CharleyH
Curioser and curiouser
- Joined
- May 7, 2003
- Posts
- 16,771
Its about 4,200 words, so not a long one, but I do have some specific questions in regards to it as I am, appropriately, at a halt.
1) Does it need more description
2) Do you feel it is telling, not showing more often than not, and yet, if it is a letter, does that suit the tone of the genre?
3) Does the sex just seem slapped into the story?
4) In reading it, and bearing in mind it is a LETTERS (mainly) sci-fi secondary, what would you LIKE to see more of in it that the story currently fails to deliver.
Thanks in advance. Cheers
Charley.
*****
My dearest brother,
For these past years I have tried to make sense of the course my life has taken, and prayed, by the by, that this was a fantastic dream I would wake from. But, there is little hope to relish the shores of America rising into sight from the sea, and still smaller expectation to cast my arms around you in embrace, or behold the lips of the one I once loved, Else.
We were told early that we would not be returned home, though each of us, excepting little Sophia who was too young to recall, has held out a glimmer. Yet, at length, we are sensible of this scrape, and must once more begin to live rather than hold a candle for something that is as impossible as how we arrived here.
If you recall, we hoisted anchor from New York on November 7th, bound for Genoa. The voyage was quite uneventful until 300 miles west of the Azores we met with strong gale winds that had us travelling speeds of 9 knots. By the time we reached St. Mary's Island, the crew was exhausted and hungry. Captain Briggs commanded us leeside the island so the cook could fire the stove for much needed viands, and to allow his daughter, who had been battling sea sickness, some respite.
We were more northerly than expected, and not wanting to anchor, the Captain had us pump the bilge and furl the sails to hold our course forward, heading along the shore.
I have never been able to get used to salted meats, but after three treacherous days without more than bread, almonds and raisins, I was famished and devoured the cooks beef and barley soup as if it were my last meal. I am certain the other's felt the same. We were allotted a few ounces of wine, and the men were able to relax with their pipes before we set sail again.
About a day in, the 1st mate, Albert Richardson clipped wood chips off the bow, and determined that we had cut to 8 knots, but then suddenly there was no wind.
We were silent in the Ocean. The sails dropped. The water laid like glass as the half-brig cut it like a diamond. We all came to deck, even Mrs. Briggs with her daughter. I overheard Seaman Boz Lorensen tell his brother, Volkert about how the ship was salvaged at auction after passing through several incidents and owners. I am not one for tales, and so I moved to tell them not to scare the lady, when the Captain noted a small breeze and ordered the sails be set for a starboard tack. We moved hurriedly, and just as we set them the ship came to a shocking halt as if we had hit ashore.
My body went flying forward, and my hands slapped to the deck, followed by my knees splintering across the wood. Mrs. Briggs screamed for her daughter from behind me, and I whipped my head round as Seaman Martens grabbed the tumbling and crying child.
Another pause, as if we were dead in the water, and then a violent tremor gripped the ship. The beam quaked, the deck was shivering more than I, and the mast was creaking as if it might burst. I tried to stand, to grab hold of something, hearing shouts from the Lady, but the deck appeared spinning, and I was helpless even to myself. Then it stopped as suddenly as it began, but there was a high pitch, almost deafening sound like a caterwaul, and it was as though the ship were being drug through a vice.
"Take down the yawl!" The Captain yelled, and all of us, seized by terror, scurried starboard. Our fear got the better of us, our hands shaking, we could not untie it, and the first mate brought the axe down on the cords, letting the yawl drop to the water without us.
And this is the part, brother, that if I had not experienced myself, I would not believe.
The yawl disappeared in front of our eyes. The water vanished, replaced by land, and the half-brig was dry-docked. Mrs. Briggs fainted, and the rest of us were too much stunned and in disbelief to say aught, let alone move.
I glanced out, and I would like to have been able to say over the horizon, but saw nothing but encasements of glass and what appeared to be smooth pearl and silver walls. It was unlike any building I had ever seen. It was pristine, and there was no sky, though the ceiling must have been a fathom taller as any I had ever laid eyes on. The sounds were all odd, like echoes in a canyon, of voices and pumps, and hammers, and the high-pitched noise was diminishing. There were men, at least they appeared as men, below the hull, and they stared up as we stared down.
The sight caught the better of Boz, who was only 23, and had I not had so much fright myself, I'd have dashed for a covert as he did. It was then that a plank rose from the ground. There were no pulley's or lines, and it seemed to be lifted by the hand of god or the devil, I'm not sure which, and there were five men, dressed in masks, hoods and white uniforms, and they were holding what might have been rifles. The plank stopped and the men stepped onto the deck.
"Decontamination in effect," said a booming voice in every direction. I looked, but could not find the source.
