Otázky a odpovědi

Otázky a odpovědi

Dnes neumírej      

sami a opuštění jsme všichni

znám tvůj žal, tu beznaděj                   

když duši uzavřou betonové bloky                    

Tak vrátila se básnířka       

a zas roní slzy   

                               kde končí lež a začíná pravda

                                      ve světě, který je tak cizí

Štěstí v lidskosti nenalezneš

a kyselý déšť ti sežere kůži                 

nezoufej, když na hvězdy nedosáhneš              

už je tma, stačí zavřít oči                                                  

Tou odpovědí je láska

                             je blázen, a tak čeká, potichu

                                  jen neví, co byla otázka

                                         proto je k smíchu

*     *     *

Overwhelmed by all insanity

Sacrificed a thousand tears

The "Too Good" Girl

The "Too Good" Girl

Now, let's disagree

in the game we're playing,

"You're too good for me..."

is just another way of saying:

I want to get rid of you

but I don't know how

you didn't do anything wrong

- maybe because of that -

I don't want to be the bad guy

I don't want to be there

when you try for me and cry

confused, in despair

I want you to leave

and feel like you've done

something for yourself

- left me in the dust -

I don't want to feel bad

about leaving you alone

so please, get mad

I'm bad to the bone 

I can't push you away

so be nice and do it for me

once again, be that good girl

- leave silently and gently -

Too good - what a thought -

Let's burry that little treasure

In the ground - let her rot -

Until we can measure

*     *     *

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that's all right because I like the way it hurts...
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that's all right because I love the way you lie...

11 The Pet

11 The Pet

The Pet. That's how they called me. They thought I don't know, of course. The Captain wanted to name me, but names are for humans. Back then, I wasn't sure what I was. But I knew what I wasn't, I knew what I didn't want to become.
               "Your sickening innuendo with that thing is unacceptable!" the Colonel just yelled at the Captain.
               "Sir, with all due respect, she is standing outside your office. Please, sir, show me the proper way to treat her. Feel free to order her to prep for the next mission, sir. Actually, sir, if you find my results unsatisfactory..."
               "One more word, Captain," the Colonel warned him.
               The Captain went silent, but I knew he had a smug look on his face. I wondered if it was wise of him, to enrage his superiors like this. To use me as a shield in this little power game. They were all frustrated and tired. I helped things to get better for them, but by that, I showed them how powerless they are. They hated that. They hated me.

               "I'll go with you. The others want to join us, if you want. Your call. We will follow you. Without questions. Respect you. You'll be the leader, a real leader," he started a few days after that.
               We were at some research facility, packing whatever was useful. We had a team of volunteers, twenty six men and nine women. We worked well together. They listened to me. First because whoever didn't, died slowly and painfully. But they started trusting me.
                I went first, checked the area, killed anything dangerous. Why waste ammo, right? The Captain came after that, assessed the place. Then he called the team. I was on the lookout, making sure they were safe. They knew how far they can go to still be protected. They knew what to avoid. They were light and fast, efficient. They had no problem to leave the fight to me.
               The Captain stayed with me. We planned ahead. Or just talked. He talked, I listened. He talked a lot. The others wouldn't dare, but he was crazy enough to fully trust me. With everything. A perfect second in command. Because they trusted him. Because he picked only those he could trust.
               And he was smart enough to try and get all the women the base could offer. A good strike team, a few scientists, doctors and medics, fifty people tops. Much safer. Easier to protect than hundreds of soldiers stuck in a large complex. Mobile, adaptable. Not bad, not bad at all.

*     *     *

Is that any way to treat a lady?

Alice, Resident Evil: Afterlife, 2010

10 Army Girl

10 Army Girl

I hate sanitation. They refused to let me inside the base until I was absolutely clean. I still think they just liked to take off my clothes. Or whatever's left of them.
               This time, nobody yelled. They barely dared to breathe in my presence. I tried to tease one of the guards at the second gate, he run away. The Captain scolded me with a look. A Colonel blessed us with his presence. He too was rather speechless.
               "Impressive," he squeezed out after a moment.
               "Well, someone had to do it. And you were obviously incapable to handle the situation," I pointed out the obvious.
               "How are you feeling?" the Captain asked after were inside and finally alone.
               "Restless," I admitted.
               I sat down on the floor and hugged my legs. All I had on me was a towel. He probably wanted to ask if I was cold, but he made up his mind.
               "I thought you would be exhausted, I got a room prepared just for you, no surveillance." He pointed me to a general direction, left and down.
               "So romantic."

