The Mayfly - Assessment Short Story.

Long time no see!

So, assessment time is upon is again and I chose to write a steampunk, alternate history love story.

In class we looked at China Mieville's novel The City and the City in which the city in question is split into two cities occupying the same space but not acknowledging eachother. It's a bit hard to explain, here's the wiki.

So, I chose to write about a city which is divided not politically but temporally, meaning that the characters experience time at different speeds with each group ignorant of those who move faster than them. In fact, one group experiences time so slowly, that they only live for one of our days. SImilar to the fact that we know trees get bigger but we never see them actually grow, because it's too slow for us to acknowledge. Hmm, maybe you should just read it, let me know what you think:

 

The Mayfly

She was falling to the ground, her hair out in front of her like ribbons, her eyes locked on mine. I had touched her and she could see me.

She was looking right at me.

I should have moved, hidden, but her gaze held me petrified.  I watched her tumble, I stood by and saw her skirt begin to billow out in front of her. They moved around her, the others, the rumbling rocks. No one had noticed her yet.

But I had.

This one that I had been watching my whole life, who my Elder and his Elder had watched before me, and theirs before that. She was ours, our girl, our reason. My life revolved around her, around this moment. I saw the sign and I had acted, I had reached out and touched her.

 And now she could see me.

She had packed her bags, was carrying her luggage. She had taken her pictures off the wall and her trinkets off the shelf, she wasn’t planning on returning. Before my Elder passed, he told me that he had seen her book her ticket, that she was going to leave and we’d have to go with her.

We were bound to her.

I had watched her leave her house and followed her here, to this place which is full of them, the Dwellers. Their different shapes and sizes, colours and shadows. I looked on, as I do every day, as she took one ponderous step after another, surrounded by those who are like her yet not quite the same.  Their deliberate movements, their thundering speech. They moved around her but did not see what I saw.

She shone among them.

I’ve seen her grow. Spent an age watching her brush her hair or tie her laces. I know all her secrets, the Automon Spider she carries with her that’s been broken for years yet can’t bear to throw away, her grandmother’s engagement ring that she lost and didn’t tell anyone about. I know where it is of course, it had rolled between the floorboards and fell through a crack. It sits there still. She had looked for it for hours.

My Elder told me about the time she had fallen from a wheeler and broken her leg, she had screws in there now. His Elder had seen her trip when she was smaller, bite her lip and draw blood. If you looked closely you could still see the scar there now. She hated it, but for me it linked me to my Elder-Line, they had witnessed the event and I could still see the evidence. It tied me to them.

I knew every line on her face, every mark, scar and freckle. I knew her routines, that she didn’t like strawberries, that she secretly wished she could be a little taller, and that one time she had cut herself just to see what it would feel like. In her almanacs I had read about the first boy she had loved, the one she kept a picture of in her diary. He didn’t know, she never told him.

He didn’t deserve her.

Others had begun to notice she was falling, I saw their eyes pivot toward her. The girl all in red, a battered suitcase in each hand, tipping back on her heels. A lamplighter over near the clacker stand had seen her, he made as if to go to her and break her fall. He wouldn’t make it in time though. Neither would the woman with the cages of bronze birds, little gems and beads lining their wings, clicking and whirring, their tiny eyes lit green. Souls made from cogs and springs.

And through all of this she watched me, her eyes crinkled in confusion. Or in fear.

I looked down at her tickets, the ones I had taken from her hand, embossed and perforated and gold around the edges. There were words on them, a language we didn’t understand. I had panicked, I had had to stop her getting on that airship, it wasn’t the way for her. I had felt it, the premonition, the foreboding feeling, I saw a flash and that had confirmed it.  I was taught to rely on my instincts and it had been my time to act.

I looked up at the airship, creaking on its ropes, the bunting tethered to the ground undulated in the breeze. There was a band on the boarding platform, their brass buttons shone in the noon sun. Above, the propellers cut lazy circles from the heavy summer air and the steering bellows wheezed laboriously. The light glinted off the domed observation windows and mottled on the side sails, it was hard to look right at it.

Everything seemed so perfect.

There were Dwellers up there, hundreds of them, hanging their heads over the railing and waving, smiling and laughing, shouting and singing. I watched the streamers spiral, the confetti rain down around the Dweller crowd. I could have plucked it right out of the air if I had wanted to, but instead I let it fall to my feet, to become muddied in the cobbled puddles.

 

When I looked at her again, she was nearing horizontal, her back straight and her body stiff. The woman with the birds had opened her mouth and was booming, the lamplighter had dropped his torch and was midflight, other Dwellers were turning to look. A sea of moving faces under feathers and hats.