"Captain Briggs?" said one of the men. Instinctively, despite out fear, the crew stepped in front of the Captain, but he pressed his hands up against our shoulders to push us aside and stood forward with confidence.
"I am."
"We need you to follow us," said one of the men.
"I will not abandon my ship."
"By choice or force, Sir," a woman's voice surprised me. "We will explain, and we will return you to your ship, but you must come with us."
I was confused, not only by the sights, but by a woman giving a command. It was highly irregular, since women did not even have the vote, let alone a place of charge outside the home. I wondered if I had hit my head in falling during that sudden jolt.
For those first brief moments, I am certain the Captain thought as much as well. There was no other explanation, than it was a dream, and none of us could be certain that any of this was even real.
The men with the rifles stood forward. The Captain looked around, as seemingly confused about the surroundings as I was, and then he smiled, and agreed. I thought his idea was much the same as mine, that this was all so oddly impossible that we either must be dead or unconscious.
The Captain, his daughter and his still fainted wife were led down a separate hallway, while the rest of us were held naked in a room where an odd burst of wind hit us in all directions. None of us had seen a bath since departing New York, and although we were told this was a type of bath, I must say that it did feel odd to be cleaned without water having hit my skin.
We were provided with dark trousers and black shirts that fastened with metal teeth from the waist to the neck. When we met the Captain, even his wife, now awake, but as terrified and bewildered as the rest of us, was oddly dressed in the same attire. I had never seen a woman in trousers. I had heard rumour that certain, unsavoury women wore them, so it seemed odd that these people would force such an insult upon Mrs. Briggs.
The new room that we were taken too was not as pristine as all other places. Here the walls were charcoal and seemed made of large weaves of fabric. There were chairs made of what seemed leather cushions, a long, black polished meeting table, and an unnatural light that filled the whole of the ceiling.
"Is this a dream, Ben? Have we passed on to the Lord?" Mrs. Briggs' voice cracked. The Captain was at a loss to answer, as were the rest of us.
"The Lord would not force a lady into trousers," Edward Head, the steward and cook, said bitterly.
"If not in heaven, then we are forsaken in hell," said young Boz with a thick German accent.
"What is this place?" said Albert, the first mate, touching the fabric wall, carefully.
Just then, the woman we had met earlier and two older men walked into the room. They were all dressed as we were, and the woman? The woman had short hair, which is unheard of among the middle and upper classes.
We were all shocked, particularly since she seemed to be the charge, and asked us to be seated.
"I will not speak to a woman," said the Captain, his ideas raised. "I want the man in charge."
"I am in charge, Sir. Please, take a seat."
The Captain looked at her hesitantly. We had all heard of suffragettes, and I initially thought this part of the dream, like when we were kids, and saw the old man launch with hammer and tongs at Grandsire, and both of us had nightmares about him for weeks.
"I am Dr. Alia Noble, and these are my colleagues, Dr. Schumacher and Dr. Edson.
Despite her short hair, she was a handsome woman, and I dare say, between you and I, more comely than Else. She is … was not like the ladies that we know, she was not even like any woman that I could have imagined until that point.
"I am the Executive Director of a project called, Rediscooperie. Our purpose is to reclaim history."
We were all silent, and complaisant, for at that point we did not know what she spoke. Our confusion was obvious, and she stood from her seat, and grabbed an oval instrument, like an oversized coin, that had on its face, small buttons.
"This will be difficult for you to comprehend." Perspiration formed upon her brow, giving her face quite an inspirational glow.
"How to explain," she muttered.
"Be forthright, Madame," said the Captain. "What place is this?"
She pursed her lips, and smiled at him. "Yes. And if you have questions, then please ask. When," she paused. "I finish."
I had never heard a woman talk so … well I am not sure brother, exactly how she spoke, aggressively? But each word from her lips was like a swell in the ocean that crashed upon me with exciting fervour. I had not known, until this point, that the power of a woman could be cause for such excitement within me, and this is why I write you and not Else.
"You are currently in the year 2490 AD."
I am certain we would have all burst out in laughter, if not for the bizarre surroundings and uncertain circumstances of our apparent dream.
She pressed the buttons on her coin, and the lights dimmed, and then the whole room was replaced by a moving vision all around us, as if a hallucination inside of a dream that we watched from our seats. Except it was as if these images were there to be touched, as if you might even immerse yourself into it, like gazing in a looking glass, only the whole of your vision was the glass.
"In your time, these images would be still like a photograph, and flat. Shortly after, they became moving photographs that people would pay money to see. Soon after, there was added colour," she said, and then suddenly there were people in colour all round us as she commanded the buttons on the disc.
"Inventions brought 3 dimensional vision, and later virtual reality, and then what you see before you, reality immersion, which we use to teach history, and to re-discover our past."
