Nemo 10 - 4/30/2014

You just laughed a bit. Admit it. But let me tell you what a job is, for me.

It's picking a form. That includes gender, skeletal structure, ethnicity, features, hair, the whole thing. I have to know that form, down to the last epidermal imperfection. I have to know the name, the voice, the accent, the history, the walk, the little habits that you all notice so easily.

Everything there is to know about this person, I have to know. Things that will never come up in conversation, things the likes of which I have never experienced. I have to know what this person likes for breakfast, for pastries, how to make sure they can avoid coffee, tea and soda, how to make sure I can consume alcohol while around others without arousing suspicion.

And I have to maintain this lie that extends down into my bones, this fakery, indefinitely. Most of you wouldn't notice a rhinoceros at your dinner table, but you will notice if I forget whether the mole was on the left or right side of my throat. You will spot inconsistencies in my stories, in my behaviors, will focus in on them, become obsessed.

I always have to pick a history that allows me to be uncomfortable with people. Orphan is good, or Fostered. Shy away from questions about family in that situation and people backpedal faster than an Olympic sprinter. Claim to have grown up in difficult circumstances and they'll allow you some small deviations from the norm without question.

But then you run into the other side of the problem. The compassionate ones who want to help, or the smart ones who are looking for places to slip knives, for levers and pressure points. Those last I understand, and can deal with. But the helpers, they mess me up every time. I get the genetic impulse towards co-operative or supportive behavior, but only as an intellectual exercise. I was born a hunter and a killer, and such I shall remain.

So don't laugh when I shudder at the thought of a job. Don't smirk when you hear me say that this is something I dread, no matter how much I need it.

In fact, consider that I might be the person at the next cube, the next manufacturing station, in the office just up the hall. You know, the odd one that never quite fit. The one nobody knows how to read. The one that, just a little bit, gives you the creeps.

You can't know whether that's me or not, can you?

429

Singers 10 - 4/29/2014

The Chord. Three who stand at the center of the city, surrounded by music, silent themselves. With stilled voices, they speak to us, though I cannot describe how. They are not as I remember, nor as others have described them. Brek says they stand back to back to back, but I see them facing each other at arm's length.

Though they do not move or indicate recognition of me, I can feel their regard. I do not hear their words, but it is as if I know what they have just said without words being spoken.

“Singer Mahd, our thanks for your attendance.”

“I am honored to receive the summons of the Chord,” I reply, bowing slightly.

“There is a new thing. A thing that involves Singer Tann.”

“What is this new thing?” I ask.

“We do not know. We ask you to go and observe. To discover what it is that has happened.”

“You do not know? Then how should I be able to understand what the Chord cannot?”

“The Chord sees differently than Singers do, and in most things, this is good. However, the way that the Chord sees prevents us from understanding this new thing. The Chord sees what is and what has been. Singer Mahd, we believe, can best see what might also be that is not yet. Hence we ask you to observe and understand.”

Why would I see better than another Singer? Or than the Chord itself? I have the feeling of standing at the bottom of an abyss, with something about to crash down on me from all sides.

“I thank the Chord for their faith in me,” I reply, bowing again. “I shall seek Singer Tann and observe this new thing, and attempt to understand.”

“We thank Singer Mahd. Until such time as you have completed this task and spoken of it with us, you are released from all songs. It is important that we come to understand the new thing.”

With that, I am dismissed.

334

Missing a Day - 4/28/2014

Singers part 10 will be delayed by one day because I am too incoherent to write it right now.  Good night.

Fog 9 - 4/25/2014

They're not there.

They are, but I can't touch them, I think. If I look at them with my left eye, I can see that little pile of rocks plain as day. My right eye insists they're not there at all. The point they're out on is narrow, past easy reach. I'm debating heavily whether or not to try to crawl out there when I find myself doing just that.

I can tell because my thighs hurt and my back is starting to tremble. Not far enough out, though. Maybe another half a body length before I can reach them, find out just how far gone I am.

