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proxodimecОдна моя знакомая организовала в Джакарте так называемый "писательский клуб" - на самом деле, просто благородный повод для жутко общительных и жутко стеснительных индонезийцев встретиться и пообщаться, хотя авторы, и впрямь неплохо владеющие виртуальной клавиатурой, тоже иногда заглядывают. Суть еженедельных встреч такова: оглашается тема, и в течение получаса все участвующие пишут на неё короткий рассказ, очерк или стих. Впрочем, стихов, кажется, ни разу не было, разве что "стихи в прозе". Так или иначе, я с удовольствием подключаюсь к игре, когда оказываюсь в столице, и пару таких быстро приготовленных экспромтов рискну опубликовать здесь.
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Рассказ третий. Тема: randomality.
I drank it, since it was already in my - hand? Yes, i had hands. Human, this time. The liquid was bitter, cold, and tasted like molten basalt. It probably wasn't - either you have hands or imbibe deep-stratum magma, not both. It didn't inebriate, either.
Someone blue, with extra arms and ears, came by. "Not a bad one, i say?" He looked more tired than genuinely excited. A bad chain of here-and-nows, quite likely. "Tolerable" - i said dismissively. And flipped.
Solar wind tore me apart, fighting gravity for the right to govern my momentum. Literally so, shredding me to pieces in seconds - but that was OK, i didn't depend on structural integrity. There was not much to this here-and-now, but the vista impressed me - stellar corona from the inside, viewed in what i guessed must have been X-ray. Maybe UV. I stayed to watch the show until gravity won. Then flipped.
A shell - no, a rock - hit my lower left track, reducing my mobility by 18%. I swirled six of my slings till they glowed from air friction and sent a volley of boulders in the presumed direction of the enemy. None hit. Radar beeped, i ducked, dodging a whip - an uprooted giant liana. The following spiky fist glanced off my carapace, barely denting the armor plating. No efficacy loss, +8.3 minutes repair time after the battle. A lightning-fast counterattack, using 16 of my stone knives as they shattered against the assailant's limbs. The last one went between the charging slots, damaging both his power unit and secondary CPU, disabling him for no less than 18 hours, longer than this free-for-all could possibly last. A blast from below - i didn't know they had tame drillers! Smashed the parasite, but now both right tracks were immobile, and so was i. The outcome was calculable: i barely had time to wonder, now that the inevitable defeat made it pointless to concentrate on the melee, why are superior robots fighting with the most primitive weapons before a sequence of rocks blasted my faceplate, destroying sensors, conduits, then the main processor. I died. And flipped.
He wasn't too handsome, but it was better than studying those damn newts over and over again. For the life of mine, i couldn't understand why don't they procreate. Not that i was going to. His torso was thick, his scales glistened, his gametes i could expel any time i chose, and he gave me more crys than i needed. I needed a lot. Also, he never asked afterwards how good it was - be it sex or high. Speaking of which, shall i do more? Double dose already, that stuff is pretty lethal if you go over, but this here-and-now isn't too amusing anyway, so why not? One, two, here we go! And it hits me: all the lives, existances, worlds, the casual, unthinking flips, the immortality of eternally transient mind, the invulnerability of someone so random it's not a target at all, smaller than a particle, bigger than the universe. How had it started? Even my crystal-clear memory, yes, that's what crys does, that's how it kills you, can not supply the answer. An answer, yes, a multitude thereof - how a sapient race, maybe humans, maybe someone else, got so bent on security, so frightened of this chaotic continuum, that it decided to fight fire with fire, randomality with randomality, and got its final pyrrhic victory; how a mad scientist conducted experiments on quantum uncertainty, remembering every variable in his equations, but forgetting safety technique; how time, space and order ended abruptly, for no reason except that they were nothing but an accident in the first place, yet life somehow continued; how God died, or walked away. Whatever mixed up our - our, or merely mine? - present, merged together every possible future, didn't spare the past either. For a split second it felt like though one last push would collapse this crazy jumble of superimposed causes into one true origin, but instead it burned out my brain. And i flipped.