I looked with amazement all around me, barely hearing her next words, until she turned on the light, and ceased the images. From the look on my shipmates faces, they were as confused and in wonder as I.
"However, while some of the images are true, we have found that many of the recordings from the past have proven inaccurate. Dr. Schumacher?"
Dr. Alia Noble sat down, and Dr. Schumacher began to speak from his chair.
"Although you must be thinking, certainly, that this is a dream, I assure you this is not. In the year 2094, there was a great war, much worse than you can imagine," he started.
Dr. Schumacher told us of this war they called Apocolypse, and immersed us in images of what they called the world wars, and the desert wars that lead to the destruction of all cities in the world. At first the images were black and white, but when the colour images came before us, it was as if we were living these wars. I could see things as if I were there myself, hear the sounds all around me as if I were a soldier, I could feel the heat of the fires upon my skin, and even smell what must have been flesh. Though it was just brief glimpses, it was horrifying to behold.
The doctors spent weeks helping us to understand how almost everything was destroyed, and how people went underground, and then emerged to re-build. The world, they told us, had vastly changed, and except for handed down accounts, recordings, and what little in the way of books, and information stored on these machines called computers, there was no coherent history. After rebuilding cities, the people focussed their efforts on sciences and history, and one brilliant team, we were told had discovered a way in which to bend time and space to travel anywhere in history, or the universe. It was too much for us to comprehend at that time, and seemed more a tale told by Jules Verne.
At first, none of us could believe what we were being told. At night, after these seminars, we were led to bunks that were in the same building. It was more like a house with a common room, and each of us with our own beds to sleep. In those early days, we would retire to the common area and argue and discuss this strange, and mutual experience.
"We cannot all be having the same nightmare," the Captain concluded one evening. "We must believe it is true, and we must determine how to return to our own place and time."
It was hopeful, but it would not come to pass.
In the end Dr. Alia Noble said, "Our purpose in this project is to piece together our history so that the same mistakes do not happen. However, we have treaded on history, your history, your destiny. You do have a choice."
When she spoke those words, each of us in the room felt a momentary respite.
"But in that lifeboat, your yawl, you will all die."
"You cannot know our fate, you are not God," the Captain stood abruptly and looked blue at her.
Dr. Noble allotted us three days to decide. I was curious though, and it was after this meeting that I decided to speak with her.
It was the first time that I had been alone with her, although I must admit to looking at her day after day with a surprising desire that I had never felt toward any lady. She suggested we go for a beaker, and by now, I was not surprised to know that women also took of ale and spirits.
This was the first moment that I had left what I had come to call the complex, and my eyes were opened by the astonishing betterments. Sidewalks moved, and carriages floated without horses, and no stench from the city as I had half-expected. There were no outdoors. It was like passing from one box to another, and yet the ceiling changed from night to day as it does. Buildings were enormous in size, long and tall rectangles, each linked to another by what seemed glass. There was nothing small in this place, and there was not a speck of gravel or dirt to be found. There were mechanical devices that moved all around, and people were everywhere, clean-shaven and dressed in similar fashions, yet it was strangely quiet, although people talked and things moved. But, somehow the noises seemed buffered. What surprised me, or maybe it didn't, was that people of all colours, Negroes and those of different origins, intermingled as easily with the populace as females seemed to take charge.
When I first stepped onto the moving path, I was startled, and grabbed Dr. Noble for fear I might fall. She laughed. It was the first time I had heard her laugh. It was the first time I had heard any laughter since our arrival, and I smiled back with an apology for having touched her in an unchivalrous manner.
"Let's go to my home. I want to show you something," she said.
I thought this a very forward thing, although my surprise at this time was diminishing swiftly.
We were hoisted in a box, again of glass, to a hallway with endless doors, and when we arrived at number 1683, the door vanished.
"Anyone can simply enter?" I asked in astonishment.
"No," she said, and she raised her arm and showed me her wrist. Underneath the skin, here," she grabbed my hand, and ran my finger along the smoothness of her skin. "You can feel a small chip, which is read by scanners in the doorway. Read by any scanner, anywhere," she stated and walked into the kitchen.
"I have something that I am sure you will enjoy," she said.
"A chip?" I asked
"If you stay. You'll have one too. It allows us to move freely, to buy freely, to feel safe. There is no crime here, well, very little, and when a crime is committed, this chip allows us to capture that person right away. It's our way of life."
It seemed reasonable enough.
Her home was cosy, and dimply lit, and the furniture was much older in appearance than in the complex. Yet still, there was nothing recognizable to me, except a chaise in one corner.
"Here," she said, and handed me a glass. "This is a bottle of wine from the court of Louis the Sixteenth, just prior to the revolution."
I knew of the French monarchy, but Louis the Sixteenth was not the King when we set sail from New York, and there was no revolution I had heard apart from my own history.
