Office Party (A piece of Flash Fiction for Interzone Advent Calendar)

This has been written for TTA Press's yearly Advent Calendar of Flash Fiction (less than 1500 words...or bang on in my case).  As an avid Interzone subscriber, I've fancied giving this a go for a while.  I hope you enjoy it.

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Office Party

Stephen Whitehead

Distant tinny music filtered along the metal corridors of the Epsilon Class Explorer Vessel, each note collecting a thin coating of rust as it went.  The vast pressure of vacuum caused dissonant groans as the panels of the ship’s skin shifted to bare the load.

Vast pressure of vacuum, she thought, gloomily.  Vast, silent pressure.  Briefly she toyed with the idea of spacing the entire worthless lot of them as they gyrated and flirted their way towards a paralytic coma.

“Christmas...” she sighed.

She’d grown up an Ep-Ex rat, living her entire life in the confined space of a ship designed exclusively to travel as far and as cheap as possible.  Not for her verdant vistas.  Even when they found an interesting spot in the galaxy, she stayed firmly in the cabin which was home, work and comfort.  She flew.  The crew explored.

The crew.  Every three years a new bunch of candidates.  Slung deep through the void on a gravity well and then cruising the solar currents in search of something new, interesting and, preferably, extraordinarily valuable.  Bunch of warp-drive wannabes.  Not one had any idea what their life would become.  They dreamt of glory and adventure but soon realised they’d have to drink away the next three years of their life or go mad in the dark expanse she so loved.

“The child is a King, the Carollers sing,

The old has passed, there's a new beginning...”

Not that drinking your life away was always a bad idea, she thought to herself, head dropping in defeat.

The damp tinsel tacked with hot glue and hope to the bulkheads wafted in the scant airflow afforded by the recirculation unit.  The goldish fronds clumping like some wet animal.

It was at that point her entirely relative calm was broken.

Judd was a typical adventuring space pirate quarterback.  Why a six foot four pile of muscle and teeth would take a job in the cramped confines of a space craft, she couldn't....well, actually, she could guess.  On his bare bicep was a passable representation of the ship complete with the date of departure and, rather optimistically she felt, return.  This was to be his great story.  No doubt he had already picked out the rocking chair from which he would recite great tales of daring do to the hundred or so grandchildren he could already name.  Juddson.  Judd Jnr Jnr.  Juddette.

“Join us!”  He gestured with a foamy bottle of many-times-recycled beer.

“I’d rather not.”  She turned away to the rows of instruments – lights with every right and reason to flash multicoloured.  This, however, did not deter him.

“Captain, I really feel like we've not hit it off like I wish we had...”

She aimed an eyebrow at him, usually enough to send any one of them scurrying.  But not Judd, probably thanks to numbing cheer.  He merely slumped into the worn foam sling-shaped navigator’s perch, his bulky knee thudding against her dainty zero-g adapted joint.

“ I've got a story for you!” he enthused, his face bursting into a sly grin.

“Ooooohhhh...” his face fell and she marginally corrected the nosedive of her response, “...good.”  Her tone didn't rise with any hint of enthusiasm, but a lack of outright threat seemed enough to convince Judd that his story was perhaps the greatest idea he’d ever had.  To be fair, she thought, this could well be the case.

“There was this other Epsilon class a few years back a mate of mine was on, came across a habited world covered in the greenest grass you've ever seen.  Fruit growing everywhere.  Only two species of sentient life on the whole planet – some sea mammals look like bright orange whales filtering algae in the seas – and these furry little primates who harvest fruit on the land.  No biggie, right?  No real trade potential – the algae wasn't bad, but eat a bowl and you end up as orange as the whales.”

Despite herself, the captain snorted – the irony of a drink-flushed boy criticising those of unusual hue was unintentionally hilarious.

“No language, no buildings, no clothes even.  They spent all year wandering around naked eating fruit and getting fat.  They sound simple, right?  But they had this weird orb thing, some kind of computer.”  He flicked idly at a kumquat-sized glittery bauble precariously attached to the main engine core release.  “ Didn't seem to actually do anything for them, but every few days the primates came over and pressed their hand against it,” he let the shiny ball roll against his hand, “and there’s this flash of light and...well...nothing.  Tech guys figured it to be some kind of scanner.”

