The Whittling Post Digest - Issue 7

Well, after just over a week of intense self-destructive behaviour, I’ve decided to pull up my sleeves and knock certain unhealthy activities on the head for a bit. After all, self-destruction does get quite boring and expensive after awhile. I’m sure I’ll snap within 24-hours or so, but I just can’t lie in bed shaking in physical and psychological anguish one minute longer. Can you believe a person wouldn’t find that fun?! Crazy!

Anyway…

DUNE I & II (continued)

While certainly enjoying these films, I found myself getting somewhat bored with samey-samey scenes of maudlin characters muttering to one-another, so I decided to take a break from my viewing. I’ll hopefully resume work this coming week, maybe even starting from scratch, as booze has erased much of it from my memory. Oh well. On the plus side though, I really only have positive things to say, which comes as a great relief.

SEALAB 2021

Somebody recommended this on a podcast, but unfortunately I’m finding it hard tracking down full episodes. The show is basically footage from an old and forgotten Hanna-Barbera cartoon repurposed for comedy, erm, purposes. So, basically, it contains all new dialogue by comedians which runs hilariously at odds with its original middle-of-the-road 1970s blandness. UK distribution of films and television is in a dire state at the moment, so the chances of me finding the whole series is nonexistent. The Channel 4 streaming app has an [adult swim] section on it, but, alas, Sealab 2021 is not included. Let me know if you are privy to other means of viewing it. The theme tune is also fabulous and totally my kind of indie rock goodness.

AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE

While searching for Sealab 2021, I came across some other shows which looked interesting. The title of this seemed so strange that I just had to give it a whirl! Well, I made the right decision, as it’s officially my new favourite thing in the world. Unfortunately, the C4 app only holds a mighty 6 episodes, as far as I can tell. Sigh. There does seem to be individual series discs available in the UK, but no complete boxset. I’ll have a think about that. Anyway, in a show that feels sort-of like a cross between Rick and Morty and SpongeBob SquarPants (the latter of which I’ve never seen, but I get the idea), Master Shake is my favourite character. I don’t know why, but I just start chuckling every time he speaks. What a genius creation!

SAMUARAI JACK

Another [adult swim] find is a show I’ve wanted to watch for decades now. I grew up with Genndry Tartakovsky’s shows, so the idea of him/her making a fish-out-of-water samurai action series was very enticing indeed. But, again, good-old shit UK distribution kicked my hopes and dreams squarely in the bollocks. Well, it’s finally time for me to see what all the fuss is about. I’m three episodes in and absolutely loving it. I was initially surprised that Jack wasn’t transported to the present day, but then I realised the future setting means he can chop up robots instead of people, which I’m sure was more ratings board-friendly. Oh what a self-defeating society we live in. I mean, we can’t have our children grow up to appreciate the real affects of violence, can we?! Dear me. P.S. Mako rules.

NINETY-THREE

I’m a bit of a sucker for classical literature, with Victor Hugo now being one of my favourite authors. I discovered him via Les Miserables, which is a book so sad I’ve actually had to take a major hiatus from it. The fall of Fantine is the saddest few pages of literature I’ve ever encountered. Well, Ninety-Three is Hugo’s last work, I believe, and this audiobook is narrated by the amazing Frederick Davidson. So far, the novel seems to be about the fallout from the French Revolution, and, seemingly like all of Hugo’s work, I’ve finding its writing to be akin to learning to breathe in-and-out for the first time. I nearly cried during the conversation between a beggar and a fugitive aristocrat, where they discuss why the beggar won’t turn said aristocrat in for a reward. If you love words, grab any Vitor Hugo you can off the shelf. Especially if it’s read by the delightful Frederick Davidson.

STORY CORNER

I’m not getting any verbal feedback from this new blog series experiment, but certainly a few views here and there. I’m actually kind of glad, as I’d be terrified if somebody actually commented. At least nobody’s begged me to stop yet, although I’ll try to be thick-skinned if they do. I’m trying to alternate between pop culture posts and a story chapter, as I certainly don’t want [story corner] taking over. I just want some of my stuff to get out there in one form or another, should my unhealthy lifestyle finally get the better of me sooner rather than later. It’s certainly not been looking good. Hmm…

RECORDING DIARY

I’d like to start recording music again, should my motivation improve. I’m keen to produce instrumental stuff based on simple thematic ideas, rather than standard singer-songwriter chord progression whathaveyou. I’m hoping atmospheric, improvisational music will be more interesting to create and less stressful to record. Believe me, it’s incredibly intimidating when that red light goes on. So, yeah, if I do start plugging in equipment, I’ll try to keep a casual diary of what I’m achieving/not achieving. You know, just for fun.

