In September 2010, 12 aspiring comics writers from North America and Australia completed Andy Schmidt's "Introduction to Comics Writing" course, producing original five-page stories. The writers then worked with artists from literally all over the globe to create Out of Our Minds: Tales from the Comics Experience.
It's available for purchase at:
http://www.indyplanet.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5687
Chapter 7 - Heart to Hart
Ms. Hart, The Hell Hart, that was what she was called over two hundred years ago. Two centuries ago, no one would have believed she would be tending someone near to death, praying for their recovery. Then, her reputation as a swords-woman, in an age where women did not use a sword was legendary. Her skill with it, impeccable, her dueling record, perfect. After a time, her travels would make her master of many weapons and nearly as many enemies. If you saw her standing over the body of someone, it was to watch the light go out of their eyes in that final darkness.
Driven regularly from her home, partially from her strange, ageless and impertinent nature, partially from the fear and responses her enemies had, she acquired a number of names over the decades. In civilized lands, she was The Lady Hart or Frau Hart. In places where she was a warlord, she was known as The Red Hart from her standard, a large deer on a red standard. In places where she killed her enemies indiscriminately, she was called The Butcher. For a time, she was a revered as a warrior-queen.
Those were different times, her Light, her power kept her outside of Time. Forged of the stuff of cacastrom, the random forces of dark Chaos and bound by illiaster, the stuff of Order, direct by her will, she carried it inside her body. It suffused her bones, wrapped itself inside her skeleton and appeared as both weapon and armor. Her House carried this artifact and different members were able to do different things with it. Few had her strength and mastery. Ever fewer survived. Now, she was the last of her House. And as she knew it the last of her kind.
Her charge, a woman of extreme age, was still physically imposing but the power that fueled her body was all but gone. She held on by force of will, hoping relief would be coming soon. That relief needed to arrive soon, or all would be lost. Hart remembered the first time she met her, this once extremely powerful and now fragile woman who held the fate of the world in her trembling hand...
* * *
My best name was less than seventy years ago; Kathrin Hart. It was the late 1940's, and I had been in Paris during the World War II, when I met him, the man who I would call the Sergeant. He was a G.I. working in a small town and our initial actions together had been to repel a super-weapon created by the Germans. At the time, I was a weapon of the Reich as well, but my memory fled me until I died. I died protecting him. I had no regret. There was something about him. Something dark. I instinctively knew then what he was, but could not bring myself to accept it.
He did not know. He could not see the other lives he had lived. Like rings in a tree, he had many lifetimes, each of conflict, and of suffering. He had many, each renewed by his dark connection to his power. Our powers were complementary, so we were drawn together, time and time again, our lives mixed sometimes as lovers and other times as deadly enemies. This time we started as enemies and ended as lovers. When the war ended, I found my way to him in the States and we married. Again. It was the beginnings of a mistake. Small at first, but it grew over time.
My presence, my Heart, my Light, triggered his Shadow and soon we had to move This would become a recurrent theme. Each time we grew comfortable, misfortune would follow us and people died. As his power grew I realized he was not just a child of Shadow. He was a Power. A repository of the Great Gift. As great as my power had been, it would be as nothing once his fully awakened. His power was a named one. And as I watched it grow, I refused to recognize it. And the danger it would pose.
During the sixties, we resisted the oppressive governments wherever we could go. We pretended we were just like the people around us. We let our hair grow long, let our responsibilities lapse and got on the road, traveling as the people did. His powers were already nearly as great as my own. He could walk between two shadows anywhere in the world. He could hear his name mentioned anywhere there was darkness. But in a desperate attempt to hide we went to Woodstock. At Woodstock, we laughed, got high, traveled in a broken-down VW bus with half a dozen other hippies, made our way through history until we met her.
She was beautiful. Her hair was an afro, full like the head of a dandelion. Her body, perfect, full, exuding sexuality, everywhere she moved, carnality erupted. She wore a simple halter and shorts and I remember her legs were the most amazing I had ever seen. Her body was brown like mahogany and her smile was a thing of warmth and sunshine. We were both drawn to her and we spent the days getting high and just enjoying the perfect weather.
We danced, sang and it was as if we had always known her. We lost our hippy friends during the weekend, so we spent the nights parked, making love till the dawn. When he and I woke the last day, she was gone, but both of us were more at peace than we had been in years. After Woodstock, things changed in the world. Suspicion and fear became the order of the day. But for us, things seemed good. We were happy for a time able to enjoy our peace until she came back to us, nearly a decade later.
Her second visit was nothing like her first.
She came to us on a farm in Iowa. We had moved there hoping for a cessation to the slowly increasing attacks. These were strange things, they started as simple things, racists with an axe to grind. I was a blond haired, Caucasian woman and he was a powerfully built African American. And things were often hostile when we came to new places. But the tempers did not cool. Their ire and their attacks increased. Soon a supernatural taint could be seen. Entities, not of this world rode the bodies of those racists and eventually attacked directly. Our farm, built and reinforced, protected us from their attacks and became both home and fortress.
And then she came.
It was during a terrible thunderstorm, where lightning flashed, tornado-like winds howled. Both of us were on edge. The storm sang of the supernatural and we began our preparations. We renewed our wards, loaded weapons and meditated to bring our powers into balance. The storm grew worse and after a time, we sensed it approaching our farm. As the wind howling increased, we could sense her. She carried the storm with her. Her knock on the door was powerful, able to be heard above the storm. When we opened the door, we recognized her immediately. She had not changed, as if less than a second had past between when she left us then and now. She was carrying a child with her.
She came in from the driving rain and staggered into the living room. She handed me the baby, roughly as if she could barely maintain her awareness. She dropped to the carpet as if she were dead. He caught her and laid her gently on her back. Hidden by the baby were terrible slashes in her belly. Deep cuts, with razor precision. He looked at me and knew whatever was coming was of a nature more fantastic than any threat to date.
He picked her up and struggled as if she were a great weight. He placed her on the sofa. I slashed away her jacket and opened her shirt and saw her body had been terribly savaged and the injuries were across her thighs and back as well. Whatever did this was powerful and large. The claws were the size of his hands. He rewrapped the child while I tended her wounds. We both had significant experience with injuries and often worked as doctors or paramedics depending on where we lived. The child was about six months old and in perfect condition. After checking him out and satisfied to his health, we made ready. Whatever drove her here would follow. Soon.