               I was like that for weeks. I killed monsters for them. I subjected myself to their tests. I borrowed their toys and explored the cities around. I wanted answers. I wanted to know what happened to the world. I wanted to understand what happened to me. What was still happening.
               I still felt the rush of Captain's blood in my veins. It changed me. He offered me more, but I refused. I was not ready to open that door. It was probably the best decision I have ever made. For a long time, I thought I was the only one like me. Of course I'm not. But I did something that separated me from the rest of my kind. Actually, I didn't do it. I refused to feed on humans. It wasn't about ethics. It was about freedom. About having a choice.
               I took care of my meals carefully. I hunted in the clean woods. I tracked and killed everything rotten in the area, so that it would not spoil my food supply. They were too scared to go into the wilderness with me, only the Captain was crazy enough to try. We found out that the woods are clean of any pathogens. They got a new, safe water supply.
               The General's favourite missions were scavenger hunts in the cities. Boring, dangerous, toxic, and generally not worth it according to me. But the soldiers couldn't eat the infected flesh, they needed human food. And gas, oil, coal. Medical supplies. Technology. Basically anything that was hard to find. They were frustrating this way. Too fragile. They died easily.
               I had little patience with them back then. I didn't understand pain. Pathogens had no effect on me. I couldn't get injured. I was fast and strong. I didn't need rest. And they had no understanding for my little game with the Captain.

*     *     *

... blinded children of the atomic area ... told of being safe and sound ...

Ghost City, Firelake, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, 2009

9 The Colour of Heaven

9 The Colour of Heaven

Faith. Trust. Affection. Some people are able to go to ridiculous lengths because of them. They die happily for something they believe in. For someone they trust. For someone they love. I wondered if I could still be capable of them, as I watched him getting closer and closer, breathing heavily in his PPE.
               "Wow, you need a bath," he greeted me cheerfully. "Impressive mess you have made."
               "Flirting with death, Captain?" I grinned at him. I was too tired to care about anything. I wanted to enjoy a little nap on the charming pile of bones I found.
               "I brought you lunch." He held out a plastic bag full of fresh blood. "It's not much, the morons refused to give me any from our supplies. But at least I got my own, freshly poured, no Es."
               I turned on my belly and stretched. "And what makes you believe that I won't take all of it once I'm finished with the bag?"
               "Well, I figured, if you wanted me dead, I would be dead already. So why not make the most of it?" He threw it at me.
               "You know you're just plain lucky, right?" I bit off the ending of the tube.
               "I'm Mr Lucky right now. Does this count as a lunch date?" He wasn't armed, I could tell.
               "Don't push it."
               I started drinking and the world exploded. I never had human blood before, just a few mutants. This was different. It tasted wonderfully. It was pure. It made me feel warm for the first time I remember. It made me feel alive. It filled me with acute awareness of everything.
               I knew I missed twenty eight rotten bastards, they weren't a threat, but I couldn't take the chance. I knew their exact location. I felt the soldiers, their movement and warmth mapped the entire base for me. I knew they were desperate, low on ammo, low on supplies. Fighting a war they could not win, looking for a cure that could not be found.
               And I saw him again. Still talking, without a clue, unable to comprehend what he just did to me. Unable to understand that he took my mind to a totally new level, on a joyride around the base and back. And then I was back, staring at him. Feeling the vibrations of his voice. His warmth, dimmed by the PPE. Remembering his smell. The brief touch of his hand as he hit me. His eyes.
               "Ok, now this hungry look does make me nervous. Could you please stop that?" he asked.

*     *     *

Sometimes I've believed as many as six unbelievable things before breakfast.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871

8 Captain's Orders

8 Captain's Orders

It took me some time to burn out all the chemicals they injected in me. I felt sick, dizzy, tired. So tired. For a moment, I closed my eyes. I wanted to blink, just a blink, a microsecond, and then I would be fully awake again. But the moment my eyes shut, I could not open them. And then something hit me hard.
               "Faint and they will kill you," he snapped at me.
               They were not happy with me. They were not happy with my answers. They were not happy with the way my conversation with the Captain went after they left us. The room was closely monitored, reinforced, sealed. And they liked it that way very much, they liked me locked as much as possible. But that didn't help them.
               "Why do you care?" I whispered.
               "All they can see is a threat, I see an opportunity," he explained.
               "For what?"

