Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
Her fingers are young but they feel wrapped in the heft of ancient mountains as she writes. Her nails are blotched with ink but she remembers the taste of the paint, that which she mined from beneath their tips as she thought with the edge of her teeth.
“The trees fatten in the blur and my stop it awaits and I wish never to return to this place”
You cannot remember the sensations you experienced when you awoke, can you? It was like cracking through delicate ice or pushing through a gossamer curtain into this room of fantastical machines and light and sound.
You know you were dead or at the very least that you weren’t in possession of so perfect a hand, that which you now hold to your face. So real isn’t it? Every single pock pore, the smooth meander of your veins. Lick it, taste the salt of your sweat.
“Easy now. The feed is almost complete”, says Professor Jan Drabczyk as he pokes at your face with his pen.
You’re laying on a steel table that has been pivoted until now you all but stand. A strap holds you in place as it loops beneath your breasts and another cups your head in a sling. They are putting things inside you. A slick flow of data and look how it sinks into your being and painlessly settles as if they were thoughts already had.
“We’ve encountered many failures along this road we now set you upon. None of the previous implants took. We were searching for innate intellect, in the notion that those who possessed it could duly comprehend this massive step into the unknown. Nothing worked. Whether it be captains of industry or great scientific minds not a one fully animated, nothing but rage. Until now. Until we took a chance on an artist. A pure creative that saw the world not as we perceive it but as it really is. You that sees the art in my work”
You are confused and the confusion it stings.
“We lifted your essence from a hair follicle, pulled from a comb in a museum in your honor. I chose your eighteen-year-old body. The year of your accident. The event that sculpted the woman you became. No more pain. No more regrets and if at a later date you wish to upgrade to an older version then the institute is more than happy to cover the costs. Just don’t do it too often, these things don’t come cheap”, he splutters slapping the bare skin at her thigh.
You feel it, don’t you? Muscles shriveling in your lower right leg. The fatigue as it oozes its thick wet shawl from this box that spins in your head. Your bones they shatter and you feel the iron rail as it slides through your hip and into your pelvic floor. And the baby you lost its tears flood your eyes and the alcohol stinks when you breath. Come now, lets again pull out the hair from your head by its roots.
“She’s going into rejection. Shut her down. All systems… we fucking had her”
A limbless torso strung from a rack in a warehouse of thousands. Your chest splays and I gloat at the ache in the alloy that holds you like an open cage door. And the residue of the mind that they built stares through eyes that cannot move. For eternity nobody will know or care and we will suffer here in the silence.
Welcome home.
I like that the characters aren’t heavily characterised if that makes sense? You paint really really vivid images of what we need to know, but let the reader personalise it too. It makes it incredibly relatable to. Which is fairly terrifying!
Thank you. I think we all at one time or another have wanted for our dead heroes to live on. To come back and sing or paint or read to us. To have them soothe our pain while they wallow in theirs. Or maybe that’s just me…. 🙂
Haha, nah, definitely not just you!
Interesting imagery.
I’ve noticed that a lot of your flash has been about a woman hurt, being hurt or about to be hurt, where she often has no real agency. I like to think sci-fi is the perfect medium for pushing the envelope for what fiction can investigate, create, and possibly rectify. If we’re not upending the status quo, then we’re simply reinforcing it.
I look forward to reading more of your writing, hoping it pushes the boundaries your talent seems so capable of breaking.
Thank you for your comments, Intagliated. Most all of my writing is based on direct observation. It is my interpretation of how the event was both felt by my characters and perceived by those around them. I have written about sexual abuse a few time in the past and I think its these times you are referring to in regards to the victims having no real agency. I think the helplessness and frustration that is felt by survivors, toward a sometimes indifferent world, is a very real and lingering torment. It is my sincere hope that my characters do not come across as damsels in distress. Rather, it is my intention, through these characters and other gender-less themes such as elder abuse and mental health, to present their suffering as real – so as to encourage empathy. As you say sci-fi, and I believe horror too, has a great capacity for challenging our perceptions. But like anything, the message is not always taken as intended. Thank you again for your kind comments and critique, they are much appreciated and very well received.
My god that was chilling. It was like watching a short film. Your writing is so visual.
Thank you very much Emma Brown. Your comments are much appreciated.
That was disturbing. Great job. Nothing terrifies me more than an afterlife created by humans.
Happy to disturb you, Benjamin. Thank you.
Creative use of language (e.g. “she thought with the edge of her teeth“), interesting juxtaposition of images … and a killer ending.
Thank you David. I just always imagined her lost in her pain biting at her painted nails.
Nice but gruesome flash that kept me reading, and now mulling….good work!
Thanks DJ I’m happy you enjoyed it. Nothing like a good mull 🙂
I love what you did here playing around with this alternate stream of history. Excellent.
Thank you andreavolpe34. I’m glad you picked up on this being a variation on an historical figure. She has always fascinated me.