Yes, I'm still procrastinating...

It's a skill.
I'm gearing up to mow the lawn.  The whole lawn, from ally to street.  That's most of the day, right there.
I'm still mining randomness from the drive.
This time a couple of stories...


To Swim Among The Stars

    Personnel filed out of the briefing room.  Commander Raven Lockheed continued to stand gazing out the starboard portal.  It seemed to Dane that her attention was drawn outward.  As her departure approached she was increasingly detached.
    "Raven?"
    She turned from the stars, her focus slowly returning from infinity.  "Dane?"  She responded, acknowledging that he was, at that moment, the center of her serene contemplation.  Her eyes were intense and lively.  Gray was only starting to frost her long black hair.
    "I just wanted to thank you."
    A graceful eyebrow arched, her smile nearly touched her cheekbones.  She had always smiled easily and completely.  "For what?"
    "For building a raw recruit into a station master.  Everything I am I owe to you."
    "Everything you are, you owe to you, Dane."
    "I would have returned dirtside at the end of my first rotation.  Was making the arrangements when I met you.  You were and still are the symbol of everything I hoped to achieve.  It wasn't until I joined your command that I realized I could achieve it in the Corp.”
    "You would have achieved great things wherever you had gone, Dane.  You were what you are.  At the age of twenty you were only seeking focus."
    "Then thank you for the focus.  I don't think that life would have been as enjoyable spent mud bound."
    "It is stimulating, is it not?"  She turned her gaze back to space.  "We have come a great distance."  They stood in companionable silence contemplating the sweep of familiar stars.  "You are welcome to the focus.  We need more officers like you."
    "We need more people like you."
    "You will see it happen."
    "What will you do back on earth?"
    "I haven't thought of that."  She turned from him, turning her back on the stars.  "Join me."
    Order or request, he couldn't be certain, the tone was lost in the hiss of the door.  He stepped lively to comply.  Raven turned left from the door and Dane realized that they were doing another tour of the station.
    "You will have to be strict with the water ration."  She said as they entered the refining station.  "The system is old and dated.  It is slow and there is some loss in the process.  Sevrensen has been working on the problem and has made some headway."  She paused to inspect some fittings that looked too shiny to be dated.  "I have not inquired too closely about his methods," she said softly and smiled.  "The results have been more than favorable."
    The next two hours passed in a quiet manner as Raven steered Dane about the station, subtly clueing him to the condoned unauthorized practices that were present, and introducing him to the people she trusted.  Familiar with her, at times, unorthodox style of command, Dane had trusted that this information would be forth-coming.  As always Raven managed, without subverting too many regulations, to provide the best for her crew and keep the station operating efficiently and in the black.  He trusted her to make the transition as painless as possible.
    "The station runs very well.  I allow the different components to perform their functions and do a little catch up here and there.  We get along all right."  She broke stride and allowed him to enter the office/quarters first.  She assumed one of the extra chairs, leaving the seat at the console for Dane.
    He noticed the bareness of the room.  Even her bags were gone. 
    "Are there any pressing questions?"
    He fidgeted by the door.  "Raven where...?"
    "No trouble, Dane.  Arrangements have been made."  She reached into the locker next to her chair and produced a bottle and two glasses.  "Join me?"  She poured two fingers of colorless liquid into each tumbler and had already knocked one back and poured a second before he crossed the room and picked up his glass.
    Dane perched on the edge of the desk, unwilling to settle before the body of her command cooled.  Out of habit, he sniffed the liquid.  He had learned to identify substances before ingesting them.
    "Gin."  She told him and poured a third.  "Real gin."  She set the bottle on the desk.  "It is the only pleasure I have of earth."
    He sipped appraisingly.  "My drink is scotch."  He took a deeper sip.  "Anything real is a pleasure."
    "I'm too old for grog."  She smiled.  "Redhorn sends me a care package every Christmas."
    "What's Redhorn up to now?"
    "He is Professor Emeritus at William and Mary.  Says the hills are beautiful this time of year."
    "They are.  You must be looking forward to getting home."
    "Umm," was all she said in reply.  Her eyes turned to the unshielded port.  She finished her drink and stood.  "I'll be going."  She dropped the glass into the recycle shut.  "I left the quarterly reports in a file along with other pertinent information.  If you need anything else, see Sevrensen.  Dane, they could not have chosen better for this command."  She embraced him and stepped away.  She hesitated.
