The aerosol was not a wise decision. Upon impact with Persephone’s skin, the deodorant set alight and soon engulfed Persephone. The open window did nothing to stop the flames from consuming the entire house. The people in the kitchen had very crispy bacon that day. Crispy everything come to think of, but most importantly crispy bacon.
MAISY
Orange isn’t the new black. Black has always and will always be black and therefore it is absurd to state that one colour can magically become another because the human mind is incapable of conjuring an altogether new hue. Therefore, it is more logical to state something along the lines of orange is the new orange even though there is nothing new about the latter interpretation. Orange certainly was the colour of the jumpsuits the inmates were forced to wear, new was not a word that could be used to describe said jumpsuits nor the colour, although it was an improvement on the previous black and white striped jumpsuits they were forced to wear in the decades prior. At least with the fluorescent orange the inmates could be seen at all times even if it meant sunglasses were needed to look at them.
In the courtyard section of the prison, the free range inmates were enjoying a game of basketball.
“Throw me the rock” Said one inmate to another, the rock in question was not a colloquial term for a basketball but an actual request to be thrown a rock – of the stone variety. Basketballs were not allowed in the prison because the warden loathed the sound of them bouncing on the concrete, however, the warden was more than happy for inmates to throw hefty blocks of hard material at one another, possibly in the hope that it would contribute to solving the overcrowding issue. There were a few more groups of inmates huddled together in their little cliques. Prisons seem to be breeding grounds for such cliques to form and this particular prison was no different. There was a clique for any kind of person within the electrified barbed wire fences. The most dominant clique was the Clickity Fingers gang who would click their fingers with every step they took, if they approached you with both hands clicking their fingers in a rowing motion then you knew you’d be in trouble. The next two largest cliques were bitter rivals, they were the Whistlers and the Hummers who did exactly what their names suggested. Maisy was not part of any of these cliques, she was simply there because she had to be and quite content to do her time in peace and solitude.
It wasn't exactly clear why Maisy had been convicted, she did try to rob a liquor store but she did so with a spoon - and not a very sharp spoon at that what with it being made of plastic. The prosecutor at the trial was a young buck ready for his first conviction and so laid out a case that resulted in the jury finding Maisy guilty (of which there was no doubt) and the judge sentencing her to 12 years imprisonment. It was a lengthy sentence that was justified by referring to a previous case whereby the defendant attempted to enact a similar crime but using a gun in place of a plastic spoon. The judge judged that a weapon is a weapon regardless of its capacity to inflict harm and therefore the two cases should be judged in the same manner. And so Maisy was doomed to a dozen years in a prison for a punishment that didn't necessarily fit the crime, though, at least it reduced the number of spoon related robberies. There were no tears shed at the sentencing, nor were there any tears garage. Maisy reasoned that it was what it was and therefore there was no use in fighting against it.
In this particular prison, it was the norm for each cell to consist of a single toilet decked out in chrome, a wash basin and a bunk bed. Maisy was fortunate to be sleeping on the top bunk whereas her roomie Betty was unfortunate to be slumbering soundly on the bottom bunk. At least, she was slumbering soundly until Maisy fell directly on top of her.
"What in the blazes are you doing woman!?" Betty bellowed in her masculine voice.
"Why are you on my bed?" Maisy replied with such a dreary delivery that it wasn’t clear if she was still asleep or not.
"You're on MY bed! Can't you see!?" It was a valid point because the floor of the jail cell was noticeably closer to Maisy's nose.
"You'll be getting two porridge slaps for this, mark my words"
In the prison, the chosen form of revenge for the inmates was a porridge slap, it used to be a good shanking but due to budget cuts the prison could no longer supply their inmates with lamb shanks and so the prisoners resorted to using their porridge to enact their sweet revenge. A hearty porridge slap involves the offended taking a scoop of their morning porridge and slapping the offender in the face with it.
Because porridge was not served until breakfast, every inmate had a list, be it a mental list, scrawled on a piece of paper or written in blood on their cell wall, they all had a list of who was owed a porridge slap so that come breakfast time, their debts could be called in.
"I'm adding you to my list" Betty said as she pulled a pencil from goodness knows where and wrote Maisy's name on a piece of toilet paper as long as her arm. Maisy was not angry at being included on a list, she hadn't been on many lists in her life, and she understood the rules of the porridge slap. There was some relief in the fact that in other prisons the inmates used homemade knives to dish out punishments like Neanderthals. At least there was comfort in the knowledge that she would only get a palm full of porridge in her face come morning.
Once Maisy had been added to the list, the pair returned to sleep. It wasn't long before Betty was sound asleep and snoring like a train, compete with the occasional choo-choo. It took a little longer for Maisy to follow suit as she replayed the incident in her head. She could sense that she was about to fall asleep as there was a sensation of falling - a common occurrence in those about to enter the realm of Morpheus - what was not so common was the landing.