When they came we saw them slowly approaching the house. They were wolves the size of horses. Their mouths showed their razor sharp fangs, already bloody, each drip accented by the flashes of lightning, growing steadily more frequent, lasting longer and the crashing of thunder indicating the storm was directly overhead, no time between light and noise. With all the noise the strangest thing was the fact the child did not make a sound. As if lightning was something he was used to hearing.
My crazy husband walked out onto the porch with a shotgun, filled with a mix of silver, lead, iron and salt in one hand and a rune-carved machete in the other. "Stay here. Keep them safe. I will be right back."
He walked out there and the three giant wolves strode up to him within twenty feet and stopped. They were easily nine feet at the shoulder. It was simply impossible they should exist.
"We don't want any trouble." As if talking to giant wolves was something he did every day. I sat with my Winchester rifle pointed out of the window.
"Give us the woman and the child and we will leave."
"Can't do that."
"Then, there will be... trouble."
My husband said nothing, but his body tensed imperceptibly, waiting for them to gather their courage. They seemed to sense his power and were in their way, cowed by it.
The wolf to his left bared his fangs and hissed. "Is that your final offer? Would you make her trouble your own? You already have many."
"Yep."
"Then die." As the wolf lunged, both barrels of the shotgun were shoved directly into its mouth, went off. It howled as it threw its head back, and smoke rose from its mouth as it fell into the rain.
"You, first."
He turned exuding a crazy menace, smiled and asked to the remaining wolves, "Who's next?" Dropping the shotgun into the rain, he turns and faces the remaining two.
The second wolf, as large as the first lunged forward and my .380 caught it cleanly in the eye. Ensorcelled, it tore through the creature's ironhard flesh and ground its brain into mush as the round scattered inside of its skull. It dropped dead without a sound.
While the second wolf was falling to the ground, he leapt out of the way of the dying giant and his machete flashed against the hardened fur of the third wolf. Its stiff, iron-like fur blunting the force of his blow. Blood came away on the blade, just the same. The wolf surprised, bound backward.
"Die, mortal man." The last wolf braced itself and howled in his direction, focusing its sound like a weapon. The force of the sound shattered all of the glass in the house turning it instantly into the room as shrapnel.
I moved. Time slowed for me, directed by my power, I could see the glass, each shard of it as it moved into the room. My Winchester fell from my grip and my spear appeared, a function of my will. I could perceive those that would be a threat and struck them from the air with my spear, which had appeared in my hand, extending my reach. The wide bladed tip swatting away each projectile. I was struck by dozens of them, each of them trying to gain a purchase, most deflected by my armor, a few penetrating, but nothing stopped my focus, nothing stopped my execution. I did not know this woman but I knew it was important to save her.
He had thrown himself to the ground at the last second, so the wave of sound passed over him, but even a glancing blow had been deadly enough. He was stripped nearly bare by the sound, lacerations crossed his entire body. Only tattered rags remained. I was put in mind of when he found me, walking away from a plane crash, I must have looked like that to him. He stood up, and snatched his machete out of the ground.
He touched the Nordic runes and raised the blade to the heavens. Lightning flowed down to him and connected the sword, casting light everywhere and dark silhouettes. He disappeared from sight, and reappeared in the shadow of the beast. Lightning redirected itself between where he was to where he now stood. The wolf was in the path. Jumping into the air, he stabs the sword into the side of the beast as the lightning finds them both. He is thrown away from the explosion.
The lightning abruptly stopped. The rain subsided soon after. The woman lay quietly, her breathing slowed, the child lay next to her, blissfully unaware of what happened. I got up, after removing shards of glass from by body and walked to the window. I could see my husband getting up, smoke still rising from his body. He turned and began to stagger toward me. I flew to him. He was still hot and he shone with a quiet luminescence. While we walked back to the house, the door opened up and the woman was there holding the child in her arms.
"We cannot stay here. Others will follow."
"Who are you, what did they want, and why is it every time we meet, I end up naked." His words were jocular, but his tone serious. These were questions he wanted answers to, now.
"My name is Gaia. And this," holding the baby out for a second, "is your son."
Equinox © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]
A Tale of New Earth
"Now don't get too close, Martha. We just want a picture of you and the trees." My hands were shaking as I took the picture of my wife next to these very special trees. We had read about them in the lastest issue of Life Magazine. The article was called "The Predator Trees of Nassau County."
She was sure to stay at the line drawn around the creatures which was emitted by a special system of lasers, which also doubled as a defensive array for tourists who did not pay attention. Martha wasn't that kind of tourist. She paid close attention and never strayed inside the line.
A couple of the trees were very active that afternoon and had slashed out with one of their acid covered tentacles. The lasers fired clipping the ends and kept the trees from reaching her. The tentacles were scooped up and properly handled by a service robot.
There was a kiosk there and we listened to when they first fell to Earth ten years ago, they swarmed over the planet eating everything in sight. Mankind had been on the edge of extinction until they stopped eating humanity and turned on each other.
Humans had tried any number of foolish things, but anything we did only caused them to grow faster. We lost parts of China, Africa and the West Coast of the United States when we tried to use nuclear weapons. The creatures created spores and proliferated at ten times their normal rates. When they began to eat each other, humanity breathed a sigh of relief. But their populations did not diminish. So anyplace that had been overrun stayed that way.
Both Martha and I had lost our previous mates during the early attacks and were lucky enough to find each other when we managed to escape the Arizona Wall built to keep them behind it. We couldn't get far away enough and eventually found ourselves in Long Island, New York in Nassau County. There weren't too many of the creatures left in parts of the world where nukes weren't used and now with the surplusses of food and resources, no one had to work unless they wanted to. Plenty did. I worked as a photographer, gathering information about the walled cities and with Martha and the kids riding shotgun, and gun turrets, we cruise the midwest bringing news and resources to isolated communities.
Martha and I are now in our sixties and don't think we have much time left, so we are teaching the kids our route so they can help keep the roads clear and sharing information between the cities on the oceans and the middle of the continent.
