Mateo is part of a science fiction/universe-creating/Spore-linked website called 'Gaming Steve'. It seems to be populated with like minded types and Mateo puts a lot of time and energy into developing his worlds and the creatures that inhabit them including calculating gravities, lengths of days, etc. depending on how many moons there are....or something like that! He has written a 'diary' entry for one of his creatures, called a Kiaal and wanted me to put it on my blog. So here it is.. and these diagram go with the story.. just so you know.
39 Hours in the day of a Kiaal
My pod alarm sounds. I slowly wake up from my slumber and pull back my pod’s umbrella. Dark opens up to faint twilight. Surrounding me in the sleeping chamber, their pods still closed, are the rest of my family, to whom I am just one of the tens of companions and parents. After shaking myself up, I step out and grab the pile of clothes in front of my pod: a pair of utility boots, tall walking socks and a waistband//covering. I also gear up my tip, some kind of newfangled communicator which I attach to my temple, and set off.
It was still dark when I “checked out” of our house. The misty, yellowish sky blocked the possible view of our two shining moons. As I passed other dwellings, others woke up and set off to whatever job they had. My occupation was to monitor the heat levels of the huge hydrothermal vents and rods of our town’s largest building, the mist towers. They worked in quite an automatic way, they only needed a control room, a monitor that stops the rods growing too hot and the actual rods that boil the water. It’s basically a giant kettle. The producing masses of mist are pumped full of beneficial chemicals and are let free to coat the town in the stuff. So far I know it: it soaks up pollution, makes rain water drinkable, is an anti-global-warming cloud, is used for agriculture and makes it rain too much...
Once checked into the building, I head over to the monitor shaft, filled with many bright buttons and strangely shaped wheels. Then I get comfortable and turn a wheel whenever something turns white. I do this for maybe 4 hours until it’s mid-meal. I choose my meal from an electronic “handis”. I choose pepper -garlic swimps and an algae bar. The swimps are nice but the algae are particularly unappetizing. While I still have time, I go to the toilet which is composed of a few buckets, a widow and a large pyroglass seat with a hole in, solid-waste-disposals. SWDs.
After going, I open my handis mirror appliance to make sure I’m in order and I saw myself once again. My teardrop shaped head that makes ever changing patterns on my reddish purple forehead. My eyes, smooth and large but always moving and searching due to our predator ancestors, were low by the sides of my blunted snout, brimming with perfect, pointed teeth and a triangular tongue. My tip woke me up from the gaze of the mirror, reminding me that my salary will be dropped if I was late from break. Only 6 hours of blinding colours left.
After work, I headed of to one of the deltas, which are abundant in the jungle city, to have a refreshing swim. While I walked through the pyroglass streets, a recorded propaganda holo-video started about a new council in Heartherth City, the capital of Kundi (our planet), the Council of Origin. They were a bunch of religious fanatics, obsessed about I class citizens and purebloods. I quickly walked past the mesmerised crowd to get a swim, it was growing late and I still had to pick up the younglings. Finally I reached the public swimming delta, stripped off and jumped into the bathing crowd. The water was a bit dirtier than usual but the surrounding jungles and heavy artificial mists gave it a cleaner feel. The delta was full of all kinds of people, women and men cleaning themselves with the natural salts in the delta and children playing, splashing and boating on small toy rafts. In the deeper waters and in the marshes, larger canoes fished and hunted the wildlife while stilted waders gathered algae and seaweeds. I waded out into deeper waters, away from the crowds and swam into the reeds and lilies. My digitigrade legs meant that my best swimming style is breast-stroke. After having a brief swim, I paddled back to the shallows to clean myself.
After my pleasant bath, I set off to collect the younglings. They weren’t actually mine, at least I think they weren’t. Why they’re not is due to a complicated, interwoven “family-web”. It unites a group of related, through bloodline or love, people and makes all components of a family available to everyone. So everyone is a parent, a sibling, a child and a lover whatever the situation. Younglings, to stop them bonding to a specific person, are separated from birth so they bond to the entire family.
I headed towards a monorail station to reach the Information Institute. The Institute is a large 3 story building where people come to share and learn information. I often go. I then wait for our younglings to wander out of the building and into the courtyard. I greet them with a touch to the forehead and we then set off home.
Home is a collection of small huts, made from a variety of materials, up to 2 stories high. In them live us, a family of up to 50 individuals. We checked in and greeted the rest. The adults greeted the children and then me by rubbing foreheads. The children went off to bath and I went upstairs to sleep in my pod. I awoke to the delicious smell of raw meat and spices. I dressed in house clothes and descended downstairs. A circular platform, about 35cm tall, had on it piles of what looked like spiced whale. We ate in mid-conversation about our daily ventures while chewing in pleasure. Once finished, we cleared the grease and tidied the kitchen so it could be used again at mid-meal. We then all conveyed up to our sleeping pods and closed them up till morning. As I closed my eyes, I thought about the coming day, the repeating pattern of our life.
FIN
