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The Old Aeth Grail by Neil Yudsponwy
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The Old Aeth Grail: The Forgotten
Date: 19 July 2007, 10:24 pm
It was the oceans of sweat that told the tale, John didn't need to dwell upon the dream: the subliminal commotion was saturated in every toss and every turn. The ex-spartan's right hand throbbed while his bedside table lamp sobbed: shattered, scattered and lying in pieces across the bed and floor. The unlikeliest of sparring partners unable to object to John's pugilistic whims, unable to take anymore.
Whomever the old man had been rucking with in his somnabulistic daze had obviously escaped, leaving the lamp to bear the brunt of John's retaliatory punches. He felt sure that come tonight, the nemesis deep in the heart of his mnemonics would send out another assassin for revenge of her unsung masses. The old man's doctor had foretold as much.
"John, if you continue abusing alcohol, I will have to suspend your medication. The compound of toxins you're creating in your body will only serve to make the nightmares stronger and more lucid."
Trouble was: John loved the nightmares.
They hustled sketchy memories, invigorated daydream malaise and hooked up with the furore of John's heyday. The whole delerium was ecstasy compared to the geriatric antics of his current state. Something that as a fifty-nine year old, working part-time as a meet-and-greet in a city-based branch of a major Do-It-Yourself chain: he had plenty of spare time to contemplate.
Dodging sniper arralites had been infinitely more exhilirating and rewarding than avoiding traffic on busy roads. Suddenly, in a world where vehicular machines were more integral to the capitalist vision than human bodies, the chicken crossing the road seemed a tad more philosophical and lot less humorous; especially with crack-high Bungie wagon drivers trying to make their quotas and pay for their next hit.
The war John fought against the Covenant was done, but his battles with old age and skirmishes with the velocity and ferocity of metropolis had only just begun to materialize. The new world he'd saved had a tendency to harass him by honking horns and lobbing obscenities from the comfort of glass-roof cars. But despite these routine hazards, the cool veteran never returned fire.
Today was tuesday, and tuesdays and thursdays were his days off, sabbath days whereby a sodomising from the man was a definite no-no. No smiling at posh imbeciles returning mowers they'd used to cut the lawns of their entire street for neighborhood kudos, returning the piece cluttered by a dozen different species of grass and still demanding a refund. No watching the collective intelligence of village simpletons wander the aisles in search of garden accessories, oblivious to the massive, pointy flashing arrow with a sign underneath saying: 'garden accessories'; despite epochs of refinement and cultivation to the laws of Natural Selection, a few throwbacks still managed to get through the theorising net. Thankfully today was tuesday, and for John's enthusiasm, that meant one thing, a good Covenant blitzkrieg.
The old man hit the street hard running, strutting to the whirr of a thousand donut-hunting sirens. He turned from the wind and continued to walk backwards at the same speed, strafing a mindless couple locked at the tongue and communicating through hand and tit while he lit a fat brown baby cradled gently between his thumb and forefinger. The ex-spartan smoked cigars to take the edge off losing one of his three loves, a mild compense that soothed the wounds left by a suit which had packed its guns and run out on him years ago. Probably for a pretty flyboy, either that or for someone who could hold a conversation for longer than several sentences and smattered with multi-syllabled sayings beyond the anal expository of: 'boo'.
He kept the helmet as a memento of their relationship but it wasn't the same: it represented only a small part of who they were together. Every time he looked into the golden visor, he saw mere glimpses and fragments of his former self. A swirling montage of heroic deeds, screaming prophets and a war that never felt won. It was a size sixteen lifestyle that no other shoe had managed to fill since; he even stuck to plain black plimsoles as a pretense to portray the perception he didn't care. He did, but caring never looked good holding a battle rifle the way he did.
The old man kissed the Colorado maduro widowmaker in the torpedo vitola of a Montecristo number two, paying lip service and engaging in lengthy foreplay of the femme fatale's mind that would lead to scintilating chemical sex with her sultry body. Sex that begun to slowly burn her heavenly sculpted frame and kill an hour of his mental time; at least til the next impatient urge for a high-class Habanos whore.
