TARA BARNETT

“Write a story about a bumbling apprentice.”

(SEE THE OTHER STORIES: Christian, Allie, Pinky, Olivia)

The most irritating aspect of apprenticeship for John was the prevalence of phrasery. From morning, when he cleaned the stables, to evening, when he also cleaned the stables, he was charged with an endless barrage of cunningly constructed aphorisms:

“Straw bound together cannot be broken.”

“Every moment is the start of the day somewhere.”

“Horses are useful.”

Some were cleverer than others, John thought. Perhaps it was the weight of the many words that made him so incredibly inept at the non-stable related aspects of his apprenticeship. With so much well-crafted dictation surrounding him, he could barely focus when it came time for him to craft his own sentences.

It was the only way to learn to be a poet, he had been told, so he trudged on.

When it came his time to sit with the master poet, John would try to push the cleverness of others out of his mind to make room for his own brilliance. Yet instead of a sonnet, the aphorisms of the other apprentices latched themselves in place firmly in his mind, blocking his own thoughts like thorny branches. Even a haiku would not emerge from his lips.

The master poet simply smiled and asked him to continue, bumbling through the language as he was.

One day, John grew tired of being the constant idiot and he stood, facing the master.

“I cannot think for all the language in this place! Day in and day out, all I hear are sticky words! I can barely think at all! There must be a better place to learn poetry. There must be a place where I will not need to fight so hard to keep the noises out of my head!”

And the master said with a broad and knowing grin, “But John, learning to fight to make your own voice the loudest is precisely why you are here.”

“Transplant a character from a myth/fable/legend into a sci-fi setting. What does it look like?”

(SEE THE OTHER STORIES: Christian, Allie, Pinky, Olivia)

Of course you have heard of the great lady of the lake, Vivienne, who stole her love’s powers and encased him in a stone. He knew, of course, that this was the end they would meet, but with his eyes looking ahead and his path locked in time there was no way to avoid it. He waited, and then was wrapped in stone until he became a great ball orbiting the sun.

Vivienne herself was great and heavy with his power. She took her newfound strength and fled, or perhaps she sent her love away from her. Yet, she did not know that with him she sent us, a great and many worshippers who sit upon his surface.

It is good, of course, that she is far from here. She is an eater, and a destroyer, and a drowner of ships.

We, under the protection of Merlin, will someday see our lord emerge from beneath the stony land. And that is why this planet is named in his honor: Merlin.

“Explain the process behind creating an enchanted portal or gateway.”

(SEE THE OTHER STORIES: Christian, Allie, Pinky, Olivia)

It begins, reliably, with a crack or a break of some sort. We cannot cause it, so we wait for it to appear. The fortress that surrounds it will be erected upon discovery by whatever political agency bears responsibility for that land. In cases of sea or high altitude breaks, responsibility is placed on the agency with the most resources.

The next step is to pull it as far apart as possible. For this, one might use double-strength crystal latches, but these are difficult to manufacture. We have discovered that the application of several layers of quark-sensitive laquer can be used to strengthen the edges, allowing for the use of more traditional crystalline hooks. This has the benefit of being operable by both sensitive and nonsensitive employees, which additionally reduces wage disparity between workers of different species.

Reinforcement is problematic, as it has always been, and the issue is primarily one of multi-generational stability. A gateway cannot be changed once it is created because it is created at all times and places at once. Likewise, repairs must be possible from any entrance or exit. Therefore, the only logical reinforcement is a material that can be found at any terminus: water.

Manual ice programming is difficult, but with the appropriate training, ice manipulation tools can be manufactured in any era and in any dimension. The gateway itself is limited to areas that can sustain the necessary temperature of the portal. In an emergency, temporary flash freezing can be used to stop the decay of a portal.

In a nutshell, that is how a gateway is created. The details are, of course, much more complex. In general, though, that explanation sufficiently covers the concept.

NOTE: I think I was feeling inspired by this blog post by Wil Wheaton about Technobabble. This would make an interesting monologue, probably delivered by a condescending lab worker on a tour of a gateway facility.

“A unicorn is found in an unusual century (1980s, 1920s, but not the Middle Ages). What happens?”

(SEE THE OTHER STORIES: Christian, Allie, Pinky, Olivia)

Honestly, we planted tomatoes to keep the boys abroad in mind. The hunger was not so severe as to justify the gardens. It helped, though, to sow those seeds and take our thoughts off the pain of husbands and sons in trenches. Each little row was a foxhole, and nothing dead sprang up from those holes. For every seed we sent down, it seems a better plant returned.

If there was anything real in the world, it was a tomato. And since I had taken on tomatoes in place of my husband, that seemed a mercy to me.

But there is a limit to every devotion, and a point at which your neighbors begin to talk. Sitting out in the dirt, my hand swept across a bent little one, I could hear them whisper. I dug myself deeper, knees in the dirt like a soldier, and determined myself not to hear.

The day became night at some point, because it was dark when I saw it: late, and long after the neighborhood had gone to bed. I was kneeling over a tiny sprig of green, trying to remember what it was.

When I looked up, I saw a horse, and not any I had seen before. In fact, I had never seen one so white, or one with such a growth upon its poor face. Perhaps that was why it had not been slaughtered with the others. Some little girl perhaps had set this white beauty free.