She was impressed, thinking that the orb would turn out to be a weapon and the story inevitably descend into epic, culminating in an intergalactic battle for Truth, Honour and probably some kind of apple based pudding.

“So, anyway, as they’re observing, winter comes by,” he gestured around at the tinsel, as if it spoke of something as organic as a season,  “and by come by, I mean WHAM, two days later the grass is all sparkly white and even the seas have iced over.  The whales dived deep and entered some kind of hibernation.  But top side is where it gets interesting.”

He leaned closer, voice dropping.  She could smell the stale booze on his breath and the biological results of scant water reserves.  His eyes, though, still sparkled and she found herself unwilling to halt the story.

“When warm, the little guys were all spread out across the land.  But as soon as it got chilly, they scurried back to the orb, clustering around it like it was some great big heater.  And the techs said that yes, it was giving off a faint heat.  Like, maybe, a couple cups of coffee-worth!  But still, they snuggled up close to it, maybe ten thousand of ‘em.  We threw up an IR filter, and sure enough, right at the centre they were warm as an ostrich in clover,”

She blinked, but he didn't pause.  Or explain.

“...and they kept moving, milling around like a mass of electrons circling the nucleus of an atom.  But those little electrons, they started to fade.”

He flicked the sparkly decoration, sending it spiralling around madly.  Light caught and flickered across the room.  Irritated, she grabbed at it, carefully lifted it from the bank of switches, placed it under the heel of her boot, and with one deliberate squeeze, shattered the delicate ball.

He gulped.

“Get on with it, okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbled, suddenly much less sure of himself.  “Er, the ones on the edge started to die.  Just not warm enough, right?  But their friends didn't stop to mourn or bury or burn or whatever.  They just kept moving with three or four dying every hour.    Soon there was a thick wall of furry frozen bodies surrounding this circle of little guys buzzing about.  And the more died, the less the wind got in.  But the less heat they were all producing.  So it kept pretty stable.  And this carried on for well over a hundred cycles, them getting thinner and thinner and the bodies piling up.”

She almost asked why no one did anything to stop this, but everyone knew that you couldn't interfere.  You could convince them to sign away half the wealth of their entire planet in exchange for a plastic singing Santa (and given the distant rendition of ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’, she could almost support that policy), but stop a race from wiping themselves out and suddenly you weren't respecting their cultural autonomy.

“And all the time they kept touching this orb thing.  It was only by the time the numbers were way down, less than a hundred, we realised that the flash of light changed with the different beings.  What’s more, the shorter the flash, the closer to the edge they then went.  The longer the flash, the closer to the centre they stayed.  Until finally only two were left.  And on that day, the winter lifted.  The grass was green in a few hours.  But,” suddenly the greasy smile returned, “there was one thing the pair were left to do...”

She looked at him, could barely bring herself to say it.  “Repopulate the planet?”

His face split open, emanating an horrific glee like radiation.

“Well I thought we might just start with dinner, but OKAY!”

As he leaned towards her, she thrust an arm forward, her nimble fingers catching his flushed nose like a prize salmon.

“All that was some kind of,” she paused, letting sufficient bile rise to colour her words bright green, “COME ON?”

He was struck dumb, the stinging pain of his predicament causing tears to leap to his suddenly fearful eyes.

She sighed, letting go of him abruptly so that he tumbled from his seat and landed in a crumpled mess on the chequer plate deck.

“Christmas.” she muttered under her breath as she left the room.

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2012 - Clippity Cloppity Goat and the Troll

For an audio version, either stream using the player below, or click here for the MP3 file.




Clippity-Cloppity Goat and the Troll under the Bridge.

Clippity-Cloppity Goat was a young kid, and like young kids everywhere he was easily bored.  He liked going out and about, hoping he might find something exciting and different.  But given that he lived in a field, this was pretty difficult.  After all, one patch of grass looks much like the rest.  So one afternoon, with the sun high in the sky, Clippity Cloppity Goat let loose the gate and scampered out along the path.

He felt excited and free.  The sensation was intoxicating and he laughed.  He splashed in puddles, bleated at the goats he saw in other fields and butted trees to show them who's boss (and got a bit of a headache as a result).  But, being a young kid, he soon began to get bored.  And that's when he saw the bridge.

