over the mountains of the moon-part 2
fiction
edward w pritchard
see part 1 previous post
Now in addition to the half dozen tests we take a day to detect various forms of poisoning from the environment here on the moon, we will soon start an expression scan. Next Wednesday will be my first one. It's like the old lie detector test used on earth in the past. The expression scan is the latest thing to be given to us employees here on the moon by the corporation to cut down on stealing and other lucrative illegal activities.
The test is delivered by artificial intelligence, Ghe level six [ see previous posts same author June 22, 10]. These highly developed computers scan the human face and based on a library of thousands of stored human facial responses trying to detect or predict illegal activities by employees.
I called by satellite a couple of the boys from the gang I was in back in Chicago on earth for advice. Think of your parents having sex during the expression scan my old mates say. It's supposed to be a sure fire way to fool the computers. Maybe I will try, I need to do something. I would hate to lose this job as a dozer operator on the Mountains of the Moon.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
ten year sentence- finale
ten year sentence- finale
fiction
edward w pritchard
note see willie tucker's blues June blog
To Sharon Evans
Seven Stories West Apt #78
9782 Michigan Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 009009876
Dear Ms. Evans:
We regret to inform you of the death of your friend patriot and space explorer William Tucker on the moon Europa, a satellite of Jupiter. Willie was doing top secret work and was killed in volcanic activity caused by a storm on nearby Jupiter.
Please accept your countries sympathies and gratitude as you mourn his passing.
Enclosed is the proceeds of Mr. Tucker's life insurance proceeds of which you are the sole beneficiary. Mr.Tucker's personal effects should arrive for you from Europa in about six months.
You can be proud of Willie, Ms. Evans for the work he was involved in is critical to future space exploration and as his section head we will miss Willie's willingness to do what it took to get the job done here on Europa.
Solace and Peace be with you,
Antonio Craventz
section head
Europa exploration unit 24
END
fiction
edward w pritchard
note see willie tucker's blues June blog
To Sharon Evans
Seven Stories West Apt #78
9782 Michigan Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 009009876
Dear Ms. Evans:
We regret to inform you of the death of your friend patriot and space explorer William Tucker on the moon Europa, a satellite of Jupiter. Willie was doing top secret work and was killed in volcanic activity caused by a storm on nearby Jupiter.
Please accept your countries sympathies and gratitude as you mourn his passing.
Enclosed is the proceeds of Mr. Tucker's life insurance proceeds of which you are the sole beneficiary. Mr.Tucker's personal effects should arrive for you from Europa in about six months.
You can be proud of Willie, Ms. Evans for the work he was involved in is critical to future space exploration and as his section head we will miss Willie's willingness to do what it took to get the job done here on Europa.
Solace and Peace be with you,
Antonio Craventz
section head
Europa exploration unit 24
END
ten year sentence part 8
ten year sentence part 8
fiction
edward w pritchard
There is no water on Europa as far as I can see. Still we toil on digging the tunnels to divert water from the source to the base camp, should water ever be found. Money is flowing in from the earth because of the IPO's. Over 15 trillion dollars have been raised. We dig and plan for the water to support the large colonies and the investors bid up and up the IPO's based on water that may not exist. The work is excruciating and very dangerous. Europa is unstable geologically and there have been several deaths.
It was a minor quake that killed my three friends of the crew of the India team. All were killed a few weeks ago when a shaft collapsed. I was on the surface driving a debris removal vehicle and was injured but after twenty five stitches I am fine. My friends are gone however and now I am stuck alone on Europa and have been reassigned to the Italian crew.
I have started to write and sing the blues again in my bunk on my day off. I think Europa is worse than Io, if that's possible. Sometimes I remember how Lalia looked in that leotard. Shuim and Poj are gone too of course. An interesting phenomena about Europa is that my harmonica has a very soulful echo when I play the blues here. It's probably because of the winds caused by the gravitational irregularities because of proximity to Jupiter.
fiction
edward w pritchard
There is no water on Europa as far as I can see. Still we toil on digging the tunnels to divert water from the source to the base camp, should water ever be found. Money is flowing in from the earth because of the IPO's. Over 15 trillion dollars have been raised. We dig and plan for the water to support the large colonies and the investors bid up and up the IPO's based on water that may not exist. The work is excruciating and very dangerous. Europa is unstable geologically and there have been several deaths.
