My Poems book has been published!

The Veins of the Forest.

They twist and turn like the veins on an arm, 

branches long and thin form leaves. 

Under the ground, the roots shoot through the soil, greedily sucking up the water from the other trees. 

Trunks thick and thin, tall and short, form branches that entwine to and fro through the air, 

poking through the leafy canopies of other forest dwellers, giving fun paths for squirrels to scuttle from, or for the birds to make their nests, picked up from the forest floors. 

Sticks fallen from the tree branches, dry and brittle, held together by mud and moss, to make a comfortable home for the little chicks. 

Trees close to one another, gnarled like the arthritic bones of an old man. 

Leaves make food for caterpillars, flowers make nectar for the bees, but the branches of a tree are the veins of the fore. 

Look for it here,  http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Book-Poetry-Robert-Feld-ebook/dp/B00G572WP8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1382628571&sr=1-1&keywords=my+book+of+poetry

My Fanfiction page.

http://www.fanfiction.net/~thestargatetimetraveller

The Kipling Gardens

( I took a walk in the Kipling Gardens in Rottingdean. Beautiful place, you should visit them.)

Walled with walls made up of egg-shaped pieces of flint,

vines creeping up the sides, spider webs glinting and shining in the light, 

Following a path not unlike the Yellow brick road. 

In the rose garden, the roses in the beds, surrounded by weeds and shrubs, 

Like an army on parade. 

The sun catching the colors of yellow and white, and pink. 

The red brick path leads me to a paved path through what seems like the jungles of 

India, where Kipling set the Jungle Book. 

Under arches, twisted leaves, and grape like berries hang down. 

The birds chirping replaced the sound of monkeys, 

and trumpeting elephants. 

The Rockpools

Above the rockpools look like the buildings in a town of city, 

With streams of salt water, and rocks and grainy sand between them, sits like the icing in a cake. 

Water trickling through the pools sounds like a small fountain in a garden. 

Little pools of seawater, carrying crabs and limpets dot the pools. 

Rocky and chalky platforms, and banks covered in blankets of seaweed under the sun, 

turning black. 

Black against the sun, against the white and tan brown of the chalk and rock. 

The seaweed, rubbery smooth against the smooth and sharp rock, 

makes a crunching, squelching sound under the shoes of those who walk over the rockpools.

( An extract from my future e-book) 

The Boy, the tomboy, and the Greenhouse.

The Boy, the Tomboy, and the Greenhouse. 

I met the tomboy when I was a kid - sorry, darling, but you have to admit you loved playing a boy when you were a kid. At the time I didn’t know what a tomboy was, so I was quite young, and I didn’t know or care about boys and girls not mixing the way we did on that day, but I do remember how much fun the pair of us had when we met at the farmhouse all those years ago. My wife is the tomboy, in case you haven’t already made that deduction, this is the story of how we met, got separated, and then met again years later. 

My mom and I often went to the farmhouse to buy some fresh eggs and milk because they were better quality than what you found in supermarkets, and during the summer we picked rasberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries and had themwith thick clotted cream. That was a long time ago, and the farmhouse has closed. My mom has been growing her own berries in our garden, but nowhere near the level of the farmhouse. Back to the story, I was bouncing in my car seat with the belt wrapped around my thin body. Soon as mom stopped the car, she unstrapped me from my seat belt and I jumped out of the car with her help. I took a deep breath, the smell of fruit in the sun wafted through my nostrils, it was like the fruits themselves had been pulped and turned into a soup, boiled by the heat from the sun before the wind blew the sweet aromas through the air like the smoke from a bonfire. Looking back on that memory, I still remember the scents I smelt that day, and when we came to this farmhouse. In my opinion, nature had it right.  It was a beautiful day, not a cloud or a plane in sight, the sun bright and cheerful as the birds chirped in the air as they flew, boundless of the constraints of people. 

“ Hm, hmm,” the sound of my mother clearing her throat broke through my thoughts, and I ran towards her as she stood close by patiently, foot idly tapping on the ground. I could tell she wasn’t mad with me for keeping her waiting, she knew perfectly well how much I loved this place. She loved it too, but adults are like that, and now I’m one myself I understand how hard it is to keep my children’s attention. But I wish the farmhouse was here still, I would have loved to have shown my children. Okay, my wife is getting irritated I’m not carrying on with the plot of my story, so I get back to the point. 

 I grabbed my mom’s hand, and we walked into the fields where there were berry plants and we started to pick them and put them into baskets. I loved those baskets, they reminded me of the warmth of the place. Mom was dressed in a shirt and trousers, like I was. It wasn’t hard work,

mom told jokes as we picked our berries, we laughed even iun the hot sweaty air but it didn’t bother us. We were enjoying ourselves, and having fun.

I noticed right away we weren’t heading for the checkout where the ladies would put our berries in boxes to take away, we weren’t going to the beehives for honey. No, we were heading for the greenhouses. As if sensing my thoughts, mom smiled down at me as she wheeled the trolley holding the baskets of fruit towards the glass building. 

“ Sweetheart, we’re buying some tomatoes today.” She said as we entered the greenhouses, where mom asked someone about the best tomato plants to pick from. I wandered off she told me to,

 “ Stay out of trouble. I don’t want to find a window broken, understand young man?” She eyed me sternly, I gulped and nodded. Getting on my mother’s side is like prodding a sleeping tiger, just asking for trouble. Mom smiled, “ Go on, sweetheart. But don’t get lost.” 

I’d never been to the greenhouses before, and there were dozens of them. Some had tomato plants, some didn’t. Those that did but had no tomatoes were locked, until the tomatoes would turn from small green round objects into ripe, healthy red tomatoes making the stalks beg for someone to take the weighty strain off. 

I explored with the wide eyed look of an explorer, I opened a greenhouse, it was hot and smelt strongly of plants and compost, I didn’t mind. In my opinion, it should be let out into the wide world and allowed to mix in the air. 

As I walked around the place, looking at the big flowerpots holding the soil nurturing the tomato plants, I realised quickly I wasn’t alone. Staring at me, I could see of her behind a table, was a girl, but not a girl I’d seen before at school. I was too young to know the difference between a tomboy and a girl, not that I cared. Realising I knew she was there, the girl stepped out. Like me she was dressed in trousers and a shirt, but her hair was short instead of long, and I was at the age where I thought girls of all ages wore their hair long in a pony tail. There was a spider next to her, but she didn’t scream, though she knew it was there. 

“ Hi.” She said, looking me over curiously, there were no other kids. 

 But oh, damn it’s so hard thinking as a kid again. My wife wants a go at writing this part of the story. For the next paragraph or so the story will be written by my wife. Go ahead, darling. 

I smirked at my husband as I flex my fingers mockingly, whacking my husband around the head as he rolls his eyes at my antics, pushing him out of the chair sitting in front of the computer. 

I remember that moment. I was trying to get away from my mother, who was only here to look around and maybe buy something, I ran away from her when she was distracted, I was trying to escape. Maybe I’d become a pirate, setting sail and plundering the seven seas instead of the princess she wanted me to be, I was not the perfect little lady, as she so eloquently phrased it. Mother always wanted me dressing up as a princess you read about in fairytales and in Disney films like Sleeping Beauty, but neither of those girls had a mother as pushy as mine.

Why me, I often asked myself, I’d finally sought refuge in the greenhouse. I’d been here for a short time, when I heard the door open, I was terrified it was my mother, I hid myself behind some tables and the tomato plants, and watched. It wasn’t mom, it was this tiny boy, a tiny, thin boy. 

He looked around the greenhouse, then he saw me somehow. How could he? Then I realise that unlike mother, who didn’t have an ounce of imagination about the sorts of places I can hide myself in, but he did. Then it struck me, he wasn’t looking for me, he’d seen me just by chance. 

Then again, none of this occurred to me at the time, but what did occur to me was the need to step out of hiding. 

“ Hi.” I said, looking over him, apprehensive. I was used to dealing with moronic boys. Most of the boys I’d met where like how my husband stupidly described them before turning over the writing to me, annoying loud mouths. But boys were no better. Noisy, nosy, smelly - you did ask for it, dear, when you said that about pigtails. The boy, to my surprise, smiled. Maybe he was different afterall. 

