THE HOAG

Lost In Moments Collected Beyond Yesterday

EXCERPT: THE FIRST 10 PAGES

“My life!” 

Young Sr?

A horror blocked the final stair.  

“Server!”

Yes, Young Sr?

“Evil!”

He backed slowly towards the fractured stone wall. Tingling calves met the ancient salt and pepper granite bench. He could retreat no farther.

I sense you are in distress. How may I assist?

“On stair... that,” was all he could manage.

No danger.

“No danger. PositivePositive?”

Young Sr, no danger. Be calm, relax. Sit. I’ll adjust.

“Wait, no…”

Too late. Soo felt tiny machines boiling in his blood. Constructive numbness spread throughout his body, his heart throttled-down, muscles melted. He had to sit; buttocks met cold peppered rock. 

I’m sorry. I activated your emergency response. Be calm. You are safe. Sit.

The inner voice soothed his terror; a confident voice - mediate and peaceful. 

Soo’s fuzzy gaze crawled across the hideous giant blocking Viewpoint Landing.

Blood-burnt revolt splashed upon typhus-yellow, rotten pumpkin mottling grey dripping-goo. A real monster; a leviathan-sized gorgon, washed inland from another planet’s Precambrian swamp.  

Horror; un-natural horror.

His Sixth-sense screamed pure Evil. Soo’s Sixth-sense felt an ancient virulent stench, an emotional odor; not a feeling ripped from the bowels of human emotion, but a foreign Evil: palatable and pungent, an Evil that made him want to run screaming - as if Death itself was blasting its foul rotten breath into his soul. 

Stone cracked and popped; an ancient step snapped. The hillside buckled and rumbled. 

A strong rolling auditory tone – a tone so low that his ears barely acknowledged the sound - assaulted his cortex. The harsh waves shook body and bones. Seemingly, the entire world vibrated, as if the Destroyer’s fury bellowed, summoning his Elder’s darkest demons.

Evil feelings washed into his core - as waves assaulting the beach. Primal fear sent his heart racing faster; he could not breath; an Evil enveloping his soul, suffocating his very existence.  

“Server!”

The micro-machines synthesized a more potent brain buzz; Soo slumped on the bench.

Avert your gaze. Seek peace. Please Young Sr, say the words, I seek peace.

“I seek peace.” 

I am set to remind you. Turn about. Look beyond. Observe your teachings, remove your stress and anxiety. Your personal request, Young Sr.

“TrueTrue, Server.”

Soo pivoted on Viewpoint Landing’s granite bench, facing away from the Grand Stair and the vile creature. He searched for a pleasing view; absorbing a variety of duplicitous fixtures – the antiquities spread-out between the Conservatory’s dark green pines and the sky-reaching redwoods; towering giants planted on the hillocks two and a half thousand years prior.

His mental fog cleared with another potent dosing.

Focus returned; vision sharpened.

Better.

Soo initiated his appreciative feelings; he focused his consciousness; straining his mental capacity - summoning his true loving emotions; looping his meditatives about the astounding craftworks set atop the coast hills - the world-challenging creations; structures blossoming far beyond the park.

The majestic miracles shifted his attention towards the setting sun; forcing his mind’s eye to absorb the brilliant concepts reflecting the late-day golden rays.

City of the West stood shimmering above the bay: InfinitySpans crossing her waters.

Here blew a chaste breeze, defied by screaming wings; clouds traversed by GuildedGlobus Flyers - where mighty spires stretched halfway to space, temporarily parting cloud and mist. Beautiful architecture created by modified intelligences. Activity and function forever beyond his capacity; wonders conveying simultaneously: both static and motion.

Magic.

Look about. Be at peace.

“I now seek peace. I focus on detail.”

Yet, much of the landscape bled not sanguinity; the battered vistas transmitted pain. 

Across the bay, the old could not be ignored. History’s failures had left indelible scars on this planetary arc. Mortal wounds that could not but convey the wanton death perpetrated upon the innocent.  

“The hurt crimes. The scars, Server, from where emanates this Evil?”

If I may interject, Young Sr.                    “Yes, share with me please.”