It was a minor quake that killed my three friends of the crew of the India team. All were killed a few weeks ago when a shaft collapsed. I was on the surface driving a debris removal vehicle and was injured but after twenty five stitches I am fine. My friends are gone however and now I am stuck alone on Europa and have been reassigned to the Italian crew.
I have started to write and sing the blues again in my bunk on my day off. I think Europa is worse than Io, if that's possible. Sometimes I remember how Lalia looked in that leotard. Shuim and Poj are gone too of course. An interesting phenomena about Europa is that my harmonica has a very soulful echo when I play the blues here. It's probably because of the winds caused by the gravitational irregularities because of proximity to Jupiter.
ten year sentence part 7
ten year sentence part 7
fiction
edward w pritchard
The team is intact and in a few hours we will be landing on Europa. The company enticed Lalie to come to Europa by making her project head of our section. Shuim was told if he spends three months helping set things up on Europa he will get the remainder of his ten years as accelerated credit. He jumped at that, his chance to get out of the hell of Io, and get back to earth. Once we got on the ship however, Shuim is having forebodings that we will all die on Europa. I continue to have the dreams about the volcano at Pompeii in 79AD back on earth. However, we all have got a huge raise and Lalie calls the water project on Europa the most important engineering project since the Roman aqueducts. That's an interesting choice of imagery given my dreams of Pompeii.
end part 7
fiction
edward w pritchard
The team is intact and in a few hours we will be landing on Europa. The company enticed Lalie to come to Europa by making her project head of our section. Shuim was told if he spends three months helping set things up on Europa he will get the remainder of his ten years as accelerated credit. He jumped at that, his chance to get out of the hell of Io, and get back to earth. Once we got on the ship however, Shuim is having forebodings that we will all die on Europa. I continue to have the dreams about the volcano at Pompeii in 79AD back on earth. However, we all have got a huge raise and Lalie calls the water project on Europa the most important engineering project since the Roman aqueducts. That's an interesting choice of imagery given my dreams of Pompeii.
end part 7
ten year sentence part 5
ten year sentence part 5
fiction
edward w pritchard
I have been having lucid reoccurring dreams about Pompeii back on earth and how Mount Vesuvius destroyed the towns around the volcano in 79AD. I think the dreams our prophetic. They had aqueducts back in Roman Italy that supported life in waterless places and allowed Pompeii and the other towns around the bay of Neapolis to grow to large populations. The dreams started after Poj introduced me to speculating on the water futures here. There is an incredible amount of money to be made and information about water prospects here is very valuable. Of course its illegal for us workers to trade on inside information, but many do including Poj. The dreams i am having are, I think, my internal conflict caused by the money to be made versus following the rules.
There are lots and lots of new people coming to Io. Prices are skyrocketing and my salary is not keeping up with price increases here. The other crew members have been subsidizing me. They buy lots of the food we eat which is very expensive because they try to have non processed items, extremely difficult in space, even just back on the earth's moon. I haven't been saving money having forgotten about Sharon more or less. I had a date of sorts with Lalie. She read to me from the Upandishads in ancient hindu and then translated into English, and I wrote a blues song about it. She says that intelligence of the type she has is common but I have a talent for originality which is uncoventional. She wore blue jeans and a sweat shirt on our date and I think I like her better in that than in her colorful clothes, but thats too close to call.
Work here is awful. It's cut throat and the regulations cannot be met collectively but individually now and then someone has to take a fall to maintain the illusion of order and stability. The water project is generating an incredible amount of speculative interest back on earth. There are lots of Wall Street business types looking around while we work in the field. Some guys from the commodity exchanges in Chicago gave me some pizza from home when they learned I was from Chicago. Man that was good. I was offered $250 for a slice at the poker game but I shared it with our crew instead and ate the other whole piece myself.
