For a woman of my culture there used to be only three directions she could turn: to the Church as a nun, to the s treets as a prostitute, or to the home as a mother. Today some of us have a fourth choice: entering the world by way of education a nd career a nd becoming self-autonomous persons. A very few of us.
As a working class people our chief activity is to put food i n our mouths , a roof over our heads a nd clothes on our backs. Educating our children is out of reach for most of us. Women are made to feel total failures if they don't marry and have children.
Se te va a pasar el tren. St, soy hija de la Chingada. I ' ve always been her daughter. No 'tes chingando. Humans fear the supernatural, both the u ndivine the animal impulses such as sexuality , the u nconscious, the unknown, the alien and the divine the superhuman, the god i n us. Culture a nd religion seek t o protect us from these two forces. The female, by virtue of creating entities of flesh a nd blood i n her sto mach she bleeds every month but does not die , by virtue of being in tune with nature's cycles, is feared.
Because, accordi ng to Christianity and most other major religions, woman is carnal, animal, a nd closer to the u ndivine, s he must be protected. Woman is the s tranger, the other. S he is man's recogn ized nightmarish pieces, his S hadow-Beast.
The s ight of her sends him into a frenzy of a nger and fear. La gorra, el rebozo, la mantilla are symbols of my culture's "protection" of women. Culture read males professes to protect women. Actual ly it keeps women in rigidly defined roles. It keeps the girlchild from other men-don't poach on my preserves, only I can touch my child's body. Our mothers taught us well, "Los hombres n o mas quieren una cosa"; men aren't to be trusted, they are selfish a nd are like children.
We were never alone with men, not even those of our own family. Through our mothers, the culture gave us mixed messages: No voy a dejar que ningun pelado desgraciado maltrate a mis hijos. And in the next breath it would say, La mujer tiene que hacer lo que le diga el hombre. Which was it to be-strong, or submissive, rebellious or conforming? Much of what the culture condemns focuses on kinship relationships. The welfare of the family, the community, a nd the tribe is more important than the welfare of the individual.
The individual exists first as kin-as sister, as father, as padrino-and last as self. In my culture, selfishness is condemned, especially i n women; humility and selflessness, the absence o f selfishness, i s considered a virtue. I n the past, acting humble with members outside the family ensured that you would make no one envidioso envious ; therefore he or she would not use witchcraft against you.
If you get above yourself, you're a n envidiosa. If you don't behave like everyone else, la gente will say that you think you're better than others, que te crees grande. Respeto carries with it a set of rules so that social categories a nd hierarchies will be kept in order: respect is reserved for la abuela, papa, el patron, those with power in the community.
Women are at the bottom of the ladder one rung above the deviants. The Chicano, mexicano, a nd some I ndian cultures have no tolerance for deviance. Deviance is whatever is condemned by the community. Most societies try to get rid of their deviants. Most cultures have burned a nd beaten their homosexuals and others who deviate from the sexual common. La gente def pueblo talked about her bei ng una de las otras, "of the Others.
They called her half a nd half, mita ' y mita ', neither o ne nor the other but a strange doubling, a deviation of nature that horrified, a work of nature i nverted. There is somethi ng compelli ng about being both male and female, about having an entry i nto both worlds. What we are suffering from is a n absolute despot duality that says we are able to be only one or the other. It claims that human nature is limited and can not evolve i nto something better.
But I, l ike other queer people, am two in one body, both male a nd female. Fear of Going Home: Homophobia For the lesbian of color, the ultimate rebellion she can make against her native culture is through her sexual behavior.
Being lesbian a nd raised Catholic, indoctrinated as straight, I made the choice to be queer for some it is genetically i nherent. It's an interesting path, one that continually slips i n a nd out of the white, the Catholic, the Mexican, the indigenous, the instincts. I t makes for loqueria, the crazies. It is a path of k nowledge-one of knowing and of learning the history of oppress ion of our raza.
It is a way of balanci ng, of mitigating duality. The two lesbian students and we two lesbian instructors met with them to discuss their fears. One of the students said, "I thought homophobia meant fear of going home after a residency. Fear of going home. And of not bei ng taken in. We' re afraid of being abandoned by the mother, the culture, la Raza, for being u nacceptable, faulty, damaged.