My husband frowned in mock anger. “ Is that why you were interested in me, because I wasn’t like the other boys?”

I laughed, touching his face. “ Yes, all the boys I knew laughed at me because I wanted to be like them. Can I get back to the story, by any chance?” She asked. 

He laughed himself. “ Okay, but how about we write it together?”

I nodded and smiled like a child, he went and grabbed a chair. 

As we’re now writing this story together, we can add our own points of view without needing to take it in turns, at least not often. The boy reached out his hand, and the girl grasped it with a wide smile. “ I’m Katie.”

“ Matthew.” The boy replied with a smile. 

“ So Matthew, what’re you doing in the greenhouse?” Katie asked, dropping her hand, Matthew shrugged, hands into his pockets. “ I’m just exploring as my mom’s buying tomatoes, I’ve never been around here before.”

Katie smiled shyly. “ I’ve always loved exploring. Where shall we go next?” She asked hopefully. 

Matthew had never heard of a girl who’d wanted to explore before, then again he didn’t know that many girls. “ I dunno, but I can’t get lost. Mom would go mad.”

Katie frowned. “ Me neither, mother would ground me.” My face scrunched up at that, grounding was something my parents would never do to me, not even that time when I accidentally closed the door trapping my fathers hand. I told her this and she laughed but didn’t at the time.

“ You’re lucky.” Katie replied. 

Matthew decided to change the subject. “ You wanna come play with me?”

“ Yes.”

I smile sadly as I remember how I tried to play games with the boys of my neighbourhood. My mother and simpering sister who would always tell mother what I was doing they frowned on me playing games like tag or riding a bike around the neighbourhood, or playing football. It wasn’t specifically my fault or indeed mother’s, it was more the way mother herself had been raised as a child. She was of the type who believed, because that was what my grandmother had thought, boys and girls should not mix even after all the changes nowadays. For my mother it had always been piano lessons, knitting, and all the other work around the house. A woman’s place is in the home, as my mother had drilled into her head, and what she drilled into my head, or failed to do with me but succeeded with my sister. 

I never would agree to that, Matthew and I have been married for years we have done our fair share around the house, take turns. We make a good team, Matthew does the cooking because I’m atrocious, and can’t even boil water, I do basic house cleaning whilst he tends to the cooking. 

We don’t bother with the garden. Like my husband, I loved the farmhouse on first sight, and it looked beautiful. We don’t go for the hype of being normal and dressing our gardens and treat them as competition with our neighbours. We treat them as nature intended.

Both children laughed as they left, grabbing each others hands and ran, laughing. There was a playground made specially for children, small fenced off field to play football. It was close by to the cafe and meant to act as a distraction for kids who were impatient, could play games that the owners of the farmhouse had kindly provided. The two laughing, happy children were both noticed by everyone, but no one cared about anything wrong with them being of different sex, something Katie had had to live with for years since she discovered her preference for playing with boy things.  As Katie ran with Matthew, she expected people to frown on her, as the rich and snobby people in her neighbourhood tended to do whenever they saw her play with the wrong sort, as they called people like Matthew. Katie enjoyed outracing Matthew, who took it well. For himself Matthew didn’t mind or care about being outraced by a girl, it was new for him. He was just pleased he had a new friend, and as they ran towards the football pitch, playing with each other, it only got better. Neither Katie or Matthew were good players, they didn’t understand the game in spite of the hype started by impending matches. To them the game was just kicking a ball around, enjoying themselves and their new friendship. 

Like all good things, it had to end, and for Katie it ended too quickly.

“ KATIE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” A loud voice screeched, both children stopped playing stopped laughing, and turned around. In Matthew’s opinion, Katie was the prettiest between her and her own mother, but there were similarities. Katie’s mother was tall and thin, and as he grew older and thought back to this day with the understanding of basic human anatomy, he would compare this woman with a skeleton. She was pale, her skin was stretched tight and pinched under her immaculate bun of glossy hair - too glossy compared to Katie’s - black hair, the exact shade of her daughters. Her mother’s hair had been put through rigorous appointments at the salon daily it was wonder she still had hair. She looked down her nose at the boy standing right beside her daughter, clearly not liking the company her daughter was in. 

Katie glanced at her husband as she put her hand on his, stopping him from tapping the keys on the keyboard. “ You thought my mother was a skeleton?” She asked archly, her eyes narrowed. 

Matthew shrank back in his chair, trying to make a desperate escape from his wife. Although they had a loving relationship, he always tried to avoid having direct contact with her temper, but he couldn’t escape because Katie’s hand was still on his. Escape was impossible, from the look on her eyes, he could see the steel in them. It was this steel that had attracted him to her when they’d met each other in college. 

“ Well,” he gulped nervously. “ You have to admit she looked like a rake, and the way she looked at me is just...off putting, not to mention the way she spoke to me.”

Katie wasn’t able to suppress her stern, threatening appearance for long, and when she heard the answer she laughed. “ It’s so easy for me to tease you,” she chortled, but when she regained control over herself she looked at her husband thoughtfully, with a teasing smirk on her face. 

“ You’re not half wrong,” she admitted. “ She was always on a diet, and father spoilt her rotten.” And he had. Katie’s father had been a rich businessman, dominated by his wife, he left his children’s upbringing to their mother and barely had time for them as he worked hard to ensure his family received the best of everything.

Katie nodded her head at the computer screen. “ Shall we carry on?” Matthew carried on, when Katie had taken away her hand. 

Katie swallowed. “ Mother, I was just-”

“ Playing games you know you shouldn’t,” her mother finished angrily. She was so focused on her daughter that she didn’t even notice the number of people she’d attracted with her shout. Katie’s mother turned her glare to the little boy next to her own daughter. “ Why are you playing with...him?” She asked, unable to find a proper word to describe the boy. 

Her mother’s derision of her new friend was too much, Katie lost her own temper. “ I was trying to have fun, something you don’t understand. I’m not allowed out of your sight. I have to wear dresses, when all I want is to play. At least boys have fun.”

Katie’s mother, as I remember, did not have a grain of understanding, and she ignored it. She didn’t care what the consequences were, she just reached forward and grabbed her daughter’s hand in a firm grip. In front of Matthew, his new friend was dragged away, and when he got back to his own mother, who had witnessed all of it and was just coming to her son’s defence, he did something he hated doing. 

Matthew started crying. 

Katie and Matthew glanced at each other before taking a break from writing. Katie got some mugs for some strong coffee, and Matthew put some water in the kettle, waited for it to heat up. Katie folded her arms, and Matthew looked at her speculatively. 

“ You never said what your mother did when she got you home after leaving the farmhouse,” he pointed out. 

Katie shrugged before moving herself out of her stance and took a spoon from a drawer and opened the coffee jar. She didn’t speak, she spooned coffee in the two mugs, then she dropped the spoon with a clang into the sink before getting the milk and sugar out. When they were drinking, Katie’s mind was clearly back in the past. Matthew took her gently wrapping an arm around her waist, and hauling her back to the computer room. As they sat down, Katie gently placed her hand on her husbands arm. When Matthew looked at her, the query clear in his eyes, Katie gestured for the keyboard, she started to tapping. 

On the way home, Katie sat in the back, afraid but indifferent to her mother’s mood. On the way home, her mother would just mutter darkly about her daughter seeing the wrong sort, Matthew. In the past Katie would argue, but as they were travelling home in a car, her mother might forget the rules of safety and they might crash into a tree, or another car. 

“ Stupid boy, who does he think he is? Playing with a girl who’s out of his league...,” her mother snarled under her breath. Katie didn’t say a word, too angry to care. The one friend, and mother had to.... She didn’t know what her mother meant, but she got the general gist of it. Out of her two parents, she preferred her father the most because he wasn’t around most of the time to get the full picture of what was going on. Katie got the impression he honestly did not care about who his daughters made friends with, just that they were happy with them, but her mother....

