Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Immersion Chapter 18 Let's Go Swimming (Pleasure and Pain)

Welcome to Immersion, you have reached Strata 18

Let’s go swimming 

Where the ocean never ends

Where the lost and lonely people

Catch up with their friends

Where the water babies go

These seas to ever roam

In search of mother’s love

Thrown from the ships above 

Let’s go swimming 

Where no one ever grows

Where time stands ever still

 For the crying ones who chose 

To walk the sandy beds

With the bubbles of the dead

To guide them without dread

Let’s go swimming 

Under the seven seas

Naked in our dreams

Where warrior women freed

Search their babes in weeds

Let’s go swimming 

With angels mighty wings

Whose death songs always sing

In the echos from the shells

With lovers saved from Hell

Let’s go swimming 

Let's stop this marching time

Enrapture love sublime

To save it from the tide


©2022 Sarnia de la Maré FRSA


Pain and pleasure are sensory and emotional experiences constructed in the brains of humans. Chemicals, experiences, and situations perpetuate the effects of these mamallion phenomenon which stem from almost identical internal processes deeply rooted in biology.
Endorphins can block pain as well as create euphoria, activating and stimulating the human brain's limbic and prefrontal regions – those similarly activated by music or by passionate love affairs.
The mammalian central nervous system has pleasant touch-specific neurons that transmit enjoyable or ecstatic signals up through the human spine.
Machines lack these complex systems and do not hurt when threat or actual force is applied to their parts. But for the same reason, they do not feel the pleasure of touch. The best they can do is pretend. But this process would be for a human's pleasure, not their own.

Abstract painting of swimmers underwater
Flex removed his clothes and left them in an untidy pile on the grass.

Renyke, still somewhat unstable on his feet, followed suit.

'Come on, don't be scared,' shouts Flex from the water, 'I'll teach you how to swim.'

The blue water was cold and yet exhilarating. It rippled over Renyke's skin like a moving shroud. He stared at his hands floating on the surface of this strange organic compound. The water stroked him like a lover and he remembered Shabra.

'This is how she feels....' Renyke mumbled holding his closed eyes toward the sun.

Flex ducked him under the water and after a short time and a few panicked moments to the bottom of the fjord, Renyke got the hang of staying afloat.

'If you want to swim under the water,' Flex explained, 'take three slow deep breathes before thrusting downwards and slowly let air out as you swim deeper for equilibrium. It's important to stay calm. Panic wastes air. You will find you can hold your breath longer under water than above it. If your ears hurt, you went too deep. Oh and remember to come up for air in case you pass out and die.'

Armed with alarming but good advice, Renyke disappeared to play with fishes and check for mermaids, recalling his seemingly prophetic dreams. 

Maybeline and Flex played tag amongst the reeds and the warm sun rays hit the river with a blanket of human promise.

'Oi!' Flex shouted with urgency, exiting  the water at speed.

Renyke and Maybeline watch the commotion on the grass.

'Pleases don't hurt me, please don't hurt little Nigel.'

A small pale strangely formed man, around three feet tall, wriggled his feet as Flex held him up to the sky.

'What were you doing with our stuff?' demanded Flex. 'I saw you Mr. *freak. Don't be taking me for no *fucksyfool.'

'Look, look, I bring the new clothes for the guests....look look.'
Nigel pointed to two piles of clean clothes and towels on the grass next to their dirty things.
'Nigel just *welcummin da new guest to da tunnels, promise.'

'Hmmmmmm,' said Flex suspiciously, lowering Nigel to the ground.

Renyke was already putting on a crisp shirt and clean pants. 

'They feel nice, you should put yours on,' said Renyke, 'you stink, Flex.'


'We bin *epsceting da misters, very long time. Please dress quick-quick, we got foodstuffs for the misters,' explained Nigel beckoning his well dressed guests to an opening near a tree.


©2024 Sarnia de la Maré FRSA

to be continued......


Sunday, December 17, 2023

Strata 8, Book of Immersion V1, Shabra, (Laws of Attraction)

  

Shabra (Laws of Attraction) 

Sexual attraction for humans is dictated by a reflex to engage in intimacy with others. This phenomenon can be influenced by physical cues alone, the way a human looks, moves, speaks an so on.

Romantic attraction may be described as deeper and yet may still be instantaneous, spurred on by feelings of wanting a relationship with another.