To avoid rejection, some of us conform to the values of the culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows. Which leaves only one fear-that we will be found out and that the Shadow-Beast will break out of its cage. Some of us take another route. We try to make ourselves conscious of the Shadow-Beast, stare at the sexual lust and lust for power and destruction we see on its face, discern among its features the undershadow that the reigning order of heterosexual males project on our Beast.
Yet still others of us take it another step: we try to waken the Shadow-Beast inside us. Intimate Terrorism: Life in the Borderlands The world is not a safe place to live in. We shiver i n separate cells in enclosed cities, shoulders hunched, barely keeping the panic below the surface of the skin, daily drinking shock along with our morning coffee, fearing the torches bei ng set to our buildi ngs, the attacks in the streets.
Shutting down. Woman does not feel safe when her own culture, and white culture, are critical of her; when the males of all races hunt her as prey. A lienated from her mother culture, " alien" in the dominant culture, the woman of color does not feel safe within the inner life of her Self.
Petrified, she can't respond, her face caught between las intersticios, the spaces between the different worlds she inhabits. B locked, immobilized, we can' t move forward, can' t move backwards. That writhing serpent movement, the very movement of life, swifter than lightning, frozen.
We do not engage fully. We do not make full use of our facul ties. We abnegate. My Chicana ide ntity is grounded in the I ndian woman's history of resistance. Like la Llorona, the I ndian woman's o nly means of protest was wailing. So mama, Raza, how wonderful, no tener que rendir cuentas a nadie. I feel perfectly free to rebel a nd to rail against my culture.
I fea r no betrayal on my part because, unlike Chicanas and other women of color who grew up whi te or who have only recently returned to their native cultural roots, I was totally i mmersed i n m i ne.
I t wasn' t until I went t o h igh school that I " saw" whites. U ntil I worked o n my master's degree I had not gotten withi n an arm's distance of them. I was totally i m mersed en lo mexicano, a rural, peasant, isolated, mexicanismo. Yet in leaving home I did not lose touch with my origins because lo mexicano i s i n my system.
I a m a turtle, wherever I go I carry " home" on my back. Not me sold out my people but they me. So yes, though " home" permeates every sinew and cartilage in my body, I too a m afraid o f going home. Though I ' l l defend m y race a nd culture w he n they a re a ttacked by non-mexicanos, conosco el malestar de mi cultura. I abhor some of my culture's ways, how i t cripples its women, com o burras, our s trengths used against us, lowly burras bearing humility with dignity.
The abili ty to serve, claim the males, is our highest virtue. I abhor how my culture makes macho caricatures of its men. I can understand why the more tinged with A nglo blood, the more adamantly my colored and colorless sisters glorify their colored culture's values-to offset the extreme devaluation of it by the white culture.
It's a legitimate reaction. But I will not glorify those aspects of my culture which have injured me and which have inj u red me in the name of protecting me. So, don' t give me your tenets a nd your laws.
Don' t give me your lukewarm gods. What I want is an accounting with all three cultures-white, Mexican, I ndian. I want the freedom to carve a nd chisel my own face, to stal,lnch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of my entrails. And if going home is denied me then I will have to stand a nd claim my space, making a new culture-una cultura mestiza-with my own lumber, my own bricks and mortar and my own feminist architecture.
Nos condenamos a nosotros mismos. Esta raza vencida, enemigo cuerpo. Malinali Tenepat, or Malintzin, has become known as la Chingada-the fucked one. She has become the bad word that passes a dozen times a day from the lips of Chicanos.
Whore, prostitute, the woman who sold out her people to the Spaniards are epithets Chicanos spit out with contempt. The worst kind of betrayal lies in making us believe that the I ndian woman in us is the betrayer. We, indias y mestizas, police the I ndian in us, brutalize and condemn her. Male culture has done a good job on us. Son los costumbres que traicionan. La india en mi es la sombra: La Chingada, Tlazolteotl, Coatlicue. Son ellas que oyemos lamentando a sus hijas perdidas.
Because of the color of my skin they betrayed me. For 3 00 years s he was invisible, she was not heard. Many times she wished to speak, to act, to protest, to challe nge. The odds were heavily against her.