Her mother, as Katie would know in the future as she grew older, was a snob. 

When they got home, Katie was afforded the rare sight of her father’s car in the driveway. When they got in, Katie and her mother were given a shock. Katie’s father was a tall man who dressed in well made suits, but now his tie was loosened, and his jacket was slung on a chair, nursing a glass of brandy, looking ruflled. When he saw his wife and daughter, he told Katie to go upstairs so then he could talk with his wife. Katie was about to argue, when in the corner of her eye she could see her sister sitting on the stairs, out of sight. Katie and her mother hadn’t noticed her because as soon as the door had opened, she’d scuttled upstairs out of sight. Now she was back. Her sister, noting she’d been seen, motioned her to be quiet. Katie glanced back at her father, and said. “ Okay, dad.” Her father was the only parent she was informal with. Her mother, always demanding her to be formal, was too taken aback by the look of utter dejection on her husbands face. When Katie left the room, her father got up and closed the door, not seeing his other daughter sitting on the stairs. 

Through the closed door, the two girls could hear the adults arguing. “ What’s happened, you look like you’ve swallowed a wasp?” Her father asked.  

“ She was playing with some boy. Football, honestly.” Her mother spat. Their mother never spoke, only shrieked or snarled. Her father’s sigh was a rasp. “ Never mind that, darling. We’ve got problems of our own.” His voice was grim. 

“ What do you mean?” Katie would later learn about the word, ominous, and realise that was how her father had sounded, much to her mothers fear.

Their father sighed again. “ The business has collapsed, like I told you it might. It was sold by the owner, today. I was there in the meeting before coming home. I and most of the staff have been made redundant. 

“We don’t have enough money to keep the house, and we need to sell it, along with everything.”

Their mother tried to act as if this was a joke, but both her daughters had inherited more intelligence than their mother. “ It can’t be that bad,” she tried to downplay the gravity of the situation. 

Her husband needed to make her understand this was serious. “ We can sell the house and the things, and we can use the money to start a business somewhere else, but we have to pitch in. I’ve already found a hardware store that’s selling. We can buy it if we’re quick. Our girls will have to go to public schools as we wont have enough money to send them to Private school.” Their mother automatically rejected this. “ They have to learn how to be ladies.”

A scoff came from their father. “ No, they are girls. We’re no longer rich enough to live in this place, but you had to have us live here, didn’t you? We wouldn’t have this trouble if we’d have lived in somewhere simple, and you had to have all those things, didn’t you? Our girls will go to a public school, and that is that. This family has only one chance to remain on top, and the pay may not be what you’re used to now, but its a chance. You’ll have to work as well as the girls, no more of this woman’s place is in the home rubbish.” 

Their mother’s breathing was hitched as everything she’d wanted out of her husbands salary came crashing down into reality. Without their money funding her extravagance, their mother would have to work in a commoners shop, as she called them. 

For the next hour, both girls clung to each other as they listened patiently to their parents.

As the years past, the family adapted to their new home, their new beginnings. Katie’s mother adapted too, but slowly, her husband and daughters adapted quickly, she still moped around the small flat above their shop, whining about losing her precious friends. Katie’s father always gave the same answer; they were never friends, they were gold diggers. For the girls the transition from their old lives wasn’t so bad, the pressure was off both of them as they were able to make friends their former social circle would’ve sneered at. Their mother soon got used to their new lifestyle, she had no choice, her husband had forced her to go through hard work at the shop to keep her busy. When she’d messed up deliberately, he’d told her plainly they had little left, if they didn’t have money then they’d be forced out on the street. He may have been bluffing since his references were good, and he was building up a respectable trade, but his wife, so ignorant of real life, didn’t know that. 

After that, she became more docile and horrible. 

Katie’s mother, once someone who prized looks and embraced fashion, once the hostess to a hundred dinner parties, had never seen her daughters so happy in their ordinary life. As the two girls grew up and became teenagers, she was forced to work with them.The girls soon realised they would never live in a massive and cold mansion house, and that suited them fine. For Katie, it was because as she grew older to do things that were seen as unladylike, and her sister it was she could make friends more easily. 

Both girls worked at the same shift as their parents when they weren’t doing homework, and during those years the memory of the boy in the greenhouse was a near faded memory on the edge of her  mind, but it was still there. The memory of her first friend would make an unexpected comeback when she least expected it. 

The reunion came when the two of them were in college, in the same class. Both of them were studying art, and they were made to sit next together, although they looked older both of them recognised each other, but they could not remember where. Over the next few months, their friendship grew, when Katie was invited to dinner, it wasn’t Matthew of even Katie who made the revelation. 

It was Matthew’s mother. 

When the two of them realised it, they could not believe it, and for the rest of that night Katie and Matthew exchanged stories of what’d happened when they’d grown up. Katie told them about her family’s fall from grace, how they were doing well with a hardware business they’d bought, and how she was happy with a normal life. 

Matthew told her about how he’d moved on, and how he’d discovered his talent in art, and was selling paintings to a gallery, while working at college. After that night, the two of them became closer, they were married in two years after getting to truly know each other from that single meeting in the greenhouse. Katie’s mother, having grown up over the years, in many ways now saw her daughter’s life was not hers, she doted on her grandchildren. She argued often with Matthew’s mother, though they soon became real friends. 

As the two newly weds grew into their new life as husband and wife, Katie became pregnant and gave birth to twins, a boy and girl called Daniel and Danielle. Both of them were the image of their parents. Danielle turned her nose up at her grandmother’s unsuccessful attempts to turn her into something she wasn’t, something she’d inherited from Katie. Even now Katie’s mother hadn’t lost her ambition to turn her blood into ladies, but was used to their objections. 

Daniel was a rambunctious but serious child, who loved life, an artistic soul, who turned his imagination to words instead of pictures, and he wrote incredible poems and stories, magical tales. 

When the story was finished, Matthew leant back and turned to face his beautiful wife. She smiled,  they kissed, the story of the Boy, the tomboy, and the Greenhouse was over, in it were changes of lives, but the one thing which would never change was how simple their first meeting had been, a story their children would never forget. 

Danielle often asked herself if she would meet her future husband in a greenhouse. 

“ We’re going to the farmshop, who’s coming?” 

The Job

The Job. 

 My inbox sounded as an email was delivered. I sat up and put down my book slowly, and I opened the email, recognising the name at once as Phil Pomeroy, the managing director for a swanky firm, that’d been looking for people to work in their newest store. A job my advisor had put me up for. Forced was more the word. The email message read as follows, and I read it with dread settling into my stomach as I saw the news. Just as I’d thought, it was another refusal. “ Dear Mr.....( for reasons, I prefer to keep my name secret)

I regret to inform you that the position you applied to last Thursday has been filled and you have been unsuccessful. We shall be keeping your details on record in case something comes up. I wish you the best of luck in your search for work. 

Signed

Phil Pomeroy, Managing Director.”

I leant back closing my eyes in frustration, though I wasn’t really surprised. The job had been for a cashier and my job coach at Avanta had pushed me to apply, though I’d told the stupid woman I wasn’t looking specifically for retail, but it was typical for her kind as she did not listen to a single syllable. Or if she did she must have selective hearing and only heard what she wanted to hear. Either that or she was as deaf as a doorknob. 

Back to the job I hadn’t given it much thought when I applied, and I’d thought less of Phil when I’d met him for the interview it only lasted for half and hour, but I got the feeling that there was a nah-nah tone to it, it annoyed me that someone in his position would gloat like that. It wasn’t an adult thing to do, but I couldn’t help but feel this way, just simply annoyed me. 

Without a word, I took a sip of water from the glass sitting next to me, and without any emotion I forwarded it to Avanta to get it over with and to also stop Sheila from asking me about it. She may be deaf, she can read without having to actually talk to her. It was best to just do this as quickly as possible of informing her about my progress, or lack of it. I’d sent off so many of these notifications that it was now second nature, but it was still a blow to read them, it didn’t really bother me anymore, it did in the beginning.

For the last six years, as I’d been asking him for advice on how to find work, what the problem was with me not getting work, and he told me to keep looking and to never give up hope. Something had to give, and something had to come eventually. 

