Ghostly hands tipped with rotting talons reach up from the ground, amidst discordant howling, to grasp Wilhelm’s ankles. He’s too surprised to stop them from pulling him down.
“Oh hello,” say the owners of the hands (who turn out to be, themselves, giant hands).
“Did you want something?” asks Wilhelm.
“We never actually get anyone,” says one giant hand.
“They always pull free at the last minute,” admits another.
“So what do you do between grabbings?” asks Wilhelm.
“Scrabble, mostly,” volunteers a hand.
Wilhelm beats the hands at Scrabble, because he knows lots of two-letter words, whereas they can’t read.
Alone in a strange bed, Eola makes men out of Kleenex to protect her from invaders. Some of them she puts on the nightstand and the footboard; others she gives Kleenex parachutes and tosses toward the periphery.
The Kleenex men cut silk and secure the LZ with Q-Tip rifles. The dust is cohering into hunched and leaning shapes, boiling at the edges, burning blue eyes in the corners and under the chair. The Kleenex men draw together, sweating.
The boiling dust monsters don’t understand their hunger. They advance with open arms, needing more, needing anything, needing not to be alone.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Ava does a little acting.
“Excuse me,” says a man in a PT Cruiser, “which way to the conference center?”
“Twelve blocks that way,” says Ava. The man thanks her and drives off toward the worst neighborhood in the state. Ava never broke character!
“What can we get for you today?” asks her waitress, later.
“‘Ows about a stoik and kidney poi,” says Ava. Her dialect is perfect!
“We don’t have that,” says the waitress.
“And that’s why you attempted to strangle her?” asks the judge.
“No, your honor,” says Ava. “It’s because she’s carrying my baby!”
But she’s totally not!
Thursday, February 8, 2007
“Free at last,” she squeaks, and they chuckle as she turns off the modulator. “Free at last,” Vickie Lynn repeats, in her near-forgotten alto.
“We’re glad to have you in from the cold,” says the secret man on the seat opposite. “You’d pushed the limits of the role.”
“I won’t miss climbing into that latex,” she murmurs.
“The agency considers you one of history’s greatest dogwags. You’ll have medals–classified, of course.”
Vickie Lynn smiles. “I had fun with the farce,” she says, “what else can we ask?”
The black car whispers down the Hollywood highway, windows dark as ink.
Oates runs quiet as rain up the midnight side of the tower. She’s done everything possible to delay her opponent. With a bound, she’s horizontal again–
“Is it cliché,” asks Atwood coolly, “to point out that you’re late?”
“You’re the expert,” says Oates, and then they’re shooting each other’s bullets out of the air. Guns empty, they go to swords; swords bent, they flicker through hand arts: krav maga to hapkido, taekkyon, abir. They break apart at the click of the roof door.
“Take it from a reporter, girls,” drawls Didion, grinning, Automags in both hands. “Always skip the opening ceremonies.”
Monday, February 12, 2007
“They say we must move out,” says Wanartaka, “that there is no solution but to run like dogs from the evildoers. But I say no. I tell you the Dance is real!” Roaring, stomping, fists to the sky. “I tell you their weapons cannot stand before the might of our people united! I tell you that I will put on this holy garment and stand before a thousand explosions, and defy them all!”
They believe, or believe they believe. They bind the Ghost Shirts to their rifles, to their Humvees, to their desert fatigues, because it’s all the armor they have.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
All his primate-brain mapmaking machinery is worthless in these dimensions, but Salvador likes to feel it trying. Teasing it, he turns four right angles and still ends up orthogonal. His brain struggles like a beetle on its back.
There are physical laws here, of course, like the conservation of characters. Salvador nods to the only old man in the world, from whom he’s asked directions nine times.
“Howdy,” says the old man, “nice to meetcher, sentientlike construct.”
“Sentientlike?” retorts Salvador.
“Sorry!” The old man guffaws. “Didn’t realize you took the Turing test… and passed!”
Seriously, in that dimension it’s hilarious.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
(Grande)
99% Cotton
The other 1% is spun from the sinew of Aur-Korlir, Terror of the West
You’d think whoever did that would have taken his head and been done with it
But no
They dragged the corpse to town and sold it for three silvers
And now of course everybody wants a damn Aur-Korlir Hide Tunic
Apparently it goes with the Stormhound Boots and the Codpiece of Bhrkz
The problem being of course that he’s really not that big
Have you ever applied a straight razor to a cross-section of dragon?
I hate my job
Machine Wash Cold
Torch Dry
Friday, February 16, 2007
“It’s not that I don’t feel some attraction to you,” says Ostrom, a bit embarrassed.
The supermodels stalk in circles around him, their movements stylized and fluid.
“There’s just something… desperate about your biology,” he says. “A stunted evolutionary branch? You adapted into a shrinking niche, and as standards of beauty–like all media standards–started to decentralize, you just didn’t have the chance to hit reverse.”
They slit their eyes.
“And that’s the attraction,” sighs Ostrom. “The poetry, the tragedy of your obsolescence.”
The supermodels give a keening cry and leap, rending him with their enlarged, sickle-shaped second toes.
Monday, February 19, 2007
“A gallon of milk!” demands the king.
“In your name, Sire!” shouts Kennedy, Knight Errand, and she’s mounted and pelting within a hare’s breath.
She liberates the milk from the back of the cooler at the corner store. “You have to pay for that!” scolds the owner (but he’s a Saracen, and Kennedy runs him through).
“Yea,” says the king, “verily, this milk is God’s own favor! A boon for Sir Kennedy! What would you?”
“Perhaps,” she asks, “a sharp new pencil?”
The king nods. “Who among ye will fetch the good knight her prize?”
“In your name, Sire!” shouts Kennedy.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007