Murdering her on the street was a kerbcrawling crime with a ten credit fine or a five credit bribe, either vibe were easily covered by the ex-spartan's hefty pension fund. For what it was worth, saving the earth had some benefits after all.
While the UNSC were away in space keeping the peace, the UNEC were at home playing nursemaid to the capitalist beast. Together they were a law that was a law unto itself. A commodity bought by the rich and paid instalments by the poor. Right across the board from enforcers that roamed the streets to the judges that roamed the courts; none were on the level, they all had a price that left them looking the other way or banging a feathersoft gavel.
The city John rushed ignorantly by was a composite giant of metal, glass and concrete, meaning her hair was rusty: her mind transparent and her wit slow moving; a dull mistress that filled the gaps between her colourful inhabitants. When she was dressed up and lit at night, beer vision took off ten kilos and made her look pretty. The next morning, your front door couldn't open fast enough for you to put her back on her own street. John upped sticks under her spell and took an apartment close to her thriving business block, believing their love affair would last; eventually, he realised she was a notion and a hussy belonging to anybody that lived in the area.
The corner store was his first port of call for the day's fixtures, a blaze of german Blonde bottles to help him induce the mood and roll out the red carpet for the Covenant's first wave. He dropped the small crate that was big enough to cave a Kig Yar's skull in down onto the counter surface. The scanner taking several seconds to put together the read of his handcode and his poison.
Every business, retailer and property developer had barcode DNA scanners that were regularly updated with personal information, which meant you couldn't take a piss in a public urinal without the intrusive bleep of a chemical analysis and the patronising tones of a toilet construct telling you to cut back on your salt intake. Handy for those wishing to enjoy a long and healthy life, bad news for those that enjoyed life in the moment, those wishing to 'fly' as it were, from the seat and zip of their pants. Those that liked salt. No nosy programs ruminating over your stool and plucking a clump of anal hair for a more thorough sample. Fancy programmes and programs twenty-four-seven with celebrity endorsements telling you how you should be feeling and what you should be enjoying. Life the old fashioned way was slowly being outmoded.
Now, in the free world, if your doctor had prescribed you lay off curry dishes: no spice stockist, let alone restaurant would sell or serve you rather than risk losing their licence. The ruling bodies were finally onto a winner in keeping you alive to pay your taxes. Dead people were the only folks that didn't pay them, a corpus headache the government was busy remedying behind the scenes.
Everyone alive was already paying a death expectancy tax. If you had a genetic predisposition, a family history of suicide, maybe lived in a rough neighbourhood or just plain out had a death wish: you were paying a higher premium to a government that squandered your tax credits on silk fabric toilet rolls and rentboys. The former being a soft option that eased the pain and prevented the bleeding of you, the citizen, the raison d'etre for their piles and the rubber-rings that lined their parliamentary pews; the latter was simply to lick them better.
The scanner beeped a negative sounding 'beep-beeeep'. John smiled.
"I'm sorry Mr-"
Before the counter facist could speak his last name, the former one-one-seven was already voting with his feet and ringing the exit bell on the door.
John's credit was exiled on main street. Disgruntled but undeterred, he jumped on a hound breaking free from the hubbub of the city and heading for a low road. A little known district contending for top dog in the premier league of crime statistics: The Old Aeth Grail.
A boon town for men in the prohibition know and an undiscovered gem for those without sense.
The city's buzzards and parasites buzzed and scurried by in power shirts and powered suits, pretending to have its vested interests at heart. Waiting to sell the vacant-minded vagabond the pants they stole the night before. Waiting to sell a toothless bearded hag a toothbrush that moonlighted as a comb. Commercial animals robbing all and sundry to reach the highest credit score and attain the illustrious prestige bestowed upon only the most innovative of scumbags. The sort that had their mother's ashes taking a toilet bath ten seconds after the gold lining her urn tripled in value.
Meanwhile, the reflection in the bus window forced an audible sigh from John's lungs. The face that stared him down was a wrinkled and scarred old man: age quickly turning into his greatest foe. A cruel one that would stiffen his joints at night while he was away fighting Covenant forces. Hide socks behind underpant drawers, empty his bladder in the bed without his orders. Change the dates regularly to get him into trouble at work. It would coerce him into thinking he knew someone in the street and even give him memory of serving with them until the police arrived, then the memory would run off and leave John to explain. A sinister game of knock-door-run with the old man answering the door eagerly everytime. Age was a foe that did not know defeat, no matter how many defence creams and miracle pills were in the mirror cabinet.
