Another Story...

So I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can beat this Writer's Block is to try and break into other genres, stepping away from The Story That Will Not Be Mentioned. I tried before, with Time and How Best To Waste It (which I'm continuing with, although I have no idea where it is headed), and now I have a second attempt,  Defining Humans. I have a little more idea about this one - but I am determined not to put too much pressure on it.

I got the idea from the gene-doping scandal that was shrouding the Olympics over the weekend. This is just the beginning, it's pretty much a solid start, I promise it gets more exciting, but I didn't want to make it too long, because I have been known to do so! 

I have been religiously following the Olympics - my Mum working full-time over the holidays and my sister out with her boyfriend, Kenny, most of the time, leaves me in my own company a lot, which doesn't really bother me. However, the Olympics has been getting me through any tedious, bored stupors. Yesterday, my best friend Megan came over, and we donned face paints and stick-on tattoos to cheer on Bradley Wiggins... Yes, that is what Fala Dam will bring you too, I am afraid.

Anyway, I'll leave you this story, now, Chris Hoy is on soon!

Lots of love,

Sarah xx

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Defining Humans (Part 1)

The Prime Minister, at that moment, was feeling a cocktail of emotions - all fizzing and bubbling away inside him: intoxicating, near-childish excitement; mixed with the politician inside him, stern and passive, trying not to give too much away, fretting on the public’s reaction - should it break out - and what the opposition’s take would be on this monumental occasion - if such news was to fall into their scavenging hands. And then there was fear. The haunting presence of that dark-eyed, gaunt-faced creature, breath cool and chilled on the back of his neck. Fear of the unknown, fear of things out of his control.

 His security personnel loaded their rifles; their sub-zero guns snapping hungrily, like starved piranha, eager for the kill. There was five men in total, all dressed in crisp, immaculate suits; black-out sunglasses hiding their eyes from view. Their skin was waxen in the dim, strip-lighting that fizzed and popped above their heads. The carriage gave another ominous rattle. They continued to sink lower and lower into the infinite darkness.

They had been moving at this same, grinding pace for what seemed like an age. The lift was shaky and unstable; creaking and clanking as it made it’s way down a narrow gouge, a roughly cut cylinder, in the harsh rock of Mother Earth’s very flesh. It seemed like so very long ago that they had began their dismount. Entering one of the many government-funded laboratories, mumbling something about fighting pollution to the many journalists crowded outside. They had been led through a number of labs, the director pointing out this and that, working them up to the main event. This: the lift - the shaft into oblivion - into the future.
    
With an even louder clamor, one that rung in his eardrums as if a gong had just been sounded, the lift finally - remarkably - came to a shivering halt. The door hissed open, revealing a concrete platform at which guards dressed in navy jumpsuits, with threatening guns at their hips and ammunition strung around their bodies as frivolously and abundantly  as tinsel on a Christmas tree.  Even his security personnel look affronted: it was very unusual for the Prime Minister’s guard to come across anyone, anyone at all, which more threatening weaponry and outfits to them.

   A small, frankly bored looking man stood waiting for them. He was dressed in a shabby, out of date suit, and appeared to have a coffee stain on his shirt. His hair was patchy and his belt struggling to reign in his vast belly. Nevertheless, he waddled towards them bravely, almost out of breath by the time he reached the lift - some two metres from where he had been standing previously.
    “Good afternoon, Mr Prime Minister,” The man said, the Prime Minister rightfully detecting a slightly mocking tone beneath his sickly, bitter sweet smile. Labour, the Prime Minister decided rather aggressively, He isn’t one of mine, for sure.
   
“Good afternoon, Mister -?”
  
 “Poe. Mr Poe, sir.”

 “Right you are,” the Prime Minister nodded, rubbing his hands together. The temperature had dropped heavily. He was rather looking forward to getting inside - if only to get out of the icy air and away from the terrifying guards.

   “Well, sir, welcome to Unit 13,” Poe huffed. “A Unit priding themselves in taking the greatest leaps forward in science, to date.”

   The Prime Minister nodded, rocking back on his heels and smiling placidly back again. Poe sounded terribly bored and unenthusiastic. As if he had recited this speech a hundred times before and wasn’t going to attempt any gusto - no matter who’s company he shared.
 
  “Unit 13 numerous lab-workers and scientists live on site, here in our facility, so we have a twenty-four-hour watch on events. Our guards here are only precautionary - both to ward off any enemy territories trying to infiltrate our work, and to keep events within the Unit hazard-free for all who work here. I assure you that you are in no harm, here at Unit 13, Mr Prime Minister.

    “Now,” Mr Poe said, rather huffily, “If you’d like to follow me inside, I can introduce you to Unit 13 Head Professor, Julian Reginald Frost, who will accompany us on our tour through the facility. I am sure that you will be thoroughly impressed, Mr Prime Minister, by our findings.”

And without another word, Mr Poe marched forwards, towards the frosted glass doors that slid open to reveal an inner anti-chamber. It was a far cry from the dark, roughly cut black rock, and the frosty air: here, they had entered the warm embrace of human comforts. Comfortable, plush furniture was arranged around a vast hall, where a reception desk stood at the far end, whilst a huge water fountain played in the very centre. As they drew closer, the Prime Minister’s eyes worked out the sculpture within the gushing water: a vast, imperial looking horse, standing on it’s hinds in the classic warhorse pose, it’s front hooves raised valiantly in the air, as if about to strike. Every coiling muscle, it seemed, had been enhanced by the sculptor - huge rippling coils, spanning across the horse’s magnificent body.

    Reaching the reception desk, they where talked through security protocols, he was subjected to a retina scan and thumb-print test, before  being led through another set of frosted glass doors, both stamped with Unit 13’s apparent crest: the same, muscular stallion; encircled by the phrase, “Through mind, comes might.”

