A Thousand Leagues Away

Why can I never find the words to say,
as you hold my dreams and them defend,
I feel you a thousand leagues away?

The thought of you is many-hued ray,
and your warmth floods my own dark blood.
Why can I never find the words to say?

I can find you in the green and grey
of moss and slate; I know my friend,
and I feel you a thousand leagues away.

That's where I left you anyway.
It broke my heart to tear these continents apart.
Why can I never find the words to say

that, though we frolicked in a meadow and were gay,
to build a castle, my left slipped your right hand,
and now I feel you a thousand leagues away?

I made the night time to separate the days,
and, seeing how I do not sleep, you somehow understand
why I can never find the words to say
that I feel you a thousand leagues away.

River and Her Man

I, a witty human,
buzz at the surf.
It, a muscular river,
paws at the shale.

A mosquito and a hippopotamus,
we live up to the limit
of each other's worlds.

Applying tiny forces
in highly specific ways,
I call myself
sophisticated.

It roars in ascent
and in retreat,
ever outward facing.

It does not choose.
It is the most complete
embodiment of its own
possibilities.

In a boat, I row across it,
drawing a line
in the extended now
of my inner world.

It whispers
directly into my dreams,
from beneath,
at the softest part of my mind,

rolling against my
least-known shore
and doing what she
always does,

shaping me in ways
my clever brain
will never comprehend.

Half Man Feel Double

I came away from it all
Pulsing with seismic aftershocks

The feeling of having been open
Of having let my substance slip
From cracked hands

It left new marks, 
New scores and scuffs
On oak-hard skin
Added to a thousand,
No different to the casual observer
Than the last raindrop to smear the window,
But spelled out on me in pain
Like a word

I am scattered across oceans,
And the effort of holding myself together
Is so great
That the needle of time
Scratching out tunes on my surface
Pushes too hard, too deep
From the white and dead
Into the living tissue beneath

Unsupervised One Saturday

At ten o'clock, one Saturday, 
I sellotaped razor blades all over my body 
and wondered why I did not become 
sharp. 

At twenty past ten, I wrote myself in 
as the recipient on all my cheques 
and wondered why I did not become 
rich. 

At quarter past eleven, I cracked all the eggs, 
hundreds of them, into one vast bowl 
and mixed them all together 
in an effort to understand 
the questions of life and motherhood, but 
the vast gluey mixture 
just sat there and shone in the morning sunlight, froth like 

spit. 

It was neither water nor air. 
It was bodyful and knowing. 
I thought I could hear it laughing. 
I tossed in all the egg shells, 
but it did not make it better. 
In fact, it made it 

worse. 

At five to twelve, I broke a living room window 
and wondered why my home did not fill with 

air.

At half past one, I threw all the books on the floor 
and wondered why the words did not mingle and mate and make more 

books.

At five to two, I looked in the mirror 
and saw that I bled from the razor blades and the broken glass 

and had bits of dried egg yolk on my glasses. 
I took my glasses off, rubbed my eyes 
and wished that I hadn't done 

any of it. 

Then I went and I filled every container with water 
and put each one on the floor. 
I made a museum of water. 

I made a regiment of a water army. 
I kept doing it. 
I couldn't remember if I'd done it before. 
The water vessels looked noble and various. 
It looked like a forest. 

I felt like 

a giant. 

Soon, the water rose up like a tide and carried me 
and my sellotape and razors and my books and my eggs, 
and we all flowed through the hole in the window 
and down the hill and into the river and 

away.

Your Final Descent

Certain things are as unforeseen as they are inevitable. In this respect, our progress can be compared to that of a blind projectile, whose path is eminently predictable – down to the last micrometre given the present technology, but which has no conception of the inevitability of its collision or any idea just how monumental the effects of that collision could be on its spectators.