These two desires may appear together in a deep power of attraction.

The psychology of attraction is most peculiar to humans. It is not possible to create this phenomenon in machines whose methods of attraction use logical conditions to draw entities towards them. Predefined targets for machine attention avoid accidents, although machines are notorious for repeatedly targeting their attention on non compliant humans.

Likewise, human attraction is usually nonreciprocal. A machine programmed to give a human all it needs will often reap better results. But when dealing with human desires, neither machine nor human can ever guarantee positive results.


Jerome breaks an awkward silence, 'No *ishy, brother,' He stamped on another Scritter. 'Damn those nasty little *mudafinks!'

Renyke exits the concrete compound with Flex running anxiously behind.

The *robodog had waited patiently at the entrance and began wagging its tail and leaping around.

Renyke spots some graffiti with the Redact logo near an underpass. Maybeline crawled out of his coat and nudged his cheek for food.

'You sure you did the right thing brother?' asked Flex, who was now feeling agitated. His naive friend was likely to lead him into trouble. Perhaps it was time to take charge of the matter.

'Wheels is speed, wheels is protection my friend. We gonna stand out like *fucksyfools on the streets. People gonna target us! Words spread fast.' Flex explained still half running to keep pace.

'I can manage quite well,' said Renyke, 'You don't need to .......' Renyke trails off, distracted by a woman on the car roof.

She glanced over at Renyke.

'Oh well let's just go and ask her for her car then' said Flex.

'Are you mocking me?'

Renyke was genuinely unsure. He had always grappled with humour. Incongruous remarks always had to be analysed closely. A false analysis could be incompatible with overall provision of human satisfaction, which was paramount to his function in the world.

Mabel had used the word *nuke about some of her friends.

'I believe the woman to be nuke, explained Renyke, continuing with some confidence.
She exhibits a powerful energy, enough to engage a compelling force as I look on.

'Hahahahahaha.....' laughed Flex, that will make things worse, trust me, I have knowledge.

Tut, follow me,' sighed Flex reluctantly leading the way.

The woman was sitting on the roof of the car smoking a pipe and making smoke rings.

Renyke felt a momentary surge of something unknown deep inside him. Was it fear he wondered, Trepidation?
Things were not computing.

He checked the POS for his health levels.


...Normal activity presenting. 99.9% battery remaining. Nothing unusual to report.

But Renyke felt a strange fluttering feeling in his belly.

The woman sitting on the car whistled. 'Hey!'

'Like the coat! Cool *toggies. You wanna *swapsie-trade?'

The woman jumped off the car and lifted her fist for an air bump followed by an elbow bump, then a salute. Renyke tried to keep up but was cumbersome. He had seen these manoeuvres in old films on the *tellywebs but he had never actually performed them.

*'Wappens?
' asked the woman in a strong accent.' Renyke guessed what she meant and said,

'I need transport, not far, just to Redact, do know that place?'

The woman laughed.....'Man like you, looks way too soft for the *guanty-travel.'

Renyke checks the POS.

'gaunty-travel'......colloquial, Zoners' slang roughly translates as a very dangerous journey

'But I can take to the second-zone, five miles nearer, then you gotta make your own ways,' she continues.

'What you go by?' she asks.

Renyke looks confused.......

'I'm Shabra. Lady of the Shadows, where I go no light follows, ya hear me soldier? I travel at night where there are no lights.'

'I'm Renyke,' he said, trying to decipher the poetry.

You wanna swapsie-trade the coat, or you got me somtin sweeta? I take nibs, bits.......1000 G-bits and you got me hired. But I like that coat too.'

'It's a good deal man, said Flex, 'good deal, five miles is five miles. We come too, me n the dog! I got no ties to this street.'

Flex looks at Shabra who sighs, 'Yeah yeah, whoever, no pipin' in my *vicular though.'

Renyke knows that Flex could be useful, and the robodog too. It was obedient and would do as it was told.

to be continued

@2023 Sarnia de la Mare

Links to episodes of Immersion written and illustrated by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA, published by Tale Teller Club

Strata 1
Strata 2
Strata 3
Strata 4
Strata 5
Strata 6
Strata 7
Strata 8
Strata 9
Strata 10
Strata 11
Strata 12
Strata 13
Strata 14
Strata 15
Strata 16
Strata17
Strata 18
Strata 19
Strata 21