We sat down in the living area, and she talked of all the items that she had acquired for her home, which she had taken from various points in history. She was a fascinating woman, so full of enthusiasm, and I dare say passion. I barely heard the words she spoke that day, I just remember looking into her eyes, watching the way in which her lips moved, breathing the perfume of her body. I don't know what came upon me, perhaps the publications she pointed out to me – Fanny Hill, The Pearl, and more shockingly Playboy, and Tongue. It was hard to believe that she had them, let alone freely showed them to me.
I almost blushed, feeling the tightness grip my vitals, and then I took her into my arms, and pressed my lips to hers. She returned my kiss with ease, and my tongue swam into her mouth with more passion than I had ever felt, even beyond my first time at port in London.
It was difficult at first to think of her in the same way that I thought of Else, with purity, piety and submissiveness. She was none of those. I felt at a loss and outdated. The women here have the lust of men, brother. Not prostitutes, as we are used too, but all women make love whenever they choose without worry of persecution.
She pushed me down feverishly with her hips thrusting against my groin. I was resistant at first, wanting to heave my body on top of hers, and yet I pleasured in her manly aggressiveness, and then she slipped off of me, I thought at first to beg that we stop, but then she stood, with no shyness, and removed her clothing.
She was beautiful. Her skin radiant, with a fine glow of blond hair shimmering from her arms, and she had no pubic hair, which at first made me to be uncomfortable. I sat up in my seat, and she pushed my shoulder's back, sliding her lips from my mouth, her fingers raising to remove my shirt, and as she clasped my trousers with her hands, her teeth clamped across my nipple, tugging and pushing as her tongue whirled around one and then the other.
Kneeling between my legs, she pulled off my trousers. The heat in my groin was almost unbearable. I was stiffer than I ever recall being, and thought I would erupt the moment her lips pressed over the head of my cock, and eased over my shaft, slowly and deeply until I could feel her throat.
She looked up at me, and her eyes smiled as her mouth drifted off of my erection, and she held me in one hand, her tongue licking down the underside of my shaft to my balls, and then succulently kissing back to the tip, again devouring me, only more roughly with her lips, up and down, I felt the wet moisture of her mouth saturating my cock. She kept her hand upon my shaft, moving it ever faster as her mouth swallowed me, and then she let go.
"Fuck me," she demanded. I had never heard that word in respectable company, not even upon reading Fanny Hill, and barely was it even uttered among prostitutes.
She straddled me, and her pussy dropped pearls of liquid onto my cock before she slipped onto my hardness.
Her breasts were perfect and succulent and I devoured them into my mouth before her body slammed onto my lap. Her nipple slipped away from my mouth, and pressed hard against my cheek. My appetite was inflamed, and no longer willing to be her submissive slave, I whisked her from my cock onto the sofa. She laughed playfully, and then turned over, her buttocks waving in my face, sweet – round - beautiful. I savoured them underneath my hand, and moved my fingers to her hole, fingering her pussy, letting her desire paint across my fingers, wanting her to plead for me.
"Fuck me," she challenged again, and all at once, I rammed my cock into her. Felt myself splitting her open, and feeling the unbridled passion throbbing through my cock. Her muscles gripped at my shaft, and she felt tight like a virgin might feel.
It was primitive, wild as she slammed her body back against mine. My shaft swelled, and my balls tightened as I grabbed her hips and rode her faster, my breath heavier, her moans louder. I could smell her pussy in the air, could feel her body sweating against my own as I thrust harder. My heart was racing, I hadn't been with a woman for months, and could no longer disguise my lust, "I am going, Aria," I yelled out, knowing her fingers were swirling around her clit.
"Harder, baby," she moaned, and my finger almost dug into her flesh as I pounded deep, and hard finally erupting with a fever inside her body.
"Oh, yes, baby, yes, don't stop, I'm almost there," she begged as I thrust the last of my cum into her.
It was on that night when I decided to choose life over death, and I have remained these last five years, though unmarried, with Alia, and our only son who we have named in your honour.
Be it what it would, our crew decided to stay. There was not much choice, really. For me, it was easy to choose Alia. For the others, the choice was more difficult.
Before the ship was returned, the doctors unfastened the cooks stove, and cut ropes to make it appear that something had happened. We never did return, except the Captain to gather some papers, and remove nine barrels of the spirits from the hold.
This land is by far more strange than the exotic and Eastern countries of the Pacific, but this place has become a curious source of happiness and amazement for me.
I write you brother to say that I am happy, and also to say goodbye, though I know my words shall never reach your eyes. I only these words to give you in memorium, and a breath that somehow my feelings will find your heart. I place this paper into a bottle, that same bottle I Alia opened five years ago this day, and I let it set sail to find you, as I sailed from America to be lost to you.
But know that I am not lost, yet only gone from your time.