She remained faceless a nd voiceless, but a light shone through her veil of silence. A nd though she was unable to spread her l imbs a nd though for her right now the sun has sunk u nder the earth a nd there is no moon, she continues to tend the flame.
The spirit of the fire spurs her to fight for her own skin a nd a piece of ground to sta nd on, a ground from which to view the world-a perspective, a homeground where she can plumb the rich a ncestral roots into her own ample mestiza heart.
She waits till the waters are not so turbulent a nd the mountains not so slippery with s leet. Battered a nd bruised she waits, her bruises throwing her back upon herself a nd the rhythmic pulse of the feminine. Coatlalopeuh waits with her. A qui en la soledad prospera su rebeldia.
En la soledad Ella prospera. Largas, transparentes, en sus barrigas llevan Lo que puedan arebatarle al amor. Oh, oh, oh, la mat6 y aparese una mayor. Oh, con mucho mas infierno en digestion. I dream of serpents, serpents of the sea, A certain sea, oh, of serpents I dream. Long, transparent, i n their bel l ies they carry All that they can snatch away from love. Oh, oh, oh, I kill one and a larger one appears. Oh, with more hellfire burning i nside!
No vayas al escusado en lo oscuro. Don't go to the outhouse at night, P rieta, my mother would say. No se te vaya a meter algo por alla. A s nake will crawl into your nalgas,2 make you pregnant. They seek warmth in the cold. Dicen que las culebras like to suck chiches, 3 can draw milk out of you. En el escusado in the half-light spiders hang like gliders.
Under my bare buttocks and the rough planks the deep yawning tugs at me. I can see my legs fly up to my face as my body falls through the round hole i nto the sheen of swarming maggots below. Avoiding the s nakes under the porch I walk back into the kitchen, step on a big black one slithering across the floor. All around us the woods. Quelite 5 towered above me, choking the stubby cotton that had outlived the deer's teeth. I swung el azad6n 6 hard.
When I heard the rattle the world froze. I barely felt its fangs. Boot got all the veneno. I stood still, the sun beat down. Afterwards I smelled where fear had been : back of neck, under arms, between my legs; I fel t its heat slide down my body. I swallowed the rock it had hardened i nto.
When Mama had gone down the row a nd was out of sight, I took out my pocketknife. I made an X over each prick. My body followed the blood, fell onto the soft ground.
I put my mouth over the red and sucked and spit between the rows of cotton. I picked up the pieces, placed them end on end. Culebra de cascabel. It would shed no more. I buried the pieces between the rows of cotton. I n the morning I saw through s nake eyes, felt s nake blood course through my body. The serpent, mi tono , my animal counterpart. I was immune to its venom. Forever immune. Snakes, viboras : since that day I've sought and shunned them. Always when they cross my path, fear and elation flood my body.
I know things older than Freud, older than gender. Like the a ncient Olmecs, I know Earth is a coiled Serpent. Forty years it's taken me to enter into the Serpent, to acknowledge that I have a body, that I am a body and to assimilate the animal body, the animal soul.
Siempre tenia las velas prendidas. A lli hacia pro mesas a la Virgen de Guadalupe. My family, like most Chicanos, did not practice Romah Catholicism but a folk Catholicism with many pagan elements. La Virgen de Guadalupe's I ndian name is Coatlalopeuh. She is the central deity connecting us to our I ndian ancestry. Coatlalopeuh is descended from, or is an aspect of, earlier Mesoamerican fertility and Earth goddesses.
As creator goddess, she was mother of the celestial deities, and of Huitzilopochtli a nd his sister, Coyolxauhqui, She With Golden Bells, Goddess of the Moon, who was decapitated by her brother.
Another aspect of Coatlicue is Tonantsi. They divided her who had been complete, who possessed both upper ligh t and u nderworld dark aspects. The Nahuas, through ritual a nd prayer, sought to oblige Tonantsi to ensure their hea l th a nd the growth of their crops.
It was she who gave Mexico the cactus plant to provide her people with milk a nd pulque. I t was she who defended her childre n against the wrath of the Christian God by challenging God, her son, to produce mother's milk as she had done to prove that his benevolence equalled his disciplinary harshness.