There was a grunt as Maisy touched down on her cellmate but she did not say anything, she simply shoved Maisy off of her and onto the cold hard concrete of the cell floor, pulled out her pencil from goodness knows where and wrote her name on the piece of toilet paper. Maisy was to receive at least two porridge slaps in the morning.
The time had come for the prisoners to receive, or distribute, their porridge slaps. It wasn't by any means similar to a food fight, nor a typical riotous brawl, but instead it was more akin to a duel between two bourgeoisies, but with porridge and slapping in place of pistols at dawn and snooty speeches. The prison guards didn't interfere with the slapping, at first they made attempts to stop it because they were more accustomed to full on riots and so took any form of violence to be cause enough to dust off the riot gear and start spraying inmates in the eyes. When they discovered the civil nature of the slap and the true virtues and values of it all, they lay down their batons and blast shields and allowed the inmates to perform their ritual with the caveat that if a single oat landed on their uniforms then both inmates involved would get a jolly good seeing to.
Maisy wasn't the kind of person to dish out porridge slaps, she would prefer to eat her porridge instead of slapping someone in the face with it, which is perfectly reasonable come to think of it. That being said, she was often on the receiving end of a porridge slap from time to time. The prisoners formed an orderly queue in the canteen, holding their trays expectantly in order to receive their weapon of choice for the morning. In the prison, the canteen was the armoury and the chef was its quartermaster. She tipped a ladle of porridge into Betty's bowl who turned to face her cellmate and fired a wink in her direction. She knew she was going to get a hearty slap for her exploits.
At 8AM on the dot, the inmates formed a line facing their victims. Bowl in one hand, fist full of porridge in the other. At 8:01AM on the dot, the slapping was carried out. The porridge slipped down Maisy’s face, the warm oats were complimented by the warm feeling of the slap. Though it isn’t usually nice to be slapped in the face, Betty had the decency to make it more comfortable by slapping Maisy on both cheeks to evenly distribute the pain and porridge. For some reason, if the pain is symmetrical, it hurts less, so Maisy was glad that she had earned two porridge slaps for her night time tumbles, in addition, she was also glad that she had two extra h
andfuls of porridge that morning, even if those handfuls had the clammy hands of her cellmate all over them.
The whole porridge slapping ritual didn’t typically last longer than ten minutes, everyone was back at their pews eating their breakfast before the clock struck 8:10AM, what’s more is that the atmosphere was noticeably less tense as a result, with the inmates having relinquished their aggression by means of warm sticky oats in each other’s faces.
Porridge slaps aside, the prison was a relatively calm one. There was the occasional tiff that would result in a minor spat but they would never come to blows unless oats were involved. Even in the courtyards where the free-range prisoners roamed there was peace. The porridge slapping ritual could be the reason for such tranquility in comparison to other such institutions, or it could be the copious amounts of sedatives poured into said porridge. Probably the slapping though.
Due to the relative peace and quiet, the inmates were afforded some pastimes to indulge in, albeit with restrictions in place to suit the warden's preferences. Maisy enjoyed a game of dominoes from time to time. Naturally, the inmates couldn't be seen to have high-end dominoes and so they simply had torn pieces of toilet paper with the dots scrawled on them. A gust of wind would ruin an entire game and so the inmates were restricted to playing on warm, dry days, the last of which was at the turn of the season, and it had been a long winter.
The table was set, the players were sat and the scraps were scrambled in the centre of the table
"You're not supposed to use used paper, Hilda!"
Hilda was not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, nor was she the brightest hammer in the shed. She was though, as thick as dog mess and that's exactly what appeared to be on her homemade dominoes.
The other players took out their makeshift notepads and writing implements and, in sync, added Hilda's name to their lists. Many porridge slaps were due.
"You can sit this one out, Hilda"
Dejected, Hilda made her way to the basketball court with a pocket full of rocks she had somehow accumulated.
Maisy never humiliated Hilda like the other inmates, she pitied her and saw a fair few similarities between them, they both enjoyed being alone but even so tried desperately to fit in somewhere. Maisy had previously attempted to join one of the various cliques but soon found that she could neither whistle nor hold a tune nor could she adequately click her fingers and so she resorted to seeking company at the dominoes table to fulfil her social need. She was actually rather good at dominoes.
The game picked up momentum without Hilda, with dominoes being slammed on the table in rapid succession. Maisy had but one domino remaining and her number had come up. She picked up her scrap of toilet paper, raised her hand in preparation to slam it down and win the game. Her arm shot downwards, placing the scrap into the winning position. But there was no slam. Maisy's hand had gone right through the table, not because she used such tremendous force that it broke the table, more that it went through it as though there was no table to speak of.
It was somewhat alarming for Maisy, however her fellow domino players hadn't noticed the strange occurrence as they were in various stages of annoyance at having lost another game to notice. They did take notice though when Maisy repeatedly slammed her hand on the table to recreate the event.
"Cut that out! You don't want the warden to take away our dominoes now do you?"