My will made by me, your brother,
Andrew Gilling,
2nd Mate of the Mary Celeste.
1) Does it need more description
2) Do you feel it is telling, not showing more often than not, and yet, if it is a letter, does that suit the tone of the genre?
3) Does the sex just seem slapped into the story?
4) In reading it, and bearing in mind it is a LETTERS (mainly) sci-fi secondary, what would you LIKE to see more of in it that the story currently fails to deliver.
Thanks in advance. Cheers
Charley.*****
My dearest brother,
For these past years I have tried to make sense of the course my life has taken, and prayed, by the by, that this was a fantastic dream I would wake from. But, there is little hope to relish the shores of America rising into sight from the sea, and still smaller expectation to cast my arms around you in embrace, or behold the lips of the one I once loved, Else.
We were told early that we would not be returned home, though each of us, excepting little Sophia who was too young to recall, has held out a glimmer. Yet, at length, we are sensible of this scrape, and must once more begin to live rather than hold a candle for something that is as impossible as how we arrived here.
If you recall, we hoisted anchor from New York on November 7th, bound for Genoa. The voyage was quite uneventful until 300 miles west of the Azores we met with strong gale winds that had us travelling speeds of 9 knots. By the time we reached St. Mary's Island, the crew was exhausted and hungry. Captain Briggs commanded us leeside the island so the cook could fire the stove for much needed viands, and to allow his daughter, who had been battling sea sickness, some respite.
We were more northerly than expected, and not wanting to anchor, the Captain had us pump the bilge and furl the sails to hold our course forward, heading along the shore.
I have never been able to get used to salted meats, but after three treacherous days without more than bread, almonds and raisins, I was famished and devoured the cooks beef and barley soup as if it were my last meal. I am certain the other's felt the same. We were allotted a few ounces of wine, and the men were able to relax with their pipes before we set sail again.
About a day in, the 1st mate, Albert Richardson clipped wood chips off the bow, and determined that we had cut to 8 knots, but then suddenly there was no wind.
We were silent in the Ocean. The sails dropped. The water laid like glass as the half-brig cut it like a diamond. We all came to deck, even Mrs. Briggs with her daughter. I overheard Seaman Boz Lorensen tell his brother, Volkert about how the ship was salvaged at auction after passing through several incidents and owners. I am not one for tales, and so I moved to tell them not to scare the lady, when the Captain noted a small breeze and ordered the sails be set for a starboard tack. We moved hurriedly, and just as we set them the ship came to a shocking halt as if we had hit ashore.
My body went flying forward, and my hands slapped to the deck, followed by my knees splintering across the wood. Mrs. Briggs screamed for her daughter from behind me, and I whipped my head round as Seaman Martens grabbed the tumbling and crying child.
Another pause, as if we were dead in the water, and then a violent tremor gripped the ship. The beam quaked, the deck was shivering more than I, and the mast was creaking as if it might burst. I tried to stand, to grab hold of something, hearing shouts from the Lady, but the deck appeared spinning, and I was helpless even to myself. Then it stopped as suddenly as it began, but there was a high pitch, almost deafening sound like a caterwaul, and it was as though the ship were being drug through a vice.
"Take down the yawl!" The Captain yelled, and all of us, seized by terror, scurried starboard. Our fear got the better of us, our hands shaking, we could not untie it, and the first mate brought the axe down on the cords, letting the yawl drop to the water without us.
And this is the part, brother, that if I had not experienced myself, I would not believe.
The yawl disappeared in front of our eyes. The water vanished, replaced by land, and the half-brig was dry-docked. Mrs. Briggs fainted, and the rest of us were too much stunned and in disbelief to say aught, let alone move.
I glanced out, and I would like to have been able to say over the horizon, but saw nothing but encasements of glass and what appeared to be smooth pearl and silver walls. It was unlike any building I had ever seen. It was pristine, and there was no sky, though the ceiling must have been a fathom taller as any I had ever laid eyes on. The sounds were all odd, like echoes in a canyon, of voices and pumps, and hammers, and the high-pitched noise was diminishing. There were men, at least they appeared as men, below the hull, and they stared up as we stared down.
The sight caught the better of Boz, who was only 23, and had I not had so much fright myself, I'd have dashed for a covert as he did. It was then that a plank rose from the ground. There were no pulley's or lines, and it seemed to be lifted by the hand of god or the devil, I'm not sure which, and there were five men, dressed in masks, hoods and white uniforms, and they were holding what might have been rifles. The plank stopped and the men stepped onto the deck.
"Decontamination in effect," said a booming voice in every direction. I looked, but could not find the source.
"Captain Briggs?" said one of the men. Instinctively, despite out fear, the crew stepped in front of the Captain, but he pressed his hands up against our shoulders to push us aside and stood forward with confidence.
