NANO/LIT/-2 THE WHITEKNIGHT

The White Knight has taken many forms: he is the True Believer, the defender of the weak and the hated do-gooder with his incessant princess-saving. In this short chapter in the nano/lit/ mythos he likewise has taken various forms. Here are some more nanoworks by anon.



***

Dear Gwen,

They call the shape the White Knight, but I am not sure why. It is a cylinder the length of a man’s forearm, but with a larger diameter. The White Knight suspends itself in mid air by means unknown to me, and it emits a buzzing heard only when it is consulted alone. The Shaman has built his house around the White Knight, and he decorates it with berries and fragrant branches. “The berries are edible” was the first thing the Shaman told me when I arrived in the village. I have hiked four days into the mountains to get here.

The Shaman has allowed me little time to study the White Knight, but in that time I have made some conclusions. The object is a memetic generation device; it creates stories of similar structure. These stories may be oral or written, and use the Shaman as their vessel to the perceptual world. He weaves tales for the village, some over the course of a few days. These performances are hypnotic to watch even when the Shaman devolves into speaking in tongues. All stories follow the same structure, akin to our western theory of the Hero’s Journey.

I leave in two days. I am no longer constantly soaked and I look forward to meeting you in Kathmandu. The flowers smell fresh and I have many stories to tell you.

Sincerely,
H.L.C


***
They had a long a long night ahead of them. The posse of food court security guards prepared for the arrival of the one they called The White Knight. He was a young chap, infamous for preforming chivalrous acts in the presence of the elderly Pakistani woman working at the bodega inside the mall. He was known to present her with gifts of the famed mall chinese food, and the finest of wears a dieing mall could offer. After doing this he would sing sonets to the old woman from the food court with a megaphone pointed at her shop so that the entirety of the mall's patrons, and workers, could hear him profess his love. Initially these acts were met with him immediately being escorted by the mall security, which was met with resistance, but was none the less easy to overcome because of his pathetic effeminate nature. But, The White Knight was a persistent lad, to counteract the evil guards he would chain himself to pillars in the food court to make his professions of love more difficult to bring to an end. This worked until the owners of the mall added a guard to the entrance trained to recognize his face. If our knight wanted to continue he would need to formulate a new plan. He decided that he would hack into the malls intercom to speak through, there was only one problem, he needed to be nearly inside the food court for his radio transmitter to reach the PA system. There was only one option left at his disposal, he was going to have to dig a tunnel underneath the mall. The guards had received complaints of scurrying noises emanating from the floor, they immediately knew what was happening. With the day coming to an end, the guards decided to wait until the knight made his location known. It was one am when the sonets began. The guards had brought in a demolition crew to use directional explosives to bring an end the knight's acts once and for all. The guards were frantically tapping on the floor to locate a hollow spot. When he was finally found the demo people placed the charges quietly as to not alert the knight, but the knight, being the keen motherfucker he was, had anticipated this. When he was borrowing be systematically placed explosives throughout the mall, so that the entire place, excluding the bodega would be vaporized. The guards detonated the charge inadvertently bringing their own end and an end to the mall. But saddest of all the Pakistani Woman had left hours before, not hearing our valiant knight's final words. :'(



***
The security that worked for the promoters were hiding in a little room by the front door with what was left of the money made that night. They had guns too: handguns. One of them was the hero type. He was the type of guy to really try to save the princess every time: they called him corporal save-a-hoe but he didn’t know exactly what they meant by that. He would never call a female a hoe and he also couldn’t figure out why they always dated such assholes instead of him when he always treated girls like they were princesses. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box.

More screaming girls outside. That sound made his skin crawl. He couldn’t just sit in this tiny tomb-like room hiding like a fucking coward anymore. He suddenly knew what he had to do.
Krusty was busy shaking down the stupid white motherfuckers over by the rap room because everyone was on the floor anyway when Sir Save-a-Hoe the Shining made his move. I’m gonna show you what real freedom looks like, ghetto trash Shadows. Freedom to bear arms, motherfuckers. Freedom to save the day. His thoughts were often full of such simplistic garbage.

He would have to ambush them. Chicks dig killers, everyone knew that. He’s walking quickly, with long strides and hunched over, like he saw in the movies. He spots one of the SWAT team that he suspects are not actual law enforcement on the other side of the vast main room. The only illumination was a flickering sanguine gleam coming from the giant holographic effigy of Jeff Mills face that filled the entire wall behind the performer’s section. Wasn’t that thing blue before? The photonic eyes of Jeff Mills seemed to pierce his imaginary alabaster armor with ruby red lasers fore-luminating a sniper’s bullet.

Big Ren suddenly spins around and unloads his magazine into Sir Save-a-Hoe’s black Security shirt. The last thing he hears is screaming girls. They really do care about me, he thinks in wonder as the final ungood knight washes over him. What a fucking hero. Let’s have a round of applause for Sir Save-a-Hoe the Shining. I think you spelled his surname wrong there. It’s actually spelled Saved-0-Hoes. A name that all of us will surely remember forever.



***

The Whiteknight

I was a teenager when it happened, and what "it" was, I still don't know. The first few years were utter chaos, but things have quieted down for the most part. I suspect it was global, since help never came. When you think of the end, you think about those movies you saw. Big missiles flying through the air, huge explosions, maybe some aliens showing up or something. We thought it was zombies about 3 weeks in but they just turned out to be wondering tweekers. We didn't experience anything cool. One day a wind just swept through the city, and that was that. Electricity went down, supply chains were cut, and word from out-of-towners was that it happened everywhere. The winds still happen every now and then, and they seem to be random. The raids still happen every now and then too, but for the most part the raiders have been taken care of. I took it upon myself to become a teacher of sorts since I have some younger brothers who needed to know stuff. Eventually some of their friends wanted some learnin' as well, and I took them in too in exchange for food. I remember back in the day we would read books about mystery solving siblings, Victorian mansions, etc. But now instead of that we're trying to figure out agriculture. We had a few farmers wonder into town, and a few old-timers had grown up on farms. But frankly none of them really knew too much and since we ran out of diesel the tractors that did work don't anymore. I got a group of people together to teach the kids that do survive. Myself, one of the farmers, an old school teacher and a military vet. Thank god the vet knew hand to hand combat, ammunition started running low after the third year and reloading supplies only lasted another 5. There were some local chemists who claimed that could make their own gunpowder, but they blew themselves and their "lab" up in their most recent attempt. I started collecting books and offering rewards for books as well. Most are gone. Used as fuel for fires. Honestly the whole situation isn't looking great. But time will tell.
I do have a good student though, he's about 16 and very promising. He took it upon himself to start gathering books from nearby towns and even made a venture into the city once. He said he's never going back, and what life was there was horrible. He made himself a knife out of an old lawnmower blade and carries a copy of "meditations" around with him. I wish I had better things to give to him, but Marcus is better than most. Last month he showed up with 15 books and 3 other people, all of whom were actually useful. That was a nice change of pace. Why is it that the useless people seem to survive these sorts of situations?
Hear that? That's the wind. The first time it hit it destroyed most of the homes and larger buildings. I saw a plastic straw driven through a brick wall. Somebody put a picture frame around it and it's been framed ever since. Its the little things.