 Yet still she fell.

Then, her eyes left mine and began to roll up into her head.  Through her eyelashes I could see the white crescents, her blinking drummed a rhythm. I saw a tear scribe a smooth arc down her cheek, one and then another. She stayed like this until she hit the floor. They were almost to her, to try and catch her as she fell, to cushion the impact.

But the only one who could have caught her was me.

Her head cracked against the cobbles with a shattering blow, rebounding twice.  The thud was deafening, her neck snapped back and forth, her ringlets uncoiling. A suitcase burst open, her belongings airborne in a leaden parabola. Out tumbled the Spider, its internal cogs and defunct springs flying, catching the sun as it smashed into the ground, it’s visceral mechanics skittering away.

They were beginning to crowd around her, I needed to move. I slipped in between them as they circled her, leaned in over her, concern on their faces. Through their legs I could see her body lift and contort, her jaw bulging as her teeth churned against each other, her hands balled into fists. I saw her tendons tightening in her neck and forearms, the muscles contracting and twisting. The Dwellers around her looked at each other, unsure of what to do.

She hadn’t done this before, it would have been recorded, written down in her almanacs. I had studied them over and over again and there was nothing like that in there. I knew everything about her yet never expected anything like this.

There must have been a reason, or is all this for nothing, a leap of faith into a bottomless pit. I had felt so sure that it had been the time. I glanced wildly around me.

It has to be something around here, somewhere.

I looked up and I saw it, there was smoke coming from the airship. Only the smallest bit at the moment, not enough for them to realise. Wispy spirals too slight to notice, reaching tendrils that gradually bloomed from white to grey to black. A glow permeated the fabric, it was alight inside. There was no explosion, or warning, just a slow creep of illumination, a lumbering blaze, the shuffling death.

I stood transfixed. A butterfly ambled lethargically past me, I could feel the whirring vibrations of its metal wings as it passed.

This was it.

I looked at her again. She lay still, someone was putting a coat under her head. Her eyes were open, but dull and glazed over, staring straight up. The bird woman was holding her hand, her other lay on her forehead. A man in a tall hat had pulled over a talker, the boy looked over their shoulders in concern as the man shouted into the speaking tube, his other finger jammed into his free ear. Another man had begun to take off his jacket.

The smoke had begun to turn black, spiralling skyward. Before long the plumes were haemorrhaging through the breach, the ribs of the ships structure were already beginning to show.  The flames were spreading, the internal luminosity growing in size and intensity. As I watched, a lone piece of ash pirouetted through my gaze, I let it come to rest on my upturned palm, it was still alight.

They began to scream.

 

From my vantage point I could see it all. He who attended her, the Sleeper in red. I had been watching him from the beginning, from my very birth. From the moment I felt the sliding warmth engender me, I became it and it became me.

As a child I had followed him, from that other part of town. The part with the spirals and bridges, and the towers that sit so close to one another and the lights that live inside, behind the coloured glass. They are like me, but different. They glow through metal, harnessed, enslaved, ready to be used again and again, trapped by those who live through the darkness, when the Mother-Sun has gone, the ones who live forever, through countless cycles.

He was down there in the crowd, among them, surrounded by them, the Sleepers. He was going to follow her onto the ship, the one which was packed full of them. They put so much faith in these things, these objects and technologies. They didn’t see what I see, the near misses, the imperceptible wear and tear. They lived too slow for that.

 

I knew it was going to happen, of course, I had watched the air change and the gas leak. It was lighter than the air around it, I watched it escape and then float away, dissipating into the blue. It was so obvious, to me. I had been watching the cogs and pulleys and cams and pistons, I had seen them ever so slightly skip a beat, or change rhythm, move a little off course, misfire.

They never notice, of course.

I had seen the charge begin to build up, the minute spark which would trigger all this. I knew there and then that the time to act was upon me. I had looked over the side, seen him next to her, they were going to climb the tower, pass the band and then board. He needed to be saved and I was ready to do it.

I had watched him until he slowly rotated his head in my direction, before gathering myself and sending out a charge. Nothing too obvious, just a flash, a reflection perhaps, or a spark. A message.

He had seen.

I had floated down for a closer look, to make sure. This close, I could see the panic in his eyes and etched across his face. I watched him begin to circle her, to search her for a way to intercept, a way to change her life-course without her noticing.

