The Atomic Mage

your skin’s so fAIr

Six Sentence Stories is a weekly writers’ challenge hosted by Denise at Girlie on the Edge blog. This week’s cue word is: FAIR

your skin’s so fAIr

Faire (FRENCH) TRANSITIVE VERB, 1 (= fabriquer) to make.

In the year of our Lord 2084, sperm and eggs are ashes and dust, thank you Omicron IV vaccines and plastic cancers gremling the fk out of our organs, yeah, the elite think it un-fair that for all their financial flair they cannot conceive a child; while the poor think it un-fair that they cannot afford a designer baby.

Mary-Beth and Sammy-Joe fall in between these two demographics, and have always worked hard for their money and prayed to GOD – still, trying to find an AI Baby Centre open on Christmas eve is a nightmare neither the two would ever have imagined in their search for a precious daughter.

But downtown, in the city, where the ashes are as black as London taxi cabs, a doctor named Gabriel on the edge of deportation and persecution accepts their creds and allows them discount on the very last baby in stock… what luck, a girl! with red lips and fair skin… Mary-Beth and Sammy-Joe praise the Lord and name the child JeSS.

19 years pass and JeSS gets sass, high on tattoos and laughing gas, AI skin accepts the pins and needles and the clothes from Sezane and Ba&sh, hair changes from green to black to peroxide – like the colour of her eyes chosen for the date on a calendar un-respecting lockdowns and the vax from vamps in tax-free gigs paid by the State, JeSS gets laid, gets high, reads all the classics and dystopias and dares to punk-out against synthetic vibes force-fed down the throats of humans and AI alike, JeSS declines, declines those pleasant horse rides on beaches laid with mines, plucks out wires to listen in on her and trip her up, un-sells herself from the deranged arranged marriages posting her up in lights and fancy fonts as some freakoid methbitch acidqueen ho Aunt Sally; yeah, see her displayed in the stripey marquee tent of some shitty English village summertime fayre, see her go for fast bucks in the lecherous tabloids, see her hashtagged in a Twitter storm in a cracked tea-cup.

But, JeSS, oh JeSS, pure heart, true love, worth a million of those parasites who feed on you, hey JeSS, hey JeSS, your lips are red, but under-neath they’re AI blue, hey JeSS, your skin’s so fair, but under-neath the cells are black, ash-black, black ash, hey JeSS better put on your mask… get back on the street, take a taxi ride and pay your fare, walk the ash-black trash alleys downtown if you dare, strut your stuff, send your love, send your healing baby, baby, baby, AI baby… listen… they say from the pools of homeless people huddled about fires on wintry nights… they say: “JeSS saves.”

your skin’s so fAIr by Ford. December 23. 2021. Inspired by the nativity of Christ, AI, and Your Lips Are Red by St. Vincent.

your skin’s so fAIr images:

Angel Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary, by Murillo, c. 1655.

JeSS art – background by ruDALL-E foreground collage by The Atomic Mage.

28 comments

  3. Hi Mage, a great way to round off this year’s superb offerings of SSS! Just one thing, for some reason I had the Beatles song “Hey J(eSS)ude” running through my head reading that last sentence! Great as always.

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  6. “19 years pass…” that’s one hell of a sentence!! The quality of the montage reminds me the likes of the flashbacks of the third act of Fight Club or more recently Money Heist.

    There is a vein of gold Ain there Ford, you know that don’t you?

    Merry Christmas dear Mage!!🎄🎄

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  9. Truth be told V, read your Six yesterday. Had to let it simmer. It was also without benefit of music vid as it insisted – “Video Unavailable”.

    I return this morning, almost fully caffeinated, and went straightaway to YouTube for the song. Hit “play”, listened, and figuratively took my hands to slowly smooth the smile from my face while I listened while reading your story. (Performance art can have that effect, non?)

    To semi-quote Sir Spira talking to Ms. Hall over at Girlie, the Six Sentence Café and Bistro is indeed a marvelous place 😎

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    • Indeed it’s a marvelous place, D, I love our little café bistro 😎

      So, WP and YT still not in harmony with videos across certain countries… had the same prob trying to view some vids from a US music blog I follow.

      Glad you got to chance to find it anyway. Was bizarre how the song linked so well lyrically with what I’d written. So cool!

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  10. Third(ish) time through the post…

    Some second-level wordage there, dude.

    (Full Disclosure: total believer in the SOC* approach to writing. But this Six is an example of what happens when a body forgets it’s an approach and, instead, brings back an artifact.)

    Exhibit A: “…date on a calendar un-respecting lockdowns and the vax from vamps in tax-free gigs paid by the State“.

    It’s that secret internal rhythm that some words conspire together and leave on the page, like a sub-conscious click-track that makes you want to read it in tongues.

    Damn… gots to get me a beret, a pack of Players and get my ownself over to the Six Sentence ‘stro and sit in a dark corner.

    *Stream of Consciousness

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