They went even further; they made all Indian deities and religious practices the work of the devil. Thus Tonantsi became Guadalupe , the chaste protective mother, the defender of the Mexican people. El nueve de diciembre de! A lz6 al cabeza via que en la cima de! Parada en frente de! Nuestra Senora Maria de Coatlalopeuh se le apareci6.
Dile a tu gente que yo soy la madre de Dias, a las indios yo! Juan Diego volvi6, llefio su tilma 1 2 con rosas de castilla creciendo milagrosamiente en la nieve. Se las llev6 al obispo, y cuando abrio su tilma el retrato de la Virgen ahi estaba pintado. Guadalupe appeared on December 9, 1 5 3 1 , on the spot where the Aztec goddess, Tonantsi " Our Lady Mother" , had been worshipped by the Nahuas a nd where a temple to her had stood.
Lopeuh means " the one who has dominion over serpents. Soon after, Mexico ceased to belong to Spain, and la Virgen de Guadalupe began to eclipse all the other male and female religious figures in Mexico, Central America a nd parts of the U. The role of defender or patro n has traditionally been assigned to male gods. During the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata and Miguel H idalgo used her i mage to move el pueblo mexicano toward freedom.
Pachucos zoot suiters tattoo her i mage on their bodies. In Texas she is considered the patron saint of Chicanos. Cuando Carita, mi h ermanit o , was missing in action and, later, wou nded in Viet Nam, mi mama got on her kneesy le prometio a Ella que si su h ijito volvia vivo she would crawl on her knees and light novenas in her honor.
She, like my race, is a synthesis of the old world and the new, of the religion and culture of the two races in our psyche, the conquerors and the conquered. She is the symbol of the mestizo true to his or her I ndian values. IA cultura chicana identifies with the mother I ndian rather than with the father Spanish. Our faith is rooted in i ndigenous attributes, images, symbols, magic and myth. As a symbol of hope a nd faith, she sustains a nd insures our survival. To Mexicans on both sides of the border, Guadalupe is the symbol of our rebellion against the rich, upper and middleclas s ; against their subjugation of the poor and the indio.
She mediates between humans and the divine, between this reality and the reality of spirit entities. IA Virgen de Guadalupe is the symbol of ethnic identity and of the tolerance for ambiguity that Chicanos-mexicanos , people of mixed race, people who have I ndian blood, people who cross cultures, by necessity possess. IA gente Chicana tiene tres madres.
Yet we have not all embraced this dichotomy. In the U. Southwest, Mexico, Central and South A merica the indio and the mestizo continue to worship the old spirit entities i ncluding Guadalupe a nd their supernatural power, under the guise of Christian saints. Ustedes que persis ten mudas en sus cuevas. Ustedes Senoras que ah ora, coma yo, estan en desgracia. Before the change to male dominance, Coatlicue , Lady of the Serpent Skirt, contained and bala nced the duali ties of male and female, light and dark, life and death.
The cha nges that led to the loss of the balanced oppositions began when the Azteca, one of the twenty Toltec tribes, made the last pilgrimage from a place called Aztlan. The migration south began about the year A. Three hundred years later the adva nce guard arrived near Tula, the capital of the declining Toltec empire. By the 1 1 th century, they had joined with the Chichimec tribe of Mexitin afterwards called Mexica into one religious and administrative organization within Aztlan, the Aztec territory.
The Mexitin, with their tribal god Tetzauhteotl Huitzilopochtli Magnificent Humming Bird on the Left , gai ned control of the religious system. Huitzilopochtli assigned the Azteca-Mexica the task of keeping the human race the present cosmic age called the Fifth Sun, El Quinto Sol alive.
The Aztec people considered themselves in charge of regulating all earthly matters. After 1 00 years in the central plateau, the Azteca-Mexica went to Chapultepec, where they settled in 1 the present site of the park on the outskirts of Mexico City. There, in 1 34 5 , the Aztec-Mexica chose the site of their capital, Tenochtitlan.
From 1 , the Aztecs emerged as a militaristic state that preyed on neighboring tribes for tribute and captives. For if one "fed" the gods, the human race would be saved from total extinction.
Women possessed property, and were curers as well as priestesses. Accordi ng to the codices, women in former times had the supreme power in Tula, and in the beginning of the Aztec dynasty, the royal blood ran through the female line.