It wasn't a particularly special bridge.  The road above was paved and rutted.  But underneath in the dark, mingled with the burbling noise of the little river the bridge forded, Clippity Cloppity Goat could hear a deathly growl.

Now, it's fair to say that the goat was at least a little nervous.  What could possibly be there?  He'd heard all manner of stories about the weird creatures that lurk in the dark, never going out anywhere.  He'd heard that they were aggressive and hateful and were part of the reason that all the fields around here weren't as green as they used to be.  Wanting to be a big ram, Clippity decided he'd make a point and have a laugh at the same time.

So Clippity Cloppity lived up to his name.  He strutted up to the bridge and Clippity Cloppity-ed his way over top, stamping as hard as he could on the cobbles, whilst shouting in his loudest voice;

Trolls who live under bridges smell
They spend our hard earned cash
Claiming not to be very well

Trolls who live under bridges are bad
They never go to parties
And they never look glad

Trolls who live under bridges deserve to die
They're a waste of space and air
And everything they say's a lie

Of course, as with all people who show off, Clippity Cloppity hadn't actually been paying attention to what he'd been doing.  Somewhere around Verse Two he'd climbed up onto the edge of the bridge and, still stamping, had managed to dislodge one of the stones.  With the final line he gave a great stamp, which echoed.  But as the echo died, the noise was replaced with a scraping and the great block upon which Clippity was stood gave way and the young goat was thrown down into the cold water below!

He scrambled about in the river, choking and crying in fear.  You see, he'd grown up in a field all his life and he'd never had anything to do with water deeper than a puddle.  He couldn't swim!  He shouted out for help, not really expecting any reply, but he was desperate!  What could possibly save him?

It was then he heard it.  The growling noise had stopped, and in its place there was a calm and gentle voice talking to him.

"Relax little one." said the Troll, his voice deep and tired-sounding, "I know this river well - I've watched it every day for years - and you've fallen on the shallowest part.  If you relax and put your hooves down, you should be able to stand on the bottom."

Clippity Cloppity, gasping and thrashing, was almost too scared to take this in, but there was something about the calm, caring voice that made him trust it and he stuck his feet down, throwing his head up.  And the Troll was right - he could stand on the bottom!  And although the water was very cold and the current quite fast, he was able to walk towards the deep voice.  As he neared it, the water got shallower and shallower, until he was, at last, out of the river and shivering on the bank.

Blinking the water out of his long lashes, the goat looked around him.  His eyes were used to the bright sunshine on shiny grass, but under the bridge everything seemed shades of black and green.  Eventually, though, his eyes adapted and he could make out a large shape comfortably ensconced in an alcove.  The hard stone was padded with great blankets and pillows as big as a Ram.  The Troll himself looked very strange, having many features which were unlike those of any goat.  Clippity felt scared, but he was too tired and cold to just run away.

"Who are you?" Clippity stammered.

Looming out of the darkness, the Troll's face slowly became distinguishable.  It certainly wasn't the kind of face Clippity was used to seeing.  And being a young kid, he saw lots and lots of faces.  In fact, he thought the world was made entirely of the kind of faces he was used to seeing.  So he felt scared.  And yet, the face did not seem angry.  And the more he looked at it, the less scared he became.

"I'm Arnold" said the Troll.  And this surprised the little goat, as Arnold seemed like the least scary name he could imagine.  Arnolds should not live under dark bridges.

"What are you doing here?" asked the inquisitive little goat, his whiskers twitching in curiosity.

"I live here" breathed the troll, the growl of his voice distant like far off thunder.  "I am not able to leave the shade of this bridge because the sun hurts me.  I was born differently to you.  My limbs won't hold my weight.  So I stay here on my own."

"On your own!" exclaimed Clippity.  He had been away from his herd-mates only a few hours, and yet already he felt the distance between them and longed to return to his lush, green field and be surrounded by all the people who made him feel safe.  "It's weird not wanting to be around people." he declared, stamping a little hoof on the muddy bank, the damp little clop echoing in the dark spaces above him.

"But I do want to be around people.  I do talk to people."  The troll gestured to the water, one huge hand skidding across the silver surface.  "My friends all live along the river and we send messages in the water.  Just this morning, my good friend Emma wrote me a lovely letter on the back of an oak leaf.  I fished it out with this."  He produced a willow wand, at the end of which was a simply lashed hoop, criss-crossed with bind-weed.  "All of my friends are in the net."