               I shouldn't have asked. Not that it would change anything. The next few days were rather exhausting. Fulfilling. And, in the end, frustrating.
               To keep it short and simple, the base I was in had a problem. It was heavily fortified and well equipped, but the only way in and out was by air. They were surrounded, trapped like rats, waiting, knowing that, in the end, something will go wrong. They have lost two bases just like this one already. They have simply made an unforgivable mistake. They attracted too much attention. There were too many of them in one place. And they still thought they were on the top of the food chain.
               The Captain was the first to realise he isn't looking at a girl. Or a freak. I'm not just a monster. I am a weapon. I can cause some serious damage. And he was smart enough to point me in the right direction. At first, I was glad I had something to do. A mission. Something, that mattered to someone. Well, to him, the rest, I didn't give a damn about the rest of them.
              The creatures outside the gates weren't the same as the ones I met in the woods. Those were beautiful animals of the new world, wild and strong. The hordes at the gates were just disgusting. They smelled so badly I immediatelly lost my appetite. They were rotten, insane, vicious and hungry. They were the leftovers of the humans that lived in the nearby cities. The area surrounding the base was a dead zone. Those things killed everything. There were bones of mutated animals on the ground, nibbled white. The trees seemed scorched, there was no water. Just decay.
              It made me angry, knowing this could have been a beautiful place full of life. I'm not a nice person when I'm angry. I tend to slice things. It took some time and effort, but I managed. I was crazy hungry after that. So hungry they knew it just by looking at me from the distance. I could feel them shivering in their uniforms, their warm hearts beating fast, their blood pumping through their veins. I was hungry for that.
              "Open the gates, Captain's orders!"

*     *     *

We fought the infection. We survived the apocalypse. And now, we face extinction.

Alice, Resident Evil: Extinction, 2007

7 Modern Gods

7 Modern Gods

The myth says Venus was born of sea-foam, they depicted her as arriving to shore on a shell, a pearl of the Ancient world. There is a new legend now, in the new world. A legend of a goddess stepping out of her pod, surrounded by freezing pink mist. They say that, in an instant, everything stopped. That's not entirely true.
               The alarm kept screeching for at least an hour. The noise was overwhelming. The flashing lights blinding. I was instantly nauseous and irritated. The mist was cleared by the ventilators and the lab was sealed.
               The soldiers and scientists were paralysed. Fear does that to humans. I looked around and saw them, hands shaking, frozen in the middle of a movement, never reaching their guns. I didn't care about that. I only cared about one of them, he managed to make few steps back and hit the table behind him.
               "What's your name?" I whispered. My voice was rusty, weak. I have made a few steps toward him. My feet were crushing the glass on the floor.
               "Captain..." he tried to answer automatically, but his voice failed too.
               The door opened. An armed commando burst into the room, ready to open fire at me. Something was telling me it hardly matters, so I paid them little attention. I wanted his name.
               "Stop!" he ordered and rushed in front of me.
               "Captain, move!" their leader barked back.
               "She asked for my name!"

               And I never really got it. Sure, his last name was on his uniform, but that was not the part I was really interested in.
               I didn't move, because I knew the soldiers would immediatelly open fire. And it's really hard to have a decent conversation when your being shot at. So I waited patiently, until they sorted it out. Some officers arrived and were outraged, because the lab doors were supposed to be shut to contain any infection or attacker. The were arguing and it was ridiculous. They had no idea what was really going on.
               It took some time, since there were many of them and they all had different ideas on how to dispose of me. But in the end, the Captain won and was allowed to talk to me. That was after his superior shot me, twice. I didn't move. But I remember his face. And I'm very sure he doesn't sleep well now, knowing what a vengeful bitch I can be.

               After that, it was all questions. And it was tiring and boring, because I was not the one asking them. I had no answers. I had no memory. Or an explanation of what I am and how I broke free. Or how I can still be sane. Thinking. Talking. Well, they were mostly concerned about becoming my next meal. I assured them that, after Louisiana, I'm especially picky. That didn't satisfy them much.

*     *     *

I think you might do something better with time than to waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, 1865

PS: If you read, comment. I'm curious if I have an actual audience or if you are just lost souls messing with my poor statistics...

Supertanker na potůčku

Supertanker na potůčku

Sinusoida

~ vlna ~ vlna ~ vlna ~

ANO zelená ? duha ? červená NE

Výstražné kontrolky           Kroužit kolem odpovědi

Poznávací znamení                                    Manévrovat okolo slova

Něžné náznaky                                           Počkat si tak století

Pětkrát se to změní                 A pak začít zase znova

SEM třeba / ode zdi, ke zdi / třeba TAM

~ možná ~ možná ~ možná ~

Hádanka

Obrázek si marně lepím    

Poslepu hlídkuji

    Na čem jsem, už vážně nevím

Připadám si jak blbeček                         

 Luštím, hádám, dekóduji       

            Tvůj Vánoční stromeček

světlo

tma

~