THE WOUNDED HEROES OF THE GROUP
I thought it would be good to introduce you to the characters of The Group. So, here goes…
Strix has asthma and he spends the summers struggling for breath. He refuses, however, to call it his asthma, as he wants no ownership claims to the lung disease. As an Orphanage kid he had no trouble with it, it was only after his move to Bristol. Then after a chest infection, the Project Doctor decided he should have an inhaler. In his mind he was suspicious, but had not proof of foul-play.
Falco, his partner, is a Spanish immigrant from Seville, sent to Bristol by her mother to escape a life of prostitution. Many families have had to turn to this, to bring money into their home, after the economy crashed and unemployment rates soared in Andalucía to +30%.
She had a way of helping him, when he was struggling to breath. She always knew when he came home from work that he was struggling, by the first sigh as he closed the door to their apartment. Falco would be sat on top of a towel on the bed, drying herself after a shower.
Strix would peel off his clothes and go to the shower room. Afterwards, he would make his way to Falco on the bed and he’d sit between her legs. She would hold him against her chest, her hands resting on his chest, struggling to inhale. Falco would breath slowly and Strix would match her rhythm. No talking, just the odd word of encouragement. It didn’t matter how long it took; there was no hurry to move on to the next thing. This was the time to be present, in the Now.
Ruled By Monsters, original artwork by Dan Gardiner. (C) Dan Gardiner. 2021 Used by permission of the artist. Support great art and visit Dan’s website!
Zip, aka Sarah. A coder by night and an Admin Officer at the City Morgue during the day. Her nights are spent either at her apartment, working on code for projects she was working on with T_m and D_m. (pronounced Tee-em and Dee-em) One of her unique talents is that she can dream in code. She always dresses to cover her body. Zip is hiding a secret; the scars on her arms and legs from her days of cutting.
Zip was sick of being abused by boyfriends and after being ‘used’ it was invariably followed by their rejection and her dejection. She felt that guys just wanted to get between her legs; she was a squeeze and not a woman.
She began to hate herself, her body, and her inability to have an intimate relationship with anyone. It was her fault. Her pain was real and to find a release from it she would cut herself, under her arms, at the top of her thighs and on the side of her breasts. She wanted to make herself unattractive to men. If they thought she was a freak, then there’d be no desire from them, which meant no disappointment for her.
And the pain she felt after the initial release of blood, masked a deeper pain, whilst being a symptom of it. It was from this point that the self-realisation came; that she didn’t need them in a sexual way and seeing as they were incapable of having a deep relationship, beyond the obvious physical element, she decided that she’d be Asexual. From there, she stopped punishing herself for others’ sexual crimes and misdemeanours.
Her relationship with T_m and D_m was purely based on their love of code and their admiration for one another’s talents. There was no romance, and they respected her for the stand she was taking. She had told them that their friendship meant a lot to her, but she never revealed the details of what led to her Asexuality. That was news for another day.
Izzy too, has a secret, too painful to share with her friends. A condition that she finds distressing, even shameful. We will have to wait for her to tell us and until then, mum is the word.
The yin and yang of 0w1 consciousness. Designed by Colse Leung. Check out Colse’s site.
This is not a story of the hero/anti-hero, caught in the inexorable tensions of life that tears them apart. 0w1 is a world of the sub-hero, the sub-vert, the sub-text to life’s stories and, finally, if pushed against the proverbial wall of opinion, they are people without public recognition or persona, without a super-hero complex.
Geoff Hall