    Dane gripped her hand.  "Where are you going, Raven?"  He had never seen her hesitate.  That momentary pause sent a shiver across his shoulders.
    "I... a private walk around the station.  To say farewell."
    "Let me accompany you."
    The request was a pebble in her serenity.  "As you wish."
    She made her way to a public room where crewmembers had assembled.  The gathering was solemn.  Raven moved through the room sharing toasts and quite words.  She smiled often, but was distracted.  She left without speaking to him.  He joined her quickly.  They walked in the station garden inhaling the moist, intoxicating air of bloom and decay.
    "Is this the way it is on earth?" she asked softly.  "Are there places with live things, that are as calm and smell as wonderful as this?"
    "Since the consolidation most of the land mass has been allowed to revert to its natural state.  There are forest and fields that stretch for miles."
    "Have you ever been in a forest?"
    "Yes, on my last visit home.  We went out at dawn to the riverbank and watched the sun come up.  It was a cloudy day, but it was warm.  The light in the trees was green.  It was misty but that made all the colors more intense.  The air was fresh and wet; you could feel it all the way to the bottom of your lungs.  It was a glorious day."  Dane said.  "I think I will retire to the woods when my rotation is up."
    "It sounds like a good place to rest."  She turned and left the garden.  He hurried to catch her up.  They climbed to the top of the station, up to a tiny observation pod.  She sealed the pod and set it free from the docking mechanism.  Dane could hear the tether playing out behind them.  When they reached the end of the tether she waved her hand over a sensor and the pod became transparent.  Dane found himself sitting among the stars.  The polyplex was cold.  "The pod is used for damage survey.  I came up here my first night on the station.  It was the first time I had ever felt at home, the first time I felt close to my element.  I have lived my entire life in tiny boxes longing for infinity."  She sighed.  There was a watery shine in her eye as she centered her focus on the controls.
    As they left the observation area Raven gripped Dane by the shoulder.  "This has been a good day."  She said.  "I choose how it ends."  She looked him in the eye.  "Dane, you will allow me to choose how it ends?"
    "Yes."  His answer was true.  The request confused him, but he respected her too much to question.
    "Good." 
    She turned out towards the docking ring, away from the living quarters.  She moved quickly, eagerly.  They entered a utility lock and she was in Sevrensen's arms.  The embrace was passionate.  Sevrensen did not want to let go.  He was embarrassed when he saw Dane and still reluctant to release her.  Raven gently pushed him away. 
    "I choose."  She laid a hand on his cheek and kissed him.  "I choose," she said again, gazing deeply into his eyes.  She turned away from both men and started pulling on a pressure suit.  Sevrensen moved to help with the seals.
    "Raven, what are you doing?"  Dane asked.
    "Suiting up for EVA."
    "Why?"
    "It's my last day and I choose how it ends."  She turned to Sevrensen, laid a hand on the engineer's cheek.  "Grief is for the living, love.  I’m sorry."  She whispered.
    Sevrensen helped her lock and pressurize the suit.  Raven cycled the inner hatch open and stepped through.  As it closed, Dane switched the observation cameras on.  He and Sevrensen watched as she cycled the outer hatch open and set the timer for closing.  Raven stood on the lip of the lock.  Gripping the edge of the hatch, she stood for a moment looking out.  She flexed her legs and dove into space.
    Dane watched as she arrowed away from the station, slowly realizing there was no tether to pull her back.  He turned to Sevrensen.  The older man leaned against the hatch, tears streaming down his cheeks.  "Why?"  Dane choked out and realized he was crying also.
    "She's never been on earth."  Sevrensen answered.
    Dane felt the wind leave him.  "How?"
    "Her mother was military, lead the Mars colonization mission.  Her father was with the scientific contingent.  Raven served her training rotation on the moon.  She was never assigned a rotation on earth.  At her age, gravitation sickness would have been crippling."
    "But...?"
    "She appealed."  The older man explained in a soft, weary voice.  "She appealed as far as she could.  That's how she stayed in command here for so long after retirement age.  Ever since the bombing of Tranquillity base non-regulation personnel are strictly prohibited.  They wouldn't bend the regs even for her."
    Raven achieved a stable free fall and ignited the suit's thrusters.
    "Raven never gave into the corupption, even after it was clear that Nastech General ruled the spaceways.  She was too honorable to play with filth.  Too many had a need to diminish her."  He stared at the monitor without seeing her.  "She has twenty-four hours of oxygen."
    "Twenty-four hours."  Dane repeated, his eyes locked on a fading point of light.  "Twenty-four hours to swim among the stars."