"I am."
"We need you to follow us," said one of the men.
"I will not abandon my ship."
"By choice or force, Sir," a woman's voice surprised me. "We will explain, and we will return you to your ship, but you must come with us."
I was confused, not only by the sights, but by a woman giving a command. It was highly irregular, since women did not even have the vote, let alone a place of charge outside the home. I wondered if I had hit my head in falling during that sudden jolt.
For those first brief moments, I am certain the Captain thought as much as well. There was no other explanation, than it was a dream, and none of us could be certain that any of this was even real.
The men with the rifles stood forward. The Captain looked around, as seemingly confused about the surroundings as I was, and then he smiled, and agreed. I thought his idea was much the same as mine, that this was all so oddly impossible that we either must be dead or unconscious.
The Captain, his daughter and his still fainted wife were led down a separate hallway, while the rest of us were held naked in a room where an odd burst of wind hit us in all directions. None of us had seen a bath since departing New York, and although we were told this was a type of bath, I must say that it did feel odd to be cleaned without water having hit my skin.
We were provided with dark trousers and black shirts that fastened with metal teeth from the waist to the neck. When we met the Captain, even his wife, now awake, but as terrified and bewildered as the rest of us, was oddly dressed in the same attire. I had never seen a woman in trousers. I had heard rumour that certain, unsavoury women wore them, so it seemed odd that these people would force such an insult upon Mrs. Briggs.
The new room that we were taken too was not as pristine as all other places. Here the walls were charcoal and seemed made of large weaves of fabric. There were chairs made of what seemed leather cushions, a long, black polished meeting table, and an unnatural light that filled the whole of the ceiling.
"Is this a dream, Ben? Have we passed on to the Lord?" Mrs. Briggs' voice cracked. The Captain was at a loss to answer, as were the rest of us.
"The Lord would not force a lady into trousers," Edward Head, the steward and cook, said bitterly.
"If not in heaven, then we are forsaken in hell," said young Boz with a thick German accent.
"What is this place?" said Albert, the first mate, touching the fabric wall, carefully.
Just then, the woman we had met earlier and two older men walked into the room. They were all dressed as we were, and the woman? The woman had short hair, which is unheard of among the middle and upper classes.
We were all shocked, particularly since she seemed to be the charge, and asked us to be seated.
"I will not speak to a woman," said the Captain, his ideas raised. "I want the man in charge."
"I am in charge, Sir. Please, take a seat."
The Captain looked at her hesitantly. We had all heard of suffragettes, and I initially thought this part of the dream, like when we were kids, and saw the old man launch with hammer and tongs at Grandsire, and both of us had nightmares about him for weeks.
"I am Dr. Alia Noble, and these are my colleagues, Dr. Schumacher and Dr. Edson.
Despite her short hair, she was a handsome woman, and I dare say, between you and I, more comely than Else. She is … was not like the ladies that we know, she was not even like any woman that I could have imagined until that point.
"I am the Executive Director of a project called, Rediscooperie. Our purpose is to reclaim history."
We were all silent, and complaisant, for at that point we did not know what she spoke. Our confusion was obvious, and she stood from her seat, and grabbed an oval instrument, like an oversized coin, that had on its face, small buttons.
"This will be difficult for you to comprehend." Perspiration formed upon her brow, giving her face quite an inspirational glow.
"How to explain," she muttered.
"Be forthright, Madame," said the Captain. "What place is this?"
She pursed her lips, and smiled at him. "Yes. And if you have questions, then please ask. When," she paused. "I finish."
I had never heard a woman talk so … well I am not sure brother, exactly how she spoke, aggressively? But each word from her lips was like a swell in the ocean that crashed upon me with exciting fervour. I had not known, until this point, that the power of a woman could be cause for such excitement within me, and this is why I write you and not Else.
"You are currently in the year 2490 AD."
I am certain we would have all burst out in laughter, if not for the bizarre surroundings and uncertain circumstances of our apparent dream.
She pressed the buttons on her coin, and the lights dimmed, and then the whole room was replaced by a moving vision all around us, as if a hallucination inside of a dream that we watched from our seats. Except it was as if these images were there to be touched, as if you might even immerse yourself into it, like gazing in a looking glass, only the whole of your vision was the glass.
"In your time, these images would be still like a photograph, and flat. Shortly after, they became moving photographs that people would pay money to see. Soon after, there was added colour," she said, and then suddenly there were people in colour all round us as she commanded the buttons on the disc.
"Inventions brought 3 dimensional vision, and later virtual reality, and then what you see before you, reality immersion, which we use to teach history, and to re-discover our past."
I looked with amazement all around me, barely hearing her next words, until she turned on the light, and ceased the images. From the look on my shipmates faces, they were as confused and in wonder as I.
