Inevitably, Horatio puts his balls up on his tactilog. He titles them “a soft puppy.” Nobody is fooled.
After a couple months he gets worried about his political career (you never know) and deletes them. Then he gets worried about Google and reposts under the same title, with a feelie that actually is of a soft puppy. He considers the Wayback but doesn’t really know how to fix that.
Finally, on his thirtieth birthday, he puts his balls back up. He’s embracing his mistakes! He’s living up and owning up. He’s not afraid to age.
He spends a while in jail.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Half of her suitor is a boy, ash-haired and soft-fingered, only a few years older than she is. Proserpina sees that he won’t enjoy this meeting and wonders why.
The other half is his father, whose hand, when Proserpina shakes it, feels hungry. But his eyes are warm.
“Proserpina,” says her mother, “this is Mister Buchanan! He’s an old friend of your father’s, a business associate from New South Wales.”
“That makes you very brave, Mister Buchanan,” says Proserpina.
“Odd choice of phrasing, gel,” says Buchanan, but he smiles. “This is my son Dacelo.”
“Oh,” says Proserpina, “that’s why.”
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Lobell always feels lost in other people’s showers. It’s a very womblike space: one of a few places where you’re relaxed and naked for any length of time, surrounded by warm water, cut off from the world. The way you arrange your loofah, soap and half-empty product bottles within that is indelibly personal.
So what does it mean, he muses, lathering, to borrow it? To surrender your own birthplace; to assume theirs, temporarily. To share an intimacy, disjointed in space and time.
Lobell sighs and reaches out for a towel. He should probably leave before whoever lives here get home.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
“Reaching the West Reaches,” says the Princess Leaves coolly. “Only you could be so bold.”
“You are a member of the Mjish Binn Alliance and a traitor,” says the lord in black. His death mask has eyes like some great insect, and it hisses when he breathes.
“I’m a member of the Council on a diplomatic mission!” snaps the Princess.
“The Speaker has dissolved the Heavenly Council,” chuckles Reaching the West Reaches. He extends one gloved hand, and electricity arcs from the obsidian sphere hovering above it. “And now, your Highness… we will discuss the location of the Mjish Binn base.”
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
“If you feed it enough broken glass it makes a washing machine,” Darby reports.
“A glass washing machine?”
“Steel drum, plastic housing. Which–to reiterate–is completely impossible without…” Darby shrugs. “Transmutation? Alchemy?”
“Unless it’s just exchanging it somewhere,” says Vance. “White hole, wormhole…”
They look through the viewport at the battered black box, covered in that weird fake Cyrillic. One of the techs is pouring in a bottle of ’09 Riesling.
“If it comes out as water, I say we blow the thing up,” says Darby.
“There’s an idea,” murmurs Vance. “What do you think it makes out of explosions?”
Monday, September 24, 2007
“So,” says Uri, “do they work?”
Neko traces a little star in a pile of spilled Sweet ‘N’ Lo. “That’s not a very interesting question, really,” she says. “I study spells from a number of hermetic and religious traditions–and alchemy, which is some of both–not with the intention of casting them, so much as determining the processes of thought that shaped the human condition. Occultism led to alchemy, and alchemy, in some twisted way, led to the scientific method. It’s fascinating, because science’s greatest triumph is the refutation of the magical worldview–”
“Right, but,” says Uri, “do they work?”
Thursday, September 20, 2007
“Arr,” says Gilbert. He’s a pirate! He lives in the Strait of Malacca.
“Avast!” says Gilbert. He boards a ship! It’s carrying various spices.
“Hearties!” says Gilbert. He takes some prisoners! The prisoners will live out their lives in Malaysian sex rings, addicted to heroin.
“Ahoy!” says Gilbert. He goes into port! He drinks a charming amount of grog (rum mixed with water).
“Shiver me timbers!” says Gilbert. He contracts syphilis! He has difficulty obtaining antibiotics.
“Yo ho ho!” says Gilbert. He grows paranoid! Later he gets stabbed in a brawl on deck.
“Ghrhghh,” says Gilbert.
Yay for Gilbert!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Viggo Mortensen is one of the finest trained swordsmen in Hollywood.
“If not the Warren Beatty kind of swordsman,” he chuckles softly. “That’s who did this, though, isn’t it? Beatty?”
Rub the rope burns on your gasping throat and nod.
“Next time don’t mention old Pat.” Viggo Mortensen shrugs. “You couldn’t have known. But if you’re still breathing we must be only a few minutes behind him–did you see which way he went?”
Point. It doesn’t matter where.
Viggo Mortensen’s grin is a hungry teenage boy. “Not much longer, old man. Tally ho, Buckethead!”
Buckethead unsheathes his doubleneck and crows.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The sun turns a blind eye to this sort of thing, although she shouldn’t, after what happened to Ceres.
At least Saturn got Jupiter to give him a ring, although after all this time they still haven’t set a date. Whatever Pluto and Charon are doing together, it got them disowned, and now Venus is spurning the advances of her opposite number. He’s calling her bluff–looking elsewhere.
Mars makes it clear, by the waggle in his orbital axis, just what he would like to do if they ever happened to fall into each other’s gravity wells.
Earth blushes. Millions die.
Monday, September 17, 2007