These dreams about Roman Pompeii are interesting. I think I am intuiting things I have never heard of or read. Pompeii according to my dreams was a hot bed of business speculation and corruption just before the erruption in 79AD. I see in my dreams things in Pompeii that are similar to here. The water project and the aqueducts are parellels and the erruption of the volcano and the suffering it caused might have a prophetic interpetation here.
Poj has been smuggling information back to earth in the programming about the water projects that he compiles for the company. Apparently the water project is so valuable because we are the prototype for all future space stations and some intangible value from each future project throughout the solar system must be factored into our possible outcomes. I have a lot to learn and I have been skipping sleep and reading and studying to educate myself. Skipping sleep also cuts down on the dreams which are quite disturbing.
end part 5
fiction
edward w pritchard
I have been having lucid reoccurring dreams about Pompeii back on earth and how Mount Vesuvius destroyed the towns around the volcano in 79AD. I think the dreams our prophetic. They had aqueducts back in Roman Italy that supported life in waterless places and allowed Pompeii and the other towns around the bay of Neapolis to grow to large populations. The dreams started after Poj introduced me to speculating on the water futures here. There is an incredible amount of money to be made and information about water prospects here is very valuable. Of course its illegal for us workers to trade on inside information, but many do including Poj. The dreams i am having are, I think, my internal conflict caused by the money to be made versus following the rules.
There are lots and lots of new people coming to Io. Prices are skyrocketing and my salary is not keeping up with price increases here. The other crew members have been subsidizing me. They buy lots of the food we eat which is very expensive because they try to have non processed items, extremely difficult in space, even just back on the earth's moon. I haven't been saving money having forgotten about Sharon more or less. I had a date of sorts with Lalie. She read to me from the Upandishads in ancient hindu and then translated into English, and I wrote a blues song about it. She says that intelligence of the type she has is common but I have a talent for originality which is uncoventional. She wore blue jeans and a sweat shirt on our date and I think I like her better in that than in her colorful clothes, but thats too close to call.
Work here is awful. It's cut throat and the regulations cannot be met collectively but individually now and then someone has to take a fall to maintain the illusion of order and stability. The water project is generating an incredible amount of speculative interest back on earth. There are lots of Wall Street business types looking around while we work in the field. Some guys from the commodity exchanges in Chicago gave me some pizza from home when they learned I was from Chicago. Man that was good. I was offered $250 for a slice at the poker game but I shared it with our crew instead and ate the other whole piece myself.
These dreams about Roman Pompeii are interesting. I think I am intuiting things I have never heard of or read. Pompeii according to my dreams was a hot bed of business speculation and corruption just before the erruption in 79AD. I see in my dreams things in Pompeii that are similar to here. The water project and the aqueducts are parellels and the erruption of the volcano and the suffering it caused might have a prophetic interpetation here.
Poj has been smuggling information back to earth in the programming about the water projects that he compiles for the company. Apparently the water project is so valuable because we are the prototype for all future space stations and some intangible value from each future project throughout the solar system must be factored into our possible outcomes. I have a lot to learn and I have been skipping sleep and reading and studying to educate myself. Skipping sleep also cuts down on the dreams which are quite disturbing.
end part 5
ten year sentence part 4
ten year sentence part 4
fiction
edward w pritchard
Every 50 miles on the water line there is a respite station. I have been filling in and training with a crew from India. Countries on earth each have a small portion of the water line assigned to them to dig and maintain. The nationalities are fiercely jingoistic and it was a miracle that me as an American was accepted on the four man team from India. We were in the respite area having a drink and a Scottish team was making sexual remarks against Lalie one of the team and I lost my temper and threatened them. Those guys are intimidating, they play rugby back at the Station on the cement floors where I worked before and they are always lifting weights. Fighting is very expensive here if you are caught but it was more like the posturing that animals do. Sometimes I don't think first and I won the crew from India's respect and they ask me to be on the team. They are the intellectuals of the crews and I am a little lost with their conversations but they look out for me now that I am one of them.