By the time I had drifted back up to the ship, the leak had doubled in intensity. I could see the pressure of it as it forced its way through the puncture holes. I could see the air moving with the rising temperature, shimmering ripples of combustion. I could feel its energy, the static in the air, I watched the dancing phosphoresce as it converged across the fabric.

I looked down at him, he was reaching tentatively toward her. I sailed down to them. His hand moving toward hers, carefully as not to touch her unnecessarily. He was going to take the paper tickets which she held pinched between her thumb and forefinger, her others curled around the handle of a case. I watched him for a while as his fingers edged closer and closer towards hers, I was envious of their proximity.

They were almost touching.

I wanted to be part of it, I wanted to feel him like he felt her.

He who made me shine.

I wanted to know what they’d have when they made contact, when he reached to her and they touched. I wanted to share in it, take away its intimacy.

And so, when he was just closing in on her, ready to swipe the tickets out of her hand, I held out my hand and lightly placed it over theirs.

The surge of energy pulsed through me, it hammered at the inside of my chest and jolted down my back. I retreated instantly through the static crackle, electricity flickering on my fingertips

I had bridged the gap.

 I had completed the circuit.

 

I woke up to the sounds of running footsteps. I didn’t understand where I was. My head was pounding, a dull, thudding pain. I could hear voices, screaming. There was something falling from the sky, bits of black paper, a cloud of dust perhaps, I could feel it settling on my face. There was someone holding my hand, a woman. I moved my eyes to look at her, she didn’t see me. She was gazing up at something.

I squeezed her hand, the woman looked down at me.

“She’s awake. You’re ok, just had a fall. Do you think you can walk, we have to move.” There was an edge to her voice.

I nodded, I felt sick. She pulled on my arm and helped me to my feet, slipped her arm around me and under my shoulder.

I could hear the horns of the emergency wheelers, there was something happening.  

“What’s -“

“Don’t try to speak right now, we need to move out of the square,” she began to shuffle me forwards, my head was spinning.

“Why?”

“There’s been an accident.”

I remembered that I had been going to the airship, today was the day that I was leaving for the Islands.  And there was something else...

There were people running everywhere, they bumped into us as they tried to get in or out of the square. I didn’t understand what was happening. My head was still aching, my vision blurry.

There were people crying, shouting. There was a tinge to the air, a taste. I could feel heat pressing through my summer dress and onto my back.

Burning.

I stopped and swung around.  There, suspended from what was once the boarding tower, hung the twisted girders of the airship, like the skeletal remains of some giant insect swathed in fire. I gasped, the scene was like something from the Centre War. Black smoke billowed out of the wreck, diluting the midday sun. There was death in the air.

The sun.

 I remembered. I had seen something, someone, a man.

“Oh Gods, look,” she held her hand out to point, I followed her gaze. There were people jumping from the remains of the ship, a last ditch attempt to escape the engulfing inferno. Some of them were on fire.

A man, a man who had seen me as I fell. A man who was different. A man who moved so fast.

“We have to get out of here,” she said and began pulling at my arm. But I wanted to stay, I wanted to help. I felt...connected to it somehow.

Two wheelermen pushed past me holding a stretcher. The indistinguishable figure on it held its arms up rigidly, the burns so tight around the elbows that they would not bend, charred skin hanging like second sleeves. It was one of the lucky ones, the square was strewn with bodies, pulled out of the wreckage, already dead or deemed without hope, left to go quietly. The wretched meek, scratching pathetically on Death’s door.  

 Yes. I had seen a man, I didn’t recognise him but I knew him. He had been there when I had fainted. I looked for him in the crowd, I’d never find him now.

The airship was now completely in flames, the wood and fabric providing the perfect fuel. The air was filled with ash, it was hard to breathe, many had tied scarves around their faces. The smell of charcoal and burning flesh hung heavy in the air. I tried not to think about it.

 “Come on,” I said to the woman as I tore a strip off my dress and tying it around my mouth. With a sigh she did the same. We pushed further into the square, the heat was almost unbearable even here. We started circling the bodies, checking for signs of life. There weren’t many, most of them had been burnt beyond recognition, their clothes singed and black. This one must have been a child, the rigour mortis bending it into the foetal position it had so recently come from. And here a woman, she still had patches of long blonde hair. I went to move on.

 

Wait. Movement. She was moving.

I bent down, put my cheek near her scorched face, no breath. She moved again, it was under her clothes, I unknotted the fabric at the front of her dress and out shot a tiny hand, clean and perfect.

There was a heaving screech, I looked up. The tower was beginning to collapse. I pulled out the child and ran.

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