Theoretically at least. In reality it was a different matter, and we both knew it. With so many businesses closing down, I couldn’t imagine anyone actually taking the time to interview me. 

Deep down I knew that those same people, who I truly pitied and I didn’t see why I should hate them for taking so much work away from the rest of us. They were in the same position I was, but there were so many problems with the economy, and the loss of so many businesses, I was only part of a much larger issue.  

As I made myself a snack, my mind fixed on my next meeting with my job advisor and what the meeting may or may not hold. I knew it wouldn’t be good - job coach, advisor, whats the difference between the two? People who don’t listen to you, pick what they want to hear and not bother to give you any options, treat you as if you’re beneath their notice, that the people that meet them are scum, and shove you into meaningless courses that don’t help in the slightest. What good was literacy when you’re looking for work? Knowing where to put a comma was hardly going to get you an interview. That was my experience, it was probably the same with others, in fact I know it was. 

Six years of looking for work. It really had been that long. I scarcely believe it, and I doubt anyone else who’s been out of work for that length of time, or longer, can believe it either. It seemed so unreal. As I made myself some coffee, I thought about the things my father had told me when asked why no-one can find work, he simply said there were no jobs. No one was commissioning work, and no one was buying, and people who were working on their homes were just that, working on their homes as opposed to selling and buying. With carpet factories, without people buying their work then they bought less material and employed fewer staff, and the government weren’t helping matters either. They were making cuts, increasing bills, and they wondered why no one was buying. How thick can you get? 

Still, I thought to myself, it hadn’t been completely bad luck. I did do a fair amount of voluntary work - I’ve stopped now in case your wondering, but I keep up with my cleaning work. I snorted to myself, who would’ve thought it? On my leavers day at school, I was presented with a globe of the world as a prize for the person mosty likely to take over the world, and I end up with work as a cleaner, hardly the role needed to rule the world. What, I’m supposed to be ruling Europe with homes in each country, with people bowing to me in a street, and I work as a cleaner? What a thought. I’d actually enjoyed the compliment though, but I wasn’t sure if I’d shown a taste for power in my life before. Maybe I had, but I can’t remember feeling that particular madness before. 

As I went back to my room, I didn’t bother looking for work. I’d had enough crap for one day, besides I was back at Avanta. 

Sheila was without a doubt the least understanding woman in the world. I despise her. Just as I loathed every single one of her kind both in these useless little agencies sponsored by the government. I hated them for clear reasons, and it wasn’t just for the reasons I listed above. Sheila wasn’t the only job coach I’d had at Avanta, there’d been someone else, but I never saw him again after our initial one to one, so I’ve forgotten his name. During our conversation, he told me about courses the local college were running, and when I’d checked out their prospectus I was furious, both with myself and with them for not even thinking to mention them or even the possibilities they presented. It’d never occurred to me that I could’ve gone on a college course, and gained a qualification in something like woodwork or even as a masseur if I’d studied massaging, and even set up a mini business. Self employment had been something I’d occasionally come up with, but there were problems with making it possible. I’ve sold things online, but there’s always the possibility of very little going. And the fees on ebay are exorbitant. 

Freelancing was also left with a question mark over its head, and it was something I had seriously considered over the years, but there was one problem, what business would I run? I’ve sold Kleeneze catalogues, and believe me when I say, don’t. The problem with someone like Sheila was she was so impersonal, an icy woman. She never smiled, she never laughed, she just regarded you as though you weren’t worth her time. I sometimes felt like an insect in her gaze, she didn’t like insects.

She also didn’t seem to think there were other solutions to the problems her clients, not just me you notice, were facing. She knew they were out there, but she chose to ignore them for some unintelligible reason. Worse she kept shooting down my ideas, anything I had because handing out CVs and application forms simply were not helping, any plan I had to escape the hell of this place, but she didn’t listen. Once I heard a woman complain how her advisor never listened to her either, Welcome to the club. 

“ I noticed you didn’t get that job,” she commented in her clipped voice, not looking at me for a single second, idly tapping away on something at her computer, I sat down. She never said hello. She never welcomed anyone. Impersonal, the clipped voice that greeted me I was used to it, and I truly did not care. Sheila was a forty something year old witch, her hair was short a severe short cut, her cold eyes were framed by wire thin glasses. I sometimes wondered if those glasses had seen use as barbed wire, her face was sour was if she’d spent the last thirty odd years sucking the juice out of lemons. 

“ That’s right,” I replied. I gave her a brief summary of the interview, points where Phil did and did not go through the questions Sheila had prepared for practice. At least she didn’t bother with mock interviews, of that I was thankful. Mock interviews were nothing like the real thing, in the real interview you had no idea who you were speaking too, let alone what they ask you when you sit down. In theory, mock interviews were designed to prepare you for the real thing, but in reality they didn’t help you when your breathing was shallow, butterflies were buzzing around in the stomach, and your heart was pounding with anxiety. You know the person you’re speaking too in a mock up, but you know nothing of what they may ask you during the real thing, the person behind the actual interview may hit on something on your CV, something irrelevant to your or the coach, but not to them, or ask you something so bizarre you don’t know if its a trick question or not. 

Putting it out of my mind, I spoke giving a field report about the interview, Sheila didn’t say a word, she didn’t ask a question. She just sat and listened. This was typical Sheila, and the one trait I liked about her, she waited until you’d given her the facts and then she picked them apart. When I was finished, she didn’t hide her disappointment from me. Wasn’t surprised. 

“ For the last eight months you’ve come back with this,” Sheila began irritably, taking her glasses off and chewing them thoughtfully. “ What about the work trial at the hotel? I was disappointed you didn’t get the job, just because you didn’t like it.”

I resisted the urge to sigh. Work trials and work experience, neither of them had been successful with me, particularly with hotels, the worst place to work in the world. The problem with large places, big businesses, is that although I put in my best, its sometimes not seen as enough. Worse, when you go to work do you really want to spend months asking people what to do? Some may be okay with that, but I hate that. I prefer working independently where I know what I’m doing. 

Sheila watched me, seeing I was deep in thought, she changed the subject for which I was thankful for. She leant forward, her voice colder than ever and her eyes deadly serious. “ I am getting tired of handing over jobs for you, only for them to be dropped down the drain. I can’t work that way. Keep this up and you’ll lose benefits.”

Lose benefits, those two words echoed through my mind, and my anger rose at hearing them. I’d had my benefits dropped two weeks ago after working over the hours limit when my cleaning company asked me to work at a school for a few extra hours, but it was all day. As a result the job centre had closed my claim, so I had to reopen it. Oh my god, the amount of bureacracy involved is beyond belief. How do they work like that? My anger, usually capped in public as I had a truly horrendous temper, just surged through me. I couldn’t help myself.  

“ What benefits? I haven’t had any money from the job centre in weeks, you know I had to reopen my claim Sheila, I told you.” I argued back. Sheila was unimpressed with my statement. I left Avanta afterwards knowing nothing she said would make any difference, ignoring Sheila say to me to do a job search. What good would it do?  I just wanted to be by myself. 

 I’ve felt like this for the last few years, going from one agency to another, Avanta was no different. I knew my limits, but they didn’t care. They didn’t understand, nor did I, why I found it so hard to actually buckle down to the tasks although I gave them my best shot. As I walked down the street, I bought myself a newspaper to read on the bus home. I didn’t have a book. As I caught the next bus, I went to sit at the far back, isolated and alone. I liked the solitude, where I could think in the privacy of my own thoughts. I opened the paper, and as I flicked from story to story, page to page, my eyes caught something I had not expected. It was an advert for a short story competition. Normally I ignored these ads, but this caught my eye in a way no one could’ve imagined. 

For the last three years to stave off boredom, I’ve started to write fanfiction stories online, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but I’ve never imagined seeing myself as an author like Peter James or Martina Cole. Could I? I mused to myself, could I write a short story? Casting my eyes downwards to read the ad again, I felt excited. Any theme welcome, it said. Any theme? What sort of story? It would have to be something eye catching, something the judges would notice. I saw the website address on the ad when it said to look for more information, so I tore the ad out of the page and carefully folded it and slid into my pocket, but my mind was still on the theme. It had be something spectacular. 