The trip down false memory lane was interrupted by the realisation that the bus had just passed John's stop.
After a mile walk and the charring of another hooker, the old soldier rested his eyes upon the glorious site that was Cory's. A bar on the outskirts of reason and sanity, smack bang in the middle of The Old Aeth Grail. Neon blue insignia professing to all the love of a bygone era. Live music on tuesdays and thursdays: today was wednesday but John was yet to cotton on. His cell was at home ringing furiously, but it wasn't like he needed the soul-destroying job anyways. He broke the airtight seal that separated the inside from the rest of the world and was sucked headlong into another realm.
Cory's Place
Date: 11 December 2007, 5:44 pm
The first thing to thwack John gently across the face with a starched silk glove was the smell, from incense in the form of inexpensive stogies, to the lumpenproletarian sweat marrying knock-off perfumes of the underachieving; the jarring collision felt nasally comfortable. Made more so by his own cheap aftershave and the sibling smell from another of the 'Christo lineage doing a mid-air tango with all that would dance with her.
The cigar smoke yapped like playful puppies around stoic bulldogs, adding to the aurora a vague sense of imagined prestigious camaraderie and treacle-coated tension. At least that's what John's mind brought to the scene.
The room itself was a complimentary mishmash of lights and sounds all cosily lounged about their own space in the universe. The barstaff, busying themselves with lots of nothing, were coated with a thick neon blue similar to the strain on the front of the building. The bar stood as a small rectangular temple near the door, its worshipping props subjected to a gentle golden haze while the cloverleaf shaped lounge made do with a velvety purple taint and the vintage green of a random paintball splash. The decor never won any awards.
It was a bar that appreciated the piss and spittle of its regulars more than the fast buck of a young buck, the kind that usually ended up shooting one another after shooting pool on a vodka shot too many. Progress denied admittance on the grounds of being too flash, and while any liquers, spirits and ales found without their fundamentals were turfed out for having fake ID: alcopops daren't even ask.
John let the jazz take the cold from his bones and strode over to take his usual throne at the bar, a familiar enthused smile greeting him as he did. Corinne Danah was a sassy young girl hip enough to freak a cat square, all smiling eyes and short bobbed hair.
"Hey, 'Chief."
It was cool, calm and coloured with grades of affection. The bluebird had nicknames for all her regular customers. With all the scars adorning his face and the dance of shifting light that played over them at the bar where he'd sit, she got the impression of war paint and that he was an old indian chieftain; nevermind that it just so happened to be a custom fit.
'Cordana.'
After hearing her full name for the first time, he had laughed so hard everyone thought he would have a seizure. Since then he had always called her Cordana, a portmanteau in-joke she wasn't privvy to at first but nevertheless thought sweet.
Another local voice lent its weight, speaking directly to him as if he were a voice in John's head.
"John knows it's wednesday, right?"
The robust, masculine growl dropped the bombshell from the first knot of seats in the lounge nearest the bar. John didn't even look round, instead he rummaged around in his pocket for the little talkie that had gone walkies, or at least hidden from him in plain sight by sitting on top of the all-but-empty coffee table back at his apartment. Phones could be so deceptively cunning in such fields, using an active camouflage that exploited everyday mundanity in order to disguise itself amongst the glass-centred habitat.
The accumulative consciousness of the greatest military tactician in earth's chequered military history ruminated in deep, extensive analysis.
Bastard. John lamented.
He rarely sweared except on birthdays, shrove tuesdays, weekdays and weekends; today proving itself no exception to the fuzzy rule. Wednesday night. A night dedicated to a little known pastime called poker, a game that involved holding cards and pulling peculiar faces at strangers, usually the look of pained constipation. The Chief made a start for the games, passing by as he did, a buffet to slay even the heartiest of appetites.
