1000 Days

http://zulu-eos.deviantart.com/art/Take-to-the-sky-74685129

Grasping a wad of high grasses in his left hand and wrapping it back around his wrist Jasper acted quickly. That would have to do, he knew it probably would not. He scuffed the dry prarie soil with the toe of his sandle enough to draw in with his fingertip. He traced a near-perfect circle, added two sinuous lines that might have been wings, and poked a dot into the center of it all.

Jasper liquified the breeze and draped it around himself. It did not take long.

Air rushed to him from all sides bending the green grass like penitents at prayer. The air then swirled upward into a vortex with Jasper at the hub. Solid circle shapes and other bursts sprung from the markings he’d traced in the dirt and rose with the air. Mostly they were the color of the prarie: green, green-yellow, and green-teal. Some, of course, were starkly white or deeply black.

Jasper hoped the grasses he held were well rooted to the earth, but didn’t look. It wouldn’t matter now. He strengthened his grip for what came next.

The two wings he’d drawn on the circle flowed along the surface of the prarie winding among the grasses growing there as crinkle of his vision. They seemed like eager beasts waiting on chance. They were desperate to fly.

Jasper needed his attachment to the earth to hold. If the roots tore free too soon he’d spin into the initial vortex and bounce in a painful arc along the ground before going up. It happened before; he held no interest in repeating the experience.

The wings popped and snapped along the surface of the prairies battering the gentle plant life and raising more bursts as they came fully to life. Each lively crinkle became a white ribbon expanding into a sheet and then a sail. One split partway out and formed a third anxious beast. The bursts ran freely to the center and rushed upward. The speed at which they formed disallowed them full solidity so nearly all of them were outlines or double outlines.

Jasper waited for the bursts to be incomplete arcs and wilder half-shapes. They signaled his leap.

A neatly drawn plus sign ran up from the leftward wing. Jasper had never seen one of those before. He hoped it good. The point of each wing ripped free of his tracing. They alternated between losing the rest of themselves and trying to encircle Jasper. One twined his leg and popped him off balance. He nearly lost his grip. When he looked up he saw the unsplit wing’s distal end billow up like a sail catching the wind. Then the split one broke free and lept into the air with it’s fellow.

Jasper caught hold of the wing still encircling his leg. He’d been taught he couldn’t force his will on these things; he could only coax them. He watched the billowing ends disentangle from the earth. Their freedom rippled back toward him.

“Please let me time this right.”

Each wing stripped completely free of the earth and rattled into the sky. The wider far ends wafted high and back toward the center. Good. He’d go up first—no arm breaking. A cascade of bursts erupted around him: stars, octagons, circles, hoops, a curious harp shape, more plusses. The wings went up without him. Distracted, he missed his moment.

“No I didn’t!”

He loosed his grip on the grass and grabbed a pair of plusses clawing at the air like it was a ladder. He stuffed his toes into a hoop on one side and stepped on a solid green circle on the other. He kicked and pushed his way up the flock of bursts till he closed in on the nearer tendrils of the wings. They did exactly as he expected—hoped—they twined his body and rooted there.

Jasper launched above the prarie pulled by three wind filled sheets. Bursts orbited him or rested near his shoulders. Sometimes running up the wings; sometimes trickling back down.

Day 295

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http://blog.kierankelly.net/category/artist/syd-mead/

“I don’t recall Brainard taking this picture, but it must have been him.  There’s Teague on the mainframe of course.  Big ol’ Mathis watching him—I guess.  And holding a rope?  Shipley’s got his back to the camera–facing north–overlooking the chasm.  You can tell it’s him and not Brainard from that ridiculous collar he wore that also ran down his back to his shorts.  Was that really in fashion?”

The auditorium chuckles.  Back chokes, as the kids call them, resurfaced less than a year ago right after this photo made it rounds on the web.

“And, of course that’s me looking like some Forties-era pin-up.  We cannibalized our suits for the circuitry and monofil.  And it was hot.  Any questions so far?”

Hands go up.

“But first, yes I had long blonde hair then.  Yes I’m really wearing a thong.”  Dr. Mades gestures to her near buzz-cut grey hair and slightly sagging frame. She does a vampy pose.  “Hard to believe either now isn’t it?”

The auditorium chuckles.  Several people clap.  Most of the hands go down.

“I thought that might cut questions in half.  Ms Sandifer, you first.”

“The whole trip to Mars thing seems mythical now.  There were ten or fifteen practice runs before your crew’s ultimate success…failure.  And nothing after.  Have we not been back in 40 years because of that failure?”  Ms Sandifer sits back down.

Dr. Mades smiles, but doesn’t respond.  She clicks the slide to half bright then looks over her shoulder to the wings of the stage like she’s seeking permission from a hidden compatriot.  “My dear, you think that because we crash landed.  Because Shipley died and Teague’s body was never brought back.  Because Brainard went insane and became a serial murderer back on Earth.  And because I lost both my legs that it was a failure?”

Dr. Mades looks around to the gathered students—some of whom are not enrolled in any of her courses let alone this one.  Everyone thinks that.  She walks to the edge of the stage and peers directly into Ms Sandifer’s eyes.  She whispers.

“It’s precisely because of those things that it was a success.”

Day 292

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Public Service Announcement

I don’t get terribly weird search terms in my logs. They seem to be mostly an even split between ‘how many years is 1000 days’ and ‘barbie dolls’. I made one brief mention of Barbies a ways back and now I’m branded?

What I don’t have is a clue why you people that have access to search engines don’t also have access to a calculator (or pencil and paper for those wishing to kick it old school). The keystrokes to type it out as a string are 3 times those needed to used a calculator.

1000 Days Is…

Here’s all of the math I could come up with for you. If I’m missing something then you’ll need to do it on your own following my examples as best you can:

• 2 years, 8 months, 26.7 days one way
• 2 years, 8 months, 27 days the other
• 2.74 years
• 32.88 calendar months
• 33.33 30 day months
• 33.86 lunar cycles
• 71.43 fortnights (see, I’m international)
• 142.86 weeks
• 142 weeks, 6 days
• 1000 days
• 24000 hours
• 1440000 minutes
• 86400000 seconds

For those that care, 1000 days fits neatly between leap years, so I am absolved of sweating that complicated math. For the one in blue, I assumed the count began on January 1 and measured real months not metric months. I am not sure of the minor effects that sidereal influences would have on the above numbers, but I suspect they are less than the effects of my arbitrarily rounding to the nearest hundredth.

Word count: 237
Day 228

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