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I'm so sorry to do this to the world but I am back in (booo) after a 6 month hiatus. I shall chose 1926: Phillip McClean.
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May 31, 2013 01:25
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:41 |
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1926: Phillip McClean, the only person known to have been killed by a cassowary. 1353 words Captain Moonlite and the Blue Forest Dragon Northern Queensland eh? Not a bad place in my humble opinion, not a bad place to be a youngen and run wild. Sure its hot as hell and filled with dangerous animals but for the most part it's pretty good. “Oi, Billy. I shot you, stay dead”. That would be me right there, Phillip McClean. Sixteen and fit as a fiddle. Dads getting' a bit crook these days so he reckons I'll be running the farm not too far from now. Says, “Son, this is a bloody good farm so do me proud and carry it on to the next generation”. Enough to give a lad goosebumps if I were the pamby sort. I'll be dead as a dodo soon enough mind you. “Na-ah. I have arma orn Phillip. Your bullet just bounced right offa me”. Now that would be my little brat of a brother Billy. We just read the “Who's Who of Australian Bushrangers”, a book that our old dad owned and now we were rollicking for some adventures out in the local forest. I was Captain Moonlite the criminal cad. Now that was a real bushranger, had a mask and everything. Bit of a nutter but knew how to be a gentleman about it. The sort of bloke a lad like me should look up to. Young Billy went for William Brady the convict highwayman. He was doing a decent enough job up until now. “Chick-chook”. That was the sound of Billy cocking his shotgun, which just so happened to be carefully disguised as a rather heavy-set stick. I couldn't see the little bugger but I knew he was aiming for me somewhere. “William Brady never had armour ya silly coot”. While Billy was stalking the forest I was carefully hidden behind a moss covered log I helped cut down a couple of years back. I too had a shotgun shaped like a stick which I kept close to my body. I was trying to figure out exactly where my brother was. Figured if I stuck my head up there was a good chance I'd lose it to the little sniper. I had but one chance to sink a shot into him. Well, that was if Billy would stick by the rules. “Ned Kelly had arma orn”. “But you said you were Brady”. “I changed my mind”, screamed Billy. A flock of cockatoos screeched high up in the trees. He could be a bit of a cheeky bastard and this was certainly one of those times. “And Ned Kelly had arma on his head, so you carnt shoot me there and he had arma on his chest so you carnt shoot me there”. “But he didn't have armour on his legs”, I butted in. Pounced from my hiding position I did, rolled on the bush floor picking up twigs, leaves and dirt as I went and fired off a few rounds from my double barrel, with the accompanying “boom, boom”, into the vague direction of Billy’s exposed legs. That's how they did it to Godfrey Cass in that film I watched but more importantly that would be how Captain Moonlite would have done it. Sticking with your character is important in these types of situations you know. Now at this point I thought I had the boy but Billy simply fired back with a “ne-he-he-he-he-he”. “I shot you in the legs”, I argued with him but he was smart for his age and was good for the counter. “Na-ah, you shot my horse you little bugger”. I could have slapped him but he earned my respect instead. I even taught him the swear. Proud as a dad I was. “Thats the sound of a machine gun. You don't have a machine gun”, which was a fair point to be made. “Yeah I do. Squizzy Taylor gave me a tommy gun” and he gave me another round of fire. Well that was just bloody absurd. With a deft swing I clocked Billy on the side of his forehead with my stick, “Thunk”. An action I instantly regretted. I'm a man now. I have responsibilities, the beginnings of a beard. I can't just whack a young lad I'm suppose to be looking after. It's unseemly. Billy just stared at me with his grazed head, snot dribbling down his face, unsure at what just happened. “Sorry scamp”, I muttered. “I gotta helmet orn”, and then he shot me in the chest and buggered off further into the forest. I retrieved my stick and chased after him, trying to dodge as many rabbit holes and fallen branches as I could. I passed a small rocky outcrop and on the other side saw that Billy had stopped in his tracks. “Whoah, what’s that?”, I herd him yell at me as he pointed to the ground. It was the body of a small wallaby. “Been dead for yonks”, I told him. We gave it a good lookin' over and used our sticks to turn the body around and upside down making sure we took the scene in completely. Probably how those Melbourne coppers would do things after Squizzy had been through town. “Scratchety Scratch”, scratched something off in the near distance. “What was that?”, I asked to the sound of yet more scratchings. “Black fellas”, whispered Billy to me and we both readied our guns. “Chick-Chook”. On the ground we went like a couple of diggers and wiggled our way towards the sound. There behind a large gumtree moved a large, blue emu like bird. A cassowary. Rare as hens teeth, as luminescent as a seashell. “Whoah, a dragon”, whispered Billy. Still feeling bad about before I let him get away with it. Billy moved closer to me, leaned into my ear and whispered, “We should kill it before it roasts us alive”. “Bushrangers never killed dragons. That was knights”. “Maybe its a dragon that works for the coppers?”