Ascending - James Alan Gardner [1]
I do not die in this story. Those of you who have looked at the last page—which is only sensible, because you wish to make sure I do not make a long speech telling what lessons I have learned—those who have looked at the end will know that instead of dying, I win everything. I defeat the bad people, am adored by the good people, and get to say, “I told you so,” as freely as I wish.
That is the whole point of being in stories: to have a Happy Ending.
My Technique
When I decided to present my story to opaque persons, I endeavored to learn what chronicling techniques are popular with your kind. My research methods were most diligent…which is to say, I waited for my friend Festina to leave the room, then instructed her computer to show me any documents she had written of a narrative nature.
Therefore, I have discovered that the proper way to write for Earthlings is to divide one’s tale into modestly brief sections with titles at the top, such as My Technique. This is certainly an Effective Literary Device, especially when addressing persons with a short attention span. The technique also helps one skim ahead for sections whose titles seem more exciting than the passage one is supposed to read next. Thus one can jump forward to read Facing A Hellish Maw before coming back to Conversing With A Little Man Whose Sole Amusing Quality Is That He Is Colored Orange.
Most importantly, putting many titles into a story makes it easier to find your place if you happen to use your book to smash an irksome buzzing fly, and you hit the fly so hard that pieces of metal and plastic go shooting out of the book mechanism, so then you are forced to put the story chip into a new reader and you cannot remember where you were.
That happens more often than you might expect.
My Resting Place After I Died
When I woke after my eighty-story plunge, I felt most horrible indeed. Many things inside me hurt worse than they had ever hurt before…which is not saying much, because this was the first time I had been seriously injured, but pain is more dreadful when one is unaccustomed to physical suffering. If I took a deep breath, sharp aches erupted all across my ribs, as if a dozen axes were chopping at me. And behold, I did have an ax pressed against my flesh: a beautiful silver one I have always carried as both weapon and wood-cutting tool. However, the ax was not attacking me in any way; it simply lay on my chest, as if someone had put it there after I fell.
To be honest, I was glad to have the ax with me—it provided a sense of protection. For a brief moment, I tried to cuddle the blade more snugly to me as if it were a pet or a toy…but the pain of moving my arms made my vision blur with tears. Every muscle felt bruised to a pulp; I wondered what bruised glass looked like, but knew if I lifted my head to see, the agony would be more than I could bear.
Therefore, I just lay where I was. It happened to be a hot pleasant place to lie, with an abundance of soothing light. I am such a one as absorbs many wavelengths outside the visible spectrum. Radio waves, X rays, and gamma particles are like vitamins to me, while infrared and ultraviolet are basic food groups. (I also eat real food, as produced by the synthesizing machines found in every community of my world. But when I am not having Adventures, I can survive quite well on nothing but sunshine, provided I get a little rain as well.)
Where I was lying, I felt a light spray of water from time to time. I opened my mouth and let the drops trickle down my throat. The water tasted slightly of minerals that were probably good for me.
The light and water and minerals indicated I was in a Home for Ancestors.