Betty Adams Tall Tales
  • Home
    • Book 1 "Humans are Weird: I Have the Data"
    • Book 2 "Humans are Weird: We Took a Vote"
    • Book 3 "Humans are Weird: Let's Work It Out"
    • "Flying Sparks"
    • "Dying Embers"
    • "Hidden Fires"
    • Testimonials
  • The Aliens
    • Dying Embers
    • Humans Are Weird
    • Miscellaneous
    • Fan Art
  • Betty's Blog
    • Humans Are Weird
  • Store: Betty's Booty
  • About & Contact
    • Bibliography
    • Links

River Monsters and Brain Invasions

1/28/2018

Comments

 
Picture
But How Can You Not Believe in Sea Monsters?

The young author relaxed into the seat, stretching out her legs in the luxury of the space allowed in a train. Her head rested against the scratched window, marked with the dust of three states and the fingerprints of many travelers. Outside the soggy landscape rolled past in alternating waves of forest and farmstead. Her mind was blissfully empty, poured out in conversation with the delightful stranger who had shared the last few hours of the journey. It was a conversation ranging over philosophy, history, medicine, and great literature, a conversation where their minds had hummed together like perfectly tuned strings on a harp. Now the delightful friend was gone and the author was relaxing into that state of blissful hypnosis that only a long train ride can induce.
Then the trees opened and beneath the tracks appeared the roiling, turbid waters of the Great River. The river that had fed, carried, watered, and then powered, the population of this land since time immemorial. Like breath itself the river was a part of her. As the train rumbled over the bridge it interjected no more thought into her slack and open mind than the air itself. That is…until halfway across she noted the dirty green color of the water. A coil of more specific pleasure twisted inside of her. This was no crystal clear mountain stream, with ever pebble visible from the surface.  No, this was a river that fed nations. It was dense with life itself. Life in the form of every creature that crawled on the surface of the earth and writhed through its waters. It was dense with the raw nutrients that fed ecosystems to rival the Great Barrier Reef.
And she shuddered. That was all the warning she had. As the train car slipped over the last quarter of the bridge a near formless creature leapt out of the water and into her brain. What if. It hissed in her innermost ear. How much do you love me? How much do you love your most treasured cultural treasure? What would you sacrifice to save the life of an alien? What is the value of my life? What cost are you willing to endure to preserve it? What happens when one value you hold clashes with another value?
The author’s hands trembled and without thought she snatches up her notebook. Words fall like leaves on the page at first. Fragments of ideas herded by fragmentary punctuation. The being morphs, at one moment a seal, the next a spider, then suddenly an idea. It thinks the newts are impossibly cute. The being is now fully formed. A cartilaginous skeleton, aquatic, long, so very long, three sets of limbs. A world from another story, another time surges up and the author know it to be this creatures homeworld. Deep canyons, bitter winds, complex underwater caverns. A novel forms in moments. A contrast of values. Arguments.
“How dare you ask us to give up millennia of preservation efforts, a sacred site?”
“The cost will be immeasurable!”
“This is a person!”
“There is no other way?”
“If it cannot be used for the good of the logos then why do you claim to preserve it for the logos?”
The author shivers, knowing that the questions such a novel will ask, if she does her job properly, will no doubt generate controversy. Offend. The immediate rush of inspiration is gone. Trapped on the pages of her notebook where it can be managed. She takes a deep breath and leans back against the window, searching for that happy, hypnotic state of being from mere moments ago. But her mind is no longer empty. In the place of the mental vacuum She now swims, filling the space, looking at the author through slits of eyes, demanding attention.
“Are you really my creation?” Whispers the author to this creature.
She smiles. She has her attention. 
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

      Get Updates On Latest Projects and Stories! 

    Subscribe to Newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Audible
    AMAZON
    BARNES & NOBLE
    Powell's Books
    GOOGLE BOOKS
    KOBO Books
    YouTube 
    BitChute 
    Odysee

    Rumble
    Veoh
    PictureTeespring Store Buy COOL Merch

    SubscribeSTAR

    Author

    Betty Adams is an up and coming author with a bent for science and Sci-fi.

    Archives

    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    RSS Feed

    blogrollcenter.com
    Picture
    Blog Directory & Business Pages - OnToplist.com
Copyright © 2015
  • Home
    • Book 1 "Humans are Weird: I Have the Data"
    • Book 2 "Humans are Weird: We Took a Vote"
    • Book 3 "Humans are Weird: Let's Work It Out"
    • "Flying Sparks"
    • "Dying Embers"
    • "Hidden Fires"
    • Testimonials
  • The Aliens
    • Dying Embers
    • Humans Are Weird
    • Miscellaneous
    • Fan Art
  • Betty's Blog
    • Humans Are Weird
  • Store: Betty's Booty
  • About & Contact
    • Bibliography
    • Links