GOAN NUP

Metal. Cold, metal. Shiny, to make the space feel bigger than it was. Tiny lights in the ceiling, glinting off cold metal. Six lights, three were out, three worked. A handrail. A panel of little buttons and a display of numbers. A small hole from where emergency rations were dispensed. Another small hole to throw out waste. A bed made of balled up clothes. There were doors, but they had only opened once when the man had entered - when the man was just a boy. That was it, that was all he had or knew. He didn’t know exactly what he would find when he got to where he was going, but he knew that his tiny box was going up.

Every day he watched the numbers. He didn’t know what they were, but they changed every second and sometimes there would be fewer of them. He had worked out a pattern that when it showed a circle shape, all the shapes changed, sometimes with one less shape. Perhaps all the shapes would go and there would just be a circle and then he would have reached the top.

The man hoped that when he reached the top, he would see the sun. He had never seen the sun. He remembered stories of the sun; he had been told it was eternally warm. He did not understand how, but it sounded good.

The man distantly remembered the mines, although that had been so long ago. Cold, black, dirty. He was born in the mines, but they had been closed by then. Most people left. Up the elevators they went, fast as dynamite. Many stayed. He stayed. Underground was their home, a good home they were told. If it was a good home why did the people keep leaving? There was so little power, so little food. He had hated it. He wanted to see the sun. He was still a boy when he stole some things. They wanted them back but he wasn’t coming back. He ran into the elevator, where they were forbidden to go. “Dosclosin,” it had said. It was a nice sound, to him it had sounded welcoming. His family ran to stop him but the doors slid shut and he never saw them again. “Goan nup.”

The dream of the sun got dimmer every day until eventually, the man wished he had stayed in the mines. In the mines he could roam and wander long tunnels and vast caverns. In the elevator he could wander from corner to corner and back again. When there was more power in the mines, the elevators took you to the surface in minutes. The mines closed, people left and the only power was what could be spared. The elevator on emergency power may well have not moved. It still had miles and miles of shaft through the planet’s crust to travel. If the man had known that a trip from the mines to the surface at this speed would take twenty-four years, he may never have stepped inside. It was too late however; he was in and happily watching the numbers count up and up. A sideways line, a line, two circles, a circle, two circles and two lines: “-18087”. The man smiled. “Lots of circles,” he thought, “Nearly there.”

ANAX

EMOTICONCERT

The old popstars quickly died out; they just couldn’t keep up. The likes of Dylan Miles or Calla had too much pain, too much baggage or at least, they couldn’t keep it under wraps. What the people wanted was pure euphoria and the former titans of the pop world (who would have easily sold out not three years ago) just couldn’t deliver. The old guard of producers similarly dismissed the new technology as a gimmick but, by the time they realised this fad wasn’t going away, the music industry had left the moguls in the dust.

The fans however embraced this new era of music, partially due to its accessibility. Anyone could get the feeling from any new streamed track and even some of the old ones were being retrofitted with the capability. However, aficionados would tell you that those recordings felt ‘canned’. The real experience was live.

This is what sealed the coffin on the previous generation of pop artists; they could manufacture the feeling in the studio, through careful rehearsal and editing, but most of them just couldn’t hack it live. When an oldie performed on stage, all that was beamed to the audience was a depressing cocktail of nerves and self-doubt drowned in adrenaline (although oldie performers did retain a niche following with fans who craved misery and melancholy).

The new music required a very specific sort of performer, not necessarily one who was always happy (although that helped), but someone who could control their thoughts and feelings, at least for a full set. The advice to all rising stars seeking mainstream appeal was minimise your psychological baggage, or learn to suppress it on stage. For those that mastered the trick, the gates of global stardom were opened.

To ‘connect’ at an emoticoncert, you simply had to take the unique code on your ticket and think it into your Neural Portrait Implant. The implant would connect to the concert app and you would be tuned to the same frequency as the singer’s transmissions. You would feel everything the performer felt, without restriction. Unfortunately, the transmitters had a limited range, so you really did have to be there.

It’s nearly impossible to imagine either side of the experience unless you’ve felt it yourself. A common description is that when the artist performs, it becomes a near-spiritual event. There is an unfathomable reassurance in knowing that every one of those thousands of people is with you, connected to you in the purest way. In return, the singer is given an experience of humility and gratification like no other. Nothing will connect you to others like opening your soul and sharing your most intimate feelings, even if it is only a performance.

People are truly changed after their first emoticoncert. They leave having experienced commonality with a crowd of strangers and a deeper knowledge that, of all the differences between us, we all feel in exactly the same way.

ANAX.

THE SEED AND THE STONE

There is a story, told to the children of Hirun, that goes something like this:

Once upon a time, in a great forest, there slept a stone. Now, stones are well known for wanting nothing more than to be left alone and this stone was very happy just resting on the ground in the shade of the trees.

One day, a seed fell from the sky and bumped the stone on the head. The stone immediately woke up and asked the seed, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m very sorry,” said the seed, “But I just fell here. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Disturbing me? Why that’s exactly what you’re doing,” the stone replied angrily, “I’ve been sitting here for years, resting quite peacefully and now you’ve come along and woken me up.”

