Tag: e-orbits.com
Day# 10 Mad Maggot
#10 Mad Maggot for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe
Mad Maggot! That’s what everyone calls him. The stories about him elicit responses from sympathy, to disgust, to outrage. He is crazy, but no one can catch him. The kids at school say he steals babies in the night and eats them for breakfast. But no-one believes that, or it would have been news on the television and he would be hunted down and arrested, instead of being left alone to rummage through people’s garbage.
He makes silly trashy ornaments from things he finds in the garbage, too. paper and tinfoil pendents on greasy string. He tries to sell them to other people on the streets of small town Maple, Ontario, too. But no one wants to buy, because they stink of whence they came. He never begs. Never. But when he offers his creative excesses while cursing and swearing loudly and waving his arms around frantically, then hugging himself and crying, people will sometimes drop coins into his filth-blacked hands. He is a very large man, but sometimes he seems so small and pathetic you want to cry at the sorrows of the world right along with him.
Now and then he simply disappears for a month or so, and when he shows up again, he has usually had a hair cut and lost his beard, but it’s growing back in already, and he may have on a different, slightly cleaner overcoat, but he usually tears the sleeves off those within a week. He is more to be pitied than despised. Yet there are always those who go out of their way to further torture the tortured. Everyone knows that you should never push him too far. He carries a stick in his pocket that bears a sharpened end and larger blunt one. Once when the kids had him circled down by the tracks at the back of the football field down the hill behind the school, bear-baiting him, he pulled that nasty weapon out in a rage and brandishing it, began chasing them. He scared the hell out of them and they never went that far with him again. But they ran so fast they didn’t see him stop and fall to his knees, tears of rage and self-pity carving tracks in the grime on his weathered face. they didn’t hear his anguished lonely howl…
As Aedre continues her Escape to Freedom, she meets many strange and wonderful creatures. This one may be one of the strangest, and most certainly is one of the most dangerous. But Aedre has lived with danger all her life and has survived this far. Always before though, there were others around who could bear witness if the punishments and harassments of her family got out of hand. This time there was no-one else, just Aedre and the madman, everyone reviled and called Mad Maggot. Somehow, being drawn near this creature, Aedre could see that in some ways they had much in common, both being chosen as one to be reviled. It is this meeting that makes Aedre wonder if she is being made to take the place of this despised and crazy thing that was once as human as she. Could there be another fate? If Aedre was to seek it out, could another, possibly better, more humane fate be hers? Stay tuned to Aedre’s long journey of discovery in Aedre’s Firefly, the online graphic novel (updates Wednesday morning at the stroke of midnight).
Day# 09 Flodd and Flara for Wheeler’s Orbits
#09 Flodd & Flara for Wheeler's Orbits by Jande Rowe
When Wheeler’s Orbits made landfall on Faranurus IV with a cargo hold full of Denebrian, they thought it was unusual that there was no bustling spaceport; not even a sign of any kind of technology at all. Ikey thought they should check the computer and the starmaps to see if they were in the right place, but as usual Wheeler just opened the airlock and went out to see what was happening.
“They probably just have really good camouflage, Ikey. You worry too much!” and he was gone. Ikey donned space-suit, set the computer to figure out what went wrong, and doggedly followed Wheeler. This was definitely NOT dry, arid Faranurus IV! This place was a swamp. Of course it might have changed in the last year, but he doubted it very much.
The first thing he saw that moved was moving away from him. It looked like a giant lopped off banana with arms, but no legs. It kind of floated along a few inches above the ground when it wasn’t reaching up with its long yellow arms to swing itself from the low hanging branches from tree to tree. It was a colourful world, and in spite of himself, Ikey felt himself relaxing. That of course put him even more on guard. He’d seen some weird things in space, but never before a piece of fruit with arms. Then it turned around and started back toward him. It had eyes! and the arms had hands with opposable thumbs! He wondered if it had sharp pointy teeth and decided for the better part of valour.
Through the portal of the airlock he could see them gathering, apparently curious about this huge thing that had landed in their forest. They even more reminded him of bananas since they were in a multitude of shades from bright green to deep yellow, and some even had the brown and black spots you find on the very ripe ones. He shook his head. Leave it to Wheeler to run off on his own on a strange world.