Those crimes were perpetrated long ago. Seek the natural, as your scriptures advise. 

“What I feel is not natural. MyScriptureBeing notes the awakening acolyte must mind the truthful eye. One must understand the truths within the landscapes one partakes, observing both nature’s dangers and blessings, so as to choose the GoldenPath. My path is blocked by an un-natural, Server. I feel this Evil is emanating not from the ruins, but from an un-natural danger on the steps. The ruins seem to initiate these feelingS.

Postulate reactives, Young Sr. If I may inter-react, based upon your scriptures, please.

“FineFine. Thank you, Server.

Posit and listen. Is not Nature our entire Universe? Is not danger misunderstanding or underestimating Nature? Before you fled your station, Master Hun stated this core precept. You are ready for the awakening young one. Thus, you must awake with clarity. An acolyte must remain true, if one is to feel the Universe. How will what you feel determine what is true? How will what is true determine what you feel?

Those were indeed Master Hun’s exact words, the last evening before he hopped the monastery wall and ran down the mountain - all through the night; fast as his legs could manage without breaking his ankles on the steep mountain’s fractured shale and slate. Rocks tumbling down the slope, much as his faith tumbled free, battered by the elements of truth, and knocked-about by the greater world’s calling. The passions. Hot blood, and desires that could not be sated within the walls of his isolate community.

Here was the world away from home, and the wrath and tempest humanity creates when motivated by the need to control and conquer. The world where harmony evaporates as individuals divide – individuals following goals bereft of deeper thoughts, and salubrious conviction.  Here also was what his being sought innately, the pressures born of youth and humanity, desires expressing union – desires mandate, since life’s creation. Here was the promise of desire satisfied; within that desire, here lived the Evil he had been told of, as well.

“Are your feelings true, Young Sr?”

“They must be. Server, I know those who caused the ruins were evil abominations. TrueFeelings, the ruins make me feel sad, as they should. But the ruins do not feel Evil. The monster blocking my path is frightening, but I don’t understand why I feel Evil in its presence.

I should not feel this way, but I do, and I do not know why.”

Show me what your see. Tell me how you feel, Young Sr.

“I share my sight, Server. I feel these images are the connected. Follow inside. See the reactives through my eyes.”

I am linked. Look and feel. Review.

Soo focused, and drew in the surroundings again.

Aside the new city lay the elder: battered; broken; destroyed. Melted ruins spread-out before him; a bleach-boned wound. Fungus-eaten pock-marked edifice and red-rust steel. Tilted skeletons; rotting old-tech poking out of the crust, as cracked teeth in a broken skull. Here stretched forgotten orbits and purpose: leftover refuse detailed by furious war - fallout laid to rest, consumed by weather and age. The wasteland below silently recounted fusion’s footprint; star-bright’s indomitable tomb - noting uncountable dead. 

A sad vision, much as the vidis recorded: The SkyFall.

“I seek my feelings this way, Server. I ask what Evil is. I answer myself with a flood of intrinsics and core emotions that are part of the sensing Here in this place, I feel the Evil that destroyed the past. I feel terrible sorrow, knowing the lives that were erased here. I cry inside for the bones and ashes that remain buried by the billions, smashed into this barren wasteland. People and personates burnt-away in light so bright and violent, that even their souls were charred. I feel their pain.”

I record what you feel, Young Sr, I share.

“Please feel this, Server.”

Soo spun about and faced his monstrous company…

However, the Evil feeling was gone. Evaporated. 

“It’s gone.”

What is gone, Young Sr?

“The Evil I felt just moments ago.”

The monster was as before, blocking the grand stairway. 

Did your feelings arise in proximity to the Alien?

“Moments please.”

Yes, it was an Alien. The original discovery - if memory served. One of the giant Aliens. The leviathan was indeed a foul reminder. It’s sickening skin, echoing the fate of the remains buried beneath the ruins; the murdered ones, their melted bodies – naked, burnt and rendered, a sea of putrid rotting corpses. 

What do you feel now, Young Sr?

“I’m no longer sure. Disgust. Unforgivable human violence. The Evil feelings have passed. I feel dichotomy and chaos, life’s innate symmetry, old and new, life and death. Our shared reality,” his whispers softly fading beyond the ancient stone wall. 