And he was right.  Clippity watched open-mouthed as Arnold up-ended the net, letting leaves, bark and sticks rain out on to the floor.  Each one was inscribed and marked - some times with text, sometimes with pictures.  One particularly beautiful silver-birch twig was even decorated with multi-coloured flowers.

At this very moment, a sand martin swooped low over the water, its sharp, pointed wings skimming the surface.  It caught a fly, swallowed as it banked, and came around again, calling as it passed.

Arnold's face screwed up and he chuckled as only a troll could.  The hair on Clippity's neck stood on end.  Eventually Arnold explained "As well as the net, we have learnt to communicate through birds who send our messages.  In return, we keep the bridges clean and tidy for their nests and keep them safe from predators.  It's useful being able to 'tweet' a friend, especially if they live up-stream...."

"But it's not right being stuck in one place."  Clippity continued, feeling, though, that perhaps the things he'd heard might not be entirely true.  He was also intensely aware that for all his short life he'd been stuck in the same field.  It was only today that he'd finally broken free to see more of the world.  And he guessed that soon he'd have to get back.  It was hard to tell in the darkness under the bridge, but the sky outside seemed to be getting darker.  He would be able to find his way back in the dark, wouldn't he...?

"Stuck in one place?" Arnold said, with surprise in his heavy voice "As well as the messages I receive from my friends, I can watch the entire world go by on the river.  I can smell the mountain soil on the water after heavy rain has washed it down to the sea.  I can watch the cherry-blossom float on the surface when there's a strong April wind.  I hear the trout splashing on its journey between river-bed and sea-deep.  What am I missing?"

And Clippity could not answer.  Although not able to join in with the same games all the other goats enjoyed, Arnold clearly was the same as he.  They both enjoyed talking with their friends, watching all the creatures around them, and the smell of the world after rain.  And they were pretty important things.  But still...

"Why do people think you're so scary, then?" asked Clippity, sitting down in a comfy spot as he looked up at his new friend and listened, patiently.

"I have to sleep a lot during the day.  Whenever people come along, it's likely that I'll be snoring.  And when I snore, people go away, scared.  I can't help it.  If only they'd stop and wait, I'd wake up and they'd see I wasn't to be feared."

Clippity saw a big tear well in the dark eye of the troll.  With a small 'plink', the tear fell into the river.  Perhaps, Clippity thought, another troll might notice it and send a bird to check that everything was alright.  But just in case, Clippity nuzzled the great troll gently.

"I'm sorry," he said "I just didn't know."

The great Troll patted the little goat on his bristly head and said, gently, "It's alright, little one.  It is normal to be scared of the things we don't understand.  What isn't right is to ignore reality and truth when we see it.  It's not right to make up hateful stories.  But you have found the truth and understood it.  That is the meaning of all great quests."

Clippity felt a huge sense of pride, but whilst his heart was full and warm, he shivered against the cold wind which whistled under the bridge and, when he turned back, he was shocked to see that the world had turned dark behind him.

"Oh no!" he cried, "It's got late and dark and I don't know my way home!"

Clippity began to cry, far more scared now than he had been when he'd heard the snoring of a hidden troll.  How on earth would he find his way back to his family and friends?

But the troll patted the kid again and quickly reached for one of his stores of dried leaves and delicately wrote a note on it.  This was placed, gently, into the water where it was quickly taken away by the fast flow.  He then carefully tapped on two of the martin nests which were dug from the fragile bank of the stream.  In a strange language he spoke to the birds who had been resting, and, like bullets from a gun, they flew out into the air and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

But Clippity hardly noticed this.  His vision was clouded by tears and his body felt trapped - trapped under a water of despair and floundering as surely as he had when he fell into the river.  He shivered again.

He gasped with shock when a heavy weight of wool fell around him.  Arnold was making for him a bed of his own blankets and pillows.  Too upset to say anything, Clippity collapsed onto the soft space and, very soon, was snoring almost as loudly as the big troll who was now his friend.

