Originally, this was intended to be a flash story with an open ending, but as I edit (doing some, what’s called “word smithing“), I realized I had a beginning to something.
If you don’t already know, I wrote a fantasy novel that’s in a first draft state that I started about thirteen years ago. It’s been on my shelf, read by a few people now and then, as I moved on to other writing gigs and projects. When folks ask me, “Where’s your novel?”, I answer, “On my shelf as a draft.”
Well, I’ve finally come to the point that I will start working on it, and I’ve decided that this flash story will be the beginning making the three characters take on major roles in the new version of the novel.
In addition, starting today on this page, I’ll also add new partial or full chapters I’m ready for some feedback.
By, the way, I do so appreciate the comments I’ve received so far. Please keep them coming. I’ve taught middle school, and raised a boy on my own, so I have a thick skin.
Enjoy the introduction to: Aeos: The Beginning of Time.
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The spear is hurtling through the cosmos at a rate that has no measure when Gatz snatches it with one of his outstretched arms. He holds it between two appendages, inhales, and blows his cold breath upon it.
It appears to be nothing more than a black rock, and Linze suggests that it be thrown away. Then, with disinterest, he turns his large bulbous many shades-of-blue head to look up and watch a series of flying lights with long gaseous tails zip through his head.
Jaiden’s multiple-circled eyes fill with the makings of the cosmos itself, peers over her brother’s arm. Taking her time, as she does with all subjects, she notices a bright fiery red glow deep within the core of the rock.
“No, let’s keep it, brother,” she says, while she moves her stars from the top of one of its highest peaks all the way down to the first layer where she could feel the heat of the core. “Perhaps, this is what we’ve been looking for.”
Gatz bounces the spear between each palm, weighing it, wondering if his sister is correct.
“It has been a long time since mother sent us away.” He gazes at her devotedly. “You deserve an end to this wandering from one new burst of gas of atoms to another. You deserve a home, something to call your own.”
Linze brings his focus back on Gatz.
“We all deserve something to call our own, brother.” His face turning from blue to green to blue.
“Then, it shall be.”
Gatz grasp the spear tightly in the middle of his third hand and twist into a wide arc. When he unwinds, the spear is released. It soars through space until it is captured by the gravitational pull of the closest great star. It gyrates, rocks, and trembles; smaller chunks become loose from its peaks and rotates around its mass as the star forces it to become an element of its system.
“Aeos,” the siblings announced as one. “Our home.”
Using only two elements, Linze quickly changes and lowers himself down into the spear. Swiftly he enters every cavity, filling the various heights as he fell, and the various depths as he moves in and out.
“You’re beautiful, my brother!” Gatz shouts, his voice booming low towards Aeos.
Gatz’s gases burst from his chest until it surrounds the Aeos. In layers, it took shape high above, holding itself in place by a newly created suction and vapors coming from Linze.
“Ho! See what I’ve done, little brother?”
Jaiden’s sudden high lilt of laughter startles the two titans as she claps and shimmies. She takes ahold of her skirts with all her arms and spread them out from end-to-end. With a rush that carries some of Gatz’s lower gases when she moves over the surface of Aeos bringing together a combination of seventeen elements. Some skid low, bringing green and a multitude of colors close to the edges where Linze exists. Others pull up towards Gatz in browns, greens, and whites as she soars, returning to him.
The great star is setting in the west when the three creators come together.
“Let’s give the darkness its own light,” suggests Gatz.
“I like that idea,” Jadien says, as she reaches up to pluck a small sphere from her own bedazzled crown and set it to slowly rotate around Aeos.
Gatz approval crosses his entire face.
Then he lightly shakes, releasing the many new heavenly bodies he has created. The three watches as the star pulls them in so that they automatically arrange themselves between, and beyond, Aeos and her moon. The star now gives all that surround him its life.
“Let’s return home when the star rises in the east. I feel like celebrating.” And when he said that a new series of stars, planets, gases, and rocks erupts around him.
“Whatever you say, Elder One.” Linze responds with his head lower in submission.
With one deep inhale, a mighty surge of air came up and out of Gatz as he turns his head around and around creating a great host of spirals. He returns to his prefer state allowing some of the stars and spirals of cloud gases to gather in the middle.
Two long arms curve continuously around the bright center. One arm caught Aeos, her sisters, her brothers, and their star, casting a wave of wonderous sparkles and colors over their horizon.
Jadien stares up and over.
“What’s wrong, little sister? Do you not approve?”
She gazes into his eyes that floats outward and inward over rows of colossal alabaster stones.
“It’s magnificent, Elder One,” she was finally able to say as she lowers her head. “Thank you.”