A council of elders of the Calpul headed by a supreme leader, or tlactlo , called the father and mother of the people, governed the tribe. The supreme leader's vice-emperor occupied the position of "Snake Woman" or Cihuacoatl, a goddess. The final break with the democratic Calpul came when the four Aztec lords of royal lineage picked the king' s successor from h i s siblings or male descendants.
These collective wailing rites may have been a sign of resistance i n a society which glorified the warrior a nd war a nd for whom the women of the conquered tribes were booty. The nobility kept the tribute, the commoner got nothing, resulting in a class split. The conquered tribes hated the Aztecs because of the rape of their women and the heavy taxes levied on them.
The Tlaxcalans were the Aztec's bitter enemies and it was they who helped the Spanish defeat the Aztec rule rs, who were by this time so unpopular with their own common people that they could not even mobilize the populace to defend the city.
In pre-Columbian America the most notable symbol was the serpent. The Olmecs associated womanhood with the Serpent's mouth which was guarded by rows of dangerous teeth, a sort of vagina dentate.
They conside red it the most sacred place on earth, a place of refuge, the creative womb from which all things were born and to which all things returned. Snake people had holes, entrances to the body of the Earth Serpent; they followed the Serpent's way, identified with the Serpent deity, with the mouth, both the eater and the eaten.
The destiny of humankind is to be devoured by the Serpent. I passed between the two fangs, the flickering tongue. Having come through the mouth of the serpent, swallowed, I found myself suddenly in the dark, sliding down a smooth wet surface down down into an even darker darkness.
Having crossed the portal, the raised hi nged mouth, havi ng entered the serpent's belly, now there was no looki ng back, no going back.
Why do I cast no shadow? Are there lights from all sides shining on me? Ahead, ahead. I knew at that instant: something must change or I'd die. Alga tenia que cambiar. After each of my four bouts with death I'd catch glimpses of an otherworld Serpe nt. Once, in my bedroom, I saw a cobra the s i ze of the room, her hood expanding over me. When I bli nked she was gone. The Presences She appeared in white, garbed in white, standing white, pure white.
Rio Grande i n South Texas-that triangular piece o f land wedged between the rivery el golfo which serves as the Texas-U.
Down the road, a little ways from our house, was a deserted church. Los mexicanos called her la ]ila. Some thought she was la Llorona. She was, I think, Cihuacoatl, Serpen t Woman, a ncient Aztec goddess of the earth , of war and birth, patron of midwives, a nd antecedent of la Llorona.
Covered with chalk, Cihuacoatl wears a white dress with a decoration half red a nd half black. Her hair forms two l i ttle horns which the Aztecs depicted as knives crossed on her forehead. Now tell me about a day in your life from your perspective.
How do you spend your time? Waiting, going for a walk with your owner, hunting a cat? Which emotions do you feel? What concerns you, what makes you happy? What matters? What do you want? Follow your wet snout and describe a typical day. Kurt and Sarah are neighbors in the same building, and they are arguing in the hallway. Kurt thinks he lent Sarah three eggs she never replaced. Sarah claims she replaced them a long time ago. Erin, a student, passes by, and tries to get all of them to make up in the name of peaceful neighborhood.
Finally, the police comes by and issues a citation against all of them because of public disturbance. Describe this absurd scene, in which each new participant tries to resolve the quarrel, but tops it up by one additional level. What a mess! Show the good intentions of every party, and how the dialogue finally draws them into the argument. Have fun! The Wealthy Writers Club features a list of over very creative prompts most of them are short ideas.
Join in! Anyway, hope you like it. Hoping you will get the drift though. This is prompt 2 ————————————————————————————————————————— Gwen sat at the dining table, sipping her coffee, choking back the bitter taste it left in her mouth. Not as bitter as what I am feeling now. She gazed at the large window that would fill the house with glorious, golden light on bright, sunny days. Now, the storm that was raging outside clouded the skies, and the panes dripped with rain whose fate was sealed.
She sipped at the coffee, and swallowed painfully, forcing the black liquid to pass the lump that had formed in her throat, and fan out hotly behind her heart which she felt sure was turning to ice.
