JL: Holiday Blue

Fiction

Holiday Blue

A Novel of Titanic Ennui and Rebirth

MAR/11/23

…

A Crackpot Book

Lynn Lockhart: Publisher

Science-Fiction

…

Dust Cover

Three livestock workers of Sirius are granted a holiday to distant Blue. Meat-hunters each, these toiling souls are tasked with guiding their social betters, the spoiled trophy hunters of The Pliades, all in service to the unquenchable hunger of the Titanic Royals of Dreaming Orion. 6,041 years since the Creators left their chattel to free-range upon lush Blue, three portals open to disgorge as many hunting parties among sloe-eyed billions:

The Titans once seeded Blue with livestock in their own image. Their meat planted, half-scion priest-kings were left behind to raise good meat, to self domesticate the most nutritious stock. For 6,000 years, three Titanic lines have lived in nutritious retirement as Blue was left to thrive. A Cull decreed, the Manna Skiffs bearing three Noble Huntsmen each are guided by Atlas Khron, Pan Khron and Phoenix Khron, the sons of Pheobus Khron, Royal Trapper of Planet Blue.

…

Premise

The Royal line of Rah dwell about Orion, in majestic cities of ether, suffused in amber glow, taking ambrosia from their gardens, the very divine stuff that buoys the deathless soul, their bodies being served milk, meat, blood and innocence by their servants of The Pleades and Sirius. Ageless, deathless, the Scions of Rah have lived thus for 6,000 years, since the seeding of Blue. Waking has grown indistinguishable from slumber—ennui dawns as the curse of Eternity...

The Noble line of Baal dwell about The Pleades, cultivating the bipedal temporaries of Blue, for the milk and flesh that sustain the Royal Titan brain. Long of life, the Scions of Baal, deprived of strife, are driven, in their third generation, steadily mad as ennui clouds the glow of Eternity...

The Common line of Khron, dwell about Sirius, driving, docking, sheering, slaughtering and hunting the temporaries of Blue. Vibrantly renewed in their labors, the 13th generation of Khron, toil on behalf of their betters, Titan in kind, somewhat Blue of mind.

Six thousand years, has Blue lain fallow. Scions of Khron occasionally bring fresh, wild stock to invigorate the herds that nourish Titanry. 6,000 Blue Years since the Titans departed that seeded planet at the end of the spiral arm, Pheobus Khron returns to Sirius with a gaggle of ripe temporary bulls, as tender as calves, as fat as cows; also bearing dire news, that Blue is overrun, that War, Famine and Pestilence, the natural population controls of Blue, have by the fallow herd been overcome, that their idyllic minds are ripe for the brewing of ambrosia for to sustain the Dreaming Scions of Rah; their ruthless adaptations fitting challenges for the pent-up trophy hunters of Baal; their overfed forms fitting quarry for the meat-hunting Blue farmers of Khron.

The Cull is called, and after 6,000 years of dreaming, preening and toiling by the Titans that seeded distant Blue the extra-temporal harvest of mewing humanity is called. For the royals of Rah, the coming feast shall confirm their deification. For the Noble Scions of Baal, the hunt is an ages awaited vacation. For the Common Scions of Khron, the hunt marks a holiday from their grim vocation.

…

For Bob

…

Inspirational Monologue

“Eight-hundred to a thousand head of squealing pigs a day. The hogs had so much guts, all you smelled was pig shit. After two years I could not eat a pork chop. After the fourth year I could not have anything to do with a pig—if I smelled bacon, it smelled like pig shit. Five years in I was done and dusted—couldn’t do it any more. These old nag hens here, they are bred for laying. We will just be slaughtering, hanging and doing breasts and leg—then pressure cooking the shit out of it. It’s the end cycle for that batch right there. Will make good soup stock.”

-Shayne, 8/28/2022, Kamas Valley, Utah

…

Conceived while slaughtering and butchering eleven chicken in two hours, not fifty paces from their home, where a man who gently cared for them for three years placed them in the hands of two giants, who saw in them only a morning’s work.

-8/29/2022

…

Lyric Trajectory

One

-1. Overture Orion

-2. Idyllic Pliades

-3. Toiling Sirius

-4. Temporary Jack

…

Two

-5. Ripe Blue

-6. Holiday Blue