Martha always wants to stake out a tree when we find them because of the strangest thing. Predator trees have a habit of attracting cats. The cats come to the trees, sit down on the branches and fall asleep. The trees wrap them in a cocoon and absorb the flesh, leaving the skeletons wrapped in the trees. Once the cilia are removed the skeletons are often posed in strange positions. She takes different pictures of them and collects them. Sometimes she will wait until a cat shows up and will try to rescue them from their fate. They do not seem to be able to resist, likely a spore-based pheromone.
We came to this tree because there was supposed to be a cat living in harmony with these particular trees.
"There he is," she said. "A big Tom. He is carrying something." My eyes weren't what they used to be, so I pulled out my binoculars and could see it was a large rat. He dropped it near the base of the tree and then proceeded to climb to the limbs near the middle of the tree. He deftly dodges the poisonous tentacles, though a few seemed to move out of his way as he reaches his perch, a wide strong limb. He hunkers down and proceeds to go to sleep.
"I don't believe what I am seeing." Martha has her video camera and leaves it on overnight. It is designed to lock on and autofocus as necessary. The predation process is supposed to take only a single night. "He will be dead by morning."
We camp out and snuggle while the kids take turn from the truck. The trees, attracted to our body heat, move during the night but a few taps from the laser turret and they return to slavering quietly.
Martha woke before I did and saw the impossible. The black Tom climbed down the tree, ran off into the woods, quite alive. "Now I can die 'cause I have seen everything. A cat that is good for something."
"I don't understand." I was still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
"The reason there aren't more trees here, is the cat gives them enough food to stay mobile, not enough food to breed. Since there were very few people living here, they never got enough to eat to reproduce." The people of Long Island fled the very night the creatures landed in New York proper.
"The world's remaining scientists have been doing everything in their power to eradicate them and everything we do just makes it worse. A damn fool cat figures out, all we have to do is feed them enough till they take root. Look at them. They have the coloration of first arrivals. They have been here for over ten years and have never spread."
"Don't that beat all. Until today, I would have said there was nothing I could have learned from a cat." Seeing cat skeletons in predator trees for nearly a decade, I always assumed it would always be that way.
The Tom comes back with another rat and gingerly drops it in the same spot. He climbs back into the tree and stares at us. The look seemed to say, "Okay, now go tell somebody and get the hell out of here."
Who was I to argue with someone smarter than me? We got in the truck, took a few more pictures and started heading out toward Jersey. The trees and cat cast long shadows in the early morning light. They followed us west.
The Predator Trees of Nassau County © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]
Chapter 6 - Loa
"Did you understand me, child? Remember."
The voice that spoke to me was as much of a question as why I woke with a mouth full of sand, in a place hotter than Hell. Okay, one question at a time. Where was I? Face down, I could notice I was seeing sand. White, dry, hot. Sun overhead and been so for quite some time. Clothes were the last ones I remember, stylish and inappropriate for desert walking.
I slowly rose to my feet, but stopped somewhere between kneeling and standing, a bit dizzy and realizing I was terribly thirsty. Doing a quick check, I noted no injuries, I was armed with two silvered 9mm pistols and silvered bullets with high quality loads. Strong enough to drop almost anything. There were runic scripts on each bullet increasing their efficacy. So whoever dropped me here wanted me to be able to shoot and kill almost anything that lived and a bunch of things that bordered the boundaries between life and death.
Looking around, I noticed a dark wide brimmed hat sitting on the sand nearby. I felt I should recognize it. It was on the tip of my tongue. I had the distinct impression that there was something I should be remembering right now. Something so important my life depended on it.
"Don't say that name."
I heard it as clear as if someone had spoken aloud, but I didn't see anyone for miles. I mentioned that I was standing in a desert. No people in any direction. No shade either. So, who said that?
"Don't say the name of anyone you remember while we walk. You are able to be here because you do not remember anyone or anything. Names have power. Yours has greater power than most. For now we shall call you Adam."
"Okay, so who are you and how can you be talking to me?"
"I am on the ground in front of you. You perceive me as a common article of clothing."
"You mean this hat? Yes, you look like a very common, if a bit unstylish hat."
"I will have you know I am a very uncommon and quite stylish hat. If you were around three hundred years ago." The hat's tone was less than conciliatory as if it was trying to appease a less than intelligent houseplant.
"Put me on. You will need protection from the sun."
"Do I have to?"
"No, you could stand out here until your brain fries, you remember who you are, shout out the Names of people who should remain forgotten for a bit longer, attract the people who are trying to kill you, and get me killed trying to fruitlessly protect someone too stupid to put on a hat to prevent sunstroke. I think that is sound reasoning. I'll wait here."
How did I know I wasn't already past the point of common madness? Wasn't I out in the middle of a desert I did not recognize arguing with what I believed to be an acerbic and style-impaired hat? Well, if I was crazed, I couldn't be any worse off for having a tiny bit of shade in this blazing damn desert.
I picked up the hat. It was heavy. Made from a thick leather, no sand adhered to it and I turned it around in my hand. It was black. Completely black, where I expected shadows, it seemed to become even darker. Then I looked at my own shadow and realized what was wrong with the hat. It cast no shadows. My hand appeared to be empty and holding nothing.
I put it on and just like that, neither of us cast a shadow. And I was a whole lot cooler as well. As hats go, a lack of style had to fall by the wayside when you can knock twenty degrees right out of the air. Relief.
"Go that way." The hat's command caused a tingling sensation off to my right. I understood intuitively what it meant. "While I cannot tell you much about how you got here, Adam, I must tell you this. You are special. A person so special there are only a few dozen like you on the entire planet at any given time. Right now, you are unique and a number of people want you dead. We cannot allow that to happen. We are on our way to see a person who, while he will not be happy to see you, will want to help you because he has no choice."
"Um, I have to ask, if we are coercing him into helping us, won't that make him resentful and maybe kill us too?"
"That is true. And it is even more likely he has already been treating with our enemies. But we have something he wants and needs. And to get it back, he would do almost anything."
I stopped walking for a moment. Sand is hard to walk in and my feet were already cramping. I looked in my pockets and noticed nothing but a few extra clips of ammunition, a nutrition bar I eyed hungrily, but reasoned I had no idea when my next meal might be, so I put it back. No wallet. No ID. Nice jacket and dual holsters for guns. I did not see anything I had I could bargain with for my potential benefactor to consider helping me. Maybe he liked boots. The ones I was wearing were heavy, shiny and black. Very comfortable.
