The 25th Hour
The night was quiet and still. Nothing stirred in the darkness, only the moon and its companion stars. The fullness of its light shone brightly over the world. As the clock stuck midnight however, the moon turned. For a brief second it shone no light, as if it suddenly became new. And then, it happened, all at once. Firstly, the light of the moon pulsed, it remained entirely variable for some time. Also, it shone many different colours; a bright blue to begin with, a deep red afterwards, and a lush green at first. Lastly, the moon did these things faster and greater. The pulsation became a strobing, a rapid flashing of colour. Within the assortment of colours were amber and indigo. In the absurd light, the world remained quiet and asleep, yet the world suddenly felt like a celebration. As the moon continued to strobe colour, a strange force lifted from the ground. Coloured lights ascended, reds and yellow and greens and blues, all the colours of the moon. Wisps of the twenty-fifth hour. They all floated into the black air, seeming to reach for the moon. The cloud of bright light hovered above for several moments. A curious magic held them in place. At last, the moon began to relax itself, and the wisps returned to their invisible bivouacs. The moon slowed its pulsing, its colour became less varied, until for the remainder of the hour, the moon was a single colour throughout the night. Red. The glow of the moon was frightful, and the coast shimmered in the scarlet light. The wind was still, the water was peaceful. Short waves lapped the sand. The light filled the water with danger and mystery. Even the fishes and the jellies were given this odd presence of fear. The creatures seemed deeper, as if the bottom of the ocean did not exist. Seagulls carried on in the distance, their loud squawking was the only familiar element. Suddenly, rising from the shadowy deep came a great squid. The sight of this eerie fellow, its glass eyes, its porous flesh, haunted the sea. A Lovecraftian horror in an evil world. Orange. The moon still changed itself, slowly and across the hour. Its hue evolved from a terrifying red to the more pleasant amber glow. A copper moon. The light remained alien, but it no longer felt deathly. Rather, it was intriguing, a strange glow in a different sense. The river flowed past the glowing grass. Water trickled down shallow trenches and narrow divots, orange lights flickered upon the surface and twinkled on the floor. Beyond the river more lights moved. Flying lights, crawling lights, buzzing lights; creatures. Insects of the twenty-fifth hour. The small life lived peacefully amongst the orange moonshine. Their inaudible sound hummed. The water protected the sea lights, small amber glows wriggling about the seabed. The grass sheltered the luminous caterpillars, the eerie lifeforms of the foreign hour. The river and its bank were alive in magic, no foul thing lurked. A harmony of nature, life, and wonder. Yellow. The moon’s gradient changed more. Its lustre shone into a splendorous gold. Divine and pure. The night sparkled in golden starlight. Something else glistened in the night, the wings of the beast. Concealed by the black of night, the serpent flew across the sky, cloudless and dim. The Great Golden Dragon. It patrolled the world from above with fanged maw and sharp talon. The dread spectre of twenty-fifth hour. It surveyed the land, keeping check on lost innocence and malevolence. A missing child, a brazen criminal, a corrupted soul; the dragon protected the living from the dead, and the dead from the living. A lone man. The golden shade descended to meet the nightwalker. It perched upon the ground. At first nothing happened, the man took no notice of the beast for he cannot see it. He simply walked through the dragon unimpeded for the beast was non corporal, a spirit of the night. The dragon pursued this disturber of the moon. In the forest and under yellow moonlight the man found another, a dark conspiracy. The dragon heard the noise of their meeting, it held no ear nor concern for the words of men. Words are meaningless without action. Their loudness grew, and they seemed to become irritated. The dragon waited patiently. None shall live to see the light. Ill words became ill actions. He that was pursued drew a blade and plunged it straight into the other. Life spilled from his chest, and just before the victim fell, he saw the dragon. The shining beast of death. The sudden flash of the spectre’s light shocked the soul out of his body. The flesh fell, a puddle of blood slowly emerged as the assailant left him there to die. Silently, and cleanly, he strode into more of the dense woodland. Yet the soul of the victim remained, upstanding and frozen in place, terrified at the sight of the dragon. The dragon roared a terrible shriek, a painful scream of vengeance, and immediately lunged at the murderer. With quick strides and powerful wings, the beast caught up to him and grabbed him in his mouth. It ripped his spirit straight out if his body, and the dragon took flight once more, feasting on the souls of the damned and the violent. The man felt the pain, the very life torn out of him. His heart attacked, and he too fell upon the ground, his body seizing quickly. Then just as quickly his body gave in to black death, the subtle killing. The victim soul remained stood at the spot he died. He bore witness to a sight only found in the deepest fantasies of the wildest imaginations. The Great Golden Dragon flew off into the night, its belly filled with the blood and the fury of all evil. With the beast in the distance, he turned about to a different sight in the distance, a strange rumbling in the light. Green. In the open field, just beyond the over of the forest, a most unusual scene was emerging. The new spirit mustered the will to go to this place. The moonlight continued to change. It shone a bright lime colour as it transitioned into green hues. Yet it was the ground that held the ghost’s attention. It flashed green lights, as if it sparked its own electricity. The curious dancing of light puzzled