By the time I got home, I checked the short story competition online. The website was so informative, it was a monthly competition and I had until the end of the month to come up with a possible story, anyone could enter. Whoever won first prize or even the second would do pretty good, and there was no entry fee involved. I could also submit the work online without resorting to post. I turned my computer off, and grabbing a few sheets of paper from the printer I listed the ideas for short stories, but before I did I put a CD in my DVD player. I work best to music. I sat down on my bed, propping myself up on my pillows and got to work. 

Writing a short story was one thing, thinking of it was quite a different kettle of fish altogether. I looked at the ideas I’d written down. I’d started out with some spider diagrams and bullet point ideas. Time travel, out. A city in space, possible but I wanted a story with a sense of reality somehow. A horror story? No, I didn’t know the first thing about horror.  A detective story, perhaps? 

No, I thought to myself leaning back into my pillows. I wanted a story that was realistic, honest and true.

For the next day or so, I racked my brains for ideas. I could write about school, but I didn’t have pleasant memories there, so what did I have? I got my answer on Friday. Cleaning day, and the only other day of the week I worked. It wasn’t a good morning for me, not since I’d been up late during the night, thinking and jotting down ideas. Until my eyes drooped tiredly before I had the good sense to put my work away and turn my light off get some sleep. I’ve never been good at falling asleep, and my brain always kept me awake. I must’ve only just closed my eyes and gotten some peace when my mobile phone alarm went off at 5.55 am. I grumbled to myself sleepily. When you work late at night, you wake up feeling as though your head were filled with cotton wool. With a groan, I reached out for the phone, turned it off before the sound could echo in my brain anymore, yawning I got out of bed, my limbs and eyes were still half asleep. 

I left my home at 6.15, and started my walk to the bus stop in the high street. It was dark and cold, but it wasn’t raining. I patted my pockets where I had my wallet, my mobile and my key. All safe and sound. The walk and the chill breeze were enough to wake me up partially, it was good to get some exercise, brief as it was, and air into the lungs. I never ate breakfast before work because I’m a slow eater, and besides I wouldn’t be long. I was working up an appetite. It was a longish walk to the high street, the majority of the shops still dark, and it was strange not seeing cars out this early, but there was a massive lorry parked right outside the co-op. I didn’t have time to think about it as the bus pulled up to the curb of the stop, but I’d always asked myself how the drivers do it, waking up so early in the morning or if they did the night shift that lasted until the early hours of the morning, driving from one supermarket to another. I stepped onto the bus, flashing my monthly bus pass at the driver before picking up a metro newspaper and getting a seat. Time seemed to blur as the bus left the high street and travelled on its morning pilgrammage into town. It was a long way to Brighton, and it was coming up to 7.00 when I finally got off the bus next to a pub near the clocktower. I walked the remaining two minutes towards the Churchill Square, where Urban Outfitters stood, a building of glass and wooden surfaces inside. A bit like a model kit inside easy to assemble, and clean. 

As I got to work hovering the place, I thought about the short story and the ideas I’d made already. I’d virtually filed the ideas of my earlier ideas and plans, and though they were all good ideas I was still leaning towards something with plausibility and realism, and science fiction was my favoured genre, so why couldn’t I stop myself from feeling I was looking at this the wrong way round? As I hoovered around the dusty corners and under the chairs where the Urban staff had their morning meetings, I thought of other ideas for something I could use. Two hours I worked without an idea, and as I clocked out to end my shift, and got on another bus to take me home, I put my hands in my pockets to think to myself, I frowned, feeling something made of plastic. Surprised at this unexpected find, I pulled it out and studied it before sighing wearily, it was the plastic wallet that held my job centre details. My part time work sheet, my job lead log.....I looked at it for a long moment. I couldn’t help it, and then my mind clicked, all the memories of my six years job searching, the constant looking through papers, websites, the worthless and meaningless courses that ultimately proved how pathetic the government’s logic was and how it didn’t help everyone in the long run. I held the plastic wallet in my hands. How many times had I touched this thing, seen the creases and worn stitching through years of being in my possession? A smile appeared on my face as a story plan came into my mind, the pieces slotting neatly into a story. 

When I got home I’d made a few possibilities for a short story about a jobseeker nearing the end of his rope, and as I wrote them down in the same manner as last night, this time it was morning, I ignored my hungry stomach as excitement filled me, and I started writing the possibilities of a story, and then it hit me. Why should I be sending one story off to one competition when they were on all the time? I shelved the idea for the time being as I focused on the plan. I had no trouble writing out the start and the plotline for the storyplan, what I did have a problem with was the ending of the story. The beauty of short stories was that they don’t have to have an ending, just some sort of resolution. Should I just write as much of the story as I could, and decide for an ending along the way? 

I started to work on the short story after I finally gave into my hunger. It was quite a big breakfast, and I ate it slowly as I thought up ideas to develop the story and come up with a possible ending for it. When I finished, I put my bowl and glass into the dishwasher, and I got to work. I put on some music, and I opened an empty word document, the story plan or what amounted to one in front of me. 

The music to a suitable volume, I sat back and let the music pass through the grey matter of my thoughts. Then I leant forward, and started to work, slowly I let the words flow naturally through my fingers, down the nerves from my brain onto the computer screen. After two hours, I sat back and admired my work. I hadn’t forced this story, so the words were natural and flowing as they’d appeared on the page. I saved the page, and began to wonder how it should end.

The next day, I ignored everything, and I just started writing. Words became sentences, and sentences became paragraphs, and paragraphs became pages, the story began to take shape. It was easy to write and edit at the same time. Parts of the story were rewritten to make more sense, and the general feel of the story smelt strongly of realism. I’d decided to write about a jobseeker, frustrated by the lack of success received, he went into selling magazines like the Big Issue, I never did that, but I could play with the concept a little, or into voice work, spending tonnes of cash on the lessons and the installation of an account before finding out the work was a scam, before going full time into cleaning work. I wrote the way the character felt, being on the virtual end of his tether, tired of not hearing anything back from the people he contacted. Only to be stunned by the rapidity of being contacted by the cleaning company, to the interview he got the next day before starting the job the day after the interview. At last, the jobseeker had a job. A part timer, maybe, it was a step into the right direction. I included the elation of finally getting paid work as opposed to voluntary. As I wrote the story, I experimented with the words, trying to add the frustration I personally felt towards the situation. Writing about the frustration was far from difficult, all I had to do was simply drain my own frustrations into the writing. 

When I finished and began the long process of editing it, I still hadn’t thought of a satisfactory ending to the story. For a week I toyed with the idea of leaving it like that, but I didn’t like it somehow. I didn’t like leaving the story unfinished, I wanted to add something. I didn’t want to add the voice work I’d tried to do, contrary to people like Sheila, I was willing to try any field aside from building or driving to earn money for myself to get off jobseekers. 

Voice work was suggested to me by mom, and although I was skeptical at first I was convinced when I read the back of a book, about the main character having been a successful voice artist, so I made a call to a trainer. What a mistake, but at the time it’d seemed a good idea. 

It cost an arm and a leg, and if you’d thought I’d learnt my lesson before with Kleeneze, I hadn’t.

I thought so too, as I wasted hours testing my voice and trying to make something of it. In the end I abandoned the attempt. I was back to square one, sending CVs and application forms and not hearing anything back, not even during Christmas time when jobs are sent out like confetti at a party. For a whole week I didn’t work on the story. I read it again and again, editing and tweaking it but still hadn’t come up with an ending.

I decided to leave it and come back to it.

“ How’s the short story story coming?” My sister asked me at dinner. 

I’d told the family about the competition, of course, they’d lent ideas, but I knew what I wanted to do.

I shrugged. “ I’m stuck,” I told them, and I explained about the plot line again, and where I was now, I’d already told them it was about a frustrated jobseeker, and how he tried his luck with everything. Then my mother frowned thoughtfully. “ You’re writing a short story about a jobseeker, and you’re a jobseeker yourself.”