"No" Maisy said meekly
"Clear off then, and give someone else a chance to win"
Maisy wandered idly around the courtyard. The dominoes game continued without her. She watched the basketball game descend into chaos as the players turned to throw rocks at Hilda. The guards quickly broke up the fracas and thus the inmates were escorted back to their cells. The Clickity Fingers gang were clicking all the way back inside while the Whistlers and the Hummers remained eerily silent, they knew that they couldn’t match the Clickity Fingers gang in style or razzle-dazzle. Hilda was gloomily shuffling at the back of the line and nursing a bruised forehead when Maisy joined her.
“Are you alright, Hilda?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a bruise”
“Why do you let them treat you like that?”
“It’s only for a little while longer. Then I’ll show them”
Maisy decided it was best not to pursue that line of inquiry. When it came to Hilda, it was probably something stupid and involving faeces, such a combination is often best ignored.
Due to the ruckus in the courtyard, the inmates were placed in lockdown in their respective cells. The guards were happy to have a break from watching them, any excuse to empty the courtyard was a welcome one. They escorted the inmates and then stole away to have a cigarette break as soon as the iron bars were closed.
There wasn't a great deal to do in the cells, on occasions a book trolley was wheeled around offering whatever dog-eared tome was donated to them. There was tell of some prisons being more akin to express hotels, however, this was not one of them. Maisy ascended to her bunk and began reading a novel by some long dead playwright about some long dead king third of his name. Her cellmate was not one for reading but was more than happy to sleep through her sentence.
As night fell, Maisy could hear a faint tinkle but dismissed it as her cellmate snoring. She then heard a faint rustle but dismissed it as her cellmate having a midnight snack. She then heard a loud clang and could not dismiss this as her cellmate who was still dozing somewhat noisily below and didn’t often have metallic sounding snores.
Maisy shuffled herself to look through her barred window. As she peered into the night gloom she could see a silhouette burrowing up the earth on the outer side of the fence. She peered closer until she could make out Hilda popping up through the dirt.
The cold air was felt on her face and her leg and her arm. She looked down and could see that both her right leg and right arm were outside the cell and tasting fresh air. That was the last thing she saw.
The lockdown was lifted in the morning. Betty awoke from her deep slumber to find half of Maisy's body within the confines of the cell, oozing blood on the floor and her decapitated head resting between the bars on the window.
MIERRION
Humans don’t look to the stars as much as they did when two great superpowers had a frosty war. They had raced to breach the final frontier but then abandoned it soon after for no discernible reason. It’s possible that they found something up there, but then it’s equally possible that they didn’t. Life’s great questions went unanswered.
If they had decided to have a more in depth rummage upon their closest satellite they might have uncovered an entirely new civilization engaged in a not-so-civil war. It began in parallel with the frosty war on Earth, when the frosty war ended the not-so-civil war raged on. There was a brief interruption when they found a strange lander covered in tin-foil on the outer reaches of their war zone. It became even stranger when two beings stepped out each with one large eye. A few more of these beings stopped by and some did rather puzzling activities while there. There was a duo that used a thin metal weapon to ferociously swing at a white orb, very puzzling behaviour to the locals. Following the one-eyed beings were a series of small vehicles that poked and prodded the surface, these weren’t difficult to hunt as they moved very slowly and seemed to shut down entirely for extended periods. It was fortunate for the locals that the small vehicles hadn’t penetrated their Biddellium deposits.
The Biddellium ore was used by the moon-dwellers to enhance their physical attributes, at least in theory. It would make them harder, stronger and last longer, perfect qualities to enhance when engaged in all-out war with their own kin. The ore was mined and then the crystals were extracted to be ground into a fine powder that could be added to their meals in a similar fashion to how the humans would add a pinch of salt – however much a pinch is. Biddellium is not a substance that was ingested through the nose because the moon-dwellers didn’t have noses, besides, they had more style than that. Biddellium was a classy substance and
demanded to be wooed before it would agree to being ingested. It was a strange substance indeed and therefore the moon-dwellers were required to lay their equivalent to a lavish dinner and seduce the substance until it was ready to end up in their mouth holes. It wasn’t a very rare substance by any accounts, it could be found strewn across the orbiting rock, if one of the feuding factions had enough warriors fuelled with the substance then they would outright win the war, the issue was that the substance was very picky about who it allowed to eat it. Oftentimes a squadron would be a couple of rotations into the courting phase and be almost in a position to swallow the substance when the other faction would sweep in, slaughter them and then begin the courting ritual themselves only for the cycle to repeat itself. If only Biddellium was more open and then the war could’ve been over decades ago.
It wasn’t an option to give up courting the substance because if they did then the other faction would continue courting it until they had ample enhanced troops to claim victory, as such it was a vicious cycle of mine, refine, court, be killed, repeat. An above average soldier by the name of Mierrion had an idea to break the cycle and win the war.
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