Thing I Wrote - 'Work Related Stress'

While I had some down time at the 2nd parent / teacher evening of the year - I had a look though the 'creative' folder of my document file. There were some things in there which I don't really remember writing that I quite enjoyed reading. Mostly they were just fragment of things, mostly starts of stories, but I found this little piece which I remember writing early into the term last year. I thought you might enjoy it in lieu of a drawing.





Work Related Stress

It used to be better. The higher ups will tell you differently, of course – but it was better when things were simpler.

 Used to be it didn’t matter if they saw us. ‘Angels !’ they’d yell, and fall to their knees in quivering supplication, or ‘Demons !’ they’d scream – and they’d turn and run, try to sprint and genuflect simultaneously. In other places there’d be cries of ‘Ghosts!’ or ‘Dragons!’ or ‘Gods!’ – but the end result was the same. They’d run or avert their eyes, and we’d carry on our work. Tending our fields, as the serfs tended theirs.

 Then they got a whole lot smarter.

 Cameras were a bit of a pain. But they were expensive, cumbersome things to begin – by the time one of them could set one up we’d have been long gone. We would only be hear-say, mad-ravings, or at best a tall-tale.

 It seemed like only a blink of an eye, a quick spin around Sol – they were suddenly small, cheap and EVERYWHERE.

 Used to be that visible-spectrum cloaks only had to be used when in or around metropolitan areas. You could take it easy in the deeps of the rural locations, not have to endure the molecule shaking, brain-squeezing, micro-lesion forming misery of the cloaking field, cutting though the composite alloy hull like a sharp saw through bone. And if one or two images did get captured – was it so bad ? There was a high degree of skepticism on the surface. “It’s obviously fake !” and “A clever hoax!’ and ‘Smoke and mirrors !’ and ‘It’s spoon-bending all over again’.

 And then they went and invented film.

Video.

High-definition motion-capture.

 So now – VSC’s on at full-strength for every assignment.

 EVERY.

 ONE.

 Orders from the Federation Core itself.

 ‘Can’t compromise the experiment’ and ‘Widespread panic will ensue’ and ‘internal organic fluids splashed in the streets I tell you’.

 It used to be this job was fun. Still – it won’t be long now before the fleet is here, and me and the rest of the acquisition scouts can move on.

 Hopefully we’ll find somewhere still in it’s pre-historic stage. You know ? Somewhere we can just kick back for a few millennia. Before the harvest begins.

 I can’t wait.