“Anything at all,” croaks Konohanasakuya-hime, holding up her worn paper sign. Flame has licked its edges; blossoms rot in her hair.
“Okay,” says Phanindra, and digs in his memory. “Um, your name be praised?”
“I bless you,” she grins toothlessly, but Phanindra doesn’t feel very blessed. He’s been spotted as a mark and the crowd’s surging from street grates and alcoves. Gods paw at him, crippled, crying, one-eyed and fox-headed. “Pray to me!” they beg. “Just a little!”
“I’m sorry,” he says desperately, “I haven’t got any more,” and wishes to no one that he lived somewhere colder.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
“I am not a teacher,” hisses Proserpina, as Ernestine sniffs curiously at the oatmeal bag.
“She has to learn from someone. The Novak girl is crueler even than you were.”
“Iala’s not so bad. And you know I was caught once already!”
Radiane nods. “Exactly. With three of us you won’t have to go without a lookout again.”
“I thought you understood the storybooks. That a third link is weakest, that once you make a circle of more than two–”
“My mistake, Ernestine,” says Radiane loudly, “I thought here you could learn to be dangerous,” and Proserpina bites her own teeth.
I. i. There was a man walking alone at night; ii. and Pharez said, “I’m a rob that fucker.” iii. So he set upon him. iv. But the man overcame Pharez, and took his knife.
II. i. And Pharez was greatly amazed. ii. And he said unto the man, iii. “What are you, some kinda ninja or somethin’?” iv. And the man spoke, saying, v. “I am no ninja. I was simply prepared.”
III. i. The man left, and Pharez was sore troubled, and thought upon many things. ii. And the first thought was that iii. he would buy a gun.
See Me wakes, too cold to tremble, head down on a pile of bones. By the dim light of the cave mouth, he stands like a drunken mannikin and finds one splintered femur tight in his fist.
The monster is on him before he reaches the light. See Me cracks ribs on an icy wall and sees his own sword, a toy in the gray beast-man’s hand.
See Me lunges and stabs: clumsy, but good enough. Hot blood sprays his eyes. A high-pitched scream, and sudden pain, and a curious feeling of lightness at the end of his arm.
Big Time Leiber riffles a worn deck one-handed, a habit he’s cultivated to appear nervous when he’s not. Now he’s actually very nervous. But stopping would be an even more obvious tell.
“People in Simak City,” he says, looking out her high dark window, “all came here to be sharks, right? The city’s the house, and they think they can beat it. Maybe they can for a while. But the house can eat losses, and they can’t.”
“You have different plans?”
“You wanna win, you burn the house down.”
Darkness LeGuin pulls at the holder of two long white cigarettes.
The whole thing is very bookflap-bio: downtown sub-efficiency with a sink, shared bathroom, thin towels, the view consisting exclusively of another wall. There’s even a jazz band filtering up through the floorboards at night.
Except Jake is no chain-smoking playwright, no starving bassoonist with dreams of bassooning glory. He’s just a wanderlusty working stiff.
He tries to imagine himself as Van Gogh, as Bukowski, as… somebody who played bassoon. It won’t take. They didn’t have clean floors or Xboxes or the ability to leave whenever they wanted; his suffering is insufficient. At least the bathroom smells like pee.
Lights are still on in the opening act’s bus: Helvek is practicing scales quietly while Lens of Stars and Gurter shuffle for whist. The Electric Hipster is doing a little coke but not bothering anybody. The gig’s just ended, and there is a tension of hope that the main act might still decide to share.
Two hours later the hope leaves only its spiteful residue. The Electric Hipster peeks through the window at Lenny Spitzman’s Bus O’ Laffs, visibly wobbling across the parking lot, groupies spilling out the door.
“Fuckin’ comedians,” he mutters.
Gurter nods glumy, and strums with horny fingers.
There’s a moment when the girl in the band whom you thought was just a singer swings back around with a bass on her hip. Aury’s decided that the only name for it is, simply, glee.
It’s a good feeling: she wants to share it. Maybe she could start a club? They’d only meet in the autumn, when the smell in the air makes you want to pick up a stick and go a-questing. They’d watch the part of High Fidelity where Tim Robbins eats a telephone over and over. They’d hit each other with telephones. They’d cackle, and bleed.