Well, that’s that for now, folks. I’m hoping to crack on with the Friday the 13th series again soon, perhaps even this evening. I just need my head to be a little clearer and more stable before watching something scary and possibly-surreal. I think I’m just about there though. It’d also be nice if the heat stays off for a few more days, as the heatwave we had mid-week was almost the end of me.

I hope you’ve all had a nice weekend. Feel free to drop me a line with any recommendations for things to watch or listen to or just do. Within reason, of course.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

[story corner]

SEBASTIAN AND DANIEL

A semi-autobiographical LGBT coming-of-age story about a pair of social outcasts who find peace within each other’s company. May contain uncompromising real-world situations.

CHAPTER ONE

It could be said, and most surely has been said, that the River Broad, running beneath the lofty nose of metropolitan Bradbury Town, has as many tributaries and distributaries as it does shipwrecks and drowned maidens. The imaginative cartographers who make such statements, sat in their libraries measuring inlets and coves, are the sort we shall not meet in these pages. However, it is worth noting that they are out there, and are the reputable academics who first gave name to the numerous offspring of the mighty Broad, including the one over which a skinny, fair-haired boy is now crossing, just as the day’s sun peaks over the surrounding trees.

The boy, who the author shall waste no more time in naming Sebastien, is crossing this particular distributary by its natural land bridge, which one can be reliably informed is termed an “isthmus”. This is true, despite it sounding like a biblical figure guilty of, most likely, diabolical heresy. Actually, the word derives from the Ancient Greek term for that area between one’s torso and head, a gangly one of which the boy Sebastian has been so unhappily fitted with.

The boy’s well-meaning father, in all his thirty-six-year wisdom, would pass by his son each morning, as the boy stood examining the ungainly figure looking back at him from the hallway mirror, and diagnose the twelve-year-old’s problem, as the boy saw it, as being down to “chronic low shoulders”, which would correct itself, rather painfully, during adolescence.

This did not comfort Sebastian, needless to say, and his father would summarily be subjected to a volley of petulant sighs and eye rolling.

This back-and-forth had happened, somewhat predictably, approximately half-an-hour before Sebastian found himself crossing the isthmus, treading particularly lightly over the two-metre wooden addition the adjoining Bradbury Gate district councils of Waddlecross and Archampton had both helped fund. Not without appeal, of course, as both administrations blamed the other for the “catastrophic” watery erosion that caused the gap, which could easily be leaped under duress, to appear in the first place ten-thousand-years ago.

Sebastian was want to tread lightly here, because, to put it simply, the boy did not like to make any sound, or, in fact, any noticeable and lasting impression on the world around him, at all. His slight frame and bowed head betrayed his overall shyness and unwillingness to be noticed, not even by his own lumbering shadow.

Nevertheless, Sebastian’s shadow stood by him, unlike society as a whole. It is a sad truth about so many people in this world that they simply do not trust the quiet and thoughtful among us, believing those who are loud and brimming with confidence to be of correct moral fibre. An outstretched hand is, to the eternally faithful, as reassuring as a pound note placed in a breast pocket. The author and reader know this to be false, however this detail did not furnish Sebastian’s life with any friends, of such. Unless one is to count his mother and father, which the boy certainly did not. As it turns out, bowing ones head and avoiding eye contact leads to a rather isolated existence, but Sebastian rallied himself by staunchly believing that such a passive demeanour would, eventually, bring into a meandering orbit a willing confidante.

As was the case, during his first year at secondary school, such a feat of mental physics simply had not transpired. His mother and father, after having paid a visit to Sebastian’s teacher on request, had asked their son to resist his usual habit of staring thoughtful out of his classroom window, instead attempting a more active role in the peer-related goings on around him.

“Even if you’re misbehaving.” His father had said, catching his wife’s disapproving glare. “Anything, just get involved!”

Sebastian’s mother had placed a halting hand on her husband’s arm.