I stood, and thought I ought to catch it. A better citizen might have caught it. But I couldn’t bear to condemn it to slaughter.

Instead, I closed my eyes and tried to let the image of this quiet animal fill me with hope: some picture of a husband outside the box rather than in it. No white sheets over his head, no blood pouring from his eyes.

But then, though I did not hear its hooves, it was gone. As though an answer to my question, it was gone and my hope with it.

Perhaps if I had killed it, he would have lived.

“Tell the tale of a turning point in a real historical event, but add divine intervention.”

(SEE THE OTHER STORIES: Christian, Allie, Pinky, Olivia)

I will remember the Alamo all the days that I live. It was there that I planted the seed of my own defeat, and it is there that my independence lies (not at the bottom of a contract, as many might have you believe).

I have always held that a man who cannot live his own life should surrender it to another. I have always held that I can live my own life. But there, on my knees before that small ghost, I felt no more in control over myself than the common man in the face of temptation.

The offer was clear: the battle or the war.

I chose the battle.

All that is left is to fill my life with treasure of him. Yet I must wonder if he was true, or if perhaps the devil stole his form? I shall never know. Indeed, all I will ever have is the memory of him, and of that bright night at the Alamo.

“A person obtains (or obtained) limited omniscience, within a range of about 20 yards. What happens?”

(SEE THE OTHER STORIES: Christian, Allie, Pinky, Olivia)

John Gray could hear the sound of the wind on the shutters. He knew the frequency of their vibration, and the exact date of that they would fall from his windows. It had saved him a fortune in preventative care for his home, this gift. When the hour came for their eventual demise, he would simply order them taken away. The servicemen would always say, “Cut it close with this one, Mr. Gray!” and he would smile and reply, “No.”

Mr Gray walked up his stairs, as he knew he would, and held his position for a moment as the cat ran by. “Such a charming illusion,” he thought, watching as it appeared to change its course. He did still enjoy it, even if it was no more than gears in a little black fur purse.

In his library, he sat and stared into the wallpaper. He stretched his mind through the pages of each of his books. He explored what it would be like to open and read each one. Even so, he didn’t bother. Knowing the end did spoil the beginning.

Sometimes John Gray would sit in his home and fast forward through the present and the future instant by instant. Alternatively, he might focus on a room, or just one spot. Usually, he did not move from his armchair, although in the interest of preservation, he did sometimes pace his halls. On December 11th, 2014, a spring would finally poke its way through the velvet like a tiny seedling.

Sometimes John Gray walked to the garden for air. Towards the outer edges, the reach of his omniscient gaze stretched into the neighbor’s house, flooding him with a million undecided moments, their paths fleshing out like an endless torrent of veins on an enormous leaf. He didn’t much like that. In his chair, perfectly centered within his walls, he could feel only the most familiar of stories. It was better that way.

Sometimes John Gray would order in a movie or a book. He would wait anxiously in his chair for the exact moment the item would arrive, for he could not see its approach. Then, the instant it reached his doorstep, he would try to leak its story into himself at a reasonable clip. It was only a moment, but it was fun.

Indeed, though he often ordered in to entertain himself with a minor variable, the one thing John Gray did not do under any circumstances was leave his little home. Outside, too much could happen. Outside, his home would be unattended. How could he be certain of its fate if he could not see everything that ever had or ever would happen in it?

So John Gray stayed home, for in his home alone he was God.

“Write a love story in the form of a sestina using the last words from your stories on the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th as keywords.”

(SEE THE OTHER STORIES: Christian, Allie, Pinky, Olivia)

At first I noticed only the absence above me.
With each blotted aspect of the heavens
I was forced to ask the question:
Who was this dark satellite?
What did he want of me?
That is the subject of my story.

I asked him to come forth and tell his story.
I asked him to come down and talk to me.
And yet it seemed he could not hear me:
“If there is some dark spirit in the heavens,
Let him no longer stand a lonely satellite
For I have some answers and only one question.”

“Only one? Only one question?”
Cried a voice like one from a story.
“Yes, you can see I am your satellite,”
He said, his face suddenly a little visible to me.
“I will come down, but I swear on these heavens,
You will not care for what you see of me.”

“You have taken the light from me,”
I whispered, afraid to ask my question.
He made himself visible, and the very heavens
Swept to his side, story after story,
Like a building towering over me.
And this, I knew, was my bitter satellite.

“So, do you welcome me?” asked the heavenly satellite.
“Do you recognize me?”
And, of course, all I could think about was me.
“I have forgotten my question,”
I said, quickly changing my story
So as not to offend this man made of many heavens.

“I am your stars and your moon and your heavens,”
He said. “I will no longer orbit you like a satellite.
A star is the star of his own story.
But the hole it leaves behind in me
Is not filled by your love. It begs the question:
What lightness there can be between an earthchild and me?”

I can only say that in my story, there was grace from the heavens
For the heavens showed me, an earthchild, grace. My satellite,
My sky, loves me, and I him, without question.

Note: I’m missing one! I’ll put that one up tomorrow. Didn’t want to get further behind! Also, note to self…sestinas are hard to write.