[stylist] DBG (chapter 5)
helene ryles
dreamavdb at googlemail.com
Thu Sep 10 01:42:46 UTC 2009
I'll delete that bit then.
Helene.
On 10/09/2009, Judith Bron <jbron at optonline.net> wrote:
> Helene, If you want to make this a novel about sexual interaction, do it in
> a conventional manner. A dragon licking her when she has her period? Yuck!
> This is not sexual, just gross. Judith
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "helene ryles" <dreamavdb at googlemail.com>
> To: "A private list for authors" <DB-AUTHORS at tr.wou.edu>; "Writer's Division
> Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 6:56 PM
> Subject: [stylist] DBG (chapter 5)
>
>
> Chapter 5
> The sad fate of Liza Bronze by Shania Krum (Liza’s deaf Nanny)
>
> It was late when the lights started flickering on and off. I went
> to the door to find Liza Bronze. She was sitting on my doorstep with
> her head in her hands.
> I tapped her gently on the shoulder.
> "What’s the matter Liza?" I signed. I wasn't sure she could see me
> through her tears so I repeated my request using tactile sign
> language.
> Liza just shook her head and carried on crying.
> Its several years since I last saw Liza Bronze. The problem is that
> people in Nazdonia hate Dragons. The dragons come here sometimes, and
> sit perch on our roofs, watching us closely. Ever so often a Dragon
> will dive down and snatch one of our villagers. Usually they just
> examine us closely before putting us down again, but some dragons have
> been known to remove a villager’s legs first. As if to add insult
> to injury, the offending dragon stuffs the villager’s pockets with
> Darthrilan currency. They seemed to think that would make it all
> okay.
> We tried telling Liza about this, but she won’t believe us. On her
> last visit my son expressed a desire to join a dragon slaying team.
> Liza got up and started swearing at him. When I told her not to use
> such rude signs around the children she turned and left the house.
>
>
> *** *** ***
>
> I know a lot about Liza Bronze. I was her wet nurse. I can always
> remember her dragon Talmon Bronze's first meeting. I had just put my
> own baby to bed and was taking down my laundry, when this dragon
> swooped down. I was so shocked that I dropped my laundry basket. I
> was about to flee for my cottage when the dragon 'spoke' to me.
> I suddenly visualized a tiny silver-skinned baby in my mind. I
> visualised money and then a question mark. Those images clearly
> didn't belong to me. I know, god alone knows how, that the dragon was
> communicating with me. He was offering me both the baby and the
> money. Such strangeness made me nervous. What did the dragon want?
> The images came again, more persistently this time. I visualized
> myself nursing this baby. Then I visualised money again. Surely the
> dragon wasn't offering me a job? Or was he? The notion was just too
> far fetched to take in.
> The dragon nodded.
> I kept visualising the money. There was a question mark again. Was
> he asking me how much I wanted?
> "A bag of gold every night on the full moon will do" I replied
> sarcastically. I wondered why this big scaly brute was toying with me
> like this for. Why didn't he just hurry up and eat me if that's what
> he wanted.
> I visualised some pure gold nuggets followed by the common nine carrot
> gold; Then a query.
> "I would prefer to be paid in goln. That’s the name of our currency
> here in Nazdonia. I'll do it for 500 goln a month, and no it doesn't
> really have to be handed in on the full moon. Any other day will do
> just fine"
> Next I visualised the dragon swooping down with the baby. I moved
> quickly out of the way.
> I looked round from behind a boulder. The dragon swooped down just as
> he told me he would. He deposited a basket on the ground. Then he
> flew into the air and was gone. I waited a while after that. Partly
> because my legs were shaking so much, but also in case the Dragon was
> hanging about, waiting to pounce on me.
> In the end my curiosity overcame my fear. I darted forward, grabbing
> the basket, and fled back to my cottage, my laundry basket forgotten
> about. I suspected that the dragon maybe lurking, somewhere out of
> sight.
> The grey skinned infant was only a few weeks old. She was wearing a
> pair of Aphakic glasses which were attached to her head with an
> elastic cord. I could feel from her throat that she was screaming her
> little lungs out so I unbuttoned my dress and fed her with my own
> breast milk. Fortunately I still had some milk left over from my
> first born son who had just been weaned.
> This was my very first meeting with Liza Bronze.
>
> *** *** ***
>
> So now Liza was back again, in a lot of distress.
> "Come inside. I will make you some tea," I signed.
> "She wants me to put Nadia in danger! She wants me to send her to
> school, where her mother can come and collect her," Liza signed.
> "Who's she?" I asked. I had some idea who Liza meant, but I just
> wanted to be sure.
> "Beria. She's been threatening me with the truancy officer. She says
> that Nadia needed the company of other children. I gave her a dog.
> That should be enough company for her. Children are cruel you know.
> I never benefited from being with other children..."
> "That's not true. You had lots of friends before Beria took you from
> us. Yes, maybe your sight did get in the way sometimes. People needed
> to sign close to you, instead of at the usual range. Why can't Nadia
> come here?"
