Somewhere a bell rings, and Karen stands. “Jerk,” she adds, and walks away.
An eleven-year-old girl rolls up next to Andre, who has his chin in his hands. The girl has big dark eyes and a scooter. Her name is Corbin.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“The usual,” sighs Andre. “I cast a spell so she’ll go out with me, I mention that pronouncing the longest word in English will break it and bam! ‘Pneumo-ultra-microscopic-silico-volcano-coniosis’ and she’s gone. Stupid Google.”
“Ah.”
“I should’ve picked something harder to say,” says Andre glumly.
“I think you’re addressing the wrong problem, Andre,” says Corbin.
In the reverse of the natural order, the pile of leaves jumps into Claude. They can’t quite make out what happens next, but there’s a wrenching pop and a muffled scream, and then Claude’s arm comes flying out to land at their feet.
Claude’s not attached to the arm. They all stare at it. Janice pokes it with her rake.
The pile drops Claude’s remains and turns to (somehow) face them. Its color has deepened from Harvest Gold to Cadmium Red. It’s breathing.
“RUN!” screams Marco.
They manage to set it on fire later, which seems, briefly, like a great idea.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
may meet with lucrative gains.
Libra (Sep. 24 – Oct. 23): This is a time for unburning bridges. Look back at your recent personal history, perhaps the last two or three months, and reconsider relationships you may have left behind. Were those decisions too hasty? It’s in your interest to patch things up. Nobody’s perfect. Come on, Cheryl, everybody makes mistakes. What is it about this one that you can’t forgive? Please move back in. I miss you. So do the cats.
Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 22): Wait–Cheryl, is your birthday on the 23rd or 24th? Oh shit! Oh
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
In the days since they put her into the dark, Rita’s had plenty of time to wonder whether the Cold Man’s life is worth it. When she couldn’t decide, she passed the hours exploring something new inside her: something that was once warm and scattered, now tightly aligned, a cold and perfect checkerboard.
Then they open the lid, and take the heavy dollars from her eyelids.
“You are of the Numismata,” says the flat voice. “You are of the Coined.”
Rita opens her eyes at the cold touch, and everything’s etched in silver. She’ll never be warm or see color again.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
“She said fingerprints ruin them!” mutters Jorge.
“That’s crap,” says Dina. “It’s the coolest feeling in the world, but they want to keep it for themselves! I’ve touched them before, plenty of times, and nothing bad happened. Cave guides are selfish bastards.”
He squints at her. “Are you sure–”
“Now!” she whispers. “While she’s not looking!”
Jorge leans over and presses his fingers against the stalagmite. It feels exactly like a cold, wet rock; when he jerks his hand back, there are four distinct impressions on its side. He stares at Dina.
“Okay, I just hate cave guides,” Dina admits.
It occurs to Burke that the sensory experience most closely akin to kissing Patty is Pixie Stix: trying and trying to dislodge a chunk from one, and ending up with a mouthful of wet, sad paper straw. Except with Patty you don’t get the zing of sugar in the first place. Burke always wondered if they were supposed to be flavored differently. Maybe the purple ones were grape and the orange ones, well, eponymous, but what taste would one associate with neon green?
“Burke?” Patty pulls away, looking as confused as he feels. “I–is something wrong?”
“Kiwi!” he says, wrongly.
“A zero-one-infinity problem,” Senji repeats flatly.
“Yes!” Hawthorne is trying to be suave in a smoking jacket, but he ruins it by vibrating with enthusiasm. “White wine has no contact with the grapeskins, blush wine has minimal contact, and red wine has full. But if you have grapeskins, why use the flesh of the grape at all? I give you–black wine!”
He whips off a velvet cover, revealing a bottle with a masking-tape label and two half-full goblets. Senji picks up one of them and tilts it; the purple sludge inside doesn’t move.
“Man, you have terrible ideas,” he says.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
“Antibodies,” says Lydia urgently. “Otto, don’t you understand? You develop antibodies to microbes, you can even inherit some natural resistances, but if–if a strain of smallpox attacked you, you’d be helpless, because you’ve never encountered it. And advertising works exactly the same way!” She grabs his arm. “You’re young, and you’ve got no immunity. There are no vaccinations for this, you’ve got to fight–Otto, please tell me you can hear me?”
But Otto is oblivious, heedless and helpless. “Sure,” he grins cheerfully, “no problem,” even as he attempts, via blender and funnel, to get a tiger into his tank.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
“Study party? Please.” Holly hooks her fingers in Rose’s belt loops and tugs. “Anyway, I hate my hair in the rain.”
“If we skip–”
“She’ll be fine. Come on.” She gets Rose back on the couch, then slithers behind her. “Let’s stay in, get pizza, I’ll rub your shoulders…”
“Mmm,” sighs Rose, “rub out my GPA,” but she doesn’t get up.
Holly doesn’t care about the session, or her hair, but life with Rose is new; she doesn’t want things to get weird. And they would, because the rain doesn’t fall on Holly. Ever. Even if she wants it to.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
The Ganges is teeming; Gayle can hear it, blocks away from the hotel balcony. She wonders where the dolphins go, if any are left–it’s so filthy, so crowded.
“It’s so crowded,” she says aloud, as Raman comes up behind her with coffee. “How could it have happened in this?”
“It wasn’t always so crowded,” he says mildly.
“No,” she says.
“What happened here?” He sips. “Or would you rather be cryptic?”
“Not cryptic,” she says. “Cyphered. Somebody invented cypher here–cypher from ziphirium, from sifr, from sunya…”
His forehead wrinkles. “‘Nothing?'”
“Yes,” she says. “This is where they invented nothing.”