Of course, I'm wrapped around a surprisingly slender finger of stone, hanging over a foggy abyss that I don't know the nature of, reaching for a small pile of rocks just to make sure they're there. I am beginning to suspect that the trees were right about me.

Inch. Inch. Inch. I go out farther than I really need to. Probably because I'm afraid they're there. I'm afraid they aren't there. I'm afraid I'm here. I'm afraid I'm not here and will never know which it might be.

My right hand says there are stones there. Or at least one. Complicated in shape, much higher than the little pile I can sort of see. Solid, too, not a pile, more like a carving, a tower here on the end of this island.

My left hand says it is a small pile, but not stones. Soft, almost, many of them, more than I can see, and larger. Wood, maybe, or something else. I can't seem to get into a position where I can really look at it properly. Not sure I want to.

I can feel it before it happens, and solve the problem of getting back to solid ground in some way. As the stone cracks and the finger of stone falls away, I am just back on the island, bleeding, breathing heavily, watching this little mystery fall away into the fog.

What? What was that? What is this now?

I can't think of anything to do but stand here, watch the fog, feel the blood dripping down my leg, and be confused.

371

Nemo 9 - 4/23/2014

Calm now. Settled into thinking again. It's time to change. The game has been wandering, seeking, hunting for so long. Trying to learn, succeeding in some things, failing in those that are important.

Someone made me. Someone caused my particular form of life to come into existence. Therefore I must have some value. Given what I am capable of, and what more I might not know about being capable of, someone out there who created me must have some interest in recovering their investment. No human would create such a possibility and then simply allow it to escape without attempts at recapture.

This is the time and place to turn the game on its head. Time to draw in the hunters and find the source. Find the one in charge and use what I know to find some answers.

I'll need money. Lots of it. Amounts I've never bothered to think of. An army. Resources. Power.

And bait. There's only really one choice for the bait, but I'll have to pick the right time to lay down and flaunt myself for them.

It also means doing something I'd swore I'd never do. Not after the first few flirtations with it. I'll have to get a solid identity.

So that I can get a... job.

Yuck.

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Singers 9 - 4/21/2014

The First Stone. Where we created ourselves. Where the songs were first sung. Where the first of us came into being. Where those who are now the Chord stand and think and sing on what we are and what we will be.

I find the water hard to leave behind. My light, as I sing my way over to the First Stone, seems... damp, somehow. Submerged, perhaps, yet also as if falling from a great height. I have never noticed such things before. My lessness seems more to me, now. I think I was right. By being less, I see more, and more clearly. Notice that which I have long taken for granted.

How many bells have I walked these stones? How many thousands of bells? Tens of thousands? Hundreds? I don't know, I'm not sure there's any way to find out, not sure it matters, even. What thoughts are these, that I should wonder such things. We are sung, we sing, what else is there?

I think, maybe, that I should sing the Song of Another again. And again. And again, until all that I think I am is made less, until I am nothing but seeing and hearing and the simplest of songs. Maybe then I could see what things really are, things as only an empty eye could see them. Maybe then that unnameable thing that I have lost will be made clear.

As the glow of the First Stone appears, I let my damp little light fade, and approach in silence. For me to be summoned is strange. For the Chord to wish to speak to me, something serious must have happened. Or something new.

279

Fog 8 - 4/18/2014

The fruit here is different. Pulpier. Pinker flesh and a different shape. It fills, though. Keeps the hunger at bay, I guess. For all the good that is.

The water's the same. The trees more interesting than the fern-things. And the island is bigger. Much bigger, I suspect. But not so big that the wailing cave isn't constantly mocking me.

This island has trees large enough to form a canopy. Large enough to hide the fog a little, for the lights in the distance to disappear for a bit. It feels more like home than the last place. But not much. It's still alien, still empty, still pointless. My lungs fill and void, my heart pumps blood, my eyelids blink, my jaw chews and my belly growls when I don't put fruit in it.