I frowned. What was she trying to say to me?

“ Yeah,” I said quietly, drawing the word out.

Then my mother shrugged. “ Well, you get your jobseeker to write a short story to enter it into a competition as a sort of hobby.” The way my mother said it was so obvious. I wanted to kiss her, but with the table between us and her breath smelling, I would settle for a hug later. 

When I settled down in my seat, I opened up the short story on my computer and started to work on it once more. As I wrote, my mother’s words came back to me and I found a way to play with the words. Instead of going for work, I wrote about my jobseeker writing short stories not as a job, but as a hobby.  I wrote about him being a quiet and thoughtful person simply trying to make the best in life, even though he couldn’t get anything, even with the cleaning work to support him. As I wrote, I felt myself free of my inner demons. When I finally finished and went back, editing as I went, I felt satisfied with what I’d accomplished. 

The Jobseeker was a success, it won first prize in the competition. I accepted the money and award graciously, and it sparked off my desire to write more stories. I looked online for different magazines, even going into The Writers and Artists yearbook for hints and magazines to contact for details. I started writing short stories, poems, and I sent them off to various magazines. But I would never forget the competition that had made me feel like the luckiest man alive. 

Boy, did it feel right!

New Camelot

The day that changed my life forever started out like any other, with me getting ready to go to work. Before I left I took a long look at Father, seeing his arm in a leather sling from the beating he’d been given by the vicious knuckle dusters, cracking his bones and stopping him from working. Not that I minded the extra work, I just wish the Knights were more kinder in letting my Father go. Its the new taxes. Twelve francs instead of seven. 

Mother looked up, stopped knitting and came to me before hugging me gently. Ever since my elder brother was arrested and thrown into the Incinerator for sorcery, I was all the family besides Father left, and my parents didn’t want to see me in trouble. Thinking of my elder brother was enough to make my parents cry their hearts out, sometimes I heard them late at night when the steam pits weren’t delivering steam to our heater, freezing us in the night, and they cried, lamenting the days when the High Court decided to show us peasants who was really in charge. Father stopped his work, groaning as he got up from his chair to pat me gently on the shoulder. “ Don’t talk to Knights or sorcerers.” He said quietly. I held back the scoff, though from hearing the stories from Grandfather meeting a sorcerer was as likely as a Knight saying one polite thing to me. Getting through the day without meeting a Knight was more important. I didn’t scoff, I just nodded obediently as expected, and hugged my parents. “ I won’t.” I whispered, though we knew the chances of meeting a sorcerer was slim. The Knights were a different story. 

Stepping out into the streets, I looked above, gazing as the sun caught the glint of the metal and crystal that made up the towers of the Overcity, casting their shadow over the Undercity, with the two moons overhead. There was a superstition going about the High Court casting their shadows on the lesser people, that they secretely used magic to see us in the shadows was something everyone claimed was true, and from the way everyone went out their way to avoid the shadows and to keep to the sunlit places in the city, they believed it. 

So did I. Bad things did tend to happen when people stepped into the shadows. My brother accidentally stepped into the shadows when he’d been bumped by a Knight, not long after he was arrested and executed for sorcery, though if he did was another matter. The Knights do sometimes kill anyone for anything, letting fear for them deepen among the peasant class. 

Sorcery, any kind of technology that had been practiced or discovered by the Knights is an immediate death sentence. Electric lights, teleportation, energy weapons, computers, gene resequencers, holograms - all were banned by the High Court, and the Knights were granted full authority to search any home or business suspected of harboring sorcery, or any artefacts. I glanced up at the sky for a fleeting glimpse of the two moons; it was said, in the days of Ancient Earth, there had been one natural moon, but now because of sorcery the natural order had been perverted because of the second moon. It was stories of this kind that made it so simple for the High Court to claim sorcery was evil, especially this as it disrupted the order of nature. My parents certainly believed sorcery was evil. One son dead. Me...I wasn’t so sure. The Great Purge was the extermination of the technomages, when the High Court decreed for the final time the ban on sorcery, technomages tried to stop them by creating floods, but this furthered the growing opinion the High Court had a point on sorcery. The Knights hunted down and slaughtered the ones who practiced sorcery, but so many are unaccounted for to this day, the searches go on day and night. Thinking of the Great Purge and the part the Knights played in it reminded me to keep my eyes on the Knights I was passing, and to stop myself from stepping into the shadows of the walls. 

It just made avoiding the Knights even harder. There weren’t many walking around this time of morning luckily, that would change when everyone went to work. I kept my head down in submission, though that rarely stopped one of them from stopping me in the streets. I raised my eyes to give a passing Knight a fleeting glimpse. A massive figure, clad in chainmail made from a titanium alloy, one of the only examples of alloy surviving, with the helmet covering the whole head with a visor of black glass covering the eyes so we couldn’t see their faces when they attack us. A whip and short sword was clipped to the belt, making the Knight’s bulk even more imposing. 

There were rumours that the Knights were made by sorcery. If someone said that in the presence of a Knight they would be hacked to death on the spot.

I blew out a breath as the weight of the sawn lumber made my muscles ache. I swore the loads were growing heavier each day. Working at the Incinerator paid the bills, put food in the stomachs of the family, and indeed Incinerator work was better than working in the fields or the Overcity, working as squires or manservants for the High Court or the Knights. I knew people of my district who worked there. They were never the same after. Working as manservants and housekeepers to the High Court was the worst profession in the City. The slaves were made to do degrading work all over suites and living areas, humiliated infront of High Court members. They were more jester than worker.  

My job was simple; make sure the burners always had wood to burn. No one spoke unless it was to give orders or answer a question from a passing Knight. Speech was forbidden in the workplace, sometimes punishable by death or a beating, depending on the severity, except for the supervisors to give orders and listen to explanations about this and that. The knights stood in the background, thick fingers coiling around their weapons, making it clear what would happen if anyone so much as spoke. It wasn’t easy to ignore the massive armour clad figures. They often enjoyed harassing people. Today it was my turn. 

Two Knights were stood close to the wood bins where I was working with others, their black visors making it hard for us brave enough to look up at them to figure out which of us they were speculating would be good prey. I’d just picked up another lumber pile with a girl my age - I was 19 - and taking deep breaths to stop the urge to drop it to give my aching limbs time to recover after loads of practice, before the Knights moved forwards towards me. The other slaves backed away, looking down at their toes to stop the Knights from bullying them in turn. 

One of the Knights pointed at me to his friend, before he moved closer to me, jabbing his finger in my chest. “ You,” the voice was like fingernails scraped down a slate. “ Why do you not pick up your pace?” 

I kept my eyes down, hoping they would think I was mute. They didn’t. “ Answer him!” The other Knight roared, drawing the attention of some of the other slaves and Knights. I looked up, but kept my head bowed. It was a good idea to keep the head bowed to show submission. “ I am taking it slowly,” I started saying. “ That way I don’t feel exhausted by the end of the shift. Its a rule to consolidate your strengths.”

The Knights knew this. Slaves worked here all day and night, and they worked in shifts till the sun was high in the sky, then they had a brief break before working again for a shorter time. 

The first Knight nodded, voice surprisingly mild as if he hadn’t just threatened me with his size. “ Good. For a moment I thought you were being stupid.” The Knights turned to leave, and I relaxed. I was just turning back to carry on with my work, when the whip cracked and a searing pain went through my back. I collapsed to the ground in pain, breathing in and out. The First Knight stepped towards me, and picked me up by the scruff of my neck. An oily smell wafted from the helmet. The voice close to my ear made me shudder. It was cold as ice. “ Next time, answer our questions properly with the proper decorum.”

The Knight dropped me to the ground in a heap. 

After going to the sickroom where the medic at the Incinerator quietly tended to my injury, I went back to work after being given a pain draught, but as I kept bending to pick up the bundles of wood the pain kept coming to me. The other slaves didn’t say a word, but it didn’t stop them from giving me looks of pity.