He left his suit on and went in to the computer. The data screen showed the deviation in course due to an input error of one digit. He knew who to blame for that, too. He sighed. Well, they weren’t too far off course. If he could grab Wheeler they could be on Faranurus IV within a week.
He looked back at the airlock window, and was startled to see yellow-green faces, shaped a little like earth monkeys, jostling to peer in at him.
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” Come Flara, come with papa to see what the skies have brought this time.” He gazed fondly at his third daughter, so green and yet wasn’t that a tinge of the yellow of maturity creeping into her skin. It made him sad that soon she would be fully mature and golden and leaving him for her chosen mate. But he would enjoy her companionship while he could, at least until his next change and he could bear more fruit himself, though then he would be a her self.
Things had often dropped from the sky that didn’t seem to belong here. Most often they fell near the great lake, and then, before his people could satisfy their natural curiosity, they flew away like Singbirds, often straight up into the sky until they were specks that could be seen no more. That was always a disappointment to Flodd. Maybe this time, there would be a chance to touch and taste the thing that fell from the sky.
Flara skipped along in front of him, skimming the ground, still a bit wobbly with that skill, and reaching up for hand holds on the Twanda trees, not to mention gorging herself on their clusters of fruit. He was an indulgent parent though, and prefered to let all his offspring learn through their own experience, though there was something quicker and more delightful with this one, so that he tended to be more protective of her.
He could see through the trees that others of his kind were gathering, streaming in the direction of the new fallen thing. This made Flodd happy. He loved gatherings, and he loved exploring, and he loved bringing his curiosity to bear on new things. Especially when the sun was warming his Frolldots and he had energy to burn.
Suddenly, he cried out in alarm, “Stop!” and pulled Flara to him and behind him. A strange animal had burst out of the undergrowth, splashing muddy sand all around him. It was tall and thin and was strangely coloured. It had twice the appendages than normal and actually put two of them on the ground and in the water of the swamp. That appeared to be its mode of locomotion, although it was a lurching one. Flodd had never seen its like. Is this what had fallen? It seemed too small and at the same time too big. It stopped now, swaying and seemed to be speaking to him, but the sounds were very low pitched and growling, akin to the sound of a Froctali in a fallen tree.
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“Where the heck am I and what the heck are you?” Wheeler said to the yellow being standing stock still and staring at him bemused. “I’m lost.”
Day#05 Sarah Sorry
#05 Sarah Sorry by Jande Rowe
Well, she’s in trouble again. Not surprising. If she isn’t getting into a scrape once an hour or so, her family would think the world had come to an end. She doesn’t mean to cause trouble, she just rushes into things, and she’s always repentant afterwards (well mostly!). That’s why they all call her Sarah Sorry.
It’s her insatiable curiosity, overactive imagination, and abundant physical energy that help her into (and sometimes out of ) trouble –especially in a world where all three attributes are frowned on and particularly in girls.
Boys are often encouraged to be loud and rambunctious. Her two older brothers certainly are, but Sarah must “behave”, “be quiet”, “sit still”, “stop fidgeting”. This repression makes her clumsy and nervous. It drives her crazy! She wants to play ball, go fishing, climb trees, build tree houses, chase cats and squirrels, and when she grows up she wants to be a fireman! Fire Engine Red is her favourite colour.
Her best friend, Rain, doesn’t want to be a fireman. His favourite colour is pink, he hates sports, and when he grows up he wants to be a scientist and discover the cure for cancer. Sarah thinks that would be nice, but that rushing into burning houses and saving people is a much more noble profession.
Maybe, by the time Sarah grows up, girls can be anything they want. And so can boys.
This Character has no particular place in any of my stories or comics. I was teaching myself to use Manga Studio EX4 this morning and she popped out. Perhaps she and Rain have stories of their own to tell.
Day#01- Angus “Fergie” Fergus
Angus will be showing up during the present arc of Aedre’s Firefly. It was a joy to flesh him out from vague words on a page (“here she meets a squatter”) to a full personality. I think having these sketches done beforehand in the storylines will make the stories themselves much richer as they evolve.
Thanks, Dan, for the lovely template! It really made the process painless. :`)
Now to see what everyone is doing and to finish my “Webcomics: What’s Cooking?” contribution page.
#30Characters Chatter…