G Is For Grape Soda
The letter 'G' for Fig Newton's Alphabet Soup...
Title: G Is For Grape Soda
Rating: PG, Gen.
Length: 433
Characters: Jacob Carter, Selmak
Thanks: Thanks to Tejas and Lokei for the beta(s)! (I don't usually have two betas. Computer issues. ;)
Surreal is a point of view.
When Jacob first blended with Selmak, he had frequent surreal moments.
When he suddenly became aware that he was in an alien craft, looking down at an alien world, sharing his body with an alien life form.
When he looked at his food, unfamiliar textures, strange smells, and it didn’t seem like food at all.
When a feeling came over him that he wasn’t at home, that underground tunnels grown miraculously on command were not where he lived, and yet the minute before, the crowded streets of Washington had seemed like a distant memory.
There was nothing in these shards of time that was different from the second before, only sudden astonishment, an instant when it all seemed beyond belief, incomprehensible. He found himself thinking of things he hadn’t thought about in years, of what ‘normal’ had meant when he was a child, of the fact that in the span of one life, a man could witness both the birth of television and Earthly travel through the galaxy. He wondered how the world could have changed so much, so quickly.
He’d think about what life was like when he was a boy, when his parents thought of airplanes as remarkable, when space travel seemed impossible fiction.
He’d think about clean, tidy houses on orderly streets, the smell of grass and the sound of the lawnmower, the neighbor’s pride in his brand new Buick.
He’d think about summer holidays and running outside at dawn to play until dark, carefree.
Baseball in vacant lots, stickball in empty streets. Kick-the-can and swimming in the river.
Barbeques and picnics, fresh corn on the cob, burgers and steak, potato salad and his favorite grape soda.
For Selmak, these were the surreal moments. No previous host had memories like these, memories of utter freedom and plenty. Memories of unquestioned safety. Memories of a childhood without work or fear.
This was not to say the memories Selmak experienced through Jacob were free of conflict. Among his earliest were of ‘rationing’ and his father’s absence, of fathers of friends who never returned. But this rationing was more of an inconvenience than genuine hardship, and the war that kept his father from home was a distant and incomprehensible thing to the small boy whom Jacob had been.
Later memories showed Selmak that many Tauri children were not as lucky , then or now, and that war always seemed to exist in some form on the planet, but Selmak found Jacob’s experience remarkable, none the less. Remarkable and utterly surreal.
It’s all in the point of view.
Title: G Is For Grape Soda
Rating: PG, Gen.
Length: 433
Characters: Jacob Carter, Selmak
Thanks: Thanks to Tejas and Lokei for the beta(s)! (I don't usually have two betas. Computer issues. ;)
Surreal is a point of view.
When Jacob first blended with Selmak, he had frequent surreal moments.
When he suddenly became aware that he was in an alien craft, looking down at an alien world, sharing his body with an alien life form.
When he looked at his food, unfamiliar textures, strange smells, and it didn’t seem like food at all.
When a feeling came over him that he wasn’t at home, that underground tunnels grown miraculously on command were not where he lived, and yet the minute before, the crowded streets of Washington had seemed like a distant memory.
There was nothing in these shards of time that was different from the second before, only sudden astonishment, an instant when it all seemed beyond belief, incomprehensible. He found himself thinking of things he hadn’t thought about in years, of what ‘normal’ had meant when he was a child, of the fact that in the span of one life, a man could witness both the birth of television and Earthly travel through the galaxy. He wondered how the world could have changed so much, so quickly.
He’d think about what life was like when he was a boy, when his parents thought of airplanes as remarkable, when space travel seemed impossible fiction.
He’d think about clean, tidy houses on orderly streets, the smell of grass and the sound of the lawnmower, the neighbor’s pride in his brand new Buick.
He’d think about summer holidays and running outside at dawn to play until dark, carefree.
Baseball in vacant lots, stickball in empty streets. Kick-the-can and swimming in the river.
Barbeques and picnics, fresh corn on the cob, burgers and steak, potato salad and his favorite grape soda.
For Selmak, these were the surreal moments. No previous host had memories like these, memories of utter freedom and plenty. Memories of unquestioned safety. Memories of a childhood without work or fear.
This was not to say the memories Selmak experienced through Jacob were free of conflict. Among his earliest were of ‘rationing’ and his father’s absence, of fathers of friends who never returned. But this rationing was more of an inconvenience than genuine hardship, and the war that kept his father from home was a distant and incomprehensible thing to the small boy whom Jacob had been.
Later memories showed Selmak that many Tauri children were not as lucky , then or now, and that war always seemed to exist in some form on the planet, but Selmak found Jacob’s experience remarkable, none the less. Remarkable and utterly surreal.
It’s all in the point of view.