Sime~Gen Roleplaying: District Controller's Office Scenario
Episode #124: Disorderly (12/28/99)
Homer stands in the park in the dead of night.
Homer has searched the whole city without finding a better location to perform the Rebirth Ceremony.
Homer pauses before a small cave formed by a jumbled pile of boulders.
Homer enters the cave. In the small hollow is a stone table.
Homer sets his pack of ceremonial gear down on the table, zlinning only by the light of his own nager in the darkest season of the year.
Homer opens the pack and takes out the ritual items he will require.
Homer removes all his clothes and folds them on the table, leaving only his belt of power which has his dried umbilical cord sewn into its leather seams.
Homer meditates, centering himself.
Homer begins the ceremony.
Homer: I wait in darkness.
Homer: I wait in empty space.
Homer: Here in the womb of the earth.
Homer assembles a small pile of charcoal and tinder in the center of the stone table.
Homer strikes a light.
Homer: Here I strike a spark.
Homer: Here I make a fire.
Homer: Safe in the strength of the earth.
Homer waits until the fire is burning well.
Homer sets a pottery bowl on the flames.
Homer pours the bowl half full of water.
Homer empties the powdered contents of a small sack into the bowl and stirs it.
Homer: I pour the blood of the mother.
Homer: I stir the fluids of rebirth.
Homer leaves the substance to cook.
Homer takes colored chalks from his sack.
Homer goes to the west wall of the cave and marks a symbol there.
Homer: Life calls to me and I see the light of the fire
Homer goes and marks a symbol on the north wall.
Homer: Life calls to me and I feel the touch of the wind
Homer marks a symbol on the east wall.
Homer: Life calls to me and I hear the laughter of the water.
Homer marks a symbol on the south wall.
Homer: Life calls to me and I know the power of the earth about me
Homer returns to the fire again and stirs the bowl, which is now boiling and steaming.
Homer: I rest in the comfort of the womb.
Homer: But the world calls me.
Homer drinks down the contents of the bowl.
Homer grimaces, trying not to get sick at the powdered peyote, crumbled mesquite and other potent substances in the mixture.
Homer: I drink the milk of the mother.
Homer: Life awakens in me.
Homer marks the doorway to the cave with a symbol representing a rainbow.
Homer: I wait in the navel.
Homer: Mystery beckons.
Homer: The rainbow marks my path.
Homer: I pause on the threshold of the infinite.
Homer waits in the doorway, meditating, until he sees the slight glimmer of light out the door become the rainbow path to the spirit world.
Homer: The time has come.
Homer: I emerge into the world of endless possibility.
Homer: I am born.
Homer follows the rainbow out the door, emerging from the cave.
Homer steps into a fog of multi-colored lights.
Homer sees no sign of the cityscape of Capitol. Instead, he can make out the indistinct outline of jumbled boulders.
Homer sees the sky overhead brighten until the rainbow lights beat down intensely.
Homer wipes the sweat from his forehead.
Homer feels a dark shadow pass over him.
Homer suddenly is snatched up in the huge talons of a giant eagle.
Homer is carried up into the air to a tremendous height. The heat increases as he rises.
Eagle croaks with glee.
Eagle drops Homer.
Homer hurtles to the ground, only to be caught before he reaches bottom by a network of ropes.
Homer writhes in agony, for the ropes are attached to dozens of sharp hooks that pierce his chest and back.
Homer hangs suspended from a tree with no leaves, blood dripping down his sides.
Homer feels the light and heat beat down on him.
Homer recognizes the occasion of the Sundance Ceremony he endured at the age of five.
Homer: Hey! This isn't right! This is the Winter solstice!
Eagle alights.
Eagle is a huge, red bird of prey the size of a grizzly bear.
Eagle screams at Homer.
Eagle: You dare to call yourself a shaman?
Homer blinks at the Eagle.
Homer: Father?
Eagle transforms himself into a powerful Sime with keen dark eyes, an arrogant stance and black hair braided and decorated a headdress of red-dyed feathers.
Eagle: You're a disgrace.
Eagle: A child.
Homer: No I'm not. I'm grown up now. Sime as you knew I would be.
Eagle laughs raucously.
Eagle: Look again.
Homer looks down at himself. He is Sime no longer, but a child, just as he was when he truly hung for three days from a tree without food or water.
Black Stallion appears silently, opposite the Eagle.
Homer: I am a shaman! The ceremony brought me here! I have the power.
Eagle turns to look at the Black Stallion, greed lighting his eyes.
Eagle: Come closer, pretty one.
Black Stallion also turns into a Sime, tall and dark-eyed and arrogant, with the stallion's wild black mane.
Arat: He is a man, and he is mine now.
Eagle starts in surprise.
