[stylist] DBG (chapter 5)
helene ryles
dreamavdb at googlemail.com
Thu Sep 10 01:44:03 UTC 2009
No I don't want this to be about sexual interaction at all. I just
didn't realise it would be considered in that light. So I'll delete it
now.
Helene
On 10/09/2009, helene ryles <dreamavdb at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Writers Division web site:
>> http://www.nfb-writers-division.org
>> <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org/>
>>
>> stylist mailing list
>> stylist at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> stylist:
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/jbron%40optonline.net
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Writers Division web site:
>> http://www.nfb-writers-division.org
>> <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org/>
>>
>> stylist mailing list
>> stylist at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> stylist:
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/dreamavdb%40googlemail.com
>>
>
More information about the Stylist
mailing list