The voice in his head remained silent.

“I can’t forget the Evil I felt, Server. I have never known such, I felt an Evil only described by my elders, an Evil whose purpose is only to destroy for selfish purpose, and self-preservation. I’m sure! Do you understand my feelings?”

There was no response to his proclamatory votives. The poisoned soils below the hillside lay mute.

Server eventually broke the silence.

By what means did you acquire these feelings, Young Sr? Your reactive loops?

“No. The feelings entered my cortex by way of Sixth-sensing, Server.  I had no control. I simply felt the Evil through my Sixth-sense, and reacted emotionally, primitively.”

 I would like to know what initiates your Sixth-sense. The feelings you felt for the SkyFall and for the Alien on the stairs? Do you fear the unknown? Has this new experience changed your path? May I sample your status please?

“Yes, I shall share. Why?”

My studies Young Sr, your culture is unique. My PanOriginal empathy is incomplete.   

“Please then.”

Thank you, please explain.

He took in a substantive breath, and pressed the lungful out slowly.

“Server, I note the horror aside the beauty. I note the ancient re-constructors preserved the SkyFall next to City of the West as a powerful reminder. The message I understand is, that war’s final answer is destruction, destruction that lasts forever. I feel this is why the ancients went to great effort to preserve both the Conservatory and the SkyFall, so any that who might follow them, no matter how humanity might change in the future, that they might also witness this example of foolishness, misunderstanding, and selfishness.” 

He dared another gaze at the monster; his heart again pumping faster.

“I note, the ruins are to quench discrimination, like I feel for that horror on the stairs.”

Calm your beating heart. Rationalize. Say, we are safe.

“We are safe.”

I sense you are still agitated Young Sr. Hoag offers no offense. You know this fact intuitively. May I offer further assistance?

“No. I’m better,” he began, “not TrueFact. Apologies. Assist please. I need an alternative path to the plaza. Why wasn’t I advanced notifications, Server?”

Apologies Young Sr. Unconfirmed predicature, due to intermediate action initiated by the Alien. Hoag is motive again after a longer than expected accumulation pause. I now update movement strategies and note Hoag will soon clear way. Hoag is simply navigating the stair’s incline transition. Within a few minutes access will become available.

“Alternatives?”

There are no other paths to the plaza on the park’s north side. Outbounding the memorial pathway inside the Ruin Conservancy Zone is prohibited without a park research permit and proper radiation protection. I can request a permit and SoftSuit, which will take 47 minutes to acquire. Otherwise, to bypass Hoag, you must recede down the Grand Stair and make alternative-way to the AutoLifts. Bypass will entail a 27-minute delay by foot.

Very late; unacceptable.

“Might you please ask the Alien to shift aside?”

Sorry, Young Sr. I cannot. I’m not permitted to interrupt or converse with Hoag.

Not permitted? “I don’t understand.”

Apology, Young Sr. Hoag is governed by inter-species treaty. I am excluded.

“I don’t understand.”

I have self-excluded. I have considered the consequences and have pledged not to interfere. Section 105 at Sub-42, contact qualifications.

“I still don’t understand. Why?”

Update? The subject is potentially extensive.

“Yes. Update please.”

FineFine, Young Sr. Stand by for voice and visual.

“Thank you, Server. Moments please, I will prepare,” he took a preliminary deep breath.

Yes, Young Sr. Standing by.

Soo Ling took-in an even deeper breath and set his hands together - fingertip to fingertip.

Separating the Yang from his demonstrable Ying, he elected an ever-so-very-slow out-breath. Soo concentrated. Moments passed; he summoned his filter-gate – the inner meditative - surmounting fear-filled instinct, focusing deep thoughts upon his culture’s subscript calm-rationality principal – creating a non-reactive neural loop, superseding his instinctual negative reactives. 

Soo wished he’d had the peace-of-mind to summon his training earlier. However, the overpowering Evil feelings had interceded. A last breath out. He was sound again. 