The shift bell rang, but before I could leave my shift, the supervisor came over to me. She didn’t ask me how I was. No one could blame her, least of all me, since no supervisor in any industry in the City would show any care to a mere slave worker. 

She handed me a brown message bag. “ Take this to the lower levels, steam room twenty.”

Steam room twenty, the lowest and largest steam room there was, but also the most closest room to the underground springs and caverns that made up the reservoir. I knew all about the other steam rooms, but not that one. “ I’m sorry, Supervisor.” I replied evenly, showing as much politeness as possible. “ I do not know where it is.”

The answer annoyed the Supervisor. “ Then you had better find it, slave,” she hissed at me, keeping her voice down to stop any passing Knight from overhearing us, she may be privileged, but she could lose it at the snap of somebody’s fingers. She went on, her voice becoming harsh. “ I saw the punishment. If you want another, I can arrange it for you.” She held up the message bag. “ Take this bag, go to the lower levels, find the steam room and give to the supervisor there. Fail, and you will find the beating you had today will look like a slap. Go!”

I took the bag meekly, and headed over to the stairway. As I went down, the heat grew, and I had to show the passing Knights the message bag to show my business. There were twelve floors of the lower levels, but it was a rabbit warren down here, and I didn’t know all the routes. Where was it? There were signs on the walls, but I couldn’t read. No one had taught me, not that they could. No one had read in years.  

 I looked around hopefully for someone to see me, but there was no one I could see. Either the workers had gone off shift, or they were doing some other work, I didn’t know. Wood pilers and Steamers did different work. I hesitated, then decided to chance the risk of getting a beating. 

I called out. 

No reply. 

The heat crawled over my body, soaking me. I wished for a water bubble to drink from. I wandered around the corridors of the lower levels, keeping the message bag close to me. It was my shield, my excuse from being down here. The passageways were narrow, and I knew I was getting lost. I had hoped that by coming here to the lowest level of the Incinerator plant I could give the message to the supervisor on duty, then find someone willing to take me back to the surface. Finally I came to a disused door. Finally, some progress. I knocked on it, hoping to hear the words ‘ Come in,’ but there wasn’t a sound. 

I opened the door. No one. All there was inside this room was....it couldn’t be. How could this room have survived the Purge? Was this room on the List of Suspect, and it had never been found because of the maze of corridors?

The walls were lined with bookcases, each book had a silver-black binding so the light glinted on them, but I knew a nanobook when I saw one, at least I think they’re nanobooks. I’ve only heard of them; little...machines embedded in special paper, each little machine giving the book information, like a menu of choice the nobility expect at restaurants. There was a set of lightning gloves, devices that could alter the weather in an unholy way, a hand held holographic scanner, a bio manacle, increasing the speed of a normal man, and a number of devices stacked neatly in the room. 

“ Hello, my friend,” a voice whispered gently. 

I jumped, so absorbed was I that I’d ignored a metal disc mounted on the floor. The lighting in the room dimmed. Something stood on it, a shadowy person wrapped in an aura of gold. “ Hello.” My voice was a squeaking whisper. I was terrified, but my curiosity shook off my fear. “ Who are you?” 

The shadowy figure’s lips quirked, smiling, but the face was so smooth it was hard to tell. It was almost a cross between a smile and a frowning grimace. The face was unfinished, like the person who sculpted the face stopped halfway through. “ I am the last of the Mind Uploaders.” My confusion must have appeared on my face, because the... Mind Uploader asked another question. “ Do you know what I am?” It asked. 

“ No.”

“ Strange, judging from your profile, you match another young man that worked here and I never saw again. Minas, his name was I believe.” 

I gasped horrified “ That’s my brother. So he was practicing sorcery!” 

They were right I thought numbly, my parents, the Knights, the High Court....sorcery was pure evil! My mind changed when the Uploader spoke again. The being thought over my words. “ If you mean technology, then no. At least, not exactly. He was like you, fearful of understanding the technology your people have forgotten. Did you know that once a long time ago, Earth was the centre of a mighty Empire, then a Federation of worlds? How can technology be evil if it can bring you such things?” The Mind Uploader raised its....hand, it was like a mittened paw really. “ Don’t go,” it said, “ I miss having somebody to talk to.” 

Although I was terrified of discovery, I couldn’t help but go down to the Lower levels. The Mind Uploader had already worked its sorcery on my mind. On the first day, it had drawn my to stand on the platform it stood on, and ‘downloaded’ information into my brain. History spanning centuries, places and beings from across the galaxies, technology pouring into my mind like sauce over a piece of steak. I could now read, write, calculate numbers in my head, opening myself up to possibilities I’d never believed or thought about before. 

To have more knowledge downloaded in my mind, I just needed to stand on the metal plate, then it started. Knowledge trickled into my head. For the first time, the Uploader had to force me over there, pulled by an unseen force I later learnt was called an attraction beam. Now, I went up willingly, looking forwards to the new knowledge I would be receiving. 

“ So my brother discovered you. What then?” I asked one day. 

The Uploader didn’t reply at first, busy selecting the information intake before he responded. “ Like you, he was afraid of me, afraid of the High Court.” It scoffed. “ Fools, the lot of them. They used to use technology, or sorcery as you refer to it.”

I couldn’t believe it. “ The High Court uses technology?” 

“ Yes, They still do, though in secrecy. Those Knights, for example, they’re products of genetic engineering and robotics. The High Court recruits them secretly, going out late at night, kidnapping them or stealing from cradles when they’re young. Its better with infants, because then the mind is more open to mental manipulation. They’re cybernetic organisms now.” 

Thanks to the Uploading, I knew what a cybernetic organism was, a cross between a robot and a person. Now I knew the exact design of cyborgs, knew where the neutron power sources were, the nanobots going around uploading and repairing circuits. It explained so much, like how the Knights never took off their helmets. It also explained the kidnappings annually, and why the High Court didn’t do anything about it. 

I thought quickly, and the thought entered the mind of the Uploader computer. “ Yes. I can show you how to destroy the Knights.” 

In fact, the Uploader insisted on showing me. I took it he was pleased someone could finally destroy those horrors. If they really were people snatched from the cribs, what chance did they have now? My studies into cyber technology had shown once it had started on brain, it couldn’t be reversed, not unless you wanted the subject to regress to that of a vegetable. 

I couldn’t see the Uploader for a month after.  He told me to avoid coming down to the Lower levels to prevent discovery. Although the Knights hadn’t found the room the Mind Uploader was stored inside, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get suspicious of me getting lost down here. I stopped voluntering to take messages down to the Steam rooms for the time being. 

The High Court must suspect someone was practicing sorce-technology, somewhere in the city, because Knight patrols were increasing every second, searches had increased, I was hesitant about voluntering to go taking messages down to the steam rooms. I decided to wait until the patrols had started to diminish before I went back. 

I voluntered for the chance to take another message down so I could lose myself accidentally in the lower levels. I wasn’t missed by the Supervisors, but I was careful with how I went on with slipping away from the crowd. There were plenty of slave workers halfway through the day, so why waste time fretting about one single slave worker?

I took the message bag with me down the levels, my mind using the mental map the Uploader had placed there, using it to pick out another route in case I needed to lose a Knight who was following me by chance. After using three different routes, I arrived at the Uploader room. 

The hologram was pleased to see me, though cautious. “ The High Court are looking for me. I know they are.”

I nodded. “ I want it all. All the knowledge. I want to fight them.”

The Uploader hologram narrowed its brow, frowning at me. “ Fighting them is only half the trouble. I have one more databank to upload into your brain. How have you come with your lessons?” 

The Uploader had told me to spend as much time as possible going through the precious knowledge it had downloaded into my brain, and spend as time away from the downloading machine to let myself adjust to the knowledge. The Uploader had told me to practice my writing in my room where I could spend time to myself before bed. 

“ I’ve moved on from normal calculus, now I’m studying bioengineering equations.” I replied with some pride. Despite my initial fear, I enjoyed my lessons. 

The Uploader nodded in agreement. “ When I have downloaded this latest knowledge bank, you must deliver the message bag, then go home. This is the largest load yet.” 