And i drank it, since it was already in my - tentacle? Yes, i had tentacles. A tsawast, this time. The liquid was buttery, light, and tasted like ethanol. It probably wasn't - either you have tentacles or imbibe alcohol, not both. At least this one was powerfully inebriating.
.
Рассказ третий. Тема: randomality.
I drank it, since it was already in my - hand? Yes, i had hands. Human, this time. The liquid was bitter, cold, and tasted like molten basalt. It probably wasn't - either you have hands or imbibe deep-stratum magma, not both. It didn't inebriate, either.
Someone blue, with extra arms and ears, came by. "Not a bad one, i say?" He looked more tired than genuinely excited. A bad chain of here-and-nows, quite likely. "Tolerable" - i said dismissively. And flipped.
Solar wind tore me apart, fighting gravity for the right to govern my momentum. Literally so, shredding me to pieces in seconds - but that was OK, i didn't depend on structural integrity. There was not much to this here-and-now, but the vista impressed me - stellar corona from the inside, viewed in what i guessed must have been X-ray. Maybe UV. I stayed to watch the show until gravity won. Then flipped.
A shell - no, a rock - hit my lower left track, reducing my mobility by 18%. I swirled six of my slings till they glowed from air friction and sent a volley of boulders in the presumed direction of the enemy. None hit. Radar beeped, i ducked, dodging a whip - an uprooted giant liana. The following spiky fist glanced off my carapace, barely denting the armor plating. No efficacy loss, +8.3 minutes repair time after the battle. A lightning-fast counterattack, using 16 of my stone knives as they shattered against the assailant's limbs. The last one went between the charging slots, damaging both his power unit and secondary CPU, disabling him for no less than 18 hours, longer than this free-for-all could possibly last. A blast from below - i didn't know they had tame drillers! Smashed the parasite, but now both right tracks were immobile, and so was i. The outcome was calculable: i barely had time to wonder, now that the inevitable defeat made it pointless to concentrate on the melee, why are superior robots fighting with the most primitive weapons before a sequence of rocks blasted my faceplate, destroying sensors, conduits, then the main processor. I died. And flipped.
He wasn't too handsome, but it was better than studying those damn newts over and over again. For the life of mine, i couldn't understand why don't they procreate. Not that i was going to. His torso was thick, his scales glistened, his gametes i could expel any time i chose, and he gave me more crys than i needed. I needed a lot. Also, he never asked afterwards how good it was - be it sex or high. Speaking of which, shall i do more? Double dose already, that stuff is pretty lethal if you go over, but this here-and-now isn't too amusing anyway, so why not? One, two, here we go! And it hits me: all the lives, existances, worlds, the casual, unthinking flips, the immortality of eternally transient mind, the invulnerability of someone so random it's not a target at all, smaller than a particle, bigger than the universe. How had it started? Even my crystal-clear memory, yes, that's what crys does, that's how it kills you, can not supply the answer. An answer, yes, a multitude thereof - how a sapient race, maybe humans, maybe someone else, got so bent on security, so frightened of this chaotic continuum, that it decided to fight fire with fire, randomality with randomality, and got its final pyrrhic victory; how a mad scientist conducted experiments on quantum uncertainty, remembering every variable in his equations, but forgetting safety technique; how time, space and order ended abruptly, for no reason except that they were nothing but an accident in the first place, yet life somehow continued; how God died, or walked away. Whatever mixed up our - our, or merely mine? - present, merged together every possible future, didn't spare the past either. For a split second it felt like though one last push would collapse this crazy jumble of superimposed causes into one true origin, but instead it burned out my brain. And i flipped.
And i drank it, since it was already in my - tentacle? Yes, i had tentacles. A tsawast, this time. The liquid was buttery, light, and tasted like ethanol. It probably wasn't - either you have tentacles or imbibe alcohol, not both. At least this one was powerfully inebriating.
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Date: 2017-01-25 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-25 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-27 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-27 09:41 am (UTC)