath and to hum a tune he vaguely remembered. These tones were carried by the breeze and echoed through the rock formations. For brief moments, these whispers filled the vacant realm, and the scenery's harshness was temporarily dispelled. As soon as the sounds had appeared, they were gone; yet each time he came to this location it seemed different from the last - a little more alive, a little more like home. The time for reflections finished, he stood up and began the long hike back to his hovercraft. He followed the twisted paths by memory, and reached the edge of towering cliffs. His silhouette remained on the walls for a fleeting moment as he disappeared into the darkness; faint whispers could be heard in the distance as the sky burned and the bayamos blew.

**Riac.**

((Awesome Stuff bay))

**Bayamos** · 04/04/2007 17:20:18

((Thanks, Riac. This is certainly a struggle for me -- I'm not by any means a writer, and have never done anything like this before. Glad to see someone's enjoying it.))

**PBlade**

(( Mmm. Excellent. I'm looking forward to the next part.

Keep it up. ))

**TonyJaa**

Great work bay as always!!!

**Yasamuu**

((Great work bay, well written i love the scene that was set even without the picture. Keep it up, vector has a lot of talented writers so lets prove it))

**Bayamos**

Inside the vessel, the air was slightly warmer. Storms raged outside and rattled the hovercraft's frame, shaking the antennae and causing the decks to creak. A single lantern flickered down a narrow corridor, illuminating the metal walls. Rust creeped up the blemished surfaces like ivy, reminding him of the scars left by barnacles on weathered sea ships. The Junos was an old relic, a remnant of a different era. He did not know its age or how many captains had commanded this deck, only that the barge posessed an otherworldly sense of grace. He had once heard of sailors personifying their ships, and had dismissed it as a foreign custom. Now, he saw in the Junos a companion. A friend. A protector. It was just him and these corroded catwalks. The rest of the crew had been gone for some time. Some found their families more important than their beliefs. Some had chosen to board the new hoverbarges, trading duty for amenity and luxury. To have just one passenger in a hovercraft was not conventional, but he was not under the jurisdiction of the Zion Council. Machinists did not have a central city or a ruling government. Outcasts from Zion, they lived in scattered camps and harbors. Most lived on their ships, and stopped at makeshift trading outposts to refuel and rest. Machinists were a nomadic people, migrants with many neighbors but always distant. Almost all of them were "redpills," the awakened podborn. The few "naturals," as they were called, had either been born after the end of the war, or had left Zion to follow their podborn families. Most served as operators or tended to the ships themselves, but there were no naturals on board the Junos. Only him.

Here he was, alone inside the craft. Masses of machinery hummed in the background, now and then letting out a startling sound. Occassionally, moving parts would cast strange shadows; grotesque figures seemed to come alive on the floors. But he did not mind. This place, strange as it was, was the only home he had. He remembered the first time he had stood alone in front of this window. Outside was a landscape he still did not identify with. This entire world had seemed surreal, like a lengthy and detailed dream. But this was no dream -- the pain made that quite clear. After he had withstood the hail high in the power plants, he had fallen for what seemed like miles through mazes of tunnels and tubes. Dumped violently into a reservoir of liquid, he had found himself unable to move. His brains had wanted to flail his arms, to struggle against the current, to remain somehow above the ever approaching waves of dark goo. After a few twitches in his shoulder, though, he had lost all ability to communicate with the limbs. He sunk, and all faded to blackness.

The next few weeks did not exist as memories, only fleeting moments of sensation. When he regained consciousness, he could not see. His chest jerked violently, and he could barely open his mouth to breathe. He could feel the needles, though. Everywhere, he was poked and prodded, stabbed and sutured by harsh metal points. They later told him it was not the needles that caused the pain; his muscles were reacting violently to the acupuncture. All over his body sinew had become inflamed.. they nearly failed, according to the Captain. If not for a sudden change in luck, he would have been a cripple. Imagine, though, the seriousness, the conviction with which that man spoke, and the complete disregard that met the captain's concerned gaze. Here he had been: removed from his entire life and thrown into an alien world, betrayed by his own flesh and bone, subjected to weeks of excruiating agony... the man expected him to react to bad news with emotion?! It wasn't like things could get any worse... right?