“Or just discuss what’s going on in class.” She had said, rummaging through her memory for what she herself had done at Sebastian’s age. “Tell jokes. Just say something!”

With that conversation, on the last day of primary school, in mind, Sebastian kicked a stone from the isthmus and sent it skimming across the distributary. He was damned if he would lower himself to such social cliches. Not that he felt himself to be above the rabble, just that he abhorred obligation, and would, eventually, defeat his own academic growth with such a stubborn mindset.

According to the fortnight-encompassing timetable ground into his hand on the first day of school, he had English, Maths, and Music that day, along with the usual morning Christian-brainwashing assembly drivel, tedious lunch break, and two tiresome coffee breaks meant to facilitate the teachers rather than his patience. He had considered petitioning for the removal of any activity save for the purely academic, so as to move the day along at a brisker pace. A midday home time would please Sebastian endlessly.

“Son, we’re trying to avoid you being bullied, do you understand?” Said the boy’s father, upon being made privy to Sebastian’s petition plot.

“Normal boys and girls enjoy playing outside, you see.” Said his mother, before taking a deep swig of coffee. “They won’t appreciate you taking that away from them.”

Choosing to ignore the word “normal”, Sebastian had nodded graciously, even though his opinion remained grounded firmly in the petition camp. Quite how one defined that despicable world, and which accursed fool had coined it, was beyond even Sebastian’s quite florid imagination. Perhaps the lexicographer had been sat next to one of Bradbury Gate’s cartographers at the time. Sebastian imagined the dire person leaning over to their desk companion, currently in the process of naming our isthmus, and conspiratorially whispering:

“I’ve just figured out how to annoy that Sebastian boy. You know, the one currently walking over your silly little land bridge.”

The cartographer would surely have sighed and pushed the bookish fop away, grumbling as he did:

“Leave that poor boy alone, he already has enough problems! Can’t you see him dragging all his books to school, even though he doesn’t have those lessons today?!”

As Sebastian smiled at this play-within-a-play, or metadrama, enacting itself within his private world, he noticed, some way down the distributary on a small jete, a boy, wearing what appeared to be an ill-fitting train driver’s cap, idly fishing under a canopy of willow. Sebastian wondered, quite jealously, how on Earth the fisherman found time for such an activity with all the feverish complexities of the day looming ahead of him.

A more confident, assertive breed would surely have briefly waylaid his destination and interrogated the boy, but Sebastian, as we have learned in this first chapter, was not of such a heady disposition.

He continued on his way.

NEXT CHAPTER ➡︎

Learning to talk again

I used to live stream my gaming a fair amount, then stopped after my confidence took a long walk off a short cliff. Then recently I started remembering how much I enjoyed a quick Downwell stream each morning with my coffee, so I decided to dust off the Start Broadcasting button and flip my mic back on.

Behold!

Surprisingly, I got back into the swing of it quite easily, so I may do some more soon. I doubt I’ll play particularly complex games, sticking mainly to Trials Fusion and GTA Online solo racing, but it might keep me busy and stop me from moping around the flat too much.

What do you think?

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

[story corner]

DOOMSDAY HIVE

A distant, isolated colony of robot labourers race to survive a destructive solar flare and impending conflict with their human caretakers. This work of fiction may contain strong content and glaring scientific inaccuracies.

PART ONE

THE X41 WAVE

CHAPTER TWO

At last survey, it was recorded that five-hundred-and-sixty-seven small astral bodies orbited the fertile, yellow planet of Arles, a body found in the Cetus constellation. The observations were carried out, compiled, and transmitted back to Earth by one of the human administrators stationed in orbit above Arles. This administrator had, one unassuming day, suddenly found astronomy as one of her new secondary duties.

Francine Flynt, who would modestly describe herself as a “glorified filing clerk”, was part of the team of caretakers to the Arles robot labour population. Counting moons and asteroids and dwarf planets was not, and never had been, a passion of hers. Nor had she ever mentioned to her employers that she was unsatisfied enough with her current workload that she could take on extra duties. Document shredding and managing the stationary cupboard was just the right amount for her. Lest it be said, she was not impressed with yet another spreadsheet to maintain, and attempted to get this additional distraction removed from her contract, once a year, during her performance review.

