Author Archives: kraxon

Regarding Lily

  August 1, 2017 , , ,

* Winner of the 2017 Story of the Year Award *

Ok, so I’m in this closet in the hospital. The vid’s kind of dark, but I don’t want to turn on the light because somebody might find me. And I have to find Lily first.

I can’t go into surgery without Lily. I won’t. Fireman Jim gave her to me in the hospital after my house burned down. I don’t go anywhere without her. Ever. You know her, she’s my purple rabbit? Yeah, she’s in all of these vlogs.

He left Lily with me, and she was there when I woke up in the hospital. All I could remember was smoke … screaming … it hurt … I was upside down over somebody’s back and out the window OMG … and then everything was black, and I felt this soft thing with one hand, and she was the only thing that didn’t hurt. That was Lily, but I didn’t know her yet.

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The Twelve – The Water Bearer

  July 15, 2017 , , ,

The lion man pulled away from me. “Why? Why are you helping me?

“Because—” I faltered. I looked around me, at the carnage. Two innocents dead, one about to die. The ones they had christened Aries, Scorpion and Taurus. Others knew them as brother, father…friend.

I had to tell the lionman, and the other players who did not know of our plot against the emperor. They had a right to know. “Warrior, there’s something—”

“I don’t form alliances,” the lion snapped. “I play a straight game. Yeah, I know that sounds hard to believe, Water Bearer, but I do, after my own fashion. You want partners, you’d best look elsewhere.”

A cry sounded near us. It was the bull. The crab man stood over him, a bloodied claw raised high, ready to strike. The wound in the bull’s side was wide enough to fit a human head. He lay on his side, his eyes turned upwards to the sky. His face looked – no…

He could not be serene. He was about to die.

The crab man’s claw came down with force. The clack of a shattered skull echoed around the arena.

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Pain-T-Bot

  July 1, 2017 , ,

“You ready?” asks Miller, Alec, owner-prime and enhancer of my system.  He wants to tap my back, but when he sees his grease coated hands, he relents, not wanting to stain my exterior plating.

“I am prepared,” I reply.

“You remember what we talked about?  Dodge at all times.  All you gotta do is dodge.  Then, when you get an open, you hit ’em with…what?”

“What?” I ask.

“No, that’s when you…never mind.  It’s when you swing your arm.  That’s under sub-router 12.  Just remember your programming, and you might just stay in one piece until the first round, got it?”

“Affirmative sir.  You will be pleased with your coat of paint,” I reply, as per my programming.

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The Twelve – The Bull

  June 15, 2017 , , ,

Blood bubbled up to my throat. I spat it out. It wasn’t blood. It was bile mixed with mucus. I thanked the gods. No internal injury. But the pain – the pain still pumped through my body.

I took a breath and tried to keep the hurt at bay. My heartbeat played in tandem to the crowd’s chants.

Lion!

Lion!

Lion!

Anger began to take over from my pain. I despised this. These people. This bout. This life.

My life.

I despised my life. Everything about it.

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The Courage of Care

  June 1, 2017 , ,

My workday was unusually frustrating: more robo-carers needed urgent repairs; human carers asked for more help for clients whose condition had worsened; and the turnover of contract carers had gone into a spin with so many colds and flu bugs about. But I was managing, just.

And I had to develop that app to help wheelchair users have a bath on their own. This required real peace and quiet to get the ‘alter a bit here and tweak a control level there to bring it together’ right. Something I planned for the evening.

My auto-aide announced a surprise visitor.

He walked into my office in the full dress uniform of a civil servant: black bowler hat, navy pinstripe suit, white shirt, walking-stick umbrella and battered leather briefcase. The handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket warned me he was a high ranker. This was turning into an awful day.

I forced my number three smile normally reserved for my most awkward customers, stood up and offered to shake his hand. ‘How may I help, Mr … ?’

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