Refuge Pg 2
Streak is brass, crass. She leans in real close, gets up in its face. The flesh don’t move much, but it opens its eyes. Heartbeat, one-two, one-two. Flesh is a girl, Streak sees. Outsider, but girl, wearing a dress that isn’t Streak’s style. Streak has got a rep to maintain, and the water damage doesn’t help.
In pain, in powerlessness, Zurisha feels the pitter-patter of tiny little feet. She hears the shouting of giant little lungs. Little fairy on her chest, she still dreaming? Little fairy with metal in her jacket and pink in her hair. Little fairy, little fae.
Brutus the mountain, he comes up close. The pretty little flesh be thin, so thin, he can scoop her up in his arms. Baby, baby, don’t say a word. Daddy’s gonna hunt you a mocking bird. In his mind he sings to her, he knows her name, he gives her light. Streak buzzes around his ears, but he’s lost in the flesh.
High above, near the source of the river, a man in ragged steel plate and chain crouches by a fire. He holds a pale, impaled arm up to the flames. His stomach rumbles. He waits, he waits for his dinner to finish. There is now enough food to go around.
(The attached image is the second page of the comic short Refuge, written by me and illustrated by Christina Beard.)
Refuge Pg 1
Zurisha is bleeding, na? Bleeding from her gut. Lifeblood pumps out, one-two, one-two, her little heart sings. She’s a stranger in the City, and she’s dying in a river of blood.
Streak flaps her gossamer wings faster than Brutus can see. Streak the devil-child, the mischief-maker. Streak moves like a hummingbird, but with cooler hair. She writes in the air, the mist is her paper and pen. She writes with precision, Streak does. She writes, ‘Fuck’, and laughs.
Brutus is a big mother, but he’s careful. He avoids stepping on a flower poking its head out of concrete and rebar. He likes flowers, the yellow ones most of all. His hand blurs as he slaps a jackfly who is biting his neck. His hand comes away red. The familiarity of it saddens him, and he reaches into the river to wash the blood away.
High above, near the glacial source of the river, a small village is still in flames. An infant lies half-dead, quiet in the cold. His head hurts, but his body is numb, and in the flickering shadows he falls asleep.
(The attached image is the first page of the comic short Refuge, written by me and illustrated by Christina Beard.)
The Written Link
Fingers fly over lettered squares. The artificial wind of the fan eases the noise of the outside world. Think, think, think. My brain buzzes fuzzily through synaptic sludge. What is the word? What is the word? The keyboard is dirty, grime from a thousand fingerstrikes, oil and skin and dirt. It is comfortable, this keyboard, I know where things reside.
Yet, comfort creates no link. There is no bond to be found in the quiet stagnation of things being ‘pretty good’. An ocean of emotion, feelings deep brought forth like the waves, warmed by the sun and mixed by the tide. In flux there exists definition, a radical knowledge of Who We Are. Who are we? Are we beings separated by by the fluid boundaries of space, or are we more? Is there a connection here, in the words, in the truths they lay bare? Is there communion?
These questions are real, but perhaps missing the point. Cyberspace is here, it IS, a virtual reality that more and more tries to supercede that which was here before. Yet it is an infant, a babe crying out for fuel, for the milk that is its sustenance, for the people who give it meaning. Meatspace exists, and always will, but she is old and secure in her dominance. She holds the magic of touch, of smell, of taste and of experience. There is more depth in a single insect than can ever be matched by the grasping hands of software barons. She is, perhaps, overconfident.
For ages we have witnessed the toppling of seated giants.
And when our Mother falls? When her importance is lost and she is confined to exile? What then?
My fingers fly, and I am here. I am connected to thousands I have never met. I forge friendships, feel love, lash out in anger.
And I ignore the rain.