Eagle: He is my worthless son, but no one takes what is mine.
Eagle clenches his fist and a whip appears there.
Arat: You are dead and lost. He is mine forever.
Arat seems swept by a wind that does not touch the others.
Eagle: He is a coward and a traitor, as are you.
Eagle: Flee, dog, before I beat you.
Arat's dark eyes seem to burn.
Arat: Try.
Eagle uncoils the whip and strikes Arat.
Arat dissolves into hundreds of black birds.
Crows fly up into an increasing gale, as black clouds move across the burning sun.
Eagle stares about in dismay, unable to track all of the fluttering forms.
Crows: Run, Homer, Run, Run!
Crows: [hundreds of cawing voices]
Eagle cracks his whip ineffectively at empty air.
Crows circle about them with increasing speed.
Homer struggles with the ropes and hooks that hold him captive.
Twister forms of the black feathers of the crows, nebulous but tightening and strengthening.
Homer remembers the discipline of the Sundance and tears the hooks from his body, careless of the pain.
Homer drops to the ground, a mass of bleeding wounds.
Eagle croaks in fear at the sight of the Twister.
Eagle changes shape again to become a huge, red-feathered bird and tries to leap for the sky.
Twister envelops the Eagle.
Eagle is torn to pieces and scatters in a cloud of reddish mist.
Homer painfully drags himself up from the ground when he fell.
Homer stumbles forward.
Homer sees the lights above him grow cooler, dimmer.
Homer leaves the jumbled rocks behind and moves towards the distant sound of water gurgling.
Homer can see through the mists the silhouettes of tall stands of corn growing on either side of him.
Homer leaves a trail of blood as he stumbles forward through the field.
Black Stallion forms behind Homer and follows him silently.
Black Stallion's hooves do not touch the ground, leaving the blood unmarred on the furrows.
Homer gazes behind him in fear and wonder.
Homer: (to Stallion) Thank you.
Homer continues onward.
Homer reaches the spring.
Stars shine down upon the corn.
Homer sees a huge green and yellow parrot with glistening feathers perched on the edge of the spring.
Corn Spirit preens its curlicued feathers.
Corn Spirit twists its head around to look at Homer.
Corn Spirit: Come. Drink.
Homer recognizes the mythical figure of the Corn Spirit, power of water, life and growth.
Homer bows before her.
Homer: Thank you, Mother.
Homer drinks from the spring.
Homer's wounds begin to knit together and heal.
Homer falls to the ground, clutching his abdomen.
Homer is in change-over.
Homer feels the stages progress at lightning speed, his forming tentacles struggling for release.
Corn Spirit straightens on her perch, spreading her wings that glow green as corn stalks and gold as the tassels of corn silk.
Homer's tentacles break out.
Homer throws himself at the Corn Spirit, desperate for selyn.
Corn Spirit gives transfer to Homer and vanishes in an incandescent whirlwind of energy.
Arat: Homer.
Arat's face appears giant and hazy in Homer's view.
Homer sits up and stares dazedly at Arat.
Arat zlins Homer, then shakes his head.
Arat: Give us a moment. [to somebody over his shoulder]
Arat's nager continues its manipulation of Homer's trying to stimulate him into consciousness and attention.
Arat's hands are squeezing Homer's upper arms.
Homer notices an odd change in the nature of his perceptions.
Homer wonders if he is still on the same spirit plane or if he has passed to another dimension of reality.
Arat: Come on, Homer, wake up now.
Arat looks remarkably like somebody who was hauled away from his routine at 4 AM to rescue somebody from the law.
Arat in fact was, sort of... except that a friend of his on the local law enforcement figured out who Homer was and got word to Arat before anything got down on paper.
Homer focuses on Arat, recognizing the Black Stallion from the corn field, but somehow the expression in the eyes is different, more irritable.
Homer: Thank you.
Arat does not want to contemplate what would happen to his career if Homer was all over the front page of the tabloids tomorrow.
Arat: Yes, all right. You're going to be fine.
Arat little realizes what Homer is actually thanking him for....
Homer sees the world settling down to a more normal pattern of perception and suspects that he has been successfully reborn.
Arat turns to speak to somebody again; somebody just outside of the small room they're in.
Arat: Yes, I'll take him. Just one moment.
Arat turns back to Homer.
Arat mutters something to himself about getting out of bed certain days.
Arat: [and how it isn't worth it]
Arat: We should go, before anybody else sees you.
Homer feels nothing but gratitude for the spirit who championed him through the maze of infinite possibility.
Homer: Yes. It is done. The circle is complete.
Arat thinks he really does not need this.
Arat however simply nods and starts to help Homer up.
Homer stands, ready to follow the Black Stallion anywhere.