Courage initiated, Soo Lingg fixed his attention upon the massive Alien’s motions, its contractions, its stench, its feces-like texture. Revolting in every human sense, 

The undulating locomotion reminded him of a mortally wounded caterpillar; a throbbing pustulant segmented slug. A rotting worm, ten times bigger and fatter than any of the ancient redwoods holding up the hillside. The Alien was indeed nothing his planet might have produced.

Minutes drew-out while the lumbering monstrosity contorted; rhythmically pulsing its tuber-like body, flagellating a slow repetitive contortion. The monster’s movements summoned one’s worst nightmares. What a full intestine does while pushing waste out of the body from the rear-end.

He made way into his hippocampus; Soo’s primitive sub-consciousness produced an in-congregate fantasy. His midbrain imagined himself a drunken dysfunctional Monk, approached by a marauding elephant seal. His boots stuck deep in surf sand. The beast undulating ever closer - thrusting its warrant gesticulations; wet tons of undulating blubber - intimating slow-motion malice; boasting: “On the beach, size matters. Retreat or be crushed.”

“I must move,” he whispered.

He reversed out of his waking dream. 

The scene had changed.

As Server predicted, a slim gap now opened between the Grand Stair’s battered retaining wall and the creature; thus, allowing Soo Lingg a potential narrow bypass up the stone steps - should he dare. 

The creature appeared not only unpredictable, but unstable - its massive bloated pestilence balancing on a single row of cylindrical stump-like… whatever-they-weres?

Legs? 

Trunks? 

Pylons?  

The Alien’s supports were essentially barrel-wide protuberances - slowly leaking a corpuscular-white spider-web scum, at the base. The supports seemed ridiculously small - given the mass that sat atop them. The Alien must have weighed near ten thousand tons! How it functioned on land was impossible. There were reasons whales lived in the sea.

A single stumble and the Alien would literally smash Soo flat as paper-paste against the stone retaining wall. Hoag was whale big; Soo Lingg was but minnow-small by comparison. 

Soo Lingg wiped beady sweat hanging beneath his hairline, and considered their unexpected confluence. How would he describe his predicament: “Sorry I’m late, I am trapped on the Grand Stair by a blimp-sized star slug?”

Why hadn’t Server warned him that the creature was on the stairs? Server managed his schedule. How could this have happened? Soo had never been late before. 

A grinding gunshot! The creature’s front footpad pressed down on cut stone - vandalizing the HomeWorld monument. The pressure split the stone step in half, sending-up dust and spray. The broken stair beneath the creature’s foot-pad disappeared deep into the moist ground.

Anger rose unexpectedly.

“Yaa! You! Yaa yaaa!”

Why anger? Why the outburst? The creature seemed not to notice his barks. The Alien continued pulsing and flagellating, shifting its mass forward up the steps, breaking stone, shattering history.  

 He should never lose his temper. Soo Lingg suppressed a flurry of rants with a mellowing chant. He sought his inner meditatives and let out a deep hot breath.

“Not our goals might or offence, as is right in all, as flowers in wind we bend.”

Suppressing his anger was difficult; watching the Alien destroy the ancient stone stair reminded him of the Northern Warlords. Vandals, marauders, and thieves - who had ridden in on steel wheels and leveled his temple; shattering into rubble the ancient pillars and walls – raising his tribe, killing his family, when he was but a no name. 

The elder’s lamentations and tears…

The weaver-women’s wailing…

The priest’s dead eyes…

These images remained bright-brunt memories yet,

            “Not our goals might or offence;

            as is right in all;

            as flowers in wind we bend.”

Ancient Tibetan translated roughly into Chinglish, but lacked relevant acculturation. The Olde North American dialect lacked integral character and subtlety. He chanted the peaceful meditative again in the original ancient Asian tongue - to clear his emotions and spirit…

“ད་མིན། ང་རང་ཚོ དོན། ཡང་ན། གནོད་པ།, བདེན་པ། ནང་ལ།, ཤིང་སྦལ། ཕུ་རྒྱག། ཕུ་རྒྱག། བཀུག”

…and then again, using ChinOriginal,

“不是我們的目標可能或罪行, 是正確的作為樹木在風中我們折彎.”

Better.