Today was Monday, Earth Standard Time, and Flynt had just begun monitoring a new asteroid which, with high probability and luck, might just burn up in Arles’ dense atmosphere before she found herself saddled with the obligation of properly cataloging its existence. Her computer was currently telling her that the asteroid should be passing by the office window during her lunch break so, there she stood, cup of soup in hand, soothing music playing, trying to catch the hunk of rock as it made its smug little guest appearance.

The office, which she shared with five, all but one of whom were currently out to lunch, other members of the two-hundred-strong administration workforce, was part of the building complex floating between the two most important astral bodies that Arles currently had to offer. The twin moons of Vincent and Theo, named after Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh and his art dealer brother Theodorus, were locked in permanent orbit around one another. The distance between the moons was deemed close enough to safely build a simple shantytown in space, reaching from one rock to the other. It had been the robots’ idea, with their electronic rational being that a permanent structural link between the twin moons would aid the overall mission objectives. The moons also shared a dense enough atmosphere that the human population could breath whilst performing extra vehicular activities, although the atmosphere had no discernible visual presence. Radiation exposure was still a fatal element, however, which also happened to be why the colony was stationed around Arles in the first place.

While the twin moons had been named after the Van Gogh brothers, the floating city was named after the wife of Theo, Johanna. Johanna Van Gogh had served as editor of the letters exchanged between the Van Gogh brothers, the resulting compilation still serving as a crucial document about the artist Vincent’s life, loves, mental state, and artworks, to this day. Therefore, “Johannastad” was settled on as an appropriate name for the city that physically linked the harmonious moons together.

Flynt sighed and kicked the wall-to-ceiling silica window pane before her, which responded with a reassuring dull thud.

“I told you, Fanny, you’re going to miss it the second you go top up your soup.” Said Mathis Deegan, Flynt’s only present officemate. Flynt found Deegan to be a smug, abrupt, but boyishly-attractive young man, whom she could seriously consider seducing, were it not for his abrasive personality. Although, when she did occasionally considering it, she realised that what she actually had in mind for him and his body mercifully did not require him to talk much.

Deegan also had little interest in honouring the contract he had personally made, as they all had done, with his employers, an attitude which he had no compunction in letting his colleagues be aware of. Flynt preferred her prey to have some minor integrity.

This all did not stop her having fleeting fantasies however, especially during a slow afternoon when Deegan would stand at the filing cabinets with his back to her neatly slipping away purchase orders.

She was definitely fine with that aspect of his work.

“Oh yeah? How much do you wanna bet?!” Flynt said, not taking her eyes off the window. “I’m good for it.”

Deegan snorted, derisively.

“No you are not, I accidentally caught a glance at your payslip yesterday.” He said, shuffling paperwork unnecessarily.

“Accidentally?!” Said Flynt, after gulping down the dried soup sediment at the bottom of her cup.

She whipped round to scowl at her colleague, which was the exact moment in which a flash streaked just beyond the window she had so diligently been monitoring.

“You just missed it.” Said Deegan, standing his ground against Flynt’s looming pantsuit.

Flynt ran to the window and searched feverishly for the asteroid.

“Son of a bitch!” She said, pounding her fists against the glass.

“Don’t worry,” said Deegan, grinning, “I’m sure it’ll be back in a few days.”

“But…”

Deegan bent down to his desk drawer and pulled out an envelope.

“Oh, by the way, it’s Gloria’s birthday on Friday, so you need to sign her card.”

“But…”

After a seemingly endless and impenetrable silence, the office’s intercom buzzed, which Deegan dutifully avoided answering. Flynt, still in a daze, moved towards the door in a low-energy amble and flipped open the airwaves.

“Yes?” She said, a stunned shakiness still in her voice.

There was a sound of angry scuffling through the speaker, followed by the tail end of an argument not intended for Flynt’s attention.

“Stand still, you horrible little boy!” Said a woman’s voice. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you!”

Flynt frowned in confusion.

“Uh, hello?!” She said.

“Yes, hello, this is Captain Jackson of Majolica Jug hive, I have one of your work experience kids out here.” Said the frustrated voice. “I need to discuss his reassignment.”

Flynt, without replying, released the exterior door lock and flittered back to her desk. It was already spotless, replete with comforting right-angles, but she still affected some rudimentary shuffling for appearances.