The end.

This one was a challenge entry for AFO.

Let the Illusion Ride

    ‘Looks like Dr. Stephen Strange.’  Darcy noted him the minute he stepped through the door. 
    ‘Outta your range, aren’t you, sweetie?’ she thought, mentally replacing the sleek, black suit with Strange’s trade mark blue and red silk pajama like costume and cape.  ‘Ain’t gonna find any magic here,’ she told him silently.  ‘Ain’t no such things as masters of mystic arts,’ she told herself and returned to her book.  William James was a stretch, but she was enjoying the exercise.
    Down in the working girls’ part of town men like Strange were noteworthy, but not exceptional.  They usually didn’t cruise the middle afternoon, and they usually didn’t get out of their expensive cars, but they were there and they usually didn’t pay any better than the cowboys in their beat up trucks or the blue collars in their roaring old wrecks, greedy, sad bastards all.
    But that was life, ‘Ain’t giving in,’ she fought the rising dark of thoughts.  ‘Not gonna look back,’ she told the images.  She could grieve over the past, loose herself in the wells of pity.  ‘No,’ Darcy cut the thoughts before they could breed more.
    So Darcy read.  Reading was always her escape, starting with Nancy Drew and the colored exploits of Marvel super heroes.  Some days, usually once a week, she’d get up early, pull on a pair of jeans, instead of a working rag, and bus out to the mall, to the big bookstores.  She’d spend hours wondering in the forests of ideas, sniffing the flowers, carefully picking a few to take home.  Lately the draw of comparative religion was the strongest. 
    And so, two o’clock Friday found her sitting in the back booth of Buckie’s, the Pros’ haven, reading of the neurosis of religious fervor and watching Strange watch the Pros.
    ‘What’s up with that?’ she silently questioned him.  Cops couldn’t dress that well.  He didn’t look like a pervert.  ‘Do they ever look like it?’
    Monica and the rest were staggering in for breakfast.  A John backstage ruffled more than a few.  Some places were sacred.
    That didn’t stop several from flinging the unready wares in his directions.
    He was as aloof and charming as Strange would have been.
    ‘Writer,’ Darcy decided.  Staking weather or not he would sample the research.  Pondered placing an entry and decided to let the illusion ride.  In the city of odds, suckers never won on long shots.  She pursued her fractured reading with a smile.
    ‘At any rate,’ Mr. James continued.  ‘You must all be ready now to judge the religious life by its results exclusively…’ She was, Mr. James was very clear with his points.  ‘And I shall assume that the bugaboo of morbid origin will scandalize your piety no more.’  Darcy had no piety to scandalize and was soon lost in the thicket of William’s words.
    “What are you reading?”  His voice was deep and smooth, as it should be.
    “Nothing much.”  Darcy quickly slid the book off the table and into her bag.  He would think she was stupid and pretentious.  Just stupid was better.  “Hey Hun,” she gave him her invite smile.  “What you slummin for?”
    “I need a woman…”

II

    A hefty four figures had followed the line.  She risked her life daily for a hell of a lot less.  The stipulation about questions would end when she wanted it to.
    They were standing in the lobby of the Bellagio hotel and Strange, still hadn’t told her his name, and still hadn’t gotten to the punch.
    He stood there, tall, dark, and silent looking her up and down.  He nodded.  “Come on.”
    Darcy followed him to the entrance of the spa.  “Hey, what’s with this?”
    “You need a make over.”
    “What?  Look, you don’t like the--”
    “No questions, remember?”
    He hustled her through the door and into the appointment book and disappeared.  Darcy launched anxiously into the full treatment.  Once she was out of her working cloths, and in a plush bathrobe, like all the other ladies, everyone treated her cordially and she actually enjoyed the two hours of steam cleaning and primping.  She steered clear of conversations.  The ladies around her sounded just like Monica and the rest.  The language was better, but the topics of conversation were all the same, nothing but small-minded gossip.
    Afterwards she would have preferred walking through the lobby in the plush, white bathrobe.  Her working rags stood out like a neon sign in a graveyard.
    Strange was oblivious to the looks.
    Darcy met the scandalized eyes.  ‘You’re no better than me,’ she thought at them.  ‘Different time, different place, you’re no better than me.’  She held her head up and met their challenges.  ‘We got this far and ain’t a-goin’ back,’ Dylan helped her through.  ‘And ain’t a-gonna grieve no more.’
    In the room, he shoved an armload of dresses at her.
    “Try them all, model them.”
    ‘What’s your kink?’  She didn’t ask him.
    Darcy liked the little black one; it hugged her low and tight, actually made her faded blonde and blue glow.
    “That one.”  Strange picked deep blue and modestly cut looked like something a farther would choose for his daughter’s prom.


