posted on Oct, 3 2005 @ 03:08 PM
Ok, this is my first post in Collaborative Fiction. Its a nice and short one, please do continue it.
Post Mortem
It was a relativley warm morning, something around negative 25 degrees Celcius. Prester emerged from under the duvet and fumbled for the bathroom
light. Flashes of a morning frown sprang into his unadjusted eyes as the flourescent light flickered on and off before bathing him in its pale light.
He stared into the mirror and took the moment to observe how pale he was, like a ghost. His face cracked into a sleepy smile and he climbed into the
shower.
"Hey Prester! Great morning is'nt it?"
"Yeah. Fantastic."
"It's great to have an optimist around Prester, you know that? Just makes my day."
"Pleasure's mine."
Prester returned Iaacs chuckle as they sat at an empty table to have their breakfast. The cafetaria became busy every morning at exactly the same
time; 6:50, the latest possible time to still be able to swallow down a breakfast. So ridiculously determined were people to get that extra ten
minutes of sleep into the early hours, that they would happily resign to that Ten to Seven scramble for the porridge. Prester and Isaac liked to
liaise about twenty minutes in advance, enough time for a chat and a good enough spacing to give them some kind of aesthetic seperation from the mass
work force. Both Prester and Isaac managed Ice Displacement teams, which involved coordinating the massive bulldozer-like ice-shovelling machines.
Prester had started out in the project working for Yoma Corp, the company involved in the removal of water from the excevation site. This was before
it was decided that melting the ice was not a good idea, a decision vehemently encouraged by the Netherlands. Apparently the volume of ice which
needed to be extracted was hugely underestimated. After that he was put on board one of the massive bulldozers as technician, one of five required to
drive the 250 ton monsters. He was later upgraded to Team Manager of a group of five of them. Since he had started on the bulldozer, the project had
reached a depth of about 1000 meters and had created an absolutely massive inverted-pyramid shaped hole.
Prester waded through the snow towards the dome-shaped Control Facility, he looked back for a moment at the residential building. He felt like a deep
sea diver in his thich heat-retaining outfit, or like a Telletubbie. He smiled invertedly. Everything was flat, and white, and empty. He could see
noone comming from the mess hall yet, he was alone and could hear nothing but the soft crunch of his boots in the snow, a sighing breeze and his
tranquil breathing. He felt completely alone, but comfortably so. That warm, timeless, sensationless feeling of suspension in the earths mellow
amnion, the feeling of standing in a vast, empty field, with the sun peaking from behind a puffy white cloud, a summer breeze... He inhaled deeply and
whispered to himself,
"Aah Antarctica. Up here you sleep quietly. Who knows what's waiting for us beneath all this white stuff."
He turned around and walked on towards the Control Facility.