The husky tones behind him belonged to Arthur, another local and regular scheming cynic. He had two horizontal scars running parallel lines over his cheeks after a run-in with a ropey airport scanner, one that malfunctioned and clamped down hard on his face. Since he'd tried to pull away, clearly in agony, the airport security won their libel case by saying he was resisting the scan. The judge had even gone so far as to order Arthur to fork out for the facial scanner to be replaced and pay witnesses compensation for their emotional trauma. The whole charade left lasting impressions and mental lesions that gave him a penchant for shelled pistachios and talking in third person. These days he rarely travelled abroad.
When he did, he was the only heterosexual male that preferred the obvious discomfort of a full cavity search rather than face the facial scanner a second time. Suffice to add, Art was bitter at the world and the rare shafting he received from the razor sharp manicured nails of women with trace moustaches. The sort that loved to ride bareback in revenge for the jocks that gave them syphilis in the shadows of the high school fete. The pleas he offered that he also hated football never stopped them from prodding his prostate. Every man was the same to them; most turned lesbian at the first opportunity of easy minge. Little realising they would take up the mantle the jocks had played in their own lives, perpetuating just another facet of human misery. Still, airport security had never been so rigorous nor so feared.
Nothing scared the semtex stuffed up the quivering sphincters of extremists more than the beckoning talon pinkies of lesbian trolls. Much to Arthur and various extremist organisation's displeasure, they even fronted their own terrorising ad campaigns, urging frequent flyers to 'stay sharp'. Arthur felt his bum tremble uncontrollably and in trepidation every time the adverts aired. He swore blind it was the same woman on the screen that cold-cuddled his colon from the inside.
Bitter Arthur was always under a black cloud or in with a bad crowd, a staple case in the serious study of sod's unforgiving laws. When he was younger, Arthur got involved with a cult, a covenant that believed in ancient aliens seeding life, technology and wisdom: expecting their followers to be reclaimers of that same divine dynasty...
Sadly, scientology turned out to be a bit of a scam. One that was fronted by sex-withholding hot chicks and controlled by power hungry fiends with micro-dicks.
At his aptitude test he noticed a familiar pattern, all around him were these beautiful sirens, from golden-legged secretaries to golden-eyed luminaries, they all had that same mad glint and grin. He picked up on the fact that all the people taking the aptitude tests were sad, lonely, horny men: noting that the list included him.
He'd been convinced to part with thousands of credits to boost his confidence, enhance dependence and heighten low self-esteem. The last he remembers of that life is paying tribute to the guarded, silver-lined matchbox remains of some diminutive star from the twenty-first century. It wasn't the actual cremated remains, they'd been stolen and melted down when the gold that lined the original matchbox tripled in value. It was while worshipping this fake idol's fake ashes that Arthur realised the absurdity of life as a cult follower. He started his own cult in defiance and their number currently stands at one and a third; his sectioned schizophrenic brother still had two personalities that needed more evidence to believe life was truly absurd.
The writer eventually pulled himself from the tenuous tangent pit he had dug and returned to his hero of sorts. John had waited with the patience of an angel while this babbling narrator waffled over erroneous cavorts. The phone: like the time it was mentioned, was a moment that had long been passed. John had journeyed the wednesday night poker tables, and was haemorraghing money fast.
He'd stuck to his familiar bluffing game of playing like they couldn't see his face, unfortunately for him they could see his face and his hand was written all over it. He retired from the table, losing nearly a fifth of his retirement fund. Still, he'd broke the mould that had suffocated him for the last few years; even if he was left financially stunned. John had never gambled on anything without first knowing the odds, this sensation felt great to be wrong about a game. The element of chance and the inconsolable loss that only an opponent's royal flush beating your lousy hand brings to your brain, that and the straight face and smiling eyes of the bastard hoovering up your three thousand credit pain.
Loss, the kind of loss that might incur emotional damage, was altogether a different sensation and completely alien to the rock he'd been sculpted from. This substance gave him the sense that he was alive, the only thrill he could call a thrill these days and the only excitement for which to strive. Playing it safe and planning ahead may have saw him through galactic wars, but those days were done. Tonight he was just another schmoe, looking for purpose, desperate for some fun.
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