I have been fantasizing about Lalie. She wears a lot of flowing clothes very brightly colored. Her family on earth is very wealthy and she is here just for one year. She is a management trainee of sorts and is spending the six months on the water line so she can apply the techniques to other planets and moons in the solar system.
When we were changing into our suits to work outside on the line, Lalie changed in front of me wearing only a leotard. I can't get that image out of my mind. Shuim one of the other members of our team says its the effect on my nervous system of the winds, which are very strong. I think it's just I haven't seen many women in the last twenty six months. The few women of the assertive management types of females here don't interest me. Lalie talks very softly, and is intelligent and ladylike. She gave me two plums for helping her. They are priceless here. I enjoyed them and later found out they were grown on the last transport from earth hydroponically in an experiment to later produce food on the moons of Saturn, which is Lalie's next assignment.
Shuim has been teaching me Chinese karate. He used to be a psychological examiner before he cracked up one day and now is finishing out his ten year term working on the water crew. He is extremely bright and we are now friends although I call him Schopenhauer like the philosopher from earth because of his pessimism. He calls Io hell. He is coaching me on how to pass my next psychological exam. He says life is an illusion and I am just adapting to my environment here by having odd thoughts. Shuim says when he arrived here nine years ago fifty percent of the crews went home because of the volcanic activity which exacerbated the effect of the rocks on the emotions and intellect and the winds on the nervous system. He said he had some bizarre dreams for years after the volcano's stopped. Now he just wants to finish his ten years.
The fourth member of the team from India is Poj. He is a gambler and we have went to some of the games at the respite stations together. More on that later.
end part 4
fiction
edward w pritchard
Every 50 miles on the water line there is a respite station. I have been filling in and training with a crew from India. Countries on earth each have a small portion of the water line assigned to them to dig and maintain. The nationalities are fiercely jingoistic and it was a miracle that me as an American was accepted on the four man team from India. We were in the respite area having a drink and a Scottish team was making sexual remarks against Lalie one of the team and I lost my temper and threatened them. Those guys are intimidating, they play rugby back at the Station on the cement floors where I worked before and they are always lifting weights. Fighting is very expensive here if you are caught but it was more like the posturing that animals do. Sometimes I don't think first and I won the crew from India's respect and they ask me to be on the team. They are the intellectuals of the crews and I am a little lost with their conversations but they look out for me now that I am one of them.
I have been fantasizing about Lalie. She wears a lot of flowing clothes very brightly colored. Her family on earth is very wealthy and she is here just for one year. She is a management trainee of sorts and is spending the six months on the water line so she can apply the techniques to other planets and moons in the solar system.
When we were changing into our suits to work outside on the line, Lalie changed in front of me wearing only a leotard. I can't get that image out of my mind. Shuim one of the other members of our team says its the effect on my nervous system of the winds, which are very strong. I think it's just I haven't seen many women in the last twenty six months. The few women of the assertive management types of females here don't interest me. Lalie talks very softly, and is intelligent and ladylike. She gave me two plums for helping her. They are priceless here. I enjoyed them and later found out they were grown on the last transport from earth hydroponically in an experiment to later produce food on the moons of Saturn, which is Lalie's next assignment.
Shuim has been teaching me Chinese karate. He used to be a psychological examiner before he cracked up one day and now is finishing out his ten year term working on the water crew. He is extremely bright and we are now friends although I call him Schopenhauer like the philosopher from earth because of his pessimism. He calls Io hell. He is coaching me on how to pass my next psychological exam. He says life is an illusion and I am just adapting to my environment here by having odd thoughts. Shuim says when he arrived here nine years ago fifty percent of the crews went home because of the volcanic activity which exacerbated the effect of the rocks on the emotions and intellect and the winds on the nervous system. He said he had some bizarre dreams for years after the volcano's stopped. Now he just wants to finish his ten years.
The fourth member of the team from India is Poj. He is a gambler and we have went to some of the games at the respite stations together. More on that later.
end part 4
ten year sentence part 3
ten year sentence part 3
fiction
edward w pritchard
Things come out different than you expect. I didn't have to pay half for the broken blade. It was not properly maintained. Titanium here is effected by the gravity of Jupiter like everything else and the blade was past it's useful life.
