Talenkynic remembers Zylmor

The tension inside the bubble of Dromdrevc was exhilirating. After years of painting portraits of politicians and rulers I was alive. My natural artform of landscapes, based only on images created by others on Zylmor or still images captured by what you would think of as photographs but with more depth was despised in the city. My family lived on the far continent in the open, I communicated through mind-talk weekly, mother complained about the dust, father moaned about poverty and my sibs, Tessina and Zeuteronomy chatted about friends I had known, at the time of the genocide I had been exhiled from them for seven of your years and had grown from the child prodigy of eight to an almost fully developed female of fifteen. The last year had been particularly fraught with anxiety to escape as my time of captivity was over as soon as I reached sixteen. Credit-bars were delivered monthly to my life-parents as payment for the enslavement of their youngest child. As a small child Dromdrevc was awe-inspiring, a giant atmospheric bubble guarded against the elements, tall towers of housing units, business blocks and in the centre, a tower of shiny metal that reached up to the very tip of bubble, it was in here, the Royal Campus that I was to live and work. Work, I discovered was not to use my natural talent of reproducing vast canvases of landscsapes from memory or mythology, but was to catalogue an ever increasing number politabubs and the ruling charters. Charters were families who could prove their lineage back to the beginning of time, there were usually three or four clans living in the campus, they were a vain bunch, each portrait was proudly hung in the main concourse and because of their jealousy, repeats were frequent. One man-crown had a portrait booked every season, every colour found in Dromdrevc had been used in his costumes, each one more extravagant than the last as his girth also expanded. It was in his chamber I first heard about the Concavity, and the Galymonter people who yearned the power of Concavity. Galies as they were known had come from the neighbouring planet of Prusson, at first wanting to trade and as the polit-bubble was on seasonal break the Charters met with them and thrashed out a trade route between the peoples but their vanity made them show off the Concavity Orb, and exaggerated the properties of the laws of the index of refraction, with the wave velocities over-rated. I had never believed in the power of the concavity orb and had joined with other non-believers, we met in the concourse only three of us at a time and discussed possibilities. We were the brightest minds on all of Zylmor, punished we felt for being so intelligent by enslavement as children. We pondered on if this was to knock our inquisitive minds to an imaginary block as the tasks we were given numbed us. Piotreya, an inventor of vast electrical circuits spent her time making and changing light sources for the Charters and Yandryl was poet and playwright, he voice could lift you to the highest peak, he wrote ditties for the politabubs and their families so instead of being stirred by his words we slept by them. We had all completed our formal education in our early years while our sibs were still studying, attaining levels of expertise we had mastered at three or four. The Charters did not like us meeting together, so we kept the meeting light, with fake linguistics to suggest a frothy impromptu tryst rather than the reality of theoretical discussions on propulsion, experimentation and the politabubble. Each of my portraits contained a symbol of rebellion to inspire the unruly. Piotreya linked systems together until she had voyeuristic control over the whole subsystem within the bubble ans within each ditty that Yandryl created was one phrase that did not fit but was code for our mini rebellion.

Worry over Tomorrow

Of course sleep evaded me, each time I dipped towards a wave of slowing pulse and regular breathing a thought would pop up causing my heart to race and my stomach to turn. Anxiety is your word for it. I would often get it in Dromdrevc, my mind-speak was of the level hautrev a higher level than the average proponent, although I kept it a secret it meant sometimes I would inadvertently listen to others speaking. I discovered that this wasn't punished making me suspect the Charters and politabub did not know or understand hautrev, the Charters could only mouth speak and the politabubs were suck ups.
It wasn't an easy thing to control, when it first started I still lived with my parents, I was about four and one morning awoke to screeching in my head, simultaneously I heard a boy crying and my parentfem telling her lifemal she was having another baby. Wow what a lot to hear, I also heard that elderfem was coming so I hastened to be dressed and brushed ready to be berated for not being smart/pretty/long/short/thin/fat but at least I would be hygenifresh and in clean clothes. I was having a new sibling, oh and my sibmal was in trouble I had better go and sort him and get him ready for the elderfem barbs.
On a subsequent visit, elderfem told me I had the gift of hautrev. We had gone for a walk along the dust channel near my homeplace. The whirring swirling patterns of the dust at it traveled to the collection point were mesmerising me when elderfem stopped me looked deep in my blue eyes and started to mind-speak whilst watching for my reaction. "You hear things, things you shouldn't, important and non important you hear everything. It will be time soon for your naming and I want you to take the name Talenkynic, it is an ancient word, so ancient that only a few of us know the meaning. It is not used often, but it will be yours"
"Does it mean something, elderfem"
"An irritation, minorfems are an irritation, especially a bright one like you. It's meaning is found in the creation of Zylmor, it means end of world."
"Thank you, well I don't mean thank you but at least I have a name even if it means I endworld"
"Listen to me, you will be going from here one day, an opportunity will form there, but for now that is of no consequence. You need to control the hautrev or you will get caught out, crying over a sib that did not breathe when you weren't told, and getting ready for my arrival these things will find you out. Your talent, Talenkynic needs to be hidden, from everyone, try to ignore the mundane, the tame animals, stupid fools and minormals and fems. We will not talk of this again, you need to implant the name Talenkynic into parentmal's mind, it will be a test - pass it and I will reward you, now go be a minorfem while you can"
Our words on Zylmor were shorter with less meaning than on earth but this was a translation close to the truth because I was there but fantasy too because my mind as everyone's warps over time making the "me" a goody and everyone else baddies. Making us look good when we really should hide in shame.
I think the hautrev is coming back I am getting waves of feelings, not my own, but others, sad people, lost and found people, as I think more on this I don't seem to get many waves of happiness. Earthpeople are a miserable bunch.