Hi folks.
This is my first post and I will admit that I haven't yet taken the time to read all of the welcome material, but I was keen to get an initial post up here to show my support for the platform. Apologies if I break any rules.
I am an IT professional and cryptocurrency investor, but I really want to be an author. I thought I would share the first part of my first book I am writing. I have the while book planned and have written a fair bit of it.
I haven't shared this anywhere else on the Internet so this is truly unique content. If this works out well, I can post more.
Let me know what you think. Please be gentle. :-)
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Prince Fairfield lay on his back, looking up at the clouds. This was his favourite position as it always made him feel peaceful.
He never knew why his parents had given him that name, he was anything but a Prince. He had asked his parents when he was younger, and his Mother had said, “Oh darling, you just looked like a little Prince, so that is what we called you.” The answer didn’t really provide him with any satisfaction, but that was his name and he had to live with it.
The clouds directly above him were in sky grid 14ab in the section of “The Country” that his family managed. Today the clouds were Altocumulus in this section, his favourite type. They were in groups of fluffy white and grey, but still with plenty of blue sky in between. They were blowing gently from West to East and he could imagine all kinds of shapes and faces and fanciful creatures appearing and disappearing as they blew over his head towards sky grid 14ac.
Prince turned his head to look over towards the Eastern edge of his sky grid, where the clouds he had been watching simply disappeared as they reached the barely visible sky stations which stretched an invisible web of energy between them to control the weather. In sky grid 14ac, the sky was currently clear and blue with the full strength of the noonday sun beating directly down onto the crops beneath.
Turning his head to the West, from this grid he could make out the tall buildings of the City. Many people in families nearer the centre of the Country had never even seen the City, but living this close to the Western edge of the Country, he had always been aware of that wall of buildings. He had never been there, none of them had as they were not allowed. From time to time he and his friends would ride over towards the City and gaze at the tall, blank sided buildings rising above the containing wall. There was no way in or out. The agriculture machines took the final crops and connected to delivery ports in the wall. In return for the continued supply of grain, the City provided the people of the Country with water for themselves and their crops and other conveniences such as electricity and television. It was a good arrangement and it had always been that way.
Looking back up to the sky, Prince wondered what it must have been like before the Sky Grid was created. He tried to imagine a natural sky with similar clouds stretching from horizon to horizon, but he couldn’t. The sky had always been this way to Prince and his 20-year-old brain wasn’t feeling creative enough to imagine it any other way. He was used to the patchwork sky with its differing areas reaching from horizon to horizon. They had been designed in the past by some genius who had calculated the perfect balance of light and dark and rain for each crop. That was all way above Prince’s head though, he lived a simple life, performing the “tweenie tasks”. Most of the agricultural tasks were automated, but the tasks between machines still had to be completed by people. It was too much work to automate the handover processes and that would also limit the upgrades available, so they kept the human element in the process to maintain adaptability. It was physical work, but Prince enjoyed it well enough.
Prince was looking forward to his 21st birthday party tomorrow which, despite his Mother’s efforts, would be anything but a surprise. She had thrown him one every year, a party for her “little miracle”. Prince had three brothers and two sisters, and he was the youngest. The next youngest sibling was his sister Adrielle, and she was 11 years older than him. His mother had been 49 when he was conceived, and she had never expected to bear one more child. She knew he was her last chance to enjoy the motherhood process and she made the most of it.
It may seem likely that Prince could have been hated by some of his older siblings, but he had quickly learned the family politics as he grew up and had displayed an uncanny sense of logic, which often led to him being the peacemaker in the family feuds. The result of this was that he was loved by most of his siblings, except perhaps Chad.
Chad was one year older than Adrielle and Prince had wronged him.
When Prince was 6 and Chad was 18 there had come about a situation. Chad had gotten in with some bad kids from a different grid and they had started stealing from the other villages around them. Prince witnessed Chad coming home in the early hours of the morning one day and had squealed in delight to see his big brother in the middle of the night. Before Chad could react, his parents had come running in and witnessed him standing in the doorway with an armful of stolen goods.
Stealing just wasn’t done in this day and age and his parents were distraught. They tried to help Chad and showed that they still loved him, but the relationships never recovered, and Chad had drifted away. He couldn’t accept that he was at fault, so he settled on Prince as being the source of his woes.
Chad now lived in the next village with his wife and two children, but they met up at family gatherings. Prince had often tried to patch things up with Chad, but Chad hated Prince fiercely. Their Dad had explained to Prince that the alternative was for Chad to hate himself, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. Prince regretted what had happened because he got on so well with his other siblings, but he could never shake the feeling of unfairness, he was 6 at the time for God’s sake. He had long ago realised that he just had to leave it be, but it still niggled at him.
Prince closed his eyes again and squeezed them tight, before relaxing his eyelids. He imagined the negative energy being drawn from throughout his body and being burned up in his middle. It was a trick he had taught himself and it served him well because he felt his mind clearing.
Prince opened his eyes and saw the clouds again. He slowly stretched his long, lean, sun browned body and then stood up in one smooth movement, balancing on the balls of his feet, feeling the breeze flicking his shoulder length blonde hair across his face. He turned his head slowly and caught sight of a dust trail approaching him along the track.