His wickerwork chair he had bought from China during a trip with his student group. She snickered. How long did he think I was not going to find out? She sipped at the coffee, and swallowed. The jacket she had bought for him was sprawled on it. Prime leather, as black as sin. And his heart, too. Twenty years of loving the man poured into buying that jacket, only for it to be poured out like spent coffee grounds. She sipped at her coffee, and looked at the clock.
Two minutes past six. He always left the bathroom at two minutes past six. As if on cue, he walked into the room, clad in his thick cotton bathrobe. Gwen chose not to listen to him; her attention was fully on the jacket. His rich brown eyes were puzzled for a moment, before the corners crinkled in amusement. That did it. She flung the coffee mug at him, and he ducked just as fast. The mug exploded on the glossy white wall, coffee streaming down it like rotten blood from a sore wound.
She picked up the jacket, sodden and heavy, and tossed it at him across the length of the room. Explain why you would do this to me! He turned over the jacket, then his eyes widened in realisation. He knows I know, the lying bastard. The lipstick on the collar, red as his neck would be in a few minutes.
How many more has he called sweetie, or honey? She screamed, anger almost blinding her. Or was it the tears? The hurt? Twenty years is nothing to you, is it? A whore, Chris! She flung the vase at him. The vase shattered against his head, the shards burying deep into the thick black locks of his hair. He cried out in pain, then crouched down low. Gwen felt a shocking stab of triumph.
Why am I enjoying this? She glowered as she saw him cower back in fear. She spotted his car; his beloved Kia. Did he do it in our car, with that slut? She yelled in anger, anger that seemed to seep out of every pore and element of her being. A scream she felt must have been last used by a Viking berserker; primal and raw.
She smashed in the window, the shards mixing with the rain like diamonds. The next swing landed on the bonnet, denting it and taking a big scrape out of the primer. The third shattered the windscreen, and it fell like a delicate fractal plate of ice. She stopped counting after eight, and by the time she was done, the rain had soaked the interior, the system console was cracked, and the steering wheel was awkwardly askew. She was taking in deep gulps, gasping for air.
She realised she had bit her lip, and the blood was dripping onto the wet driveway in big splotches, mingling with the rain.
Chris came up from the dry safety of the porch. She began to sob, and fell to the paved driveway, too exhausted to keep standing. Just give me a chance to explain, please. She held on to Chris, even though he was as drenched as she.
Still, she needed to feel if he was real; the Chris she knew would never cheat on her. She pulled him closer. She needed that reality more than anything. Could he still want me? She felt his tender hand push away wet strands of her hair from her face. I gave Nessa my jacket — you remember Nessa; she came to see you at the hospital — to cover herself as we walked to the bus stop. Twenty years, and no children.
The smell of antiseptic, green walls, overly sympathetic nurses… the pain associated with them haunted her still. She found herself giggling. He had always made her laugh with his corny declarations of affection. What more could I ask for? And like I wrote to you via email, this is a great piece of writing.
Love the psychology, the dynamics and the details. Plus, you have a wonderful feeling for metaphors, similes, images, etc… Nice! I want to post my prompt and to get it published too.
I have two prompts I have finished writing. Sounds good, just post your prompts here in the comments. Prompt 52 I think is my favorite. Two of the subjects I enjoy are stone-age fiction and science fiction.
What nice marriage that prompt brings. No, I gotta quit now. Too much on my desk to handle immediately. Thanks, Will! Oh, you are thinking along the lines of a love child in space and stone. And number 16, yes, that would be awkwardly tragic and funny.
Imagine the thought of just waking up from a couple of decades in the freezer, slowly learning to move your limbs again, and buying some flowers to show up at her doorstep — only to learn that you have to do the freezing all over again….
I know, these exercises take more time than the prompts I usually publish in my posts. But when you are ready, I would love to read yours. Hey, Alex, writing writing prompts is hard. I feel an urge to keep writing rather than stopping at the prompt. Your blog sends me a copy of every comment posted on this page.
But it was too delicious a thought to be abandoned. It simply had to be created to share with others. It was a bad, bad habit, he had. A divine idea would arrive, an idea so clear and insightful and, well, full of awesomeness, that it must be manifested. Not a self-promise that nobody else knows about and is easy to neglect, but a promise to someone whose goodwill was important. Your assignment, dear reader who is also a writer, should you choose to accept it, is to unveil the promise and the consequences the poor bloke experiences because of it.
