“Action,” calls Teller.
“Because I’ve discovered something,” pipes up the child soldier on the soundstage. “More than hate, more than bullets–the ultimate weapon is Jesus.”
“Cut!” says Teller. “Stick to the script, sweetie, okay? Somebody get the clapboard back out.”
“–is music!”
“–is puppies!”
“–is a shark that ate a hydrogen bomb, riding a comet, holding a sword and a grenade launcher, infected with bird flu!”
“I’m not reading it wrong, am I?” says the bewildered producer. They’re on take twenty-eight. “The line is ‘the human heart?'”
“Actually, after that last one I might change it,” Teller mulls.
Monday, December 17, 2007
“But it’s my favorite and we would be best friends and I promise I’d take care of it!” groans Yulies.
The pet bounces off the cage and tips over, snarling, spitting cordite as it spins in place.
“I don’t know, sweetie,” says Mother.
But she begs and begs and eventually there’s a roaring, smoking box under the Christmas tree. Yulies unwraps it almost before it unwraps itself.
“Couldn’t it have been a puppy? Or a snake?” asks Mother despairingly.
“I suppose,” says Father.
“Then why a panjandrum?”
“Because it doesn’t poop,” he says fervently, as it takes off his daughter’s finger.
Friday, December 14, 2007
“Again, from your left,” says Proserpina. “You saw what that Pole did at the match last week–he had just one little routine, pop pop swish crack, but all he had to do was reverse it and the other man was flummoxed. You’re better than that.”
“Give me a moment, can’t you?” Radiane pants. “I already had field hockey practice today, and it’s harder from this side.”
And Proserpina almost pauses, remembering her father, and her left hand tied behind her back as she wrote shaky As.
“There’s no hugging under Queensberry rules,” she says shortly, and Radiane blushes and scowls.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
“Iaiguitsu,” said Ptah patiently.
“Yaygutso,” repeated the Justin.
“To draw, to shred, to sheathe again in a single thought: this is iaiguitsu, the heart of guitaido. Stevie couldn’t teach you this because he doesn’t know it. He’ll be a wandering bluesman until he understands.”
“I don’t understand either,” the Justin admitted.
“You will. Let me see the Martin.” Ptah pulled a hidden bead from the bridge and stretched it down the neck.
“A seventh string?” gasped the Justin. “What’s it made of?”
Ptah fretted out a power fifth with his first and last fingers, then held them aloft. “Metal,” he said.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
“I have one last wish, my friend,” says Ala ad-Din warmly. “I wish you free.”
The golden manacles fall away, and the djinn’s joyous laughter booms out over Maghreb. The sky is filled with his beaming visage, and then his hands, reaching down.
“What is thy third wish, our Lord and Master?” intones Ala ad-Din as he and the other ten thousand shackled slaves toil away at the foundation of the new palace.
“I think I’m going to wish for more wishes,” says the djinn brightly, atop his throne of kneeling bodies. “That’s clever! See how clever I am?”
“Strike me down,” says Ratio Tile calmly. “I shall become more than you can imagine.”
Reaching the West Reaches drives his sword deep into the old man’s chest. Ratio’s hands scrabble on the blood-slick blade; he chokes and sags to his knees. Reaching the West Reaches draws back and raises the sword high.
“No!” screams See Me.
“Kid! Bolt the door!” screams Dog, pelting along the gangplank.
See fires wildly; the portcullis rattles shut. Reaching the West Reaches is behind it, but the Born Breathing are pouring onto the dock.
“Run, See Me!” thunders a voice in the waves. “Run!”
Thursday, December 6, 2007
“Psychiatrists are cheap,” announces Beulah.
“Er,” says Pilsner.
“I mean narratively–”
“Yes, I thought you might.”
“–they’re an easy way to have somebody spell out all the careful little flaws and neuroses you built into your characters, and if you’re the kind of writer who does that then you’re the kind who should know how to reveal that in action! But instead the character angrily rejects it, then has a breakdown, then gives in to the wisdom of the shrink. Ding. Everybody in New York smiles.”
“Mmm,” says Pilsner, “and which of your parents is this about?”
“Your mom,” Beulah says.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
“I never understood this part,” he says, in darkness. “Shouldn’t we be suffocating in stomach acid now?”
“I told you,” she says, impatient for once, “realities overlap.” Lamplight flickers behind them and he sees that they’re not in a whale’s belly after all: the wall is stone.
He raises his hand. On the wall, it shadows a wolf.
“This place illustrates the trap of sapience: the inability to perceive reality by any other means than the senses.”
“But we’re not chained here,” he says.
“Like the best traps,” says the end of the world, “it lets you believe you are free.”
Tuesday, December 4, 2007