"Okay, so I just took inventory and I don't see anything I have to haggle with unless he has a penchant for really well made, magical firearms or very comfortable footwear."
There was a series of strange sounds, that took me a minute to realize were laughter. When the hat stopped laughing, it said, "No, you don't have anything he would want, but when the time comes, you are to offer me in trade for a favor. It will require craft on your part, so don't offer me up until you have everything you want."
"How will I know when that is?"
"That young man, is your gift, to be between all things, to be part of everything and nothing, shadow and substance. Between wisdom and foolishness. When you see things looking completely hopeless, you will know its time. Now get back to walking, we have a long way to go before we get there."
"Where is there?"
"The boundary between Twilight and Night. The realm of Mr. Black, Master of the Loa."
Equinox © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]
Chapter 5 - Sunstruck
The Sun rose over a desert. This is not your Sun. Hotter, more pure, the essence of sunlight. Fiercely white-hot, if you found yourself here, you would be nearly blinded for a time. A light so bright it bleached the color out of the world. Once you adjusted you would notice other things about this desert.
Unlike deserts in the First World, nothing moved here. There was no sign of life, no undercurrent of hidden activity. Nothing, you as a vistor, would recognize, at first. If you spent a hundred years, and you could, because for you time would pass slowly, you would age slower, you would be out of sync with the First World.
Here in the Second World, you might begin to notice a texture to the light, a shimmering that was different than any other light here. Like a mirage in the desert, it would stand out to you, a discontinuity you could not ignore. If you were more discerning or terribly lonely, you might approach that shimmer, that trick of the light only to find a single immense structure, also made of pure, hardened light.
If you had lived in the First World during the time of the Roman Empire, you would recognize this building as the great Colosseum of Rome. In all ways, that majestic structure would appear before you the same in every way save one, this one was immune to the ravages of time. No great walls had fallen, no wreckage due to the imperfection of Man. No trauma of earthquakes throughout time. This structure was perfect, permanent and static; unchanging, outside of the forces of Entropy.
If you were to, now that you have found this Colosseum, continue for another hundred years or so to meditate upon it, you would begin to see signs of life, not as you know it, beings, mere wisps flickering out of the corners of your eyes, nothing you would see straight on, a movement that seemed to move with purpose, malice and forethought; mostly malice.
Listening intently, you would hear a conversation taking place between two forces. To wrap your mind around them, you might consider them people, if people were to have the power of a hurricane wrapped neatly in a shape slightly resembling a man in the less of those two and if a star were trapped in the body of a giant in the other form. And their conversation would be troubling to you. Because it whispered of a world without darkness, a world perfect with the structure of Order, a world without Change or the forces of Entropy.
And after three hundred years of listening, you would begin to know the horror of these perfect, shimmering forms of trapped and barely contained power. You would see their idea of what the world should be like and if you are like any rational being with any ideas of free will, you would be, no, should be repulsed. And that would be the correct response. These beings were not evil. They were merely focused on a different way of being.
"We have failed to acquire the Equinox. The boy has already tainted it toward the Dark." The smaller storm being stood imperiously before the sun-god giant.
"Are you saying you have failed me?" His voice, hot, shimmered the very air around them.
"Yes," the storm being thundered in response. A momentary silence followed.
"Kill yourself immediately."
"I will, post haste, your Vastness. But I believe our failure may allow us new opportunities." Another silence.
"Continue. Your impertinence may still please me."
"I believe they may decide to seek the Master of the Loa, Mister Black. He has not accepted our treaty, nor denied it outright. Knowing him, he will betray them if it suits him. All we need do is wait for the right moment."
As if he were explaining to a small child, the sun-god spoke. "Illuminatus, we must take advantage of the transition of Gaia. She is at her weakest. If we can overcome the Darkness during her transition and re-acclimation, she will have no choice but to accept the state of things upon her return. We can simply destroy the opposition and force her to treat with us instead."
And in a way surely to arouse the ire of his master, the storm being responded. "I was under the impression unless we were able to harness the power of the Radiant Ones, we would not have the ability to resist her. She is the greatest power in the First World, unparalleled. She cast all of us out during one of our earliest wars and forbade us using our powers fully in the First World. If we did not mask our powers in the Veil, she would have detected our many conflicts. It is only because our human operatives are so weak and puny that she remains unaware of our plans as it is."
"All of that is true. Which is why your next mission is to bring the Radiant Ones into the fold." If a sun-god of blazing solar light could be said to smile, this would be the feeling you might sense from him. A strange, good humor.
"I thought you had agreed to spare my life. To go to the realm of the Radiant Ones is to court destruction."
"Are you saying you are not interested in the mission?"
"I would be only too happy to serve you in this vital operation. The Radiant Ones live at the very edge of the Second Realm. It will take time and resources to reach them. I was under the impression you still valued my abilities and had spared my life."
"I did, but if you fail to secure their cooperation, then you would resolve my need to replace you with someone more... effective."
"By your command."
"Before you go to the land of the Radiant Ones, you take my decree to the Master of the Loa. Let him know he is out of time. He is to join us, or you are to take your army and destroy him, utterly. Destroy his clan, the Loa, and any of his offspring. When the Equinox seeks him out, I want him to find my servant or nothing to offer him hope at all. Then you can bring the Radiant Ones to my court."
"Absolutely, your Immenseness. Your will be done. He will join us or die."
In a flash of heat lightning, the storm being would vanish, leaving a pile of steaming glass in the desert floor of the Colosseum. The sun god might look in your direction, sense your attentions and with a flash of light, oust you from the Second Realm. You would be only too glad to be gone from that place.
Equinox © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]
I was a little shocked this morning when I was checking emails and upcoming events and realized that I was in the future.
The new black is now.
If the “Attending” numbers on Facebook events are accurate, then tomorrow night the African American Arts and Cultural Center in San Francisco will be overrun with approximately 300 black/afro/futurist/punk/geeks and the people who roll with them. The opening of Black Diamonds Shining’s “The Black Futurists” exhibit and accompanying two month schedule of events, performances and film screenings sound like a love song that’ll lure in all sectors of the Bay’s black outlier culture. The ones usually only glimpsed on the deepest house dance floors, select street art installations and the most underground art events.