Two sets of footsteps could now be heard out in the hallway, marching down to the office door. One set was noticeably heavier and gainly, the other came with a staccato skipping rhythm

“I’m still on my lunch break.” Said Deegan, ripping open a sandwich packet.

“Thanks.” Said Flynt, her insincerity accompanied by balloons and fireworks.

The succeeding speech, made by the insufferably authoritarian Majolica Jug robot captain, mostly went ignored by Flynt, who felt confident that the captain’s inflammatory rhetoric could be safely tuned out. She did, however, regrettably tune in for parts. She caught something about the cargo brat disobeying direct orders. Something about a guide tether. Something else about a drone damaging Captain Jackson’s harvester queen. During all of this, Flynt mainly focussed on writing a birthday message to her colleague Gloria. Flynt had run out of unique platitudes quite some time ago, but she felt that, on this occasion, she had done a pretty respectable job. Perhaps she had been motivated by the immediate situation to care more. Flynt liked Gloria, especially when Gloria got drunk at parties and verbally abused her colleagues to let off steam. It made Flynt’s own foibles less distinct. But not invisible. That was a point, was Gloria even having a birthday party this year?! Flynt was pretty sure some of her colleagues had stopped inviting her to private events, but she tried to push such paranoid thoughts out of her mind. She could not rationally imagine why people would wish to excommunicate her.

As the captain continued, as if on a different plain of reality to Flynt and Deegan, Flynt checked her emails. She had just received a timed message from a lunching colleague, asking Flynt to query Deegan about upgrades to radiation shielding. It had become a hot topic, apparently, and the colleague clearly had not wanted to bring up the subject while in the office. Flynt grumbled, in the privacy of her mind, about how grateful she was to be working with such “brave” and “noble” human beings. Perhaps she should apply for a transfer down to one of the robot-controlled hives on Arles, she thought.

“Well?!” Said the captain, finally breaking Flynt’s alternative line of attention.

Flynt looked up at the captain, who started surveying the room like a territorial cat whilst waiting for an answer. Flynt looked at the harassed young boy in Jackson’s tow and gave him a conspiratorial wink, which he acknowledged with a surreptitious smirk.

Flynt pulled a form from a pile of similar-looking forms that lay in her dispute management tray. She was running low on these forms in particular, which she would need to confront Deegan about, which may very well be a waste of time.

“Yes, you need to fill out this form and wait five working days for approval. If the transfer is approved, you will need to wait an additional five working days for the candidate to appeal. If approval is given and there is no appeal, the candidate will be reassigned at the start of the next working week.” She said, countering the captain’s fury with time-honoured bureaucratic iciness. “It is very important that you sign it, date it, and provide your primary and secondary budget codes. I will need to countersign.”

Once the form was completed, slammed back down onto Flynt’s desk, countersigned by Flynt and date-stamped, the captain stomped back out the office, leaving the weary cargo brat in the guardianship of the two administrators.

“Are you going to tell my parents?” Said the boy, his hands potted firmly into his work-stained khaki pockets.

Deegan tuned back in from his sandwich.

“Only after the trial and execution!” He said, throwing his crusts into the bin by his desk.

The cargo brat, having read the room and noted the unspoken office dynamic, gave a halfhearted chuckle to the besuited layabout. Flynt, without even glancing down at it, screwed the reassignment form up, aimed carefully at the bin on the other side of the office, and scored.

The cargo brat, now bearing a relieved grin, applauded.

“Just turn back up on Monday. It’ll be fine. For a robot, that one doesn’t remember so good, trust me.” Flynt said, handing the boy the bar of chocolate she knew she should not have bought herself in the first place. “Plus they can’t usually tell us apart anyway.”

“Thanks. I’ve got some great friends at Mari.” Said the boy, shuffling out the office, but not before checking that the coast in the hallway was clear.

“Don’t worry, she’s definitely gone.” Said Flynt, releasing the exterior hatch for the boy’s guilty spacewalk home. “I saw her shooting past a second ago.”

After the cargo brat departed with an appreciative thumbs-up, Flynt found herself once again lost in mental autopilot.

Another flash went by the office window.

“You just missed your asteroid again.” Said Deegan.

“Oh what?!”

Flynt pounded her desk so hard that the envelope containing Gloria’s birthday card went skittering across the office, disappearing under the communal meeting table.

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