. It was an interesting theory and certainly quite the controversy if it were true. What would Captain Moonlite do? If you want to live a life of crime then you cannot take any chances with plain clothed policeman even if they were giant forest dwelling dragon birds. I guess the problem was pretty easy after I thinked it over some. “You're right Billy. We have to kill it before it squawks to the bobbies”. “Yaaaah”, as we charged. The startled creature stood momentarily paralysed by our advance. I clobbered it around the head with such force that it fell to the ground with a great thud. Billy biffed a flank as best he could. Now I've shot plenty of animals in my life. You have to, if want to live that is. Sheep, cattle, roos, wallabies, crows. You want some grub you have to be prepared to get some blood on your hands. This was the same I guess, only I didn't have my hunting rifle with me. But as we both laid into the creature I again asked myself the question. What would Captain Moonlite do? Wait a second. Captain Moonlite got himself killed in a police shoot-out. “It's the bobbies”, I yelled to Billy as I stared off into the forest beyond. We both jumped back and aimed our guns at the invisible foe. We gave it our all. You sort of had to. “Those bastards wont take me alive”, and I fired off a few rounds. “Take this ya dirty rats. Ne-he-he-he-he-he-he”, screamed Billy. “Screech”, screeched the cassowary as it got up and eviscerated my neck. That was it. Managed to fire off a few more shots for dramatic purposes. If I managed to kill anyone I have no idea. The cassowary fled back to its own side and I was shot to pieces. What happened to Billy? Couldn't say, probably taken alive and hung a month later. He was a good kid, would have made a great farmer one day.
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Jun 3, 2013 01:14
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I is well in.
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Jun 6, 2013 00:57
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Hosea 1-2. 1275 words The Lost Brothel of Escax IV “SOS. This is an SOS. I am squad commander Cyla Leviticus, a battle maiden from the Orbos Sisterhood and captain of the Hosea. Our ship has been damaged, I repeat our ship has been damaged. We need urgent assistance”. Silence. There was always silence whether people were listening or not. Defeated Cyla moved away from the comms device and turned to her small crew. She had but two of them. Techmancer Bosea Trinity stood to her right. She was a stalwart character and Cyla's rock during any conflict. On her left was the rookie Sister May, a young lass with little to no experience in the field but with more enthusiasm the captain had seen in any other member of the sisterhood. “Nothing yet”, she told them trying to put as much emphasis on 'yet' as was possible. Trinity shuffled uncomfortably about in her heavy armour. 'Yet' was looking more and more like 'again'. “Our sisters will come for us soon”, comforted Trinity, cradling her sacred Orb hung about her neck. Cyla and May both watched as the battle hardened woman prayed to the relic. May shook her head in disappointment and stared at the captain. “We also have three hundred prostitutes on board. You always forget to mention that”. The mission handed down to the Sisterhood was to escort the three hundred prostitutes taken from the Gomorrah Enclave after the battle of Escax IV to the sisters homeworld for re-education. But soon after exiting orbit from the defeated planet the vessel was struck by a wayward missile and disabled and they were left hurtling through space with no direction, no engines and no hope. For two standard weeks they had tried every means of communicating with the intergalactic community. For two weeks they failed each and everytime. Occasionally some alien species would answer the call only to switch it off the moment they realised who was on the other end. With a hand wave and a turn the captain dismissed her underling. As May reached the door the Techmancer spoke. “We are battle maidens of the Orbos Sisterhood not delivery girls working for a nickel. Do not bring those heathen creatures into our minds and trouble us with their wants no more”. Without any hint of acknowledgement the fledgling sister continued out the door. The