A couple weeks after that, the much YouTubed TED conference is getting the Black to the Future treatment, when Berlin based Afrofuturistsaxtechologist Onyx Ashanti takes the stage to show off the latest evolution of his Beat Jazz project-an open source, woodwind mimicking, motion sensitive, MIDI music system.
In September, South Africa will see the 4th installment of the annual Pan African Space Station, a 30 day music and arts festival and “cross-cultural and cyber-spatial exploration, bringing together diverse pan-African sounds from ancient techno to future roots.” The event features everything from musical tributes to Steve Biko and Busi Mhlongo to performances by Doctor Philip Tabane & Malombo and Theo Parish.
And in true “seen it like a Zenith” steez, Black Rock evangelist, cultural curator and community catalyst Rob Fields recently announced that on October 17th he’s hosting theFestival of the New Black Imagination in, where else but the black planet of Brooklyn. The Festival sounds like a place where all the corners of black creativity can converge and add ingredients to the next serving of cultural cosmic slop.
If you’re looking for the next “It”, it’s here. If you’re looking for African diaspora folks who’re on something different, you really, really don’t have to look too hard. The forward thinking, tech savvy, community building tribes mainstream culture has been “searching” for-those “positive”, nuanced portraits of black folks-are being created in hyper real, augmented reality.
My eyes started to open about the 5th grade. We lived in the new projects built on a fresh landfill. It was sweet for a while, then we got our own house where I became a teen. Looking back I saw the pattern how the urge of care produced a big bang of built progress, but no sustainability in people.
We'd all cry out "unfair!", get smoothed over with fanfare, then slide again into despair. I remember castoff teachers and bullies in school. How I wished I could blame them today, my foundations are as stable as the landfill we lived on. The trouble with me was the wakeup was slow, my timing was off. Perhaps I could have compensated for the lacks in the system and made alternative choices. There were parallel circumstances going on that threw me off. I kept waking up and going back to sleep. Soon I realized sleep helped me not deal with some complexities of life. I fought harder to awaken.
All this time I cursed my brain, a run away explorer, taking opportunity when no opportunity was there. Busy wither I had the skills, tools or not. It made use of everything awake or sleep. I had to tinker, had to draw, had to act out, had to act up, I had to, I just had to. To grow a developing brain is hard without skills, tools. No math to speak of, ironic I became a draftsman. No science yet I formulate many ideas that require science. Some times I lay on my bed, eyes unable to close. Something had removed the little light-bulb of ideas and replaced it with a photographer's flash. Flash, flash, flash, soon like a deer in the headlights, I see you but don't. It's grand, too grand to draw, too grand to write down. Funny thing is that I thought they were fleeing images passing through me, then gone forever. Now I realize they are my realizations of the whole world I know. No wait, I've seen this before. The soul is the present, the spirit is ancient. I extend my soul, there is want of filling. Like the landfill of my old neighborhood, it is not able to sustain. I touch the spirit, there is rest but an overwhelming fullness. You can't be empty, you can't be full, your awareness can't take it, so we struggle to awake somewhere between the two.......This has been science fiction radio, the attack of the creative brain.
For those of you 'jonesin' for your favorite Goddess in mortal guise, the Priestess is back! The Aesir Chief is searching for his men, but the Slave-Trader King and his sorceress Aunt are looking for him as well! Can the Chief find his men and get them out of the Citadel of Aduni before the King's forces find him? Will the Chief encounter the 'Man in the Black Mask' the Valley Knight warned him about and if he does, will the Chief stop at nothing to free his men? Find out in the latest phase of the Priestess Saga, "All Things Bearing Fruit" Part I!
All Hail the Priestess!
ScienceDaily (July 13, 2011) — Researchers have probed deeper into human evolution by developing an elegant new technique to analyse whole genomes from different populations. One key finding from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's study is that African and non-African populations continued to exchange genetic material well after migration out-of-Africa 60,000 years ago. This shows that interbreeding between these groups continued long after the original exodus.
For the first time genomic archaeologists are able to infer population size and history using single genomes, a technique that makes fewer assumptions than existing methods, allowing for more detailed insights. It provides a fresh view of the history of humankind from 10,000 to one million years ago.
"Using this algorithm, we were able to provide new insights into our human history," says Dr Richard Durbin, joint head of Human Genetics and leader of the Genome Informatics Group at the Sanger Institute. "First, we see an apparent increase in effective human population numbers around the time that modern humans arose in Africa over 100,000 years ago.
"Second, when we look at non-African individuals from Europe and East Asia, we see a shared history of a dramatic reduction in population, or bottleneck, starting about 60,000 years ago, as others have also observed. But unlike previous studies we also see evidence for continuing genetic exchange with African populations for tens of thousands of years after the initial out-of-Africa bottleneck until 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.
"Previous methods to explore these questions using genetic data have looked at a subset of the human genome. Our new approach uses the whole sequence of single individuals, and relies on fewer assumptions. Using such techniques we will be able to capitalize on the revolution in genome sequencing and analysis from projects such as The 1000 Genomes Project, and, as more people are sequenced, build a progressively finer detail picture of human genetic history."
The team sequenced and compared four male genomes: one each from China, Europe, Korea and West Africa respectively. The researchers found that, although the African and non-African populations might have started to differentiate as early as 100,000 to 120,000 years ago, they largely remained as one population until approximately 60,000 to 80,000 years ago.
Following this the European and East Asian ancestors went through a period where their effective population size crashed to approximately one-tenth of its earlier size, overlapping the period when modern human fossils and artefacts start to appear across Europe and Asia. But, for at least the first 20,000 years of this period, it appears that the out-of-Africa and African populations were not genetically separated. A possible explanation could be that new emigrants from Africa continued to join the out-of-Africa populations long after the original exodus.
"This elegant tool provides opportunities for further research to enable us to learn more about population history," says co-author Heng Li, from the Sanger Institute. "Each human genome contains information from the mother and the father, and the differences between these at any place in the genome carry information about its history. Since the genome sequence is so large, we can combine the information from tens of thousands of different places in the genome to build up a composite history of the ancestral contributions to the particular individual who was sequenced.
"We can also get at the historical relationship between two different ancestral populations by comparing the X chromosomes from two males. This works because men only have one copy of the X chromosome each, so we can combine the X chromosomes of two men and treat them in the same way as the rest of the genome for one person, with the results telling us about the way in which the ancestral populations of the two men separated.