But of course, they could. He had learned the truth, been told that his entire life was a dream, none of it had ever occured. His parents were not really his parents. His friends existed miles and miles away; they had never met. His name, Jacob Nazareth, had never truly been his. In this world, he was expected to choose his own identity, a "handle," they called it. Dumbstruck and unable to let go, he had remained nameless for some time. Regardless, every interaction, every moment, passion and dream of that life was completely false. They said that normally, he would have been allowed to remain in his dreamworld, "The Matrix," was how they referred to it. Normally, people were awoken by their own choice; the transition for them was still difficult, but it was what they wanted. He had not been given that choice. They did not know why he was ejected from the pods, the crew had said... all they had known was that they were in the area, and had suddenly detected a life form in the liquid below.

Yes, he remembered this window. After he was "healthy," once he had gone through the training regimes and learned the "truths," he had been allowed to roam the ship. He could see it clearly, still. He had passed through a doorway, glimpsing in the corner of his eye a reflective surface. He had turned to face the window... and stopped dead in his tracks. Who was that boy in the glass... staring back at him? With a sudden horror, he had realized that he was looking at himself. That was not his face! The bones, the cheeks, the hair that had just started to grow long... who was that?! "This is wrong, all horribly wrong," he had thought. Rooted to that spot, he had been transfixed by the gaze that looked back at him. Only the eyes seemed familiar, but even they had a different nature. There had been something primal in them, a different spirit than he had ever known. When the crew discovered him standing there, he had confessed his distress to them. But they did not believe him, and attributed it to stress, a breakdown in perception caused by the trauma of leaving the pods and learning the truth. Everyone's image in the Matrix reflected their real body, they had said. The crew offered him extra portions of slop, and tried to console him as though kind words would make him change his mind and admit he was wrong. For they wanted to believe what they had been told about residual self images. The "truth" was immobile, a doctrine. Rigid and unyielding. The crew did not realize they were enslaving themselves to illusions and fantasies, whether or not they were still in the Matrix held little matter...

... Snapping out of his daydream, the sole occupant of the Junos slid down a pole. He made his way to his quarters, lost in thought. That image which had been long buried in memory was now fresh in his mind. He could not forget.

**PBlade**

(( Wow... Amazing. ))

SystemF

dude not bad at all gets 2 SMILEY

**Bayamos** · 09/17/2007 16:00:42

Where are we going? Without purpose, anything, ...swarms of fibers strung together, gathering liquids and tissues to form the entity and subsequent idol "man." How self-important, how self righteous the whole lot of us are. There is no God up in the sky tonight... but if there was, we'd like to think he was thoroughly fixated on us, ever watching, a devoted subscriber to our dynamically updating feed with no real content. In the grand scheme of things, we are utterly insignificant. In the beginning there were chemicals, then life, then us. People don't have a problem taking whatever story they're given and running with it because we all view everything subjectively through our own experiences. The world before us was just an abstraction; Creation began when we were born. Everybody believes the world will simply stop existing once they die. Or that their death will somehow change the world; that the skies will part, the Earth will shake, and God himself will reach down and transmute our headstones into solid gold. And of course we'll all be able to see this, it's not like anyone actually dies... right? Death is just a journey, a caravan to pleasant dreams. And Tastee Wheat is good for you. I'm not so sure.