"However, while some of the images are true, we have found that many of the recordings from the past have proven inaccurate. Dr. Schumacher?"
Dr. Alia Noble sat down, and Dr. Schumacher began to speak from his chair.
"Although you must be thinking, certainly, that this is a dream, I assure you this is not. In the year 2094, there was a great war, much worse than you can imagine," he started.
Dr. Schumacher told us of this war they called Apocolypse, and immersed us in images of what they called the world wars, and the desert wars that lead to the destruction of all cities in the world. At first the images were black and white, but when the colour images came before us, it was as if we were living these wars. I could see things as if I were there myself, hear the sounds all around me as if I were a soldier, I could feel the heat of the fires upon my skin, and even smell what must have been flesh. Though it was just brief glimpses, it was horrifying to behold.
The doctors spent weeks helping us to understand how almost everything was destroyed, and how people went underground, and then emerged to re-build. The world, they told us, had vastly changed, and except for handed down accounts, recordings, and what little in the way of books, and information stored on these machines called computers, there was no coherent history. After rebuilding cities, the people focussed their efforts on sciences and history, and one brilliant team, we were told had discovered a way in which to bend time and space to travel anywhere in history, or the universe. It was too much for us to comprehend at that time, and seemed more a tale told by Jules Verne.
At first, none of us could believe what we were being told. At night, after these seminars, we were led to bunks that were in the same building. It was more like a house with a common room, and each of us with our own beds to sleep. In those early days, we would retire to the common area and argue and discuss this strange, and mutual experience.
"We cannot all be having the same nightmare," the Captain concluded one evening. "We must believe it is true, and we must determine how to return to our own place and time."
It was hopeful, but it would not come to pass.
In the end Dr. Alia Noble said, "Our purpose in this project is to piece together our history so that the same mistakes do not happen. However, we have treaded on history, your history, your destiny. You do have a choice."
When she spoke those words, each of us in the room felt a momentary respite.
"But in that lifeboat, your yawl, you will all die."
"You cannot know our fate, you are not God," the Captain stood abruptly and looked blue at her.
Dr. Noble allotted us three days to decide. I was curious though, and it was after this meeting that I decided to speak with her.
It was the first time that I had been alone with her, although I must admit to looking at her day after day with a surprising desire that I had never felt toward any lady. She suggested we go for a beaker, and by now, I was not surprised to know that women also took of ale and spirits.
This was the first moment that I had left what I had come to call the complex, and my eyes were opened by the astonishing betterments. Sidewalks moved, and carriages floated without horses, and no stench from the city as I had half-expected. There were no outdoors. It was like passing from one box to another, and yet the ceiling changed from night to day as it does. Buildings were enormous in size, long and tall rectangles, each linked to another by what seemed glass. There was nothing small in this place, and there was not a speck of gravel or dirt to be found. There were mechanical devices that moved all around, and people were everywhere, clean-shaven and dressed in similar fashions, yet it was strangely quiet, although people talked and things moved. But, somehow the noises seemed buffered. What surprised me, or maybe it didn't, was that people of all colours, Negroes and those of different origins, intermingled as easily with the populace as females seemed to take charge.
When I first stepped onto the moving path, I was startled, and grabbed Dr. Noble for fear I might fall. She laughed. It was the first time I had heard her laugh. It was the first time I had heard any laughter since our arrival, and I smiled back with an apology for having touched her in an unchivalrous manner.
"Let's go to my home. I want to show you something," she said.
I thought this a very forward thing, although my surprise at this time was diminishing swiftly.
We were hoisted in a box, again of glass, to a hallway with endless doors, and when we arrived at number 1683, the door vanished.
"Anyone can simply enter?" I asked in astonishment.
"No," she said, and she raised her arm and showed me her wrist. Underneath the skin, here," she grabbed my hand, and ran my finger along the smoothness of her skin. "You can feel a small chip, which is read by scanners in the doorway. Read by any scanner, anywhere," she stated and walked into the kitchen.
"I have something that I am sure you will enjoy," she said.
"A chip?" I asked
"If you stay. You'll have one too. It allows us to move freely, to buy freely, to feel safe. There is no crime here, well, very little, and when a crime is committed, this chip allows us to capture that person right away. It's our way of life."
It seemed reasonable enough.
Her home was cosy, and dimply lit, and the furniture was much older in appearance than in the complex. Yet still, there was nothing recognizable to me, except a chaise in one corner.
"Here," she said, and handed me a glass. "This is a bottle of wine from the court of Louis the Sixteenth, just prior to the revolution."
I knew of the French monarchy, but Louis the Sixteenth was not the King when we set sail from New York, and there was no revolution I had heard apart from my own history.