While I was at the hearing I was asked to work on the water project. Top secret but it involves digging a long underground tunnel to bring water from the source to here at the base. The pay is better and it would get me out of here for a while. Maximum term is six months because of the winds which they say effect the nervous system. I said I was interested if the money was right.
While at the hearing the investigator gave me a whole pad of paper. That's very valuable. I told him I like Delta blues and he just gave me the paper and said I should write a song about what it's like here. He has been here seven years and he told me he didn't know if he would be able to finish his ten.
end part 3
fiction
edward w pritchard
Things come out different than you expect. I didn't have to pay half for the broken blade. It was not properly maintained. Titanium here is effected by the gravity of Jupiter like everything else and the blade was past it's useful life.
While I was at the hearing I was asked to work on the water project. Top secret but it involves digging a long underground tunnel to bring water from the source to here at the base. The pay is better and it would get me out of here for a while. Maximum term is six months because of the winds which they say effect the nervous system. I said I was interested if the money was right.
While at the hearing the investigator gave me a whole pad of paper. That's very valuable. I told him I like Delta blues and he just gave me the paper and said I should write a song about what it's like here. He has been here seven years and he told me he didn't know if he would be able to finish his ten.
end part 3
Monday, June 7, 2010
ten year sentence part 2
ten year sentence part 2
fiction
edward w pritchard
It's morning now and the things I wrote yesterday on my day off make me seem a little off. I was just lonely. Today I am starting off with grapefruit I won in a poker game. It's worth $75 here and I am having it for breakfast today with real sugar.
Sharon would never leave me. We have a plan. Ten years, 8 to go, I will only be twenty nine then and I will have made as much as most people make in thirty or forty years if they have a good steady job, which who does anymore back on earth.
I drive a loader here. It's difficult work because of the gravity from Jupiter. Ten hours on and then 8 off and then ten on for 6 days. Then 24 earth hours off. On my break today I am going to write down the blues song I composed last night. I now have written four songs. Some of the others guys say they are pretty good. The company doesn't mind blues as long as they are not political or anti management.
Today I broke a blade. That not good. Sometimes we have to pay half. My supervisor will let me know tomorrow. Jupiter is beautiful today. I can see the storms on the surface. Sometimes I feel like I can tell when a storm is going to happen on Jupiter based on the color of the sky. It's has a strange pinkish glow to the east today.
end part 2
fiction
edward w pritchard
It's morning now and the things I wrote yesterday on my day off make me seem a little off. I was just lonely. Today I am starting off with grapefruit I won in a poker game. It's worth $75 here and I am having it for breakfast today with real sugar.
Sharon would never leave me. We have a plan. Ten years, 8 to go, I will only be twenty nine then and I will have made as much as most people make in thirty or forty years if they have a good steady job, which who does anymore back on earth.
I drive a loader here. It's difficult work because of the gravity from Jupiter. Ten hours on and then 8 off and then ten on for 6 days. Then 24 earth hours off. On my break today I am going to write down the blues song I composed last night. I now have written four songs. Some of the others guys say they are pretty good. The company doesn't mind blues as long as they are not political or anti management.
Today I broke a blade. That not good. Sometimes we have to pay half. My supervisor will let me know tomorrow. Jupiter is beautiful today. I can see the storms on the surface. Sometimes I feel like I can tell when a storm is going to happen on Jupiter based on the color of the sky. It's has a strange pinkish glow to the east today.
end part 2
10 year sentence
10 year sentence
fiction
edward w pritchard
To raise money I am doing a ten year stint here on Io, a Moon of Jupiter, at the mining company Styler and Meserow.
I have been here on Io for two years and the money is very good but the days seem like weeks and relations with company management are very bad.
I worry about Sharon my girl back on earth. I worry that I will end up sterile from the rocks we mine day in and out. The rocks also can make you crazy because of the high frequency waves they emit. Sometimes when I write blues song on my day off I think that the waves are influencing my thoughts and the words I write. I never had a problem like this, with my mind, and of course it could just be the loneliness and isolation, or the intense stress and danger of the mining job I do, or the labor management problems here, or like some of my fellow workers say it could be the waves emitted from the rocks we mine. I am afraid at times I am going crazy.