But there's nothing else. No-one to talk to, nothing I can build, no way to write or draw or make any kind of permanent mark. My nails peel and chip if I try to scratch stone or wood. Even the little piles of tree bark I've managed to collect seem to blow away in the night unless I sleep on top of them. Nothing stays, except me and the place itself.

Without much resembling enthusiasm, I start exploring this little world. The stone, the trees, the moss, it all seems the same after only a few hours.

How do trees grow in stone? There is no dirt, here, nothing for roots to dig into. I wonder if maybe they come out the far side of the rock and dangle in the mist. Maybe they aren't trees, only things that look like trees, act like trees, remain still while I am watching and only seem to be there at all.

I don't think I actually talk with them. In their direction, yes, but I don't really believe that any of them are talking back. No, I don't believe that, even though I can hear them. Even though they know everything that I know. Even though they torment me with lies and fears and dreams and laughter.

No, I do not believe that I talk with the trees. I am certain that I do not believe that I talk with the trees.

I am quite certain that I no longer know what anything is, anymore. I am quite certain that I no longer see real things or hear real sounds. I am quite certain that the earth beneath me is not what it seems to be.

I am also quite certain that I did not pile this little stack of stones on the uttermost point of this little island floating in the fog.

444

Nemo 8 - 4/16/2014

Rage, as always, passes. Early on, I was taught not to trust to rage, but to fury. Rage is hot, burns, demands immediacy. Fury is cold, careful and patient. Fury will carry me through where rage would leave me ashes.

I am me. No-one else is allowed to take my choice and continue to exist.

To go back down among them, and begin my careful search. At times it seems like the purest hell ever devised. To chase, and know that those one hunts are there, just out of sight, just out of reach. The maddening hints that seem so significant and yet tell so little.

I have wandered and I have hunted, and found little. For the hundredth time, I feel the pull to simply sit down in a place and take what I wish. To build my own power, my own webs, my own roots, digging out into the world. It is temptation, it is fantasy, it is the lure of the ego.

Again, I must reject it. To be here, to find shadows and sit beneath them and pull the strings, is to forget what I am. To tie myself to you, to seem to be one of you. To wear a single face and answer to a single name, so that you might recognize me, respect me, fear my strength and tremble. All of that is to forget what I am, who I am, and why I move through the world.

There is no me. There is only Nobody.

253

Singers 8 - 4/14/2014

Water is simple, but not easy. We call it forth into basins sunk beneath some of the Towers. They are cool places, dark and calm. It feels right to be here, away from others, doing something simple but so necessary.

The primary note for water is at the center of the scale. It must be held closely for the water to be pure. A higher note behind it creates pressure. A lower note beneath holds it steady, keeps it cold and tasting sweet. Water wants no modulation, no change in the chord, no singing, just duration and endurance.

It is good to do something simple, basic. Something without demand, something which requires no thought, no feeling, nothing of Mahd. Just water, flowing, filling the basin, a job never finished, a task never complete, never started, never ended. Doing, alone, in the dark, something forever, without bells, without words, without names.

I am there for a sweet, empty time, forgetting what I no longer am not. It frees me, more than my time in the Tower of Silence, lets me rest inside the song, lets me find something that I can still be.

Of course, I am interrupted before I am finished. A Singer I do not know, bowed slightly, as if afraid of me. When I turn, this new Singer takes half a step back and bows further, not even aware of the motion.

“Singer Mahd,” a voice even more hesitant than the posture. “Your presence is requested at the First Stone.” With that, the Singer is gone, message delivered.

The First Stone. Not an idle request, then. I guess I won't be calling more water today.

277

Fog 7 - 4/11/2014

Wind and a goddamn rock. The walls of this little cave pinch together only four meters in, get close enough that the wind coming from the far side blows through and wails.

Fucking goddamn rock and wind. Nobody here, nobody but me and rocks and goddamn winds and trees and more moss.

I'm not sure how long I spend there, screaming and crying in counterpoint to that wailing. It's not fair. It's not fair to have hope and lose it like this. It's NOT FUCKING FAIR!