So often when asked important questions, radicals and fanatics, zealots and pacifists alike reply that their actions form a greater purpose, that they seek "the truth." Set in stone. Rigid. Unyielding. Everyone wants simple answers, when there are so few to be had. The truth is that millions of years from now, both Man and Machine will be long extinct. One day, far from now, the entire history of this planet -- every broken fingernail and every mass grave -- will be collectively erased. We will not leave a headstone. As the Sun expands, our already ravaged planet will turn to ash. Sorry Mother Earth, but I'm afraid the Botox isn't going to hold up anymore. No amount of lip gloss or concealer is going to hold back Time. In their quest to destroy the Machines, mankind sought to block the Sun. In the end, naturalism always wins. Universe 1 Mankind 0. Nicely played: but we didn't stand a chance. Fate it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Wait your turns everyone, there's plenty of liquid hot plasma to go around. And then one day, at a point so long from now it can't even be conceptualized, perhaps the charred remnants of Earth will be drawn into a black hole as our galaxy collapses... Just think. You and me and Anome cuddling for all eternity in a densely packed mass smaller than a period.

Faced with such realizations, it's hard to be passionate about anything anymore. Everything's societal construction, collective deception, an endless rat race designed to keep everyone eating, sleeping, breathing, f**king, dying, and not thinking. In our true hierarchy of needs, we want to think of our lives as meaningful. Worthwhile. Purposeful. To perpetuate this cycle, there must be more of the same. Reinforcements are always on hand; backup a necessity. No corporate bluepill wants to be told that his cutthroat job is just an illusion: he is hopelessly devoted to his so-called purpose. Nobody ever told him that he was a grain of sand in an hourglass being flipped back and forth, that Wall Street was just a snapshot of a Monopoly board. You can pass Go all you want and build those hotels, but some day the game is over and everything gets returned to the box. Some have suggested that human beings are inherently selfish or flawed. Rousseau claimed society was evil, that man must be on his own to be free. Locke had some mumbo-jumbo about social contracts and natural rights. Buddhism claims pursuing one's own desires leads to suffering in the world. In contrast, liberal economics holds that every decision is made by minimizing opportunity cost, attempt to benefit oneself and one's utility. We are self-motivated rational maximizers. You didn't give two bleeps about that hobo in the street. You just wanted to feel better about yourself, or avoid the associations of guilt if you didn't pay up. Do you really love your children, or do you just like the feelings that some part of you will be passed through the ages? You are immortal, remember. I think it goes far past that. Humans create conflict to imitate purpose. We give birth to struggle just because it keeps us busy. There is no meaning.

Through ancient Greece to today, the spirit of individualism has always been present. Everyone is keen to adopt the idea that they are special, separate, and somehow unique: a creation that will never be matched. Somehow, each of us will "make our mark." Without you, Dave, that physics project never would have passed. Audrey, your apple pie is to die for. It's so easy to find a niche and proclaim your superiority. Gratify yourself: I am the best _____. I am special because _____. Rat race. For a time, I too fell prey to this dynamic. To have a purpose, whether it's hitting some arbitrary time in the mile, or to be "in charge" of "the most powerful" faction... win win "win." To excel at combat. Win. Winning streaks are like cocaine. You can learn shallow lessons from them, like "don't get cocky." But in the end, as before... does it matter? Definitely not healthy. I should have eaten my carrot sticks. I'd want my piece of space rock to have good eyesight.

Who knows. What is there to know? They say that some day, the universe will expand to the point where at any given point in the galaxy, it will be impossible to discern that there are other galaxies than our own. Knowledge was out of fashion, anyhow. Shut up and reconstruct.

It's not apathy. I haven't found more important things to do. I haven't found anything important to do. Billions of random elements thrown together imbued with an electrical charge. I was awakened many years ago, or that was the label they gave it. Finally, I am no longer a slave to the Matrix.

Tick tock. Tick.

I have dreams to chase.

**TonyJaa**

Very nice Bay...Well written!

PS:"Ancient Greece" woooooooooot!

**PBlade**

The End.

**Bayamos**

(( Not quite. ))

lastbesthope

I want what your taking bay SMILEY

Very well written..

Very well entertaining...

9.5/10 SMILEY

**Madbent**

Trippy.

Seriously, it is some of the best inner narrative I've seen here.

Keep going!