#

writestr

(10 articles)

Bonds of Time - P009 - The Rising

The metal doors open. I don't move. My feet won't let me. There is a box inside the wall, a small room with no windows or no visible exit. The floor is polished so bright I can see Jingsen's reflection standing in it, waiting for us. He steps inside. Marcus hesitates. His hand moves, I see it out of the corner of my eye, touching something beneath his strange wrapped garment. A prayer, maybe. Then he steps forward. I am alone in the bone-white corridor. The box waits. Jingsen waits. Marcus waits. I put one foot in front of the other. The threshold. The cold of the metal walls. The floor solid under my cloth shoes. The doors close behind me. *Trapped.* The word rises in my throat but I swallow it. Trapped like an animal. Trapped like the time the cook locked me in the grain cellar and forgot. Three days in the dark, drinking condensation from the walls, counting heartbeats until someone remembered I existed. Then the floor *moves*. It's moving, UP! My stomach drops before my mind understands. We are rising. The box is rising. I am being lifted by magic. My ears hurt. A pressure building, shifting. Marcus has his eyes closed, lips moving in what might be prayer. Jingsen stands with his hands at his sides, breathing evenly, like this is nothing. The box stops, then a small sound can be heard, a bell, and the doors open. I step out so fast I nearly trip. The corridor here looks the same as below, but we are somewhere else now. I don't know how I know. The air tastes different. Doors. So many doors. All the same shape, the same distance apart, repeating in both directions until the corridor turns. I count them: one, two, three, four... thirteen, fourteen. What do the doors mean? Jingsen stops at one of them. Fourteen paces from the box that lifted us. He puts his hand on something beside the door, a flat surface, darker than the wall. I hear a sound like a lock clicking. Does the lock know it's him? The door opens and beyond it... a room. I stand at the threshold, waiting for permission to enter. Jingsen looks back at me. His face is tired. So tired that the skin around his eyes seems to sag. But he gestures, the same gesture from the metal beast, from the street, *come*. And he waits until I move before he turns away. I cross the threshold. The door closes behind us with a soft click. The world goes quiet. For the first time since the metal beast, nothing is moving.

bonds of timebondsOfTimebonds-of-timewritestranimestr

Bonds of Time - P008 - Building taller than any pagoda

The ground is wrong. Too smooth. Too hard. My cloth shoes make no sound on it, stone that isn't stone, flat as a threshing floor, stretching in every direction. I keep expecting to feel the give of packed earth, the familiar roughness of courtyard tiles. Nothing. I follow the one called Jingsen. When he turns, I turn. When he slows, I slow. This much I know how to do. I have followed masters through markets, through temples, through rooms where I was not supposed to exist. Following, I can do. But everything else makes zero sense. The metal beasts roar past on their black stone roads. I press closer to the buildings when they pass. Marcus flinches too, at least we share that. Jingsen speaks and the sounds hit my ears and it's frustrating, even more frustrating than when Marcus speaks. He's almost speaking a language I understand, but not. He's pointing somewhere. Explaining something. I see the movement of his hands, the direction of his gaze. The meaning slides past, I can't catch it. I nod anyway. What else can I do? Marcus, says something in "ratin", I think that's what Jingsen called it. It's just noise to me. He gestures with his whole body, big movements, taking up space like he's never been hit for it. Jingsen responds. More noise. They pass words back and forth. I watch. I understand nothing. The crowds here make no sound. Hundreds of people and no one is shouting or laughing, where in the world am I? Where I came from silence meant only one thing, that the master is angry, and that was always bad news for one of us. I don't know who the master of this town is angry with. We walk. I don't know where. Jingsen knows. That has to be enough. He speaks again, to me this time, slower. I catch something that sounds like *follow*. Or maybe *place*. Or maybe nothing at all. Then Jingsen stops. He looks up at a building so tall it reaches the very heavens. I stop at the base and look up, neck craning, this building is taller than anything I have seen before. Taller than any pagoda or watchtower. I try to estimate. Ten levels? Twenty? The numbers fail me. I have never seen a building this tall that wasn't a mountain, but then again, we are surrounded by those here. What is this place? Jingsen doesn't stop. He walks toward a wall of glass and the wall *opens for him*. Is this magic? Marcus makes a sound low in his throat. Something between a prayer and a curse... but we follow... Inside. The floor here is smoother than anything I've touched. My reflection moves beneath my fee, she's a ghost-girl keeping pace, looking up at me with wide eyes. The walls are the same pale color as bones left in the sun. Light comes from the ceiling, from the walls, from places I can't find. What is going on? A man walks past us without looking. His eyes are on a glowing rectangle in his palm. Everyone here carries these rectangles. Everyone here ignores everyone else. Jingsen stops at a wall marked with spirit writing. He touches one of them and it glows under his finger. This is magic! I'm terrified now, even more so than before. They are using magic! We're all going to be cursed.