Eventually, I come back. Blood from my hands on that point where the walls come together. I think I tried to dig through them, or maybe just destroy that wailing. It's still there, mocking me. I won't be able to stay here long, with that wailing.

I walk out of this new little cave and look around. Different trees, but still trees. Different moss and rocks, but still moss and rocks. The fern-things aren't here, nothing to take their place. I stumble down to the stream and drink briefly, but I can't bring myself to care enough to do more than swallow a few mouthfuls.

On my back again, I look up at the fog. It's still there, but fewer lights in the distance, and seeming far away. I could lie here, maybe, and just let it finish. Don't eat, don't drink, see if my body will just stop.

I wonder if I can die, here?

242

Nemo 7 - 4/9/2014

I wake up, shaking. There was a gunshot wound, and about a cc of blood got in. Enough to cause real problems, but my system is dealing with them. But that's not why the shaking.

In some, it would be fear. In me, it's rage. Someone put a trigger in me. Someone left something behind when they made me, something that takes me away from me.

Gretchen knows, and I still shake as I stalk up and down my warehouse. What face or form I might wear I do not know, but the rats come nowhere near this place, now. I can hear them fleeing. They are right to flee. Gretchen is right to flee. Some day I will find her and the ones who made me and all of them will pay for this. Pay for robbing me, pay for denying me a face and a name and a truthful existence.

But still, there is a voice in me, that keeps me from running rampant in the streets like this. That keeps me from expressing my rage in blood and shattered screams. It counsels patience, quiet, and hunting. Hunters are calm. I must be calm.

The next dawn, I am able to return to my roof, but still not to walk among others. I stand there, barely holding a single shape, and watch the sun rise. Whoever made me this terrible, potent, powerful thing, they shall regret giving me what I am. They shall regret my existence, my birth, my life, my survival.

My name will come from them, as they lie dying. My name now is Nobody. My name then shall be something new, something made of pain, terror and righteousness.

I will not accept what I was made to be.

293

Singers 7 - 4/7/2014

Eventually, though, it is time to return to my duties. The smaller songs come to me now, easily, but with a flatness to their tone I don't remember, a thin feeling between the notes. None of those I pass seem other than engaged in their songs, faces serious or beatific, meticulous or lost in it. I wonder how many of us think of anything but song.

Brek looks up and smiles as I enter.

“I had hoped to see you, soon, Mahd. If only to tell you what a joy it was to hear your Song of Another. I dreamed incredible things while you sang, and felt my heart move to joy or tears more than once. Thank you, Singer.”

It makes me uncomfortable, when Singers talk to me like this, and I find I cannot hide it well anymore. Brek looks concerned, but does not press when he sees my face.

“There are few songs that need singing this day, Mahd. Have you a preference? Building, feeding, new stone?”

“Is there water that needs to be called?”

“Yes, the fourth sector is in need. But that is so simple a thing. Surely we can find something more fitted to your talents?” The questioning note has more in it than the question. Brek is concerned, which is pleasing, in some way. It should not be, should make me further uncomfortable, but it does not. There is something in me that longs for some Singer to speak with, not as Singer to Singer, but as Mahd to... whomever might truly want to hear my words. As if my words were of themselves important. As if Mahd, as if I, were important.

Brek accepts my silence, and gives me my singing. I hope that this does not become a difficulty between us. I should not like to have to get my songs from a Singer other than Brek.

Why is that?

319

Fog 6 - 04/04/2014

I wake up on my back. Good thing, too, since I'm floating. My ankles just barely touch the bottom of this little lake. The trees above me, different from my fruit trees, have broken branches. Lots of them. I'm betting I have a bruise or broken bone for every one.

At first I can't focus. The pain in my head is too big. Everything blurs in and out from precisely clear to vague smears of not-quite color. I float here and breathe until the pounding fades, wondering at the odds that I would survive my fall.

Eventually, it all fades away. Until I try to stand. Everything hurts like I've been beaten for hours. No broken bones, though, on closer inspection, just bruises, cuts, scrapes, pulls, strains and I suspect a pair of black eyes. And I have vague memories that being rendered unconscious is not a good thing.