--

Clippity awoke with a start.  He was scared because he didn't know where he was.  But soon he remembered and once again was overcome with remorse and upset.  At that moment, however, he heard a familiar sound.  It was the clank and clamour of a rough bell.  The bell he knew so well.  It was the bell that, for all his life, had been tied around the neck of his mother.  And here she was, appearing in the glow of the fire Arnold had built especially to keep little Clippity warm.

"There you are, you young rascal!" she called.  "If it wasn't for your new friend, we'd never have found you.  Thank you, sir," she said, bowing her head slightly with a rattle from the bell, "We'll never be able to repay you for keeping our little one safe."

The troll shrugged, "It wasn't really me, I just sent out a message.  My fellow trolls had heard young Clippity in the woods and, later, had heard your folk searching for him.  With the help of our birds, we were able to track you down and guide you."

And so, with a sleepy backward glance at his new friend, Clippity made his way back home under the watchful eye of his mother (who would later have many things to say about going off on your own and the real dangers of the wood which would make a troll look like a kitten).  But from then on Clippity knew that wherever he was, he was never alone.  Even in the dark places and where people seemed strange and different, there was always a good chance that there would be things shared and commonly valued.  He understood the difference between 'different' and 'bad'.  And he also knew that, whatever he did in the coming years, he would set out to find truth and understanding and never to give in to fear.  Because truth and trust would keep you safe even when the night falls.

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2012 - Intro

For an audio version, either stream using the player below, or click here for the MP3 file.



I've been thinking about trolls lately; those Scandinavian beasts of mythology.  Blame it on my recent viewing of the fabulous Troll Hunter, a sharp comedy which is very much worth watching.  But that's not quite what I want to write about on this, Blogging Against Disablism Day 2012.

I believe strongly that we live our lives through the rules of stories.  Fables, religious texts, soap operas - they all use story to teach us about events we may face through sometimes heavily veiled yet strongly appropriate examples.  As we grow, the stories continue.  We've seen in the last few years a massive increase in the number of newspaper headlines denigrating the disabled.  With them has come a number of set stories - the person claiming benefits who runs a marathon, the blue badge user who drives a Merc, the heroic military amputee overcoming injury...

This makes it very difficult to be a normal disabled person.  That might sound silly - obviously no disabled person has an easy life...I mean, they're disabled.  But, when you're new to it all, looking into this mass of negative stereotypes, how can you assume that identity with a good heart?  It'd be like an electrician watching 'When Cowboy Tradespeople Make Old Ladies Cry' only to exclaim after the first grief stricken segway into advert break 'I'm a tradesperson too!'.

There was a documentary last year - Katie and Her Beautiful Friends.  The documentary looked at people who had various disfigurements.  The idea was that Katie helped these people to grow and become confident and assume a position as ambassador to other people dealing with disfigurement.  There were some great people on there, but none who would (at least on screen) identify as disabled*.  How could they?  The position they were aiming to fill has nothing to do with the story of disability we currently see everywhere.  These people were going out, facing the world, working and achieving.  Admirable achievements, to be sure.  But it precludes them from the story of disability.

I recently had a reply to a letter I sent to a member of parliament.  I will keep it (and their name) private, but at the end of said letter, the MP said

In order to better public perceptions of disability, you need to get out and about and show the world how great you are.

I paraphrase to make it significantly less long winded.  But the message is clear.  Disability in the traditional storybook sense is not appropriate.  We hide away in the dark.  We are trolls - not human, not attractive, not worthwhile.  The only way we can be worthy of not being abused (which was the point I'd made in my letter) is to recreate who we are by flinging aside any impediment and parading through the streets, bursting into song and, preferably, saving small kittens from trees whilst climbing the nearest mountain.

I disagree.  Rather than change who we are (which is impossible...) we need to change the stories.  We need to rewrite the nursery rhymes.  They are the foundation block of all narrative we use today (including newspaper headlines, government statements, etc) and how we learn morality.  And all of this is, I believe, a moral issue.

So in my second post (I thought I should break them up to save you from overload) I will rewrite the Troll Fairytale.  I suggest you print out a copy for any passing parents you see.




*it's important to note, of course, that this might have nothing to do with the people involved.  It's entirely possible that this was done in editing.  It's also important to say how much good the people and the programme did.  It's just a shame that their positive story isn't really related to disability, even though some of the injuries are certainly physically disabling and, of course, that societal reactions to disfigurement are, and always has been, disabling.