Post by jiminiminy on Sept 4, 2010 0:43:25 GMT -5
"A day, as you know it, lasts exactly eighty six thousand four hundred seconds by definition. Each second is measured by the duration of nine billion one hundred and ninety two million six hundred thirty one thousand seven hundred seventy periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium one-thirty-three atom. During one single day, exactly seven hundred ninety four trillion two hundred fourty three billion three hundred eighty four million nine hundred and twenty eight thousand of these periods pass in order to be defined as a single day. If there are any more or less, then it cannot be considered exactly a single day."[/color]
A young Arabian spoke. His voice was clear and monotone, inflecting every number perfectly and instilling a mechanical quality to his voice. In the rising sun, his pelt of ochre was instilled with the reds and purples of the creeping light. He was missing his right eye, and his left leg looked to have been broken at some point prior, as the lower portion was turned at a right angle to where it would ideally be. He sat perched upon the peak of Jarridath, 'Burning Water', a mountain that oversaw the sea and gained its name from the view that the rising sun offered on a clear day. A lot of the peaks had fairly descriptive names, which were given to them by the haggard elder wolf who had spent so many years wandering amongst them. When one is alone for so long they can turn to certain eccentricities.
Siscarm was breathing heavily, his normally fatigued lungs straining to get enough oxygen at this altitude. If he'd not run a Mountain Goat off a cliff earlier he'd likely have died of malnutrition at this point, and in many ways he was not particularily happy with the situation or the company he shared it with. The once glorious treks upward through the enticing peaks were now tiring chores, and ventures to places such as this were slowly bordering suicidal. But he wouldn't ever attempt it if it was. That was against the rules.
"You will be the death of me all of you." His words were interspaced with coughs and deep breaths that shuddered through his body. At the sound of the elder's voice, the Arabian slid down from his perch as if some sort of reptile, making no sound as he did so. His movements were unnaturally fluid, circling the elder with remarkable agility and finesse, despite his injured leg and lack of depth perception. His paws seemed to never touch the ground for more than a second, nor did his body ever touch the elder's, despite comign withing a hair's width of his shaking form.
"Irony, noun. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect."
Siscarm coughed lightly, not so much out of necessity but to place a sort of barrier between his own words and those of his companion. His eyes were kept focused ahead, avoiding the instinctual desire to lock on to the moving target as the Arabian swept in a blur around him. "I can remember you, you were the second one. And I suppose you remember me, if you're here." Siscarm coughed twice, out of necessity this time. Blood flecked his lips, but he didn't take any heed. "I suppose that means the rest will be here too." The elder chuckled half-heartedly, sounding more like a pitied laugh for his own sake than anything else. The Arabian, meanwhile, merely slowed his centrifugial motion and kept speaking.
"To remember is to imply that there is risk of being forgotten. Though many people forget many things in their lives, and indeed most are then left in the process of death, some few anchors can stay fast despite these outward input. Is it not unreasonable that the most important aspects of life, one's family and loved ones, are remembered in life, and the most important aspects of death, the murderer, are remembered in death?"
Throughout his newest paragraph of thought, the Arabian slowed further until he paced slowly back and forth in front of the elder, apparently quite determined to keep moving at all costs.
"As we are the dead by your hand I can affirmatively answer that at least some will return though none can truly speak for all the others. And do not think that death can save you from their influence. I already thought that just as you did."
Siscarm remembered this wolf standing on a peak in a far off continent, much different than the one here. As he did then, the Arabian stared out over the rising sun, and as the elder is now, he was disturbed by manovelence. He saught the release from this binding at the base of a cliff. Instead he found another set of shackles.
"They were unhappy with that were they not, they instituted rules, that such confusion might not arise again, but the dice were merely cast again, and the game was not compromised."
Siscarm sighed, shaking his head in a feat of fatigued acknowledgement. His body slumped with this realization, and he looked just that bit more like a tired old loner. The dice were cast, the game continued, for the show must go on. The Arabian turned away from the elder brute, and returned to his primary perch at the peak, once more becoming still and at ease as he turned away from the continent behind him.
"Green flashes and green rays are optical phenomena that occur shortly after sunset, when a green spot is visible, usually for no more than a second or two, above the sun, or a green ray shoots up from the sunset point. Green flashes are actually a group of phenomena stemming from different causes, and some are more common than others. Green flashes can be observed from any altitude. They are usually seen at an unobstructed horizon, such as over the ocean, but are possible over cloud tops and mountain tops as well.
"In all my time I have never seen one, nor can I even remember the time I last saw the sun set. We each seek our own goals in life, some big, some small, and even after life we may still have time to pursue them. I would like to look west and see the sun set. But death does not release us from our bindings, it merely places a new set upon us."
Siscarm continued standing, watching the sun slowly rise above the pristine sea's horizon as the Arabian looked emotionlessly across the water. The elder replayed the Arabian's death over in his head a few times, non-responsive to the subject matter in it after so many years having lived with it. There was something different this time, a certain aspect of the memory that was the slightest shift from the expected scene. As he stood for minutes, the brute tried his best to identify the difference, but was unable to. His memories were so fragmented in his old age that he might simply be forgetting a small aspect of it. The sun finally rose above the horizon, the burning star disconnecting from its watery umbilical cord.
"Death provides no release from the torment of life. It merely extends it."
Siscarm looked at the Arabian, who had given no indication of this thought, perched just as motionless as always. The wolf had watched the sun rise innumerable times, and this was nothing more than yet another on the list. They both remained motionless for a moment more, reverent of the new dawn, before Siscarm turned away to start making his way down the mountain. He played the scene once more in his mind, and yet again the Arabian made his coice, and condemned himself to death. That detail that was so different...
Siscarm paused in mid step. He played the scene once again, then again after. That detail, that anomoly that was added.
As the wolf dashed himself on the rocks below he faced east over the pristine sea. As he lay dying, the sun rose in a new dawn.
The elder looked back. The path was barren of life. The rising sun cast a silhouette of an empty peak.[/blockquote]