WeWriWa – clocks and calendars

Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.

 

Continuing a scene from The Long Dark in Mikey’s point of view. Mikey is trying to make sense of the adults’ conversation over dinner.

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Of course, he knew all about orbital mechanics. The world--his world--spinning on its side, one pole facing the sun, then the other. Orbital period thirteen Earth standard years, axial rotation thirty Earth standard hours. Odd. Clocks were set to the Elysium day/night cycle, and yet the calendar was tied to Earth standard. When people talked about a year they meant an Earth year, not Elysium. Why the inconsistency? An anomaly, but not interesting enough to pursue right now.

Here was the relevant bit. People on the surface forever chasing summer, escaping the deep freeze that came with long years of darkness at this latitude.  

That’s ten sentences. The scene continues ...  

Hence the trek. The migration from autumn in one hemisphere to spring in the other, then back again after another six years. 

It made logical sense, but Mikel baulked at the implications. Leaving his home. Leaving familiarity and security behind. On an intellectual level, he could understand the idea of other towns, other domes with other rooms, but he couldn’t picture it. Couldn’t place himself there. His home was here. 

This was what he’d locked away. This had happened before. He was fourteen years old now. Earth standard years, that is. He would have been maybe eight then. It figured. He couldn’t remember much from then, but the terror had been real enough to leave its mark.

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