To save money today on my one day off out of seven I am mostly staying in my bunk. Because of the intense gravity from Jupiter it costs extra to move about the complex other than for work duties. I am trying to save money so I am laying on my bunk, composing blues songs and playing my harmonica. My father was black back on earth and my relatives down in Mississippi on the Delta where a long time ago my relatives brought the blues to Chicago where I was born.
I can lay here on my bunk lonely for Sharon and get into my inner blues. I haven't been drinking tonight which is rare for a day off. I miss Sharon and worry that she will find someone else. Two years and twenty days since I saw her and my groin hurts from the rocks we mine more than it does from missing her. Sometimes I worry I will crack up like others do here regularly. I have my next physical and psychological in 5 weeks. If I don't pass it I get shipped back to earth with a penalty passage fee. That would wipe out about a third of what I have made here so far.
I need the money because jobs are so difficult to get on earth and taxes are outrageous. If I am going to support Sharon in the style she is accustomed to I have to at least make it to the five year mark here; 10,855 days till that. I am working on a song called five year blues now. Sometimes I feel like Sharon can hear my songs that I sing while I lay in my bunk and play my harmonica. No recording devices or radio signals can be sent from Io because of the waves emitted by the rocks we mine. So if that was true that she could hear my songs to her that would be OK, but I have to remind myself not to ever mention that when I take the company physical and psychological.
This job is lousy but I know I can make it five years, maybe ten long years, others have. The money is good here and if I can make it five years I can accomplish some of my goals concerning me and Sharon my girl back on Earth.
end Part 1
fiction
edward w pritchard
To raise money I am doing a ten year stint here on Io, a Moon of Jupiter, at the mining company Styler and Meserow.
I have been here on Io for two years and the money is very good but the days seem like weeks and relations with company management are very bad.
I worry about Sharon my girl back on earth. I worry that I will end up sterile from the rocks we mine day in and out. The rocks also can make you crazy because of the high frequency waves they emit. Sometimes when I write blues song on my day off I think that the waves are influencing my thoughts and the words I write. I never had a problem like this, with my mind, and of course it could just be the loneliness and isolation, or the intense stress and danger of the mining job I do, or the labor management problems here, or like some of my fellow workers say it could be the waves emitted from the rocks we mine. I am afraid at times I am going crazy.
To save money today on my one day off out of seven I am mostly staying in my bunk. Because of the intense gravity from Jupiter it costs extra to move about the complex other than for work duties. I am trying to save money so I am laying on my bunk, composing blues songs and playing my harmonica. My father was black back on earth and my relatives down in Mississippi on the Delta where a long time ago my relatives brought the blues to Chicago where I was born.
I can lay here on my bunk lonely for Sharon and get into my inner blues. I haven't been drinking tonight which is rare for a day off. I miss Sharon and worry that she will find someone else. Two years and twenty days since I saw her and my groin hurts from the rocks we mine more than it does from missing her. Sometimes I worry I will crack up like others do here regularly. I have my next physical and psychological in 5 weeks. If I don't pass it I get shipped back to earth with a penalty passage fee. That would wipe out about a third of what I have made here so far.
I need the money because jobs are so difficult to get on earth and taxes are outrageous. If I am going to support Sharon in the style she is accustomed to I have to at least make it to the five year mark here; 10,855 days till that. I am working on a song called five year blues now. Sometimes I feel like Sharon can hear my songs that I sing while I lay in my bunk and play my harmonica. No recording devices or radio signals can be sent from Io because of the waves emitted by the rocks we mine. So if that was true that she could hear my songs to her that would be OK, but I have to remind myself not to ever mention that when I take the company physical and psychological.
This job is lousy but I know I can make it five years, maybe ten long years, others have. The money is good here and if I can make it five years I can accomplish some of my goals concerning me and Sharon my girl back on Earth.
end Part 1
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