I wanted to share with you guys excerpts from some failed stories I was attempting to write for Kupopolis but never finished.
The first is from a story arc I called The Celpo Civil War. The opening story revolves around a very educated Time mage named Hemingway, who is tasked by Riose to send Celiose Cole’s daughter Erdeny (sp? no wiki to check anymore) into the future to “save” her life.
The story is told in three voices. The first is flashbacks to Hemingway as a young man, studying with several famous mages and perfecting his time magic as well and working with Praxer. The second is Hemmingway in “modern” times, an old man who knows that his time is almost up in the world and tried to prepare for Erdeny’s arrival in the future while struggling with the initial onset of alzheimer’s. The third is of his estranged son Lucas, who is Cole’s assistant mentioned in passing in God Always Wears White.
The story starts off with Hemingway seeing a doctor, anxious about forgetting something important
[quote]Doctor McPherson put away his stethoscope.
“It sounds normal. You do seem rather healthy for a man of your age and weight, regardless,” spoke the doctor as he reached for his notepad. Hemingway buttoned up his shirt, his fingers fidgeting with the second button below his collar.
“Yes, but do I look healthy to you?”
The doctor made a smiled with false warmth, a type of lie that he had perfected in the last decade of his career. He finished writing down his notes before answering the old man.
“No. Frankly, you look like you shit. Take that medicine Dr. Fisher prescribed you last time or you’ll end up with glaucoma. Have you been getting enough rest? Do you feel depressed or anxious?”
Hemingway tilted his head slightly to the side as he thought about the question. He chewed on his tongue and swallowed a bit of saliva as he wet his lips.
“I don’t remember,” he said, “but feel as if I was really anxious about something for a very long time–like I was fighting it.”
Doctor McPherson lowered his clipboard as looked at the man quizzically. “Then what happened?”
“I woke up.”[/quote]
I tend not to write in order, so one of the scene I did write was of Hemingway buying a car seat for Erdeny:
[quote]“Can I help you sir?”
Hemingway stared at the box in his hands, his brows sewn tight and his lips thin. Without looking up he responded, “yes you can. I can’t read this… this print here. I need to know if this car seat will hold an infant.”
“They all do.”
“No,” spoke Hemingway and his lowered the box to his hips and gestured to the aisle, “some of these are for older, like younglings–toddlers. I’m looking for one for a little baby.”
“Oh,” spoke the clerk as he scanned his eyes across the rows of boxes on shelves. Hemingway huffed at the manner the young man’s small frame seemed to fold in on itself under the weight of the polo shirt and red vest he wore. The clerk reached for a box from the second to top shelf and put it on the floor.
“This is the one that my sister uses, she just had my niece three months ago.”
“How wonderful,” spoke Hemingway, “I’m a godfather.”
The clerk tilted his pear-shaped head, which seemed more uneven from the short locks of hair greased into spikes, “Yeah? Boy or girl?”
“Girl.”
“Oh, good deal. You sure the kids parents don’t have a car seat though?”
Hemingway picked up the box. “Its for me.”
The clerk tugged on the bottom of his vest, “oh, uh, yeah. Godfather. Do you need me to take this up from for you?”
The old man looked at the box intently, his head tilted and his eyes squinted. “Yes of course… Thank you.”
“Good deal, I’ll have it for you in checkout two, ok?” muttered the youth as he picked up the box and began walking down the laminated pathway. Hemingway watched him for a moment, then rubbed his eyelid.
He looked up at the long rows of phosphorescent lights embedded into the ceiling. He couldn’t remember the details anymore. He began to walk down the aisle and saw a woman buying clothes for his children. The child sat at her feet by a shopping cart engaged with a small video he watched in a thin black card.
For a moment he rested his hand on the metal corrugated shelves and watched the woman and child. She would hold up shirts as the child would stand up, arms to his side, and pose as the mother placed it against his chest. Dissatisfied, she would place it back long the other hanging slogans and pictures on cloth. The child sat back down, and watched the cartoons dance across his little screen.
The old man shook his head. The child was younger this his son, whom he had fought for in the Great War. He did not know of the monuments that were toppled, the establishments burned, the regents stabbed and the abbes marched upon. The Great Generalissimo had done away with all that–with the black arts, the Dark Gods, with the pantheon itself.
He turned down and else and scanned its contents for diapers. Disposable. Everything was a disposable combustible commodity. Hemingway scratched the back of his neck. There was a whole aisle just for diapers. Leak guards, moisturizer. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nostrils.[/quote]
We later learn that younger, more talkative Praxer gave Hemingway a secret mission that shaped the future of Kupopolis.
What exactly was Hemingway’s deep dark secret that he had forgotten? The big reveal was to be that technology was not advanced enough to save Erdeny in his lifetime, as it is revealed that she was born extremely deformed and they can’t magic together a new body for her. To fulfil his promise to praxer and Celiose, Hemingway decided to also force the overall encompassing Kupopolis technological acceleration through his own force of will.
As Hemingway becomes completely senile by the end of the story, he loses his time travel abilities and the forced history he held together begins to unravel. I had suggested in some plot arcs that there was a variant of CELPO that had time travel abilities, and at this point this variation attacks a more “true time stream” magic user dominant CLEPO in attempt to not vanish from existence. And that was to be a “civil war” reboot where both timeline converge back into one.