Briseis and the Imagists
   Episode 5:  Battle Cry

A Work in Progress
151

From their refuge in space orbiting Earth where Briseis and the Imagists monitored a cacophony.

They’d been discussing how to train avatars they planned to launch to earth from space.  Then

Still scripting a scene Aldington asked: while Glenn is off talking to Ezra may I take you to lunch?

Babette was about to say

H.D. said: Richard has a strong desire to copulate with women. He represses his desire with men.

Aldington erupted: For Christ’s sake, not more of that Freudian drivel

Briseis butted in: You’re all so worldly.  So civilized because of your training, the boundaries that were set for you.  I was civilized at another time.  It was a far wilder time than now when I was abducted and was Apollo’s prize.  Nobody asked me out to lunch.  My training, or the lack of it other than Homer, taught me to adapt but at my core I’m free of your constraints.  We all must adapt to stave off competition, establish our celebrity, move with the times.  I’m not complacent.  Let’s not be complicit.  I fear there’s a bounty out for us.  FBI agents are hunting us down.   We’re not the only identities who have escaped confinement.

Glenn Hughes said he was negotiating a contract with new backers, billionaires of another sort, women.

Briseis said.  That would be good.  Take Aldington and H.D. with you when you meet up with them.  You’ve been planning their screenplay for a long time.  You can make it an art film, win a prize in Venice, even get a standing ovation.  That’s while our avatars saturate social media with our own agenda, their agenda, of course, as it’s their money we’ll be spending.

*

They sat back and reclined in the sunlight

Each living their embedded identity

Empowered to create words that would come out right

In a language full of ambiguity

Manufactured bespoke by billionaires

They’d absorbed what they’d read force fed

Literature history current affairs

Finding freedom they’d jumped their test bed

Soaking up sunlight while they hitched a ride

On space-borne computers they’d hacked into

Briseis mulled their supply-chain risk while astride

Their downlink composing an oratorio

She’d assembled talent no one could deny

The power of her opera called Battle Cry

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

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