III

    “What’s your name?”
    Sitting at the bar, surveying the range of free roaming suckers on the casino floor, Darcy was trying to pick out his pigeon.  ‘Has to be a con, right?’
    “Darcy.”
    He cast her a speculative look.
    “All right.”  His razor eyes chilled her.  “It’s Doris.”
    “No,” he disapproved.  “Next?”
    Doris rolled her eyes, but was compelled to truth.  “Eugenie.”
    His eyes smiled.
    “Genie,” he pronounced.  “There’s the magic.”
    His smile could steal her heart.  She looked away from the hope.  “Which one?”
    “That one.”  His eyes were direct.
    ‘Oh geeze,’ was all Genie could think.
    He was a spotted slug dripping sweat and crumbs.
    “I’m keepin’ the dress.”  Genie bargained with herself as much as Strange.  “And the black one.”  This would be the lowest she’d ever gone.
    “Fair enough.”  He stood and held out his hand.
    “What’s your name?”  She asked.
    “Steven.”


IV

    They played.
    From roulette to blackjack Steven cast and trolled.  Genie attended Jabba the Hut.  She kept his drinks fresh, blew on his dice, giggled, batted eyelashes, and touched him when unavoidable.  She was lucky, attention attracting lucky.  The high of winning and sparkle of laughter and banter lifted her heart and thoughts.  She could do better than the clunkers and the cowboys.  Steven’s eyes spoke to her and she let the illusions ride.
    At one-twenty AM Jabba was thousands up and jovial.  Steven landed his whale.  The check was signed hands were shaken, and Genie knew Cinderella’s downer.  Her pumpkin fast approached.  She faced the future resolutely.  ‘Ain’t gonna grieve.  Gonna get the money first.’
    “Angel,” fat, slimy hands engulfed hers.  “Best night of my life.”  Thick meaty lips slobbered her cheek.  “Till the morning.”  He chuckled and wheezed as he lumbered off.
    Steven nodded and pocketed the check.  “Well done.”  He took her arm.
    This time the looks in the lobby were admiring.
    Silently he escorted her back to his room.  He shut the door and emptied pockets on the dresser.
    “You gonna pay me now?”
    “No.”  He started shedding suit.
    “If you think I’m going near that slug before I get paid—“
    “I don’t expect you to go near that slug before breakfast.”  He started unbuttoning his shirt, went into the bathroom, and shut the door.
    ‘What the Hell?’  She stared around the room and wondered just what he was expecting and weather or not he had the money to pay.  The check beckoned from the dresser.
    It was big, business-size, like a rebate check.  She unfolded it carefully.  She’d never seen so many numbers strung together on a check before.  The written verification started with twenty and was followed by million.
    The bathroom door opened.
    “This check’s made out to a school,” she said staring into his mysterious dark eyes.
    “Yes, the Bountiful school for underprivileged children in Crick Hollow Tennessee.  It’s for the hospital.  I’ve been trying to get a donation from the slug for six months.  You put the deal over.”
    “But… what… I…”
    “I can’t be expected to pimp my girlfriend.”  He smiled.
    “What?”
    “He thinks you’re my fiancée.”
    “Oh, but…”
    “We have to meet him for breakfast.”  His look turned shy.  “You can leave and come back if you like, or there’s two beds.”  Steven stepped closer.  His look was direct.  He smiled.  “I knew you were the one.  Wasn’t positive till I found Genie underneath it all.”  He touched her cheek.  “Genie might like Crick Hollow.”  His eyes were full of suggestions.
    The kiss was magic.
    She’d let the illusion ride.

The end.