Orbos Sisterhoods intergalactic reputation wasn't exactly stellar. They had swapped sides, betrayed, annihilated and forcibly converted members of all civilisations without any hint of mercy. To call upon the sisterhood was to herald your own doom. But the corruption of the powerful always led to their need in these times and when the sisterhood moved, worlds crumbled. When May joined she found within herself a spiritual fervour that she never thought existed. The Judge was all that entered her mind and confessions and convictions were all that. Order was justice and thinking heretical. And as the Hosea hurtled through space without meaning and as she wondered through the vessels many corridors she thought once more. The brig lay beyond. ** Felicity Nightingale found herself as something of an unofficial spokesperson for the group of women who were kept in the brig with barely enough food to go around and minimal hygiene facilities. For these women the news that the ship was astray had not yet reached them. For the sisters above this was quite deliberate and not a simple oversight. “What is to become of us?”, the women would often ask her. Felicity would just smile and shrug and say. “Does it matter?” “But will we still be us? After our re-education that is”, another would query. “You can only ever be you, that's what you is”. “And if we die?”. She gave another shrug. But not much was said as of late. As time went on the questions were too exhausting to ask and so the women simply sat and thought about their fate. “What's going down here then?”. It was Sister May as she descended down the brigs stairwell to the holding chambers. “Not much talk today Felicity?”, asked May, with a little playful tone in her voice. “No, sister. Not much at all”, replied the emaciated woman, expecting the worse. “Well then, that's not very good is it, we might just have to change that”. ** Squad Commander Cyla Leviticus wiped her brow and tried to comprehend what was being said to her. “You mean you wont help a stranded vessel despite it being intergalactic law to do so”, she enquired over the comms device. “The sisterhood eh? Yeah I think I might just pass on that one. Say high to the Judge when your deaders for me”. The comms device fell silent once more. “Heretical maggot”, the captain murmured. “I'm not afraid to be judged. For twenty four years I have served the sisterhood. For twenty four years I have done the work of the great Judge and I did it well. I say we end this like martyrs”. The Techmancer activated her gauss cannon. Its electrical start-up engine hummed sweet nothings to her ears. “I too have served the sisterhood well and for many years. But I am not willing to die just yet”. She turned to her faithful subordinate and spoke further in very deliberate tones. “It is clear that these women, these filthy harlots, have soured our reputation and standing with the Judge. To clear our name we must first clear our brig. Then salvation will surely be ours”. Another gauss cannon warmed up and became ready to fire. But it wasn't the captains. For standing at the doorway was Sister May and Felicity a step just behind. “I have a better idea”, she spat. “What is this heresy”, decried the Techmancer who aimed her gun. “She can save us, if you give her the chance”, glared back the sister in both tone and look. “She can save us”, barked the captain, “but only by being dead”. The Techmancer readied her trigger finger but May was first off with the volley. The heated round of death shot passed Trinities head and rung great agony in her ears. Grasping at her head she bent over and wailed. The round entered a terminal and great electrical sparks gushed forth. With a dash and a roll the captain dived for her weapon as May gave the Techmancer the butt of hers. Felicity saw her chance and dashed to the comms device. While the battle raged on she pleaded with all her heart. “I am Felicity Nightingale, prisoner of the Hosea. I don't have any fancy titles and I don't really have a profession, not anymore anyway, to make myself more worthy of saving. But I am a good person and, I suppose, failing that I am a person. Please help me and my three hundred sisters. Please. Anyone”. “Um, what did you say you did again?”, came a voice a little unsure of itself. “Well, I'm not really anything anymore as I said. But I was a level nine masseuse on Escax IV”. “And there is three hundred of you? Three hundred massage specialists”, asked another voice with just a hint of trepidation. “Oh heavens no. We have specialists of many different natures. Botty smackers, ticklers, blowers, humpers and wagon wheel whipers just to name a few”. “Madam, considered yourself rescued”, responded the second voice. “Hey we spoke first”, came the first. “Erm, we're experts at this type of op. Allow us to rescue you”, came a third. And come they did.
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Jun 10, 2013 02:02
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