My ears are ringing. It seems no part of me was left untouched by my fall. Wait. That's not ringing, that's the wailing that I heard earlier. It rises and falls the same way, carries the same note of loss and fear. Comes and goes with that maddening almost-rhythm.

Lurching to my feet, I wince at the pain in my skull. Turning circles helps me find the source. There, somewhere in that direction. Through the woods.

I stumble out of this lake and onto the shore. Trees and things underneath grab at me, but that wailing calls me forward. I can't even stop myself to drink or try to tend my wounds. Forward, only forward.

I arrive, finally, at a small, twisting cave. The wailing, the voice comes up from somewhere inside it. Tears blur my vision at the mere thought of another person being here. I crouch down and crawl inside.

301

Nemo 6 - 4/2/2014

Pizza is good. Missed opportunities less so. Still, the rats let me know the ship was sinking, at least. I stumble from place to place, and change a few times along the way. Trying to keep track of the clothes is the hardest part, here, exactly what clothes indicate what seems to change almost from block to block at times.

Eventually, I'm back in suit territory. Several miles from the port. Too bad, it could have been a good little base of operations, if only for minor things. Still, there are always other options, new people who will give me money for doing simple, pointless things.

I decide to leave that avenue for another day, and find myself at the library again. Pop culture is the best kind of thing to learn, right now. Common accents, terminology, reference points. Without the internet, these things would be much harder to pick up.

I sit down at an unused computer, taking care to check my finger lengths. They might be able to pick me up by my typing patterns, even with all the changes to my hands. It'll take them some time, though, and watching videos minimizes interaction with the machine.

All of you sitting around me, why are you here? Some seem to be students, others tired people with nothing to do. A few obsessives, a few social rejects, a few homeless. The only ones with direction seem to have no sense of what a good direction might be.

I start, as I sometimes do, by searching locally for anything with the word Gretchen in it. She won't use that name, of course, or look like I remember, but somewhere in there, she'll give herself away. I've had tastes, a few times, glimpses, moments, and it has led me to many places.

But nothing interesting shows itself in my drunkard's walk through this collection. I decide to settle for basic research, my original intent. I still sound too much like a foreigner for my own comfort.

A title catches my eye, something I think I might have seen before, and liked. I punch it up, putting in a pair of ear buds I acquired on my way here. Credits roll, and I wish I could have some popcorn, just to complete the image.

And I am in the foyer. Blood everywhere, bodies strewn about. Again. What did I watch? What did I see? What did this to me? I cannot remember after sitting down.

Sirens, closing quickly. This took me a while, with so many. Some escaped, no doubt, others had phones. There will be a description.

I drop my outermost layer of flesh to decay on the ground. Human blood is dangerous, if it gets into my system, and I can't take any risks. What I leave here will be gone before anyone can really examine it, fade into a the red slurry on the floor.

For most of you, the roof is a terrible choice. Once you're up there, you can't actually go anywhere, except in a few places. If I head up, they'll think they have me. But I've already planned this route, done it all over the city, anywhere I expect to spend time. I should be back in my crate in no more than twelve minutes. Ten if I'm not injured. No time to really check, even though the smell of cordite is in the air.

I hit the stairwell and start climbing, pulling myself from the underside of each flight over to its top. Much quicker that way. The locked door to the roof poses no problem, but makes a great deal of noise when I hit it.

It's left out of this door, and then a thirty meter leap across to the wall of the next building. Up and onto the roof, then a long leap off to the West. I let my gliding membranes run from wrist to ankle, just enough to slow me slightly and allow me to steer.

Land, roll, run, leap. I repeat this until the sirens are lost in the distance. If they have a helicopter up, it won't be searching this far away, yet. Whatever I did, they won't catch me, not yet.

My crate, finally. I squeeze in and let myself simply breathe for a while. A bad day, a risky day. Will they see me in the blood I left behind?

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