bonds of TimebondsOfTimebonds-of-timewritestranimestr

Bonds of Time - P005: Lightning Man

The guards are three paces away when lightning-man moves. He doesn't run. He walks toward us with the measured stride of a man approaching a business negotiation, not a crisis. One hand raised—not in surrender, but in the universal gesture of *wait*. The guards slow. Stop. Exchange a glance. Lightning-man speaks. The words mean nothing to me. They tumble out in a strange, clipped rhythm—nothing like Greek's flowing cadences or the Germanic barking of the northern tribes. But I recognize *skill* when I hear it. This is a man who speaks to officials regularly. The deference is there, carefully measured. The apology built into the tone without groveling. The guards' postures shift. Their hands move away from their belts. One of them says something. Lightning-man nods, producing that small flat rectangle from his pocket—that same device everyone in this world seems to carry. He gestures at Shao and me. More words. The guards' suspicion hasn't vanished, but it's softening into something more like bureaucratic inconvenience. I watch his face as he speaks. Tired. So tired that even the muscles around his eyes seem to sag. But underneath the exhaustion, something sharper. This man knows what he's doing. He touches his rectangle to something on the barrier. *Chirp*. Does it again. *Chirp*. A third time. *Chirp*. The guards step back. One waves his hand—*go, go*. Done with us. Lightning-man looks at me. Not at Shao. At *me*. A single gesture. Fingers curling toward himself. *Follow*. I move before I can think. Shao is already at my shoulder. We pass through the barrier—that same *chirp* of permission for each of us—and then we're through, walking fast, and the guards are already looking elsewhere, already finding new problems to solve. We follow lightning-man through the crowd, up stone stairs, toward light so bright it hurts.