the spirit. Suddenly a bolt of bright green lightning struck out of the ground, the bolt reached for the moon into the cloudless sky. The thunderclap startled the soul once again, but unlike the dread of the spectre the sight was much more wonderful and pleasant. Green lights rose out of the ground, not at all like the phantom lightning but rather seeming to be wisps. The lights streaked upwards, they twinkled as they flew into the blackness. The spirit saw this strange show and pondered, he reckoned nothing in his life was close to this vision. It felt strange to him, far too alien to comprehend. Strange lights fleeing from the earth, an unusual but pleasant luminescence, pulled towards space by an invisible force. Like some haunting magic, or the devilry of witches. The ghost tilted his head, confounded by the scene, and a sudden thought occurred. A key to the mystery perhaps. He pitched his head more. He shrank towards the ground, ever closer to his feet, until eventually he lost his feet and fell again. Except this time his did not clamour to the ground. He floated, suspended in the air, upside down. And immediately the spirit saw it. He pressed his hands on the earth and pushed off into the sky. Right way down, he walked casually into the light. The world was upside down. The land was the cloud, the sky was the ocean, and the light was the rain. What was foreign to the ghost was now normal for the most part. He strolled along the underside of the trees and watched the drops of green fall past his feet, eternally into the aether. The gentle storm of colour and life. He continued across the plain, the peculiar journey caused a sense of great calm and contentment through the rain. An oddly warm presence remained with the spirit, and when he closed his eyes, it radiated about him. Blue. In the rain the ghost continued, with eyes closed he felt the light around him. The drops of green fell upwards into him still. He remained blind to the outside world. The peace was too calm to stimulate. Instead, the spirit felt the outside, the torrent of light and weather. He heard the subtle differences in the rain, the electric patter that fell onto his shape. In the darkness he heard a different noice, a melody. Some song from a distant time. The past or the future? He could not discern. It grew louder and became the dominant sound. The ghost was numb as he listened to it. He felt nothing anymore. No warmth, no rain, no green. Suddenly the melody began to change, and this disturbed him. The sensation was new and tried to draw his attention. He opened his eyes, and the spirit was again surprised at his surroundings. It was bright, not rainy. It was the city, not the open field. And the moon was a bright blue, not a lush green. Somehow, he entered a new realm, one populated with others like him. About the empty streets and lit signage were more shades, many men and women whose lives were lost in one form or another. Boys and girls, elders and youth. They milled about the kerb of the road, they all stood for some unknown reason, they waited for something to happen. In the blueness, a sudden wave of energy rippled across the ghosts. A compulsion, an unknown need to move. The energy passed from one spirit to another, and they all began to dance. The frantic jiving was alien, strange and absurd. But every single soul of the dead danced to their own rhythm, by the blue of the moon and the light of the city. All the ghosts entertained in their own movement, and as the rush of energy passed over him, so too did the fallen soul dance in the crowd. The world was light and dance and blue and energy in the night. The ghost was as much a part of the world as all else, the electricity coursed through his frame as it did with the others. He closed his eyes a second time, the beat of the moment pulsed in his mind’s eye. He held the energy of the night in him. Everything faded around him, the light, the city, the other spirits. The world was him and only him, with his dance and his dance alone. Indigo. A note emerged in the darkness. It was innocent and subtle, a tone that harmonised to the rhythm. An eerie melody surfaced, strange and fearful. It forebode a new sense of terror. A rising pain of fright suddenly jolted within the spirit. He opened his eyes once more, and again the scene changed without his knowing. He was alone again, and the light changed more to a navy blue or velvet purple. The moon was dimmer than in any other light before. He remained in the city however, the lights changed with the moon, but the scenery was fundamentally the same as before. The lower light and desertion made the ghost tense with caution. He explored the world around him, it seemed wet with light and grim in the darkness. Instead of the crowd of ghosts, the victim found single souls; walking, floating, haunting about the landscape. A mass of the departed, less dense than before. The contrast struck him. The social beings were much less so now in the dull light. Then, in the distance, a looming character appeared. The dark attire made it invisible in the blackness. But it made itself known, an aura of death. It was the end of all life, the final oblivion. Despoina, Hel, Anubis, Nungal, Dhumavati, Yanluo Wang, Supay; Lucifer. The Death of the Twenty-Fifth Hour was close at hand. The spirits began to flee, running quickly away from it. The crowd became a stampede, a herd of animals startled by the taskmaster. Death did nothing, the figure merely saw the chaos, the sudden terror that emerged around him. The lone soul did not run. He was confused and alarmed by the immediate change, but he took no flight. Death turned slowly to that man, the one that does not fear, and stared directly into his eyes. The steely gaze was irresistible, horrible, and paralysing. The victim cannot turn away from its sharp eyes. He was petrified. The spirit knew it was dead, a new fear crashed into him all at once. A sudden realisation, death was not the end, a much worse fate was befalling toward him. As Death focused on the ghost tendrils crept out from behind it. Black snakes, far-reaching