“I’m very sorry, but there’s not much I can do. I’m afraid I can’t move, you see, I’m just a seed,” the seed apologised again.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, you’ll move very shortly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re so small, the wind will pick you up and carry you away,” said the stone and the seed began to worry.

“Yes, I suppose it might,” said the seed

“Or if the wind doesn’t take you, the rain will come and wash you away,” continued the stone.

“Oh dear,” said the seed.

“Or if the wind doesn’t take you, or the rain doesn’t wash you away, you will be eaten. Just look over there,” said the stone.

The seed looked into the distance to see another seed sitting on the ground. Suddenly a bird swooped down, picked up the distant seed in its beak and swallowed it whole.

“You see,” said the stone, “If the wind doesn’t take you and the rain doesn’t wash you away, a bird will come and gobble you up. Now, if you’ll kindly be quiet, I’m going back to sleep.”

The seed was now very worried indeed, but it had one question for the stone.

“Wait,” the seed said aloud, “why doesn’t the wind take you away, or the water wash you away or a bird gobble you up?”

“Because I am a stone, I am too strong for the wind to blow me away, too heavy for the water to wash me away and too large for a bird to gobble me up. Now, stop talking so I can rest,” said the stone, with a laugh, but the seed was still afraid.

“Would you mind if we kept talking? If I’m going to be blown away, washed away or gobbled up, I’d rather spend the time I have left not thinking about that fact and talking will take my mind of such a dreadful fate,” the seed asked hopefully, but the stone was not interested in conversation.

“We can’t talk, you’re a seed and I’m a stone, we are too different. You can talk to your own kind, but you can’t talk to me.”

“We can talk, we’re talking now,” the seed insisted.

“I know we can talk; I would just prefer that we didn’t. Now, you are going to do what I say because I am bigger, I am stronger and I was here first. What are you? You are just a seed, you are small, weak and pathetic,” sniffed the stone haughtily.

“That’s very rude of you,” retorted the seed.

“Well, it’s very rude of you to keep talking, so be quiet!” and with that, the stone fell asleep again.

“But who will I talk to?” cried the seed but the stone was asleep, and did not reply, so the seed had no choice but to remain silent.

For some time, the seed and the stone sat side by side, in total silence, and with each passing day, the seed grew more and more worried about being gobbled up. Then, one day, there was a loud noise, which woke up the stone.

“Was that you, seed? I told you to be quiet,” shouted the stone angrily, but the seed was quiet, the noise was coming from somewhere else. The noise was footsteps and the sound grew louder and louder until it was right behind the stone.

“Seed, seed! Help!” Cried the stone but the seed remained quiet, as it had promised, and the foot fell upon the stone. Yet, the foot went, as quickly as it had come, leaving just a large footprint beside the stone. The stone gasped and looked around, amazed to still be alive.

“By the earth, that was close!” the stone exclaimed, “Seed, did you see that?” but the seed did not reply.

“Seed?” The stone repeated but the seed was gone and, in its place, in the middle of the footprint, was a small hole about the size of, well, a seed. The stone was amazed.

“The seed’s been trampled into the ground,” the stone cried, to no one in particular, but although the stone felt a slight twinge of remorse it laughed.

“I told you you’d be gone soon! Didn’t I tell you? Well, not by trampling exactly, but I said this would happen. Now, at last, I can get some peace,” said the stone and it settled down to enjoy a well-earned rest.

However, as the stone was resting, the seed was growing underground. Slowly and silently, the seed grew roots, then a stalk. As the roots grew deeper, the stalk grew taller until it pushed out of the ground and kept on growing. The stalk grew taller and thicker until it became a trunk. From the trunk grew branches, from the branches grew leaves and everything kept growing and growing until the seed was a mighty tree.

The wind blew hard but the tree stood strong. The rain fell hard but the tree grew taller. The birds came, but they didn’t gobble it up, instead, they made the tree their home.

The tree was now so big that it pushed against the stone, waking it up for a second time.

“What’s going on? Who are you?” said the stone but the tree did not reply.

“Mother of nature, I know you, you’re the seed! But you don’t look like the seed anymore. Why, you’re bigger than the seed, stronger than the seed, heavier than the seed,” and once the stone heard its own words echoing around the forest, it paused and looked at itself.

“Why, you’re bigger than me, stronger than me, heavier than me!” said the stone.

The stone tried to rest, but couldn’t knowing that at any moment the tree could shed a branch and its great weight might crush the stone to powder. The stone worried about this for many months and finally when it could bear the thought of being smashed to atoms no more, the stone spoke to the tree again.

“Seed, I mean, tree, I can talk now, if you’d like,” the stone said, but the tree remained silent and the silence made the stone angry.

“Seed! Talk to me!” cried the stone, however, the tree was so tall, it could not hear the stone. In fact, the tree was so tall, it was as tall as all the other trees.

“Hello,” said one of the other trees.

“Hello. I’m Seed,” said the former seed and the other trees laughed.

“You were a seed, we were all seeds, but you’re a tree now and you need not worry.” And indeed, the tree didn’t worry ever again about wind, rain, birds, footsteps or even stones.

ANAX.