And now, Alex, let me make another promise. Perhaps the cave man prompt I mentioned earlier. Hey Will, it happens to the best. Your prompt now is to take your time and write whenever you are ready. This story simply would not cooperate. A foreign listener would not have been much deceived. Every dream, every night since he could remember, from little boy to adult at expedition training, Sam dreamed about Mars — although he could never recall specific details.
And here he was. Round, about the width of my hand, with marks that might be toes or claws. Joe smirked, thinking his trainer was making a fool of himself. On this, their very first mars external operation. He gloried in anticipation of discrediting Sam. Joe had seen the tracks, too, but Sam reported it to base before he had a chance to do so. For once, he was happy not to be first. Decades of satellite and robot explorations had proved Mars habitat is inimical to life more complex than bacteria.
The track must be something else. In the shadow of the cliff, the two stopped short. It is about half my height with a roundish body, no neck, three short legs with feet that could have made the tracks we saw earlier. It waddles. And it is slowly approaching us. Raise the gain of your mikes.
And activate those external speakers we were told we had to have. On our very own comm channel! It seems we have a spheroid waddler with enough tech to intercept our radio transmissions to Earth, record them, and play them back to us on our comm channel.
What the hell is it! Base, it played a recording of our arrival transmission to Earth. Yes, we heard it. Well, it did speak English! The same voice repeated what all three of us said. There is high intelligence. For the millionth time Sam wondered how Joe got past the psych tests this mission put them all through. Maybe somebody really was bought off, someone who knowingly endangered the first manned mission to Mars by letting Joe slide into the team.
Sam grimmaced as the thought about psyche tests flitted through his mind. An utterly irresistible compulsion contrary to his innate sense of integrity had compelled him to ensure without doubt that he would be posted as head of Mars External Operations. It must have learned by listening to us. Humans are the only intelligence! Base continued. That is an order. Sam will accompany you back to base on his return.
As you suspected, there were psyche test anomalies. Confirmation came in just before you met Wzzt, however that thing is pronounced. Use your own judgement and do what you think is right. If we delay for a partner to join you, this opportunity may be lost. Surveilance would have found it only by being within sight on ground level. It is civilized enough to give me a choice. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Sam got a surprise.
There was Opportunity, taken apart; but not haphazardly. The pieces were laid out in an orderly fasion, each piece labeled. Two of the creatures along the wall stepped forward with an apparatus, setting it near Sam. A dial was turned. Taken apart. By experts. They provided the unit that established our comm from within the cave. Joe popped through the entrance hole. Before Sam had a chance to react, Wzzt shriveled into char.
Suddenly, he halted in mid-flight, suspended. Neither could Joe, being frozen in a leaning-back defense stance. The two were in a static space of some kind, a total absence of motion. Anonymous vFaknH. Iyaz Meindra. Skripsi Ptk. Irna Wahyuni. Nik Pisclovephy. David Arndt. More From Evan Husada Sidrap. Popular in Technology. Science and Tech. Rajesh Yenugula. Hari Ram. Winnie Cai. Mehar Asif Ibrahim.
Sumardi Fnu. Depending on the national equipment, additional signs and overtaking restrictions are displayed Speed limit only applies in foggy together with Speed Limit Info.
To change the entertainment source. Turn the Controller until the desired setting is The basic setting can be adjusted manually. In some countries, daytime driving lights are Activating compulsory, in which case the daytime driving lights cannot be deactivated. Press the button on the turn indicator lever.
Therefore activate the dipped headlights manually if the situation requires it. Operating requirements To switch off permanently: press and hold the The brightness can only be adjusted when the button for approximately 3 seconds. Dynamic light Individual actions, for example incoming calls or open doors, are indicated by light effects.
Sensors underneath the bumper are used for detection. Have the system tested, repaired or removed and A Check Control message is shown.
Observe the traffic situation Button Status and intervene actively if the situation warrants it. Button illuminates green: all Intelligent Safety Systems are switched on.