> "Everyone is so anti-dragon round here. Besides which, I don't want
> her so far away from me. I'd worry too much"
> "So what do you want then?"
> "I want Beria and Madrella to drop dead!"
> I sighed. Liza can be incredibly childish for a fully grown woman.
>
>
> *** *** ****
>
>
> I can still remember the day that Beria and her bunch of female thugs
> blasted our door down and dragged Liza from our care. She was only
> eight at the time. I'd been teaching her how to read and write and
> she was ever such a bright little girl. She got on really well with
> my sons too. She should have stayed with us. After all she really
> needs to be in the company of other Deaf humans. Not some oversexed
> dragon and a bunch of audist busy bodies. Between that lot Liza got
> really screwed up.
> Beria's one of those Audist types that look down on our language and
> all deaf that use it. I could sense that from the beginning. She
> really didn't approve of the Dragon's choice of Nannies.
> It makes me wonder who's running whom.
> Liza’s aunt’s Arielle and Beria came regularly at one stage. We
> didn’t mind Arielle’s visits since she can sign and she often
> commented on how well Liza was doing. Beria’s visits were another
> matter altogether. She just came to ensure that Liza Bronze used
> her hearing aids. She also insisted that Liza get to meet her
> parents.
> I hated Liza's father even before I knew about the way he had sold his
> child to the dragons. What kind of parent does a thing like that?
> He's even more of an Audist then Beria. He has this poor deafblind
> wife whom he forces to lip-read by a method known as Tadoma. I could
> tell she found communication a major struggle. She was the saddest
> creature I ever met.
> I didn’t pity her because of her deafblindness. We have blind and
> deafblind people here at Nassoli too. They are sad at first, but
> they get used to it eventually. I'm sure Liza's mother Mona would
> have adapted too but her husband wouldn't let her. He resisted any
> attempts to send anyone round to teach her any blind skills, even when
> his own family tried to help.
> Arielle and I decided the kindest thing anyone could do with Mona was
> to rescue her. We didn't expect to keep her with us indefinitely, but
> she needed to learn how to adapt to her deafblindness. It was
> especially important for Mona to learn how to communicate in sign
> language since Mona had another deafblind daughter called Monika.
> Snyder runs a business selling enchanted prosthetic legs. So we sent
> an amputee round to ask about the sale of prosthetic legs. Of course
> he wasn't really interested. Snyder's legs are well above his price
> range. While he was busy talking to him, I slipped in with a fader
> that Liza’s aunt Arielle had hired for me. They are useful little
> folks when you want to become invisible, even though a lot of them end
> up going mad. After experiencing invisibility it's understandable.
> We kept Mona, Monika and Liza together for just over a week. We were
> teaching them tactile sign language first. That had to be a priority
> since Monika was severely delayed. She was eleven years old without
> any language skills at all. We were hoping to move on to braille and
> mobility skills after that.
> Snyder called the police on us. Not only did they take Mona and
> Monika from us but they took Liza as well.
>
> *** *** ***
>
> Five years later Arielle brought Liza back to us.
> We were overjoyed to see her again and Liza seemed really happy to be
> with us too. I could tell she appreciated being signed to, instead
> of being spoken to and expected to lip read all the time.
> Unfortunately she had already fallen behind. Her signed vocabulary
> was that of younger child since she had nobody to practice NSL with,
> except her aunt Arielle, who stopped seeing Liza regularly, after her
> eldest son Pyre was born.
> Liza had a social awkwardness about her, of a child that is used to
> being on their own for most of the time. I would have made
> allowances, but you know what teenagers are like. Her old friends had
> grown apart and they didn’t have much patience with her. Hearing aids
> were still very bulky things in those days and the other children made
> fun of Liza for wearing them. (We don't bother with hearing aids round
> these parts. Everyone here can sign, so we don't need them.)
> One girl tried to show her more tolerance, but she freaked out when
> Liza started talking about how much she loved her dragon, and what
> they did together. Liza told the girl that she never bothered wearing
> any clothes when she and Talmon were alone together. She liked it
> when Talmon licked her clean, especially when she was having a period.
> (I think it was that kind of talk that persuaded Arielle to bring
> Liza back to us in the first place).
> After the girl expressed her disgust, Liza reacted by thumped her and
> storming off into the desert. We had to send a search party out after
> her to no avail. Years later we were told that Beria had found her
> and taken her back to Talmon Bronze. We would have appreciated it if
> someone had told us that Liza was okay, as we were all beside
> ourselves with concern.
>
> Since then we’ve only seen Liza a few times for very brief visits.
> She grows stranger by the day. Saying anything in the least bit
> negative about Talmon often resulted in Liza storming off in a Tizzy.
> I can't stop the villagers from speaking their minds on this matter.
> Liza doesn't like this so she rarely ever comes.
> I worry a lot about Liza, being in a foreign country with all those
> dragons. She seems to have been shut out on the other side of the
> fence with nothing to replace us with, except some large scaly beast.
>
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