We sat down in the living area, and she talked of all the items that she had acquired for her home, which she had taken from various points in history. She was a fascinating woman, so full of enthusiasm, and I dare say passion. I barely heard the words she spoke that day, I just remember looking into her eyes, watching the way in which her lips moved, breathing the perfume of her body. I don't know what came upon me, perhaps the publications she pointed out to me – Fanny Hill, The Pearl, and more shockingly Playboy, and Tongue. It was hard to believe that she had them, let alone freely showed them to me.
I almost blushed, feeling the tightness grip my vitals, and then I took her into my arms, and pressed my lips to hers. She returned my kiss with ease, and my tongue swam into her mouth with more passion than I had ever felt, even beyond my first time at port in London.
It was difficult at first to think of her in the same way that I thought of Else, with purity, piety and submissiveness. She was none of those. I felt at a loss and outdated. The women here have the lust of men, brother. Not prostitutes, as we are used too, but all women make love whenever they choose without worry of persecution.
She pushed me down feverishly with her hips thrusting against my groin. I was resistant at first, wanting to heave my body on top of hers, and yet I pleasured in her manly aggressiveness, and then she slipped off of me, I thought at first to beg that we stop, but then she stood, with no shyness, and removed her clothing.
She was beautiful. Her skin radiant, with a fine glow of blond hair shimmering from her arms, and she had no pubic hair, which at first made me to be uncomfortable. I sat up in my seat, and she pushed my shoulder's back, sliding her lips from my mouth, her fingers raising to remove my shirt, and as she clasped my trousers with her hands, her teeth clamped across my nipple, tugging and pushing as her tongue whirled around one and then the other.
Kneeling between my legs, she pulled off my trousers. The heat in my groin was almost unbearable. I was stiffer than I ever recall being, and thought I would erupt the moment her lips pressed over the head of my cock, and eased over my shaft, slowly and deeply until I could feel her throat.
She looked up at me, and her eyes smiled as her mouth drifted off of my erection, and she held me in one hand, her tongue licking down the underside of my shaft to my balls, and then succulently kissing back to the tip, again devouring me, only more roughly with her lips, up and down, I felt the wet moisture of her mouth saturating my cock. She kept her hand upon my shaft, moving it ever faster as her mouth swallowed me, and then she let go.
"Fuck me," she demanded. I had never heard that word in respectable company, not even upon reading Fanny Hill, and barely was it even uttered among prostitutes.
She straddled me, and her pussy dropped pearls of liquid onto my cock before she slipped onto my hardness.
Her breasts were perfect and succulent and I devoured them into my mouth before her body slammed onto my lap. Her nipple slipped away from my mouth, and pressed hard against my cheek. My appetite was inflamed, and no longer willing to be her submissive slave, I whisked her from my cock onto the sofa. She laughed playfully, and then turned over, her buttocks waving in my face, sweet – round - beautiful. I savoured them underneath my hand, and moved my fingers to her hole, fingering her pussy, letting her desire paint across my fingers, wanting her to plead for me.
"Fuck me," she challenged again, and all at once, I rammed my cock into her. Felt myself splitting her open, and feeling the unbridled passion throbbing through my cock. Her muscles gripped at my shaft, and she felt tight like a virgin might feel.
It was primitive, wild as she slammed her body back against mine. My shaft swelled, and my balls tightened as I grabbed her hips and rode her faster, my breath heavier, her moans louder. I could smell her pussy in the air, could feel her body sweating against my own as I thrust harder. My heart was racing, I hadn't been with a woman for months, and could no longer disguise my lust, "I am going, Aria," I yelled out, knowing her fingers were swirling around her clit.
"Harder, baby," she moaned, and my finger almost dug into her flesh as I pounded deep, and hard finally erupting with a fever inside her body.
"Oh, yes, baby, yes, don't stop, I'm almost there," she begged as I thrust the last of my cum into her.
It was on that night when I decided to choose life over death, and I have remained these last five years, though unmarried, with Alia, and our only son who we have named in your honour.
Be it what it would, our crew decided to stay. There was not much choice, really. For me, it was easy to choose Alia. For the others, the choice was more difficult.
Before the ship was returned, the doctors unfastened the cooks stove, and cut ropes to make it appear that something had happened. We never did return, except the Captain to gather some papers, and remove nine barrels of the spirits from the hold.
This land is by far more strange than the exotic and Eastern countries of the Pacific, but this place has become a curious source of happiness and amazement for me.
I write you brother to say that I am happy, and also to say goodbye, though I know my words shall never reach your eyes. I only these words to give you in memorium, and a breath that somehow my feelings will find your heart. I place this paper into a bottle, that same bottle I Alia opened five years ago this day, and I let it set sail to find you, as I sailed from America to be lost to you.
But know that I am not lost, yet only gone from your time.
My will made by me, your brother,
Andrew Gilling,
2nd Mate of the Mary Celeste.
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Its just the salutation 