"The novel statistical method we developed is computationally efficient and doesn't make restrictive assumptions about the way that population size changed. Although not inconsistent with previous results, these findings allow new types of historical events to be explored, leading to new observations about the history of mankind." The researchers believe that this technique can be developed further to enable even more fine-grained discoveries by sequencing multiple genomes from different populations. In addition, beyond human history, there is also the potential to investigate the population size history of other species for which a single genome sequence has been obtained.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110713131419.htm
Chapter 4 - Room with some views
I was going to try to describe what I saw but I am not sure I have words for it. Put on a blindfold, cover your eyes, turn out the lights, and then head out to sea on a cloudy night. That is the kind of darkness we are talking about. I have never known darkness in my entire life. I have always seen in the night like it was, at worst, a kind of dusk. And its not like the kind of stuff where when you close your eyes, you see those lights from your optic nerve firing. Your optic nerve wouldn't dare to illuminate this darkness.
Then there was a point, far away and we seemed to be falling toward it, and as we approached, that feeling of falling came to me, that unbalanced feeling you get as you start flailing about and realize you are about to come to an uncomfortable, sudden stop. I started waving my arms about, and screaming as I, since I did not see anyone else but me, I thought I was about to become a bug on a glowing windshield. I slammed into the ground face down and made a tiny bounce before settling to a painful and unpleasant landing.
"Get up." A hobnailed boot punctuated that command by further traumatizing my rib cage.
"Ow. And I was just starting to get comfortable down here. Was that first class?"
Then I noticed the feet standing in front of my head as I started looking up. They were connected to very powerful legs and each thigh looked like it would be comfortable on a body builder. Then I found myself being lifted by the back of my collar into the air. "Is this it? This is the savior of the Six? I thought it would be bigger."
"It is a he, Shango. Put the boy down." Kali's voice had a completely different tone. Warm, gentle. Was this the woman that made me question my very existence a few seconds ago? Shango. Why was that name familiar? Shango, the Thunderer? Shango, Thundergod of the continent of Africa?
"Why is it, that I can't see the boy, then?" What is this black matter covering him?" Shango took a finger the size of my hand and wiped it across my forehead. A sticky swath of darkness followed his finger before disintegrating in a crackle of lightning.
Umbra raised his head and put his hat back on. "Begging your pardon, Thunderer, the Equinox has determined that you are a threat and is attempting to protect the boy. I think we can fix that."
"Is that what you call protection, Dark One? He would be better naked."
Ms. Hart glared at Shango and reached out to take me from him. "Do not mistake his apparent lack of control for weakness, Great One. His power may not rival yours, but among his kind, it is not to be trifled with."
"Do not mind my rude husband. I half expect he was hoping the Equinox would arrive and be attacking him to alleviate his boredom at watching the Nexus. Please come into the tower so we can talk in comfort."
Ms. Hart gently placed me on the ground and brushed off some of the strange particles which were clinging to me. Then she and Umbra took my hands and the Equinox retreated into my body but remained hot in my chest. I also noticed all of my injuries of our recent travails were slowly diminishing. We walked around Shango who appeared to be looking out into the darkness and seemed to lose interest in us. He was a giant, easily seven feet tall and in his belt was a huge double headed axe, that bristled with electrical energy. As I walked by, I kept staring at it and a bolt of static electricity shot out to me, as if to tell me to mind my business. I promptly did. I think I saw Shango smiling.
We went into what she called the Tower, but it was not like any tower I had ever seen. It was made from some kind of shiny stone like onyx, and when I touched it in passing, I immediately felt at home and welcomed. We walked to the center of the main floor and there was a sigil at the center. I did not recognize it immediately but everyone else walked toward it and got inside the lines. Trying to look like I knew what I was doing I joined them.
The inside of the tower was lit and showed a collection of unusual objects, many looked like armor or art objects. The closest thing I could think of was a museum, except nothing was under glass, and many of the weapons looked very functional. The place was swimming in sigils of power, they floated through the air, and many of them when they passed me, sang out to me, telling me of their puissance, and the danger one would be in if one was to be so foolish as to touch anything here. No need to threaten me, I wasn't going to touch a thing.
With less than a second of apparent time, we appeared in what looked like a modern apartment. The kind my father never seemed to want to stay in for more than a few days. Lots of room, lights and windows. But it was the windows that were the most fascinating. Each looked out onto a different place. I recognized more than half of them as places we had lived. I found Paris, New York, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and I found myself running off to see where each of them went. When I was done, I came back to the coffee table that was in the center of the space and the others were already having coffee and talking.
"Finished sight-seeing? Umbra was graciously accepting a cigar from Kali. "You might want to come over here. This concerns you." Kali proffered the cigars to me, and I looked at Ms. Hart. She shook her head and I politely said no.
"He is a man, now, Hart. You will be asking him to risk his life. He should at least have all of the pleasures a man could know." As Kali said this she was looking at me in a manner that immediately made me uncomfortable.
"He is not ready for the particular pleasure of any gifts of yours, Lady Kali. He does not understand the obligation it would place on him. His knowledge of the Second World is still incomplete."
"Then you had better complete that education, because where he has to go, he must represent all of the missing clans and understand the obligations he current holds. He stands here completely unaware of his already considerable debt."
I had enough of not knowing what they were talking about. "Someone needs to tell me what you are talking about. Especially this risking my life thing. I did not agree to risk my life for anyone. All I know is my father is dead, my governess is a superhero, she has friends who can make shadows come to life, and parties with mythical beings who are living in a tower with windows that look out over two dozen cities in real time. Did I sum that up right?"
Ms. Hart looked at me and smiled, the first genuine smile I had seen in quite some time. "In reverse order, those are not windows, those are doors. You can walk through any of them and go to the places seen in them. In addition they can be changed so while there are two dozen current settings, they can actually be set to go anywhere on Earth, depending on the willpower of the person using them. Lady Kali and Lord Shango are not myths. They are people who currently embody the mythological energies of the mythical beings. They were once normal people like you or I who were changed by a divine decree. If they want to tell you more, it is up to them. Suffice it to say, their power, dwarfs anything you or I can do. But their limitations are also as interesting as their powers. Your governess is not a superhero, but the difference to you may not matter much. And Umbra is much like you, part of his powers are derived from the Darkness, a primal force in our universe. And as much as I hate to admit it, your father is dead. He died protecting you. He spent his life trying to see that you would not have to become the Equinox. He did not want this for you. But he prepared you in case it came to this. Did I miss anything? Do you want that drink now?"