I stepped onto the disc, and just as the knowledge had started pouring into my mind, the door slammed open revealing a squad of Knights along with my Supervisor. 

She looked pleased with herself, nodding smugly. “ There, you see,” she pointed. “ He’s been acting strangely, always voluntering for message work. Who’d want that job when they’d earn more stoking the Incinerator?”

The Knight captain turned its helmet to her. “ Excellent observation, Supervisor. Your service to the state has been noted and appreciated.”

My brain was still being infused, but the Uploader slowed the flow down. I felt my arm lift up, and the Uploader sent a thought rippling over my mind. 

A beam of pure energy left my hand. The beam hit the Knight on its armoured chest before it could raise its weapons.It glowed, then became a pile of glowing ash. The Supervisor gasped, and I could almost tell her thought was saying, he’s evil. 

The Mind Uploader took control of my other arm, creating a ball of purple energy. The Supervisor would call it a magic ball, but it was a shield. It extended around me and the Mind Uploader, and the technology around the room at once. The Mind Uploader and I were not going to let the Knights or the High Court destroy this precious treasure. 

The moment she saw the field, the Supervisor backed away with a fearful gasp, making the sign of safety to ward off sorcery, the Knights just stood there, as if working out what they should do next. The Mind Uploader sent a thought saying the Knights knew they couldn’t use their swords to bluntly damage the shield because it was so rare, but that didn’t stop them from trying when they reached their decision. Rushing towards me, with only the bubble shield for protection, they started slamming their short swords on the shield. 

Thud! The swords made such a dull thudding sound on the shield. The Mind Uploader using my body for its weapon, clenched my fists with his control, then flung my arms out. The Uploader used his control over my body and the shield to slam the guards against the walls of the room, making them shudder at the impacts. The Uploader slowly gathered his remaining energy, and slowly drew my hands together. I could feel a heat build between my hands, both inside and outside of my skin, growing hotter by the second. The energy created by the Uploader was drawn from the platform, I could feel the energy being molded between my hands like clay being molded into a bowl. 

A ball of energy, a ball grown from pure plasma converted from energy within the platform, molded by energy into matter, between my hands. I could feel the wind pick up, the heat building.....the sheer power stopped the guards and the now cowering supervisor, who was whimpering in a heap. The heat of the fusion ball made my heart quicken, and the power of it made me wonder if the sheer power, the knowledge of having a fusion ball growing between your hands, being able to move from one place to another in a second....this was why the High Court banned technology. They didn’t want anyone to handle the power. When the ball had grown to the size the downloads had told me was the same size as a basketball, the Mind Uploader and I threw it against the guards, catching them off guard. The last thing I remember is falling unconcious, induced by the Uploader as he teleported us out.

The Uploader and I spent the next four years travelling, me learning how to manipulate technology. In a matter of months I’d learnt how to teleport, with practice I could teleport myself with absolute safety and accuracy, and the distances grew and grew. As I learnt I drew on the superior knowledge of my mentor. We travelled, sometimes visible and sometimes not, teleporting around a world I never knew existed. The High Court doesn’t allow travel past the city walls unless its to go to the fishing villages on the coast, even then they wouldn’t allow anyone to leave the ever increasing confines of the City, but now I was seeing sights never before imagined. The Mind Uploader wasted no time showing me a world forgotten, showing me the decaying pyramids in a desert country called Egypt, showing me the rainforests. The incredibly beautiful Great Barrier Reef. We even walked under the sea using hydrostatic fields which kept the water out. It was like walking in a soap bubble. 

“ Why did the High Court ban technology?” I asked the Uploader as we took another stroll under the sea. 

The Uploader turned to me. “ There was a solar flare, it cooked the half the technology on the planet, except for the Uploaders like myself, the weather and teleport technologies. There was much demand for the remaining technology, which Man has become dependent on for centuries. The High Court were established to control the flow of use, but they discovered quickly they couldn’t control it, so they began experimenting. One of those experiments resulted in an explosion that caused widespread damage. After that it was easy for the High Court to ban technology, deeming it evil.”

Learning from the Uploader was an experience, being away from home made me worry about my family though. How would the High Court treat them? That worry followed me throughout our travels. It came as a surprise when I discovered there were settlements around the world, the Uploader was amused by this. 

“ You didn’t really think we were alone, did you? One little city on a world like this?” I was just amazed. 

My studies took place everyday, the Uploader drawing on the power of the sun to become a stronger hologram to teach me. With the lightning gloves I found myself able to create storms and, wondrously, snow before a wave of my hand brought the sun back. 

I learnt how to create earthquakes and volcanoes by using a space station in orbit. The station had been put there to inbduce volcanic activity when the population needed fertile land in large quantities. I’d heard stories told about volcanoes, that technology could create one was a shock. The Uploader reassured me it had been carefully regulated, every action was taken with safety. 

Our travels ended two years later, returning to the City. I was no longer the person I had been before. I was more confident, more controlled. The Uploader had taken me to be taught by experts, engineers and scientists that I’d once called mages when I’d reached a level of knowledge before I was ready. I’d excelled in those lessons until it was time to return. I was sorry to leave the tutors.

We returned home to find the City had become even worse than before. The High Court had murdered my family, imprisoning many innocents. Now the whole of the Incinerator was to keep them warm, and the common people cold at night. 

 I decided it was time to do something about the High Court. 

It was time to end this. 

I made an electromagnetic bomb to destroy the Knights. Since no one on Earth except for the technomages knew the Knights were machines and they could be destroyed easily, the High Court controlled a seemingly unstoppable army. Planting the device on the tallest spire, I waited for the bomb to detonate. The Knights dropped to the ground, frying the people inside the armour that could no longer support them. I did feel a sense of guilt but it was squashed by the knowledge of what they’d done.

I caused a rainfall in the Overcity, flooding them and keeping the Undercity free. Flooding the Overcity was easy, freezing it was easier. Finding support for a revolution was easy, once they got over my new powers. I met with some of them in a meeting hall in the Undercity. It had been quiet since the destruction of the Knights. Many of them recognised me that night. I showed them what lay within a Knights armour. Everyone moved closer, their curiosity overriding their fear. The women screamed when they saw the wizened and grey face of what had once been a teenager. His face was like paper, his eyes were grey, and his eyes were sunken pits. I licked my dry lips, looking the corpse, then the people with pity. 

“ This is what the High Court have been doing to us,” I said quietly, but my words carried easily through the disgusted and shocked air. “ Look at him. This used to be one of us, a person. Someone with feelings and someone who had years of life left. I have seen with my own eyes the lies the High Court have spread. There’s more to the world than what they say. The High Court murdered my family, all because I stumbled onto the truth.”

I gazed around the room. Everyone was waiting for what I was going to say next with bated breath. “ It is time to end all that.”

The people cheered. They were still cheering when they started storming the Overcity, killing with pitchforks and tools until the walls were covered in congealed blood. Technology was taught by the Mind Uploader, once the people got over their latent fear of science. I watched as they started accepting technology once more. Oh, there was the occasional disagreement as the older generations who’d lived in fear of the words science and technology, some older people even trying to burn down the homes of those who were now practicing science instead of whimpering in fear of it. The cowards were never seen, but the technology we now had working for us safeguards our lives so no one was really hurt. Nevertheless, quite a few warnings were made to those practicing science that the older generation still needed time to get used to it all. Over the next few years, the incidents became fewer, and many, including those of the older generation elevated themselves as examples of tolerance, using machines and science to cook, and even clean their homes faster than a broom. I watched as new generations of technology aware children took over the running of the City, discovering millions of long forgotten technologies in the City. 

Soon the Incinerator plant stopped when the geothermal heating systems were repaired and reactivated, finally the slavery in the City crawled to a stop. I remembered the deaths of my parents, and I built a memorial for all the damage the High Court had done, especially to those lost in the Purge and the aftermath. 

I started travelling again when the City had grown technologically, but I was pleased when the new generations began to re-explore the world, building new villages that grew like flowers into cities. 

Who would ever think this revolution started when a mere peasant stumbled across a Mind Uploader on a normal working day?