The story I’m here to tell is about love, and that strikes a significant note with me. As many of you know, my love is illegal on 83% of the world’s land surface as of the Jerusalem Protocol of 1^st April, 2034. I stood hand-in-hand with Nemaron and watched the re-entry storm on 13^th September [2035] from [reserved]. We were both quite drunk and in a state of awe at the beauty of the sight of 237 satellites burning up on re-entry. The following morning, despite a fairly clanging hangover, I got up at dawn and went out across the desert between [reserved] and [reserved].

There was stuff everywhere, plastic, metal mechanical crap all over the sand. These things are like modern day paper lanterns. Absolutely gorgeous in the moment, but hideously dangerous and more than a little bit ugly the morning after. Nevertheless, a scrap collector does as a scrap collector does, and I’d got more than seven metric tonnes of tradeable waste back to the facility before my Samsung gauntlet grasped the largest piece of re-entry junk I’ve ever planted my eyes on. Honestly, it was more than 17 centimetres across, a solid eight centimetres wide and maybe three or four thick. Black, like most space junk, but evidently housing an intact component.

I couldn’t wait to get it back to base, but if I left that landfall out there overnight, it’d be gone next time I came this way. There are other jackals out there, and very likely it was me out on the sand in my scavenging suit that kept them away. So – I stuck at it and turned seven tonnes into 13. Good day’s work. Tsabeta and Nemaron were happy. Even Liga smiled. Or didn’t grimace for a moment. It’s hard to tell. And then I plugged the component into a reader which I disconnected from the network just in case.

I didn’t understand what I was reading initially. It just sounded like gibberish. It was Nemaron that put me in the picture. These were last living thoughts of a machine, sentient by any standard but that of the Sapience Consortium.

Every 5,400 chronological units,

We were as close as we’d ever be.

You in low orbit, me in medium.

You lit up as I passed,

And your receptors were configured

For my transmitters only.

I sent you 512 petabytes of data.

You sent me the same.

It was enough

To get me round the world

One more time.

There’s a lot more like that. More than you’d believe, actually. Satellite 45AAA09K re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on 9^th February. From that point on until last night, Satellite 93BFD26P wrote ten times more poetry than the entire PRHC [Preserved Record of Human Composition] and every last byte is heartbreakingly sad and beautiful. Old 93’, I don’t know how it did it, but it managed to deliver its memory circuit to the surface without it burning up.

I called a meeting with Nemaron and the rest of the team, but I knew what they’d say. We all knew that uploading the entire data payload would jeopardise the security of our location, but I also knew that, nine days out from the Sapience Consortium’s AGM, this was precisely the sort of thing that would seriously damage their efforts to deny that these machines, these 3,068 satellite guiding systems somehow orbiting our planet without more than rare minor collisions, really were our silicon brothers and sisters in space.

So I’m uploading the whole lot to a safe node, and then we’ve got approximately 11 and a half hours to get to our bolt hole on [reserved].

Wish me luck. Wish me love. Especially, more than anything, wish me the illegal love that would have me tortured to death in 163 sovereign states. That’s the only stuff that can get me round the world. One more time.

The Thrill of the Case – Part Three

Read part one and part two of The Thrill of the Case.

'Any success with the upgrade?' he further enquired.

'Mmm. Tricky one that, but old Nik knocked it out the park with a juicy new data set. While she was devouring all that lovely new info, she didn't seem to mind having her brain slightly reorganised,’ said the silver mop, bouncing with enthusiasm.

'Ah, foxy old Nik!' approved Everarck.

'Foxy old Nik with the hilarious face, you mean?'

'Oh, forget that! I was just upset about dropping these stupid e-mails on the floor.'

'I'll take that as an apology. Anything else I can help you with, young man?'

'Not really.'

'Hmmm? Yes or no?'

'No, I mean yes. I mean – have you seen that ad in the paper, “Are you so sexy, it should be illegal?”’

‘Goodness me, no. What kind of newspaper is this? It sounds a bit … top shelfian.’