evils. He tried to run but the stare was far too powerful to break, his greatest fears kept him where he was. None of his shape moved. The End was Nigh. A flash of darkness streaked across his eyes, and a sudden sense of pain radiated from his form. Death pierced the soul. The victim saw the Happenings of the Twenty-Fifth Hour, and despite the wild visions and strange experiences, he felt nothing more from them. No coolness of the rain, no heat of the dance. Until now. All he felt was a tearing so deep and violent as it felt he regained his body again, only for it to be pulled apart at all sides and in every possible direction. As if his entire internal organs were being physically taken from himself. The pain was absurd and exhausting. The soul still saw Death as it ripped him out of existence. The most violent of deaths. He saw his soul lighting the long arm. His memories, his traveling, his experiences. He was being dissolved from eternity, to nourish the fell villain. In his last moment, the spirit held onto a single though, that he lived a life, a life that was taken twice. Once by a man he thought he knew, and again by the Reaper. The Destroyer of Worlds. Finally, his form started to collapse. His life had been disintegrated, and now the ghost would be as well. In an instant he was gone. Death was not moved, what is Death but an inevitable conclusion. No one escapes the Twenty-Fifth Hour. Violet. Death observed the moon. It was nearly completely black, the faintest rays of a deep violet colour emanated from it. The time had come, its time had come. The light of the moon slowly darkened until eventually it shone nothing at all. A storm made itself known. The black lightning attacked the ground, the hot rain streamed over the earth. A curious sound passed by. A traveling circus rode through the streets. A chariot of light and life dared to break the dark curse. The noise was familiar and vibrant. The ghosts were brighter than the sun, joyous and captivating. The convoy leaped off the wet tarmac and rose towards the new moon. Their screaming light trailed like a shooting star. Rising higher and higher into the night, treading the path of Ra and Helios and Sól. The circus briefly faded into the darkness, at first the glimmer was gone. Then, the last great wonder. The Light of the Twenty-Fifth Hour. The moon once again began to shine, it blinked in colours just as it had done before. Slowly and calmly. For many seconds, the moon remained in this trance, this strange rhythm of light. Then for one last time, the wisps of light returned out of their hiding spaces, Death stood firm at his post, the ghosts feared no more and came out into the open, the dewy green light sat upon the hills, the Golden Dragon flew in the distance, the insects glowed in the reeds, and the fishes drew streaks in the sea. The ghostly residents prepared for their final departure. The moon projected its light once more and, in a blaze of dazzling white light, the colours of the night disappeared. The moon dispelled the darkness, the light illuminated the colours. As the whiteness reached them all, they drifted into the still wind, and dissolved into the earth. Figments and imaginations. The magic had fallen asleep, the Twenty-Fifth Hour had passed. For now. Superpower 2138 – by HDN
The morning Parramatta cold grazes my skin. The putrid stink of smears of filth on the footpath wafts from ever so distinctly even from across the road. Blood rushes to my head, my heart beating in excitement at the imminent conquest of power that has been granted to me. The three purposes of power are to seize control of one’s life, to destroy those who would threaten one’s life and to flourish and reach one’s ultimate purpose. With this in mind, I have already chosen which power I will select from the few that will be given to me. And so I pass through the revolving doors of the district court. My belongings are tested in the metal detector and I succeed the test. With the tens of other young adults, I sit in the barren lobby, on a chair of nylon and polyester. The rhetoric of 22nd century propaganda is that we are well and truly living in the future, with flying cars. Our quantum smartphones have magnitudes of computing power over early 21st century silicon smartphones. The hugest backlog of civil litigation has been disposed of by AI adjudication within our legal system. Indeed, there are colonies on Mars. Yet the cult of the future, of futurology, despite all its rosy promises of a transhuman tomorrow, from the 20th century has missed the point. The clock ticks. Others are called up by the court officer to prepare to go to the court. So of the cult of the future and what point it missed? Consider ‘Memoirs of the Twentieth Century’ by Samuel Madden, a 1733 novel about what he imagined to be the 20th century. Madden described a geopolitical scenario of confrontation between the British Empire and the Catholic powers on the continent. The problem was that he did not bother to describe technological changes. Therefore, the error of Madden was that he was obsessed with the political. Conversely, the error with the cult of the future is that it is obsessed with the technological. What is the purpose of flying cars and cheap space travel anyways? The technological has changed – the political has not. The world remains locked in the same old geopolitical contests – overwork and fatigue remain the lot of the people. Why believe in the future if it does not believe in us? I am called by the court officer. Into the courtroom we go. The Judge provides me with three random powers. “You may choose between Omni-Energy Manipulation, Magma Symbiosis, Vapor Attacks. ” “Omni-Energy Manipulation, Your Honour.” The judge grants me that power. I exit the court. I go home. I chose that power because it was the quickest path to omnipotence. With this omnipotence, I have but precisely one goal. I will harness all the energies of this universe, destroy it and recreate this universe anew – I will arrive in a time a century or two prior – and from there I will solve that which has not been solved. |