There’s this stretch of Larrabee Road where the stop signs have all been turned north-south by enterprising souls and all the streetlights disabled, which keeps the traffic down. Claire likes it. The smell of cold french fries has taken up residence in the car’s ventilation system, but it’s not unpleasant, and the heater halfway works.
Claire burned a mix of shoegaze and wordless ennui and hasn’t taken it out of the player yet. She won’t, as long as it works.
You can coast a lot longer than you’d expect, on flat ground, once you take your foot off the pedal.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
In 2002 Rhoda won a sweepstakes reproduction of the house from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids–built for the threequel, but identical down to Rick Moranis Character’s wacky Rube Goldberg devices. There was a cash option, but she took the house on a whim. You can’t beat California real estate for investment value!
Ha ha ha ha!
She’ll never sell it, she knows, morosely lubricating a model train. It’s supposed to pull the string to tilt the track to run the marble down and put on some music, but everything here is disintegrating. The only record that plays is “Yakety Sax.”
“How glad I am to see you, your honor,” says a slightly feverish Federico, when the guardia march him into the receiving hall of the ruler of Florence. “Oh, how long have been these twenty years, as I travelled all Asia at the behest of your lordship’s curiosity. But I have returned, with the truth clutched in my fist!” He brandishes a tiny crystal bottle. “Though my companions perished, though the journey left me divorced and bankrupt, I return to you with the essence you requested: the source of scent!”
“I said ‘some sort of sense,'” says Lorenzo.
“What?” says Federico.
Beneath the newspaper bundles there’s another room, cold and dim. Aniridia looks down, realizing for the first time that the light comes from nowhere here. None of the rooms has had the courtesy to provide a lantern.
“It is very dark,” she mutters to herself. “You may be eaten.”
The rough-edged hole she’s torn is not a way out, but it’s a way different. She thinks of her father, diving into deep cold water, holding his breath twice the length of the pool.
As she lowers herself into it, Aniridia leaves fingerprints on its edges. The newsprint looks like ash.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Ice groans like a great door opening, and Ashlock realizes that above her, things in the darkness are unfurling their batlike claws.
How do you apply kung fu to non-Euclidean anatomy? She’s wondered before, but perhaps it’s not the day for an empirical test. She hauls Tach’s rigorous body into the center of the star.
“Here’s where I bet on you being in trance,” she says, “so don’t make me wrong, you Japanese motherfucker.” The steel of the drive burns through her mitten. Â Ashlock unreels its cable with woolbound fingers and finds the USB port at the base of Tach’s skull.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
“Do you understand what this means for science?” says Hawthorne, fizzing with excitement.
Senji glares at him, probably. “This isn’t a fun project. How did you manage to give me frictionless skin?”
“Except on your hands and feet!” says Hawthorne. “A breakthrough!”
“I can’t sit down without an infinite wedgie.”
“The Slip ‘N’ Slide potential alone!”
Senji tries to rub the bridge of his nose and fails. “I liked it better when you only experimented on yourself.”
“You said we were drifting apart,” says Hawthorne, hurt. “This is a meta–”
“IT’S NOT A METAPHOR I WANT MY EYEBROWS BACK,” says Senji.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Dittany’s title is Subminister of Electronic Diversion Policy, which means she gets paid to find new ways for the Glorious Leader to cheat at Halo. It’s hard. He’s terrible, so they can’t use timing tricks or button combos, and lately they just beat the hell out of the Live servers with a botnet until something cracks.
Caffeine is illegal here and the nights are killing her. Dittany pores over forums and tries to sneak in humane policies at the ministry council. She came here to teach English, but the only words the Glorious Leader wanted from her were “Jew noob fag.”
“Great artists must sacrifice for their JESUS OW,” says Iphigenia, jerking her hand away.
“I told you it would sting,” says Nicole. “And this is just disinfectant–you need a rabies shot.”
“They didn’t have rabies,” Iphigenia scowls. “They were just startled by the damn paparazzi.”
“You wore a gown made of live minks to an awards show. You didn’t anticipate some flash photography?”
“I’m sure we all take comfort in your perfect hindsight, Nicole.”
She sighs. “I said the same thing beforehand, so it’s foresight, actually. I also told you to wear panties.”
“What is this,” says Iphigenia, “a nunnery?”
By the time he steps inside he’s forgotten the number on the sign.
There’s light in the house but he can’t seem to cast a shadow. It’s almost a relief, to stop worrying when your hand will accidentally loose a monster. He ambles without purpose, taking pleasure in exploration: one room floored in knotty pine, another in oak, their walls shaded blue or celadon or tea rose pink. Multiplicity makes his greed for novelty easy. They never cease to provide.
In one of the rooms, he thought he saw stars through a window; but he has already forgotten where that was.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The tunnel’s strung with Cat 6 and harsh lights in cages. The air is warm as breath.
It must be miles. The lights begin to struggle; that generator isn’t going to last. Ashlock keeps looking at Tach. Tach says nothing.
At the end it’s a cavern, tall and dim. Warm bodies have worn a star of six depressions in the ice; they were sitting in their own waste. Gone now. Dead monitors on carts drip with condensation.
There’s a great shadow below them, deep in the ice.
Tach collapses. Ashlock grabs him, and sees that his eyes are empty and dark.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011