He watched as it drew nearer until he could make out the dots at the front that he knew were some of his friends on dirt bikes. As they drew closer he recognised them. Barry Greeneri was riding the lead bike. Prince and Barry had grown up together in the same village and they had always been friends. His family managed the grid sections to the East of the Fairfields. The Greeneri’s had a large family too and Barry also happened to be the youngest, so they had always had that in common. They had been born within two weeks of each other and Barry was the younger of the two. Barry was a thick set bear of a young man with wide shoulders, thickly muscled limbs, dark, curly hair and piercing blue eyes.
Behind Barry, clinging onto Barry’s middle for dear life, was his girlfriend, Asti Everbloom. They had been going out for 2 years now and were inseparable. She was from a family further East again, beyond the Greeneri’s, and her and Barry had met at a Spring carnival. She was a small, willowy girl with straight, blonde hair that was currently streaming behind them.
Prince turned his attention to the rider of the second bike, it was Meg, Meg Bramble. Prince and Meg had started dating two weeks earlier and Prince still wasn’t sure what to make of Meg. Sometimes families moved around within the Country. It was rare because usually a family felt a kinship with their part of the land, but from time to time it had to happen due to the families becoming too dense in one area and too few in another. The Brambles had moved from clear across the Country, hundreds of miles to the South East. Meg’s skin was slightly darker than Prince’s and she had a strange, slightly exotic accent when she spoke to him with her soft voice.
For two generations, the Greeneris and the Gardiners, the other family from their village, had split the fourth quadrant of land between them. Now that the Brambles had arrived and taken on the role of fourth family, the Greeneri’s and the Gardiner’s workloads had decreased.
Prince and Meg had met at one of the regular gatherings in their village, the first one that the Brambles attended. Prince’s father had stood up and given a speech of welcome to the Brambles and then they had all started mingling. Prince had been tired from a day in the fields, lifting loads of grain from one machine to another, so he was sitting quietly in a corner, looking at the mud on his shoes, when a perfectly turned pair of legs stepped in to view. He slowly raised his eyes from the legs, up across a hard, flat stomach, quickly glanced over a very generous yet pert pair of breasts and found himself staring into the amused face of a pretty girl. Her face was framed with curvy, dark brown hair and her dark mahogany eyes fit perfectly into her dark olive-skinned face.
“I understand we are diagonal neighbours now,” she said.
Prince opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
She leaned down, giving Prince a view that caused the breath to catch in his throat, and took his hand. “Come on, let’s dance.” She dragged him towards the straw covered dance floor.
Prince still hadn’t spoken, but he allowed himself to be drawn into the well-known reel and spun her around and laughed. The men were all still wearing their denim overalls and flannel shirts and the girls had all changed from their work clothes into country dresses which they spun around while they danced. The girl had flicked her skirt backwards and forwards while they danced until they both collapsed onto a bench exhausted.
Prince opened his mouth again. “My name is-”
“Prince,” finished the girl. “Yes, I know, your parents sent me over, and my name is Meg.”
Prince found his mouth hanging open again. “What do you mean, ‘my parents sent you over’?”
Now it was Meg’s turn to look embarrassed. “My parents were just telling your parents that I would need to get to know the other young people and your father turned to me and said, she put on a deep voice, “‘You see that big blonde dummy over there staring at his feet? That’s my youngest son, Prince, and he loves to dance’, so I came over here and the rest is history.”
Over the following couple of weeks, Meg and Prince had spent some time together and they had started dating. Prince wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened, he thought Meg had just taken it for granted. She simply started taking his hand while they were walking together and then one day, on the very hill where Prince was now standing, she had simply straddled him and planted a big kiss on his mouth.
Prince had had other relationships before, but he was usually the dominant partner and it felt strange and oddly liberating to be with someone like Meg who took the lead without even asking. On the other hand, he did feel a bit emasculated and had been intending to assert himself in the relationship more.
Barry slid to a stop to one side and Prince watched Meg coming towards him. For a moment it looked like she wasn’t going to stop, but then he saw gravel flying from her back wheel as her bike skidded sideways towards him. Gravel and dust flew into his face and he fell backwards, finding himself staring up at the clouds again.
Meg stood over him with her hands on her hips. “Always lying around when there’s excitement to be had, Prince,” she said with a smile on her face.
Prince knew it was just a joke and there was no malice, but it stung his pride, so he jumped to his feet, grabbed Meg around the middle and threw her over his shoulder.
Meg screamed in indignation and pounded on his back with her fists, but he dropped her onto the pillion seat of the dirt bike and said, “I’m driving today Meg.”
Barry laughed and winked at Meg. He knew she had been trying to sting Prince into action and had, at last, drawn some confidence from him. Prince had been different since he met Meg, but now Barry saw his best friend resurfacing and he was happy.
“Well, what is this adventure then?” said Prince.
“We’re taking Meg to the Wall,” said Barry and flicked the throttle, whistling away in a cloud of dust.