bonds of timebonds-of-timebondsOfTimewritestranimestr

Bonds of Time - P004: Hades

The ceiling glows. Not with fire. There is no fire. No torches, no oil lamps, no braziers. The light comes from *within* white panels stretched across the vault, pale and flat, and it is cold, unwavering, without shadow. I have stood in the Pantheon at noon when the sun pierces the oculus like Jupiter's eye. This light has no source, no direction, no god behind it. I put my hand on a pillar. Stone, but wrong somehow, too smooth. I wait for my legs to remember how to stand. The girl is beside me. Still here. Still watching. The space stretches before us like the Basilica Julia during a trial, vast and echoing. The columns are not columns but flat surfaces covered in glowing pictures that *move*. Faces appear and vanish. Symbols fall past, falling, falling. Images of objects I cannot name cycle endlessly. Advertisements, I realize slowly. They must be advertisements. Even in the underworld, someone is trying to sell something. People flow around us like the Tiber in flood. Hundreds of them. Thousands. All in black. Gray. The whole crowd dressed for a funeral. They walk with a purpose I can't read, eyes fixed forward or down at the glowing rectangles in their hands. No one speaks. No one pushes. In Rome, a crowd this size would be a riot of noise and elbows. Here, they move around each other without touching, without acknowledging. The silence is the worst part. Beneath the humming of the ceiling-lights and the strange chimes from the metal barriers ahead, there is no human sound. No hawkers crying wares, no slaves calling to each other. The dead would be louder than this. *Where am I?* A woman's voice speaks from everywhere at once. I flinch before I can stop myself, reaching for a gladius that isn't at my hip. The girl grabs my sleeve and pulls, hard. She's pointing upward. Not at the glowing ceiling, but at the panels on the walls that bear strange symbols. 「次の山手線は...」 The goddess, she must be a goddess, to speak without form, to be heard by thousands, continues her pronouncement. I don't understand a single word. The symbols on the panels shift as she speaks. An omen? Instructions from the divine? The girl releases my sleeve. Her face is pale, but her eyes are moving again. Taking inventory. She's looking for something. Exits, maybe. *Think like a merchant. Assess the situation. What do I have?* Nothing. I have nothing. My toga marks me as foreign. My coins are worthless, if I even still have coins. I have no clients here, no contacts, no language. I have a child who cannot understand me and a purple arrow above my head that marks me for... what? What does the arrow mean? I try again. "*Puella*," I say carefully, using the simplest Latin I can manage. I point at myself. "*Marcus.*" Then I point at her. "*Tu es...?*" She stares at me. Then she speaks. Sounds I can't separate into words, tones that rise and drop, syllables that end before I can grab them. She points at herself, repeats something. "邵嫦." I try to echo it. "Shao...?" She nods, once, sharp. Then she speaks more, gesturing at the space around us, at the people, at the metal barriers ahead. *What is this place? How do we get out?* "*Nescio,*" I tell her. I don't know. "*Nescio.*" Her face tightens. She turns away, and for a moment I think she's going to walk off, find her own way, leave me as the lightning-man did. But instead she watches. She watches the crowd flow toward the barriers. She watches each person approach the waist-high gates, pull something from their clothing. Small, flat, like a tessera. They touch it to a glowing circle on the metal. The barrier *chirps*, a sound of permission, and opens. The person walks through without breaking stride. The barrier closes behind them. This happens again and again. A hundred times while we watch. No one passes without the offering. No one. One man approaches too quickly, reaches for his tablet too late. The barrier screams. Refuses to open. He stops, embarrassed, searches through his bag while the crowd splits around him, rejoins on the other side, ignores him. When he finally finds his tessera and touches it to the circle, the barrier permits him through. The girl, Shao, tugs my sleeve again. She points at a person approaching the gates. Makes a small gesture: something in hand. Touch. Then she points at the open gate. Then she points at us, at our empty hands, and shakes her head. Clever girl. Quick. I nod to show I understand. We cannot pass. We don't have whatever token these people carry. We're stuck. Now what? Shao starts walking toward the barriers, and I follow. Perhaps there's another way. Perhaps the guards, there are guards, men in dark uniforms standing at wider gates to the side, will let us explain. I can mime, gesture, make them understand that I am Marcus Valerius Maximus, and I need— I need what? To go home? There is no going home. We're halfway to the gates when I feel it, the feeling I get when a customer's about to pull a knife instead of a coin purse. Something has changed. The crowd is still flowing, still silent, but there's a gap forming around us. People are *looking* now. Not at us, at the space above our heads. The arrows. They can't see them, we've already established this, but something about us. The clothes. The standing still. The not-knowing-where-to-look. Two of the uniformed men have turned toward us. They're not running. They're not drawing weapons. But they're walking like *vigiles* toward a disturbance, and their eyes are on us. I have handled officials before. I know how to stand straight and lie with my posture. But these officials don't speak my language. They don't know my name. And I have a purple arrow floating above my head. Shao has gone very still beside me. I step forward. Just slightly. Enough to put myself between her and the approaching guards. She doesn't move away. The guards are ten paces from us when I see him. On the other side of the barriers, beyond the gates. Standing still while everyone else flows past. Looking directly at us. Lightning-man. His strange clothes catch the ceiling light, throw it back in pieces. He looks tired. Not surprised, though, not even a little. He sees me. The guards. Shao at my shoulder, trembling. His mouth moves. Words I can't hear. Then he raises one hand. Beckoning? Warning? I can't tell. The officials are five paces away now. One of them is reaching for something at his belt. And lightning-man is still watching, still waiting, his hand still raised—

bondsOfTimeBonds of Timebonds-of-timewritestranimestr

The Traveller 01: Ku/苦 Bar

Short photo-stories of the hidden, hard to find, obscure, and off the beaten track. If you see or read anything that you enjoy - please like, boost, follow. Zaps are always welcome! All stories and photos are my own. DM for prints.

plebchainbitcoinnostrartartonnostrwritestrcreatestrnostrlovetravelphotographyartstorystorytellingnostrzapzapsbangkokthailandsiamstrPlebchainBitcoinNostrArtArtOnNostrWritestrCreatestrNostrLoveTravelPhotographyArtStoryStorytellingNostrZapZapsBangkokThailandSiamstr

The Traveller 01: Ku/苦 Bar

Short photo-stories of the hidden, hard to find, obscure, and off the beaten track. If you see or read anything that you enjoy - please like, boost, follow. Zaps are always welcome! All stories and photos are my own. DM for prints.

plebchainbitcoinnostrartartonnostrwritestrcreatestrnostrlovetravelphotographyartstorystorytellingnostrzapzapsbangkokthailandsiamstr

