“You’ve blown your filthy catalpa leaves into my yard for the last time, Jackson!” screams Smythe, red-faced, and whips out an ominous black remote control. He smashes its single button with one finger.
Behind him, his brown brick split-level trembles, quakes and erupts out of the earth. Huge titanium legs turn it around as blue-hot flames jet from its windows; the front stoop unfolds into three sets of gnashing concrete teeth.
“What does your catalpa say… to Housezilla?” shouts Smythe, through the din.
Jackson’s unperturbed. He glances sideways at eight-year-old Teddy, playing in the sandbox.
And thumbs his own remote control.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Quinn draws a path, leans down and bump bump click the eight-ball’s pocketed. He straightens to notice a stubbled man slashing for his face.
Quinn thinks: this knife is a vector. It becomes a directed line, in his vision; he becomes a set of points.
Thinks: this man is a vector.
Thinks: the force motivating him is a vector.
Outward, upward, his mind’s eye macros to take in the city. He’s a point, and–there–Ciarlante’s a web of tangled light, reaching out…
Micro again, Quinn becomes a vector, turning lazily to direct the stubbled man forward, straight through the table.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Hoog squints at the four crossed lines, considering, then places the fifth rock in a corner square. There’s a complete diagonal line now, but he’s unsure on some of the particulars.
“What rocks was O?” he mumbles, not looking up.
Grung scratches thoughtfully, triggering a massive flea evacuation. “Me not sure,” he admits. “Me not know how to read too.”
Hoog considers the board again. Then he picks up the rock he’s just set down, hefts it in one hand, and bashes in Grung’s sloped forehead.
Later, he tries to get confirmation from the dictionary, but that’s not much help either.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Maxwell spots two people mock-boxing in the warming sun outside a café. He grins in surprise, swings his head around on a neck suddenly less tense, and takes in a long sweep of bus window. It’s so clear: stones in the old post office wall, man in a blue jacket dusting strong hands, painted glass hung where someone’s flipping Open to Closed. In his headphones, the cellist draws out one long note.
Maxwell momentarily feels the focus of a skipping camera, moving mind to mind like a stream of consciousness commercial. But whose camera? He wonders. And where’s it going next?
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Where she’s looking, the tabletop’s a patter of yellow fingerprints. Mahfood must have the room mornings, Bertha decides. He doesn’t believe in erasers.
She remembers discovering colored chalk, hanging around Dad’s classroom after hours. The colors were soft and pure; she expected them to smell like blueberry, lemon and pine. They didn’t, though. They smelled like chalk.
Julian drops a sheaf of papers before her. “Sorry they’re late.”
“Julian,” she begins, “I have to discuss–”
“I know,” he replies. “She told me herself.”
Bertha looks down at the table; he leaves. Pain, always waiting, leans in to touch her shoulder.
Monday, February 23, 2004
Horn’s father is yelling again; they both knew it would happen, part of the pattern they help each other reinforce. This time’s different, though. Horn’s not afraid, not angry, not even bored. There has been a shift, and somehow he’s in charge.
No one watching would see it, but they both feel it there. His father’s drive has changed: it’s become a concentration on form rather than content. Horn feels like an auditioning director–that’s appropriate, anyway. His father’s theatre diction. Horn still plays the teenager, slumped and inscrutable, while consonants boom and crack like ice floes in his father’s mouth.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
“Vertical scalability!” they said, enthusiastically. They’re always very enthusiastic.
Borland understands their desire to save floorspace, but he’s pretty sure stacking cubes like interlocking Lego isn’t the way. He doesn’t envy Stoneberg, who now needs a stepladder to reach his desk. But he also wishes Stoneberg’s crotch weren’t right at eye level.
That crotch is being adjusted vigorously right now; Borland looks away quickly, then jerks back as Stoneberg’s chair rolls over a crucial report. January’s shredded.
Borland grips the pieces tightly, resisting the urge to wad them down Stoneberg’s throat. Soon, he thinks, calming himself. Soon, Accounts Receivable will pay.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
A few days later, Emory sits down with two piles. One is of photographs.
He takes his time with each one, running the X-acto around each curve of her arm, each coat wrinkle. He lays the pieces down and traces them, leaving some overhang. Then he brushes the edges of the Kodak paper with watered glue.
Emory replaces Gloria with color and texture: he outlines slick blue wrapping paper, wrinkles and smooths aluminum foil, cuts out a piece of Goodwill tartan skirt that smells of moths. He frames that one, but leaves the glass off. The fabric warms to his touch.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Fantine’s holding forth again, just a bit off the point. Thirty degrees off, maybe. Still horribly wrong.
When she stops to breathe Caleb leaps in to grab the tiller, steering conversation back to saner waters: the weather. Chyler sighs with relief.
“Sure,” she says later, as Fantine pouts, “but I’d rather have snow anyway–”
“Because you can’t throw rain?” Caleb asks.
She looks to him; he looks up; their eyes catch. Flash. Freeze. Chyler swears there are words in his face and crooked smile: You understand, he says. We understand each other. In charm, in understanding, this is our conspiracy.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Heather heaves out of the thick sludge, already screaming. She’s in the dingy bathtub of a hotel they visited when she was eight, the buzz-snap of its half-functional fluorescent as terrifying as ever. She’s covered in something and she hates it. She swipes at her face but it squishes into the corners of her eyes, her ears, into her hair. She tears with filthy nails and it’s sinking into her skin. Spongy. Can’t breathe. She digs in, pulls away chunks of face like soft rubber, keeps pulling, feeling warm water well out of the holes. Off, off, she wants it off–