Bob's quest to Maidenhead Castle
Chapter 3 of the Story, "The Adventures of Bob the Quail", by Mark
Starr.
~
Tabitha looked at the old man, and tried to understand. "For love.."
what the h!@# kind of answer was that, this excuse, for love, that he had
told her? She knew more about his life than he had been privy too...
When she had first come to college her first year she had researched all
the histories of her favorite authors. She had read about his life
in explicit detail in the crim-files. How he had wasted most of his
life chasing phantasms and dreams. How he had never held a steady job.
How he had neglected his body and lived in social isolation and starvation
most of his life, shunning career and any commitment of responsibility. How
he had tried to rally a resistance on the old opennet and fight the new
world order with his army of cyber gurls and defcon hackers.
Even more, how after the fall of the old world he had continued to write
his rebellious tracts, even though it was expressly and plainly forbidden.
How he had eluded the Concious Pol and SecurWirld Cams, and lived
like a rat on the run in the new clean world. How he had tried to
set-read-enable back to the blue, as if he were some self-appointed god
trying to give fire to the chimps.
A man in a blue suit walks by.
As she thought these thoughts, he took the book from her and set it down,
and turned to the last page, where he began to write.
This woke her up . She found herself angry. She despised waste
of any sort. What a waste of talent, what a waste of life wa this
before her. Tabitha began to shout at him...
"for love!... "for love you lived in poverty! for love you threw
away your life! just to write this silly stuff? you were smart!
you could of been one of the sky people. you could of had a nice
job and a nice car and a nice house and lived in the white town. for
love, you threw away an easy life, now look at you, what love has brought
you. you have nothing. nothing but a bunch of silly words and
memories... nothing but pain and sorrow, you tired out old man!"
She had been in love once. With a guy in high school. But
he had eventually stopped returning her calls, and stopped even recognizing
her in class. It had been a bitter, painful, unpleasurable experience.
And she had hated him afterwards for it. That was one of the
subconcious reasons she knew she wanted to join the party. Because
though she had made it into college, he hadn't been terribly bright, or swift
enough, and had had to move to the grey town. It was her secret lust
that once day she might have dominion over him, and make his life an utter
hell.
She glared at him, this author from her childhod that she had found so
fascinating. She felt betrayed, misled. The feelings came back,
from her first feelings of her boyfriend. She became fiercely angry.
She turned in disgust and hatred and stomped away. Not ten feet
away, she froze, clenched her fists, and turned on a dime and stomped back.
She snatched her childhood book from his hands, the book he
had written, made one last sound of annoyance, turned and hurriedly left
the library. The sky was a dazzling blue and the clouds looked particularly
puffy like cotton.
"Authors, I hate them all..." she thought. Men even. They
are so stupid. Why would anyone chose such a stupid hard path. How
hard is it to get in line, like it takes that much effort anyway. What
is their problem anyway... a bunch of dreamers... get a fucking
job...."
She sat down on a bench, under a tree... and began to calm down a
bit. It was over now. She had come face to face with the past
and met it straight on. She felt proud, she felt a bit sad. Perhaps
she had been to hard on the old guy. I mean, he was just some old
guy, wasn't he? Why had she become so enraged and empassioned about
the whole affair. That wasn't like her, to lose control like that.
She looked across at Pullman Hall. She remembered a story her dad
told her, about how during the new world take over, the counter-revolutionaires
had sprayed graffitied on the wall "Bob the Quail will never die!" It
had long since been sandblasted over and only ivy grew there now. The
revolutionaries had long since been wiped out along with their mad interpretations
and searching of the poems for secret communiques. The only trace
such a fact had ever happened was the memory on her brain... for her father
was long since dead now. Buried face down in an unmarked grave.
She looked down at the book in her hands. A book that she had held
with him only a moment ago. Nothing but old worn paper, just a memory
from her childhood.
She remembered her first words to him again, this author man...
the question she had asked him... "Why?" that long moment searching
his eyes...
She suddenlty remembered then him writting something in her book.
She turned to the back of the book. And there she found the last
words, that he would ever write to her...
"i just had a song inside of me. i had to sing it"
~
It began to rain. A chalk drawing on the sidewalk that some kid had
made, multicolored to look like some postcard, began to run and melt into
a blur. Tabitha ran back to Allison Hall. To her room on the
four floor. To the familiarity of her roomates messages on the whiteboard
on the door on her dorm room door, to her desk, to the comfort of her stuffed
animals. To a room which she did not know, was where the entire revolution
began...
~
The seasons turned. Spring turned to summer. Summer turned
to Autumn. And autumn turned to winter. Seasons change.
-
(c) 2002 Mark Starr. All rights reserved. Written April 29,
2002, in creaky old barn.
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