Poem: "The Wrong Choice": ysabetwordsmith

Poem: "The Wrong Choice"

This is the freebie for the August 2013 Muse Fusion. It was inspired by a prompt from LiveJournal user Sibylle. It is a sequel to the (supporters-only, sorry) story "Madness." This poem has not yet been submitted to the Canon Board and doesn't have permission from the character owner, so it's canon-indeterminate at this time.

"The Wrong Choice"

From the snowy street,
Oranaan looked up at the smoking lab,
shivering in his shirtsleeves.
When the alarm went off,
he hadn't even had time
to grab a coat.

The huddle of other scientists
sent poisonous glares in his direction.

Well.
It wasn't as if
he'd done this on purpose.

Oranaan had been trying
to replicate individual effects
reported from anomalies,
in hopes of discovering
the underlying cause.
So far he had failed.

Not long ago, he had lost
his friend Rilaru to an anomaly,
so he was not giving up.

Maybe I should have used
blue time-crystals instead of red,
Oranaan mused to himself
as the fire-wagon finally arrived.

His supervisor also arrived
and began screaming at him
for not following safety protocols --

which was completely unfair,
because Oranaan had in fact
followed all the written rules.

It's just that he was studying
phenomena for which
appropriate safety precautions

had perhaps not been written yet.

Deleted comment

Alas!

ysabetwordsmith

September 1 2013, 04:52:31 UTC 7 years ago

New comment

>> Ah, truly cutting edge research, where you get to be the reason that the next generation has safety warnings about the stuff that killed you. <<

It's always sad when that happens.

>> My paternal grandfather was one of those people. He was involved in some of the early research into nuclear power and weapons, and died very young, riddled with cancer. <<

*moment of silence*

That happened to a lot of those guys.

>> (The icon is in reference to being hurt/killed by your own research, not my experience reading the poem. That was quite pleasant.) <<

Sooth. I'm glad you liked the poem.

I have to wonder if Oranaan will survive his own genius. He's not my character, but he sure gets into a lot of trouble.

chordatesrock

August 31 2013, 19:14:36 UTC 7 years ago

Second line, tense issue.

That last sentence, though... *shiver*

Yes...

August 31 2013, 19:42:48 UTC 7 years ago

>> Second line, tense issue. <<

Oranaan is one of those brilliant scientists with a high accident rate. Sometimes he's not careful enough. Other times he's as careful as he can be, but working with stuff so risky it just doesn't help.

>> That last sentence, though... *shiver* <<

A core feature of Torn World is temporal mechanics. That's how the Ancients broke the world in the first place. Now the Southern Empire is basing their technology on a new and different form of time manipulation, and it's causing problems, but they don't understand that connection yet. The results are destructive, mysterious, and scary.

Re: Yes...

August 31 2013, 19:55:34 UTC 7 years ago

...I was proofreading you. You have a tense issue because you haven't conjugated the verb "to look" correctly. But I suppose it does make sense to describe the poem that way.

They're causing the Others, aren't they?

August 31 2013, 20:05:35 UTC 7 years ago

>> ...I was proofreading you. You have a tense issue because you haven't conjugated the verb "to look" correctly. But I suppose it does make sense to describe the poem that way. <<

Sorry I missed that. I have fixed the typo. I'm used to people quoting the typo and then what it should have said.

>> They're causing the Others, aren't they? <<

Yes. Mining time crystals does that. The Southerners don't know yet, because they can't perceive the Others the way the Northerners can. It's a problem. "The City of Lights" is a three-story exploration of the anomalies in Southern culture, very good reading. You can find that and more in "The Invisible Menace" collection.