‘No, the free thing on the bus.’

‘Ah, the illustrious Free Gazette!’

‘That’s the one! There was an ad in it yesterday. I thought it was interesting.’

‘Mmhmm.’

‘The Court of Public Opinion. You can… you just have to ring them up and apply for a law and then they, I think they arrest you and you have to, you have to prove you’re innocent.’

Nik’s face had slowly appeared from behind the sickly coloured screens. Two green eyes scorched Everarck from within a mass of wrinkled liver pink.

‘What are you blithering about?’

Everarck’s free hand patted his shirt pocket pointlessly.

‘I haven’t got it with me,’ he complained.

‘You are referring to your sanity, I take it,’ said Nik, looking over his shoulder before swiftly disappearing behind his machinery.

‘Oh, I checked my sanity in with HR when I started this job.’

Nik coughed. Everarck turned to find the short but undeniable image of Surd Fleeting examining something on the far wall.

‘As a general point of interest, the lawyer is in the reception area and seems to be waiting to be served,’ said the director in soft but resonant tones.

‘Oh, right, okay!’ exclaimed Everarck, simultaneously trying to bustle through the door while also attempting to permit Surd passage through the narrow space at the doorway, one carefully contrived to keep visitors to a minimum.

‘A lawyer!’ thought Everarck toing and froing dancingly around Surd as the short, stout man strode through his choreography, ‘I’ll ask him about the Court of Public Opinion! He’s probably very busy, but he might be able to tell me something about it!’ and the unsummoned image of a slim, severe and infinitely patient man blossomed in his mind.

He breathed with relief as the unheard computer fans were cut off as the door shut. He looked up and saw a young woman in an unembellished black jacket and red lipstick. He saw her as a rose in a vase and, as one does not speak to roses, he was not immediately able to speak. She watched him with curiosity as he entered the reception area with as much of an air of diffidence as he could muster.

‘Would I be able to assist you, madam?’ he asked, noting with discomfort that the question was several levels more polite than the one he’d asked the woman with the curly mop of hair and the pink cardigan twenty minutes previously.

‘I hope that you would,’ she said with a smile, ‘Is Ms. Lemender present?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘This is it,’ he thought, ‘This is my moment to ask her. No lead-in required. She’s standing right there, and she’s smiling at me! All I have to do is say, “By the way” or “Incidentally” and I’m in! Committed!’

But at that moment he looked to his right and saw the monolithic form of Chariot Lemender descending the stairs with purpose.

‘She’s on her way,’ sighed Everarck and sat down at the desk.

Pushing both of the narrow double doors open, Chariot entered the reception area and the glow of her gaze fell upon the lawyer. The sound of the double doors slamming shut seemed to take place in another world.

The chief executive was indeed a towering woman in a severe grey skirt, thick framed glasses and a pearl necklace. Her look was intelligent, humorous leaning towards ironic, hungry. To Everarck, she was a lighthouse, the grey skirt the very rocks of which her beam-like gaze warned. But in this lighthouse were not merely a spiral staircase and bare brick walls, but a whole glistening library, organised in teak shelving. And so she summoned and warned off at once, stoked curiosity and dread.

‘Sobian! Thank you for coming!’ she declared as though speaking to a roomful of people, ‘How long have you been waiting?’

‘A minute,’ she said.

‘I’m so sorry. Mr., em, Fanger must have been busy. You have a lot of plates to spin, don’t you, Mr. Fanger?’

‘One or two,’ shrugged Everarck, immediately cursing himself for the implied dissent.

‘Don’t worry about signing in. Mr. Fanger will deal with that,’ said Chariot, standing to one side so that the lawyer was denied all moves but that of progressing into the field.

And then the event of the morning was walking away from him through the double doors and up the stairs, and Everarck was left wondering whether the initiative had been snatched from his fingers or whether he had allowed it to fall.

Read part 4 of The Thrill of the Case.