I sat down and tried to organize my thoughts. "Why did they kill him? And who or what is The Light?
Umbra looked up from his contemplation, tipped his hat back and said, "I guess, since we just entered storytelling time, I better go first."
Nothing I heard this evening up to this point prepared me for what he said next. Not even close.
Equinox © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]
In my trip to the RWA National Conference in New York City, I witnessed a historic event. Trisza Leann Renee won the Golden Heart award for unpublished authors in the Paranormal Romance category. Suffice it to say, it's like winning an Emmy! The awards ceremony runs like a red carpet event. When I saw Trisza's manuscript as one of the top four, I was excited but when she won, it felt good. It's a little hard for African American's to win in any event but in paranormal romance, doubly so. If you'd like to read my interview with her, please check it out my blog: www.aliciamccalla.com.
I've posted the first three chapters of one of my novels on my Authonomy account if anyone wants to read. I mainly started writing it to get my husband through his Song of Ice and Fire withdrawal a couple of years ago.The title's a little hokey, but I'm still working on it. Let me know what you think!
I just finished this novel by Milton Davis this morning, and as much as I want to give props to a fellow Sword & Soul writer, I am sorry to say that while I enjoyed it at first, ultimately it disappointed me a little.
I'll get the biggest and most fundamental problem out of the way: I didn't see any connection between the story suggested by the book's blurb and any of the three Kitabu within. The blurb makes you think this is going to be a tale of Changa's seeking revenge against the sorcerer Usenge, yet that is not at all the overarching theme of the actual Kitabu. We do see Changa confront a completely different evil magician, seek out a mysterious spice, and get caught up in Chinese/Mongol politics, but none of those plots seem to have anything to do with Changa's vendetta against Usenge. The impression I got was that Changa was actually putting his past behind him to pursue a life as a Swahili merchant, which reflects poorly on his character.
Speaking of characters, I was also bothered by the handling of the supporting characters. Neither Panya and the Tuareg get much if any backstory whatsoever, leaving us to wonder what they and Changa are doing together on the opposite side of the African continent from their native homelands. Nor does Panya, a supposed sorceress, get to demonstrate her magical powers very often if at all. She should have cast many more spells.
Then there are the editing errors. Not only are there scattered typos, but Davis seems to use "Chinese" and "Han" interchangeably when he should have stuck with "Han". In addition, the glossary at the end is incomplete because it doesn't list many of the ethnic terms used in the Kitabu (exactly what are a bahari and a bwana?).
None of the above is meant to say that this book is irredeemably terrible. The concept of an African hero exploring the Indian Ocean is definitely novel, as medieval Indian Ocean civilizations have definitely been unfairly neglected by storytellers, the prose is generally decent despite the aforementioned editing issues, and the numerous action and battle scenes are fun. It is for these reasons that I'll give the overall book a fairly positive rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
The Priestess returns midnight July 18th! The Priestess Saga continues as the Valley Knight, Little Fish and the Aesir Chief battle their way through the sewers of Aduni, City of Golden Towers. Their quest to find the Chief's men is nearly at an end, but will it end with them being saved by the 'truculent trio' or have they already met a grisly demise at the hands of the Slave-Trader King and his sorceress Aunt? And what will be the fate of the beautiful Marta? Will the future daughter of the Aesir Witch Mjarga also meet a hideous fate alongside the Chief's men or will she find salvation as well? Find out in phase 4 of the Priestess Saga, "All Things Bearing Fruit"!
All Hail The Priestess!
working sucks, point blank. It takes time away from stuff that really matters like the fam here at BSFS. thats where i have been working. Oh well, check out my relationship blog and lift me up in prayer or whatever it is that you do so that i successfully finish my thesis. I am psychoanalyzing the hell outta Octavia Butler, lol! Her Xenogenesis novels are the bomb though...
http://www.examiner.com/african-american-relationships-in-nashville/infidelity-can-prove-dangerous
Right now I have two major writing projects going on, both of which I started yesterday. One is a short story set in a world where humans and dinosaurs coexist and the second is a fantasy novel with an ancient Egyptian/African theme. I have a clear mental plan about where I want the short story to go, but the novel is more of a mystery to me now; I know how it begins and maybe how it will end, but the middle needs to be filled in.
This is actually one out of many times I've attempted to write a novel, but each of my previous efforts proved unsatisfactory and had to be scrapped because of plotting issues. I just hope this will turn out better.
Those interested can check out an excerpt of the novel-in-progress here.
Chapter 3 - Dancing in the Dark
Umbra took off his hat and threw it at one of the Light. Halfway there, it changed its shape and became a hawk made of shadow. Its razor sharp wings sliced off the heads of two of them with its wide wingspan. It had a keening cry, mournful, the kind of sound a hawk might make past its prime. It flew past them and wheeled about slashing low through a half a dozen of them before returning to Umbra and landing on his head as a hat.
Ms. Hart followed behind the hawk, an engine of destruction swirling her spear and clearing a path through their ranks. "Keep up, we're not staying." She was everywhere and nowhere. My father used to called the spear, the king of weapons, because of its reach, speed and power in a fight with sufficient room. I used to laugh when he said it because I never saw him use one. It would seem I might owe the bastard an apology. Every move, whether it be forward or backward allowed her spear to smash, slice, pound the enemy. They began to realize she was not the target to be attacked. Which directed their attention toward me. Lucky me.
Not to be outdone, I planted bullets anywhere a target presented itself, that Ms. Hart didn't already claim with lightning speed. Umbra came behind me and though he appeared to be unarmed his boots which I thought were just shod in metal, seemed to shoot shards of shrapnel with ever step he took in nearly every direction. He directed the shards with his hands, each slicing into the creatures of the Light. With so much carnage going on, I did not understand why we were not running out of enemies. Then I saw it. A portal of light just around the corner. My darkness adapted sight could not focus on the portal, it was simply too bright. But I could see waves of creatures of the Light pouring out of it, every few seconds.
"Call Mr. Black, Umbra. We are not going to be able to get away without some help. Somehow they know he is the last scion and have decided whatever risk they take of being discovered is worth killing him for."
