The Prompt Box!

Life Within Music

Rory has set up this prompt box.   Lots of fun challenges to choose from so check out Rory’s blog!  Rory says:

Alienox

Using the piece of music above create and describe an imaginary world called Alienox – think about not just the bigger image but all the details the music symbolises to you.

This song is a very cool instrumental. My challenge was to listen and develop a world called Alienox.

—>This part of the story is introduction for the story. Don’t link up to the song yet.<—

I’m here on Alienox for a vacation from my normal routine on home planet, Earth. Worker’s rights had all but been eliminated on Earth, and each of the worker class was conscripted into 7 days a week, 10-hour days, in our toxic atmosphere until they dropped from body failure through injury, exhaustion, or disease. “Resource failures,” as they were called, were composted in a sterile environment, their physical selves becoming fertilizer to feed the other “resources.” Through birth into privilege, I went straight to administration after college and so my eye was dispassionate to the plight of the resources. Still, I was expected to put in a good 40 weeks of administration a year. The rest of the time I traveled the galaxy checking out the best galactic vacation destinations. Alienox was one of those destinations.

I’d stepped through the portal earlier that day and spent several hours at the first-class beauty spa for the usual treatments from head to toe. I was amazed at how good it felt to get a massage from the marabundan masseuse – I suppose it shouldn’t have been a surprise, as they have two extra sets of arms. I stepped out of the spa feeling refreshed and ready to shop.

Administrators earn an enormous wage on Earth, as finding just the right combination of demoralization tactics to keep the resources under control, but enough moments of encouragement, via potlucks and subliminal piped in muzak, to keep them from giving up all hope takes some measure of skill. I pretty much had a carte blanche credit chip implant expense account. Five department stores and Z333,000,000 credits later and the packages were being portaled back to Earth. I kept out several outfits and had them tubed to the hotel room. I headed back to the hotel and took a brief nap before going out for the night.

OK, now you can listen to the music while reading.

It’s night time on Alienox. It is raining silvery flecked drops. I’m dressed in one of my new outfits, heels clicking on the sidewalk, as my head turns this way and that to take in the sights. Finally, a night club that looks worth checking out,“The Night Swoop.” There’s a short waiting line and soon I’m in. The club has high ceilings. I look up to the throbbing electronica and see extraterrestrials (ETs) pole dancing. Like the masseuse earlier in the day, seeing a dancer with four legs working a pole is entertaining. One in particular sends me “into orbit”. He’s long and lean and traverses the pole like a high-wire performer.

I order a drink and sit, mesmerized. He’s the one. We make steamy eye contact while he dances. I slip my credit chip up against the reader and punch in the numbers to my expense account. He’s mine for the evening.

When the music stops he shimmies down the pole and orders a drink, then comes to sit next to me. When the keyboard techno band starts the next number, we get out onto the floor to work up a sweat – well, I do; he’s already looking sweaty, then I suggest we leave.

We start walking towards the scenic lookout as I hand him a few tabs, then I take a few. Soon it will be Lucy in the Sky. The rain is but a drizzle now and the air is warm.

We reach the crest of the hill and look out over the alien landscape of red sands and tall trees that are illuminated by the 7 moons rising. Psychedelic space lights play in the sky as our bodies are dark silhouettes, dancing to the music in our heads.