    They had entered, it had seemed, the pulsating heart of the great beast that was Unit 13. A huge glass balcony, gazing out over a gigantic atrium that spanned far and wide, an atrium - he decided - that must have been the size of a cathedral, at the least. It looked awfully clinical down there; though there was seating areas, clusters of exotic plants, and large flat-screen televisions suspended from the walls - though they showed no signs of entertainment, merely the same logo of the horse, entwined by those same, strangely chilling words.

    Yet whilst down there, in the atrium, not a soul but the navy-clad guards breathed, the balcony was a hive of activity. Endless scrolls of green digit, seemingly meaningless data on computer monitors. Workers passing to and fro, eyes bright with newfound knowledge. A constant reel of voices from the surround-sound speakers hastily quoted times and dates and important notes that simply washed over his head. The Prime Minister was astounded - if his secretary showed half as much efficiency, that dratted filing would be done in no time.

    “Professor, Professor!” Mr Poe called, ushering a man over from a hurried conversation with a young, professional looking woman. The man paused mid-sentence, turning to face the Poe; the Prime Minister; and his entourage.

    He nodded, leaving the girl to her own devices and then hastened over to them. He was a man of purpose, the Prime Minister could tell, just from the way he walked. He was dressed in a pristine white lab coat, a pair of half-moon spectacles swung about his neck on a black cord. He had sporadic white hair, that stuck up at all ends, as if he had just been electrified. His vibrant blue eyes, too, seemed to crackle with energy. He might’ve been in his late fifties, though still young at heart it would seem, and still with a hugely active mind.

    “Poe, you didn’t tell me we where expecting visitors.” His voice was neither cold nor accusatory, though the man Poe - who the Prime Minister had begun to think had no respect for authority whatsoever - suddenly looked cautious.

    “Well I - I know you are busy sir - I am, I am sure I sent you a - eh - memo, the other day, Professor…”

    The Professor nodded, “How sure? In a percentage, perhaps?”

    Poe almost choked on his own tongue, his face turning a violent shade of purple. “I - um - numbers have never quite been my, eh, strong-point, Professor. You know me, I’m a - a more of a - practical sort of guy.”

    “Well then, you must be the most impractical practical sort of guy I have ever had the pleasure of coming across, Poe,” the Professor turned from his dejected colleague and, finally, to the Prime Minister himself, who was rather disgruntled at not being addressed first. “Mr Prime Minister, how good of you to visit. However, I am afraid you’re visit has caught me quite off guard - had I known of your arrival, I’d have rolled out the red carpet, so to speak.”

    Though he seemed completely polite - another doting political fan, on paper - once more, the Prime Minister detected something hostile, something sarcastic, about another member of Unit 13 staff. They seemed particularly full of themselves, as if such big-shot brainiacs needn’t care with such trying, insignificant things as Prime Ministers coming to inspect their establishments.

    “Well, never mind that,” The Prime Minister said, injecting a note of coldness into his words. “How about the tour?”

    “Oh, the tour,” the Professor said, shooting another accusatory glance at Poe. “I am afraid I didn’t realize we where running on an itinerary.”

    “I was promised a tour, to be accompanied by yourself.”

    The Professor’s looks, once so deceivingly pleasant, suddenly darkened, “Mr Prime Minister, this is my Unit. This is my investigation. Any visitor to this Unit - scheduled or otherwise - is my responsibility. Within these walls, there are things that would blow your mind; scare you witless; and extract every tendril of happiness within your veins. Within these walls, are some of sciences greatest advances and mankind’s greatest fears. And so I must make it very clear, that, sir, with all due respect, sir, Prime Minister or not - I will call the shots here, for both yours, mine, and my fellow workers safety. Is that clear?”

Ushering the man forward, like a teacher guides a lagging pupil, Professor Frost leads the way. The posse troop after the Prime Minister, who stumbles forth, trying desperately to match the Professor’s vast strides - crossing the room in one, two, three steps, the crowds of workers, adorned in the same white coats, hurrying out of Frost’s way, but acting as if the Prime Minister was not there - buffering him side to side, nudging him with their elbows, scowling down at him like he was an annoying toddler, misbehaving, getting under their feet. Immature, childish, naïve. Part of him wanted to scream at their ignorance. Another, far stronger part of him, wanted to burst into tears and turn and flee this strange, foreign place. He acted on neither human impulses - and merely soldiered through, through the pushing and shunting crowds, following the white-haired, impressive man who walked ahead - his tall, strong silhouette lit by a most ghostly, glittering half-light. The Prime Minister was suddenly, and quite clearly - crisply - brilliantly, as if he was staring through a telescope lens,  he envisaged this man, dressed in a billowing white robe, his silvery hair swept from his temples by a wreath of gold. The messiah of unbelievable knowledge. The saint of untold secrets. The leader of a nation that lived beneath the earth; a chosen few who chose a life of intricate science, over a world of meaningless insignificance, of passing through life like a ghost passes through reality. Not truly there - no substance, no spark.

    Realization came to the Prime Minister, paralyzing him on the inside, leaving him feeling strangely detached from his own body. He, the Prime Minister, might be leader of Great Britain for a couple of year, but down here, this man would be leader - king - for a lifetime. No wonder they treated the Prime Minister like a silly, troublesome nuisance. He had been elected from ballot papers - meaningless slips of paper. This man, this professor, had been elected to the highest of pedestals by a different method: respect. Respect in the lessons learned and the lessons still to come. Respect in the words he spoke and the actions he took. Respect for the new generation, for the next step in mankind - that he had envisioned, he had created, he had mastered.