System limitations Principle can mean that warnings or system responses are not issued or are issued too late, incorrectly The system can help avoid accidents. The individual settings are activated and saved for the current driver profile. As soon as a setting is changed in the menu, all settings in the menu are activated. Press the button repeatedly. Warning with braking function Brake intervention The warning prompts the driver to take action.
Display When the brake is operated during a warning, the maximum necessary braking force is applied. A warning is given at junctions and crossroads if there is a risk of collision with crossing traffic. Front bumper at side. Overview Button in the vehicle Front bumper in middle. Basic settings are activated for the cle, a warning symbol is shown in the instrument sub-functions.
Where required, the system can assist by braking the vehicle automatically if there is a risk of a collision. An acute warning can be triggered even without a previous advance warning. Overview The radar sensor is in the lower area of the front bumper.
The brakes are only applied if driving stability has Press and hold the button. The individual settings Button in the vehicle are activated and saved for the current driver profile. Button in the vehicle Before changing lanes with the turn indicator switched on, the system issues a warning in the above situations.
The light in the exterior mirror flashes and the steering wheel vibrates. Operating requirements The lane markings must be detected by the camera in order for the side collision warning with steering intervention to be active.
As soon as a setting is changed in the Light in the exterior mirror menu, all settings in the menu are activated.
Displays and warnings do not relieve you of your personal responsibility. Adapt your driving style to the traffic conditions. Observe the traffic situation and intervene actively if the situation warrants it. Press and hold the button. The following road signs are taken into account All Intelligent Safety Systems are for the road priority warning: switched off. Automatic activation The wrong-way driving warning is automatically No Warning activated at the start of each journey.
Page Recording duration selected. If the belt tension does not slacken automatically, Certain functions of some systems installed in stop the vehicle and unfasten the seat belt by the vehicle can — The system is reset approximately 45 minutes after the vehicle is stopped, for example when taking a break during a long motorway journey. General Safety notes Driving stability during acceleration and cornering is restricted if DSC is deactivated. Adjust the desired speed to the ing the buttons on the steering wheel.
Maintaining and saving the speed Switching off Depending on the equipment, press the corresponding button on the steering wheel. The displays turn off. The stored desired speed is deleted. Symbol flashes grey: No indicator lamp: the system is The requirements for system switched off. Pressing the accelerator pedal interrupts the braking intervention.
After emergency braking to a stop, it is possible to continue a slow approach to the obstacle. The system only shows stationary obstacles that were previously detected by the sensors when The setting is saved for the current driver profile.
System limits The system does not detect whether an obstacle subsequently moves. Overview Switch the system back on if necessary. Depending on the equipment: Depending on the equipment: button in the vehicle Turning circle lines Driving path lines and turning circle lines are shown. If necessary, tilt the Controller to the left. The flank view can be selected for the right or left side of the vehicle.
For technical reasons, the display of the area around the vehicle is distorted. Limits of flank protection Even if the symbols for the door opening angles on the Control Display are not covering any other The system only shows stationary obstacles that objects, bear in mind the following when parking Page Data transfer must be activated, see page To achieve an optimum parking position, wait for the automatic steering process after Steptronic transmission: changing gear at standstill.
The system indicates when other road users are The radar sensors are located in the rear approaching. Acoustic warning In addition to the visual display, a warning signal sounds when your own vehicle is moving in the corresponding direction. Set the desired temperature. Avoid switching between different temperature Air flow, manual. Individual functions — Overview Air-conditioning mode.
To call up the air conditioning Buttons in the vehicle menu. Hold down the button until the control shuts down. The outside air supply is control AUC shut off. When recirculated-air mode is switched off, fresh Principle air is directed into the vehicle's interior. Automatic air recirculation control AUC detects pollutants in the outside air. When doing so, the system uses Press the button.
Page Using BMW display key Individual settings can be performed for certain air conditioning functions. General "Precondit. Switch on the display of the BMW Display key. Setting the departure time "Precondit.
Via iDrive "Stop" When the standing air conditioning is operating, high temperatures can be generated under the "Precondit. Page Press the button. Using BMW display key The climate comfort menu is displayed. Switch on: Individual settings can be performed for certain Switch on the display of the BMW Display air conditioning functions. Page Select the day of the week if necessary. The vehicle is not ready to drive.
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