Bonds Of Time - P003: In this together

The girl's face goes pale, then red, then pale again. She clutches her rough yellow robes and stammers out something that sounds like music mixed with fear: "我在哪里？这是什么地方？" I don't understand a word, but I know terror when I hear it. She's backing away from me like I'm a leper. The lightning-clothes man lets out this long, exhausted breath, the kind I used to make when dealing with particularly stupid clients. He looks at me, then at the girl, then shakes his head. The iron beast starts slowing down. That woman's voice comes back, 「新橋、新橋です」this time. The serpent hisses louder and grinds to a stop. Where in the world am I? The doors, sweet Mercury, the doors just slide open by themselves! No slaves, no pulleys, nothing! Lightning-man stands up. He mutters something in... well, I don't know what language that is either. He steps through the magic doors without looking back. The doors start making a warning chime, and suddenly everyone around us surges toward the opening. The girl's eyes dart between me and the exit - she's calculating something. Not just scared. Thinking. That's when I notice the crowd isn't moving randomly. They're flowing around us like water around stones, giving us both a wide berth. Even in their rush, nobody wants to get close to the people with the floating arrows. The girl decides first. She grabs my arm - strong grip for someone so small - and pulls me toward the doors. Smart. Whatever this place is, being trapped in a moving metal box isn't going to help us figure it out. We spill out onto a platform that defies all logic. Stone arches soar overhead like the Pantheon, but the walls are covered in glowing pictures that move and change. People stream past us in rivers, all heading somewhere with purpose I don't understand. The girl releases my arm and starts scanning the crowd with the focused intensity of a hawk hunting mice. The girl's head snaps toward me. She doesn't understand the words, but she caught my tone. She nods once, sharp and knowing, then points upward over my head. I look up where she's pointing, and my blood turns to ice water. There it is - my own purple arrow, hovering three feet above my head like some divine judgment. The girl sees my expression and nods grimly. She understands. "We're being watched," I mutter in Latin. Whatever marked us, we're in this together.

bonds of timebonds-of-timewritestranimestrbondsOfTime

Bonds Of Time - P002: Purple Arrows

The people around me... Jupiter's beard, what are they wearing? Everything's black or gray, like they're all in mourning. Did someone important die? Is color forbidden here? They're all hunched over, staring at these glowing rectangles in their hands. Some are moving their fingers across them, and the light changes. Are they... are they scrying? Reading omens in the glow? I scan the metal beast's innards and freeze. Two of these strange mourners have... by Mars, they have purple arrows floating above their heads! Like divine markers pointing down from the heavens themselves. Nobody else seems to notice. The first is a child-woman, no older than thirteen winters, with the slanted eyes of those silk traders from the far east. But her robes! Yellow like fresh-churned butter with strange knots and loops, the kind of rough cloth we'd dress our field slaves in. Her hair is bound up with wooden sticks, actual sticks! The other... gods preserve me. A man whose very clothes seem possessed by trapped lightning. Blue fabric that shimmers like the finest Damascus steel, with threads of pure light running along every seam like tiny rivers of fire. His arms bear flat obsidian mirrors that flicker with moving pictures. Omens? The underworld itself? "Salvete!" I call out. "Intelligitisne linguam Latinam?" Nothing. The child-woman's eyes go wide as a spooked horse. I try again in Greek: "Χαίρετε! Ἑλληνιστὶ λαλεῖτε?" The entire belly of the beast goes silent. Every last person stops poking their glowing rectangles and stares at me like I've grown a second head.

bonds of timebonds-of-timebondsOfTimeanimestrwritestr

Bonds of Time - P001: The belly of an iron serpent

I wake up, hearing the sound of rain against a window, my head is pounding harder than that night when Decimus got married and we drank till dawn. This bed I'm lying on is so soft, what fabric is this? Not even Syrian silk feels this smooth, I must still be dreaming. No, not dreaming, I must have hit my head pretty hard. And what's this smell? Where in Hades am I? I can hear a melodious voice seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere, 「有楽町、有楽町です」. What did she say? Before I can react, an invisible force throws me to the left, followed by a serpentine hiss that chills my blood. I look around and gasp. I'm trapped in the belly of an iron beast! Standing quickly, the memories flood back. *** Just a few hours ago, I had awakened in my villa on the Aventine to Syrus, the morning light came filtering through the compluvium as it had for thirty seven years. My clients packed the atrium like flowers turning towards the sun, the people, as always depended on me. The daily inquiries were interrupted by Lucius Antonius who arrived with news that changed everything; after a long time waiting, Trajan wished to discuss my aqueduct proposal. I would spend twelve million sesterces to extend Aqua Claudia, the water rights alone would repay the investment tenfold. By evening I was walking home through the velabrum, having secured my fortune and having my legacy carved in stone, and water. But that’s when I saw it. The metal demon with blazing eyes, and a roar like Tartarus itself. No oxen, horses, nor slaves were moving it, and yet its speed was just impossible. The impact lifted me up in the air, and then… darkness followed by that white void and the mysterious figure with perfect Ciceronian Latin telling me not to disappoint him, and that I better be entertaining. *** Now I stumble in this iron serpent's belly, trying to steady myself as it hisses and shudders around me. The sensation of movement is undeniable. By the gods... am I traveling inside this beast?

animestrwritestrbonds of timeBondsOfTime

Bitcoin Investment Week NYC

Where were the plebs?

nostrtravelwritestrplebs