"Are you sure, Mr. Black does not work for free. He will want something for his troubles. As a matter of fact, he will insist. I just as soon stay here and see if we can work this out." Umbra was starting to sound tired, his shrapnel boot were releasing their shards of razor darkness with less frequency. I was already on my second clip.
"Look around you. Do you really think we can make it? If the Equinox were awake, maybe, but he does not have the skill to control it and we dare not wake it until he has learned how." She had been holding the creatures at bay but had stopped advancing as a new wave landed in front of us, leaping directly over us to land in front. Three dropped dead as I targeted them mid-flight. "Nice shooting, you are down to your last six. Hold them. Can you remember the black sword spell I taught you last month?"
I had to think about it. She had shown me the rune forms and I was able to manifest a sword but after three minutes it fell apart. I wasn't sure I wanted to be that close to them when that happened. "Yes, I remember."
"Good, cast it now."
I could hear Umbra starting to breathe heavy and he threw his cigarette at one of the Light. The creature burst into flame when the cigarette hit it. I drew the rune in my mind's eye. It came to me easily and I extended my hand as the sword manifested there. It wasn't like before. This was easy. I slashed at a one of the Light as it rushed at Umbra from a blind spot. The blade was sharp, and the slice was effortless, like the blade was made of air.
"Thanks, kid."
"Take a load off, old timer. I got this for a minute."
And for about sixty seconds I was the best I had ever been. My foot work was perfect, it was like a dance where I knew all the steps. I got hit a couple of times but each hit was absorbed by the jacket, which fought from my back as well. I was grabbed by one of the creatures and the jacket created a mouth and chewed through it. It was incredible. I turned toward the portal and began to approach it trying to stop the flow of the Light at the source.
I could hear Ms. Hart shouting at me, but I couldn't understand her any more. The creatures were pouring out of the gate now five and six at a time and I killed them in waves, my sword strokes becoming longer, reaching farther, they died and they died and they died. And the closer I got to the portal, the more powerful my blade became, each stroke caused the ground to shake and buildings nearby to tremble. The Light rushed me trying to bring their mass to bear but it did not matter, nothing mattered anymore. They had killed my Father. I hated him, I feared him, I missed him. And they were going to pay.
My blade sang a song of terrible destruction shearing away cars, buildings, the Light, everything in sight. When I reached the portal, the creatures stood there blocking it and my last stroke cut them down and slashed across the portal. As the blade crossed the Light of the Portal, I saw a man inside. He was watching me. The last thing I remembered hearing was "Magnificent." Then my blade reached the center of the portal and an explosion was unleashed. That was the last thing I remembered.
When I woke up, Umbra was wearing his jacket and his hat. He was smoking a cigarette and looking at me with his strange dark eyes. Ms. Hart had a look on her face that reminded me of her when I was a kid, a moment of softness, then she hardened again. "Never approach a portal of Light again."
"Why?" I was as weak as a kitten. My arms felt like lead.
"You lost control. Look around you. This is why you can never lose control. If you do, people die." She pointed to the area where the portal stood. The creatures of the Light were scattered everywhere, sliced neatly in half. I expanded my vision and noticed buildings nearby also had huge slices through them, sidewalks were slashed, with waves of concrete broken up, chucks thrown everywhere. The pillar of the train platform sliced neatly in several places. There were also two bodies of homeless men who were nearly twenty feet away from the conflict, but my dark blade swept in a wide, long swath. I felt terrible. I didn't mean for anyone but these monsters to get hurt. She reached down to help me to my feet. I could hear the car's metallic frame reluctantly releasing me.
"It's a good thing that car broke your fall. I really wanted to catch you, but I saw you were going to land on a Volvo and knew you would be okay." Umbra looked at me, a wry smile on his face, his cigarette lighting the space between his hat and jacket collar.
"We have to go. The authorities will be here in a moment and we want them to think a bomb went off here."
"Umbra, handle that."
"Yes, your Highness. You know I just lit this one, right?"
"I don't care."
"It's my last one."
She turned, gave him a withering look and waited.
Umbra took one long, last drag on his cigarette as she pulled me toward her. Planting her spear into the ground in front of us, we watched Umbra flick his cigarette toward the location of the former portal. I watched him clench his fist and then release it. A fireball erupted and swept over us. Storefronts were destroyed. Car alarms went off. Her spear, protected us from the fireball while Umbra stood, apparently unaffected by the flames.
The flames and shockwaves seemed to go on forever. Then slowly, the night and the darkness was restored. Burning embers, chunks of debris, everything seemed to return to what would have been expected, if a bomb had gone off here. The Light were gone, the bodies of the two old men were also gone. Somehow, that made me even more sad.
We were half a block away before the police and fire engines began to approach.
Ms. Hart grabbed her spear and collapsed it into a small truncheon and strapped it to her hip. It disappeared as well as her armor did returning her to a conservative business suit. Umbra appeared to be little more than a derelict in a dark hat and coat. Ms. Hart touched my clothing and it returned to the appearance of clean and undamaged urban chic. We slid from the Veil and returned completely to the Human world. She was waiting for us when we did. She was a fierce looking woman, diminutive but radiating immense power. Her face and sari said she was Indian and her physical presence was a blow to my weakened body. I fell to my knees. Then I noticed Umbra and Ms. Hart also fell to one knee.
Ms. Hart spoke first. "Kali Bodhisattva, Mother of Mankind, Slayer of Monsters, Queen of Darkness, how may we serve you?"
Her gaze turned toward Umbra, who took off his hat, and stroking it absentmindedly, he muttered. "Uh, what she said."
"Is this the Last Scion?"
"Yes, Kali."
"You have already drawn too much attention to yourselves. Now you are coming with me."
"Is anyone going to tell me what this is all about?"
"Speak when spoken to, boy. Now is not the time for questions," Umbra hissed.
Kali looked at me, and I looked at them. Ms. Hart on one knee? She was the fiercest warrior I knew outside of my father. Umbra, while I did not know him well, he was quite capable in a fight and in his own way a master of magic. Who was Kali that she had them both on one knee? And why did I have this feeling I should be wetting myself right about now?
She waved her hand and everything went black.
Equinox © Thaddeus Howze 2011. All Rights Reserved [@ebonstorm]
