When the sprawling new development opens just off the exit, the remaining stores in the Richmond Mall pack up their inventory, put on their sheepish hats and scurry over to foist themselves upon the weary of I-75.
Behind its dark and empty windows, strange things flower.
The plastic plants burst into bloom; the ghost of flute music rises, tritoned and sinister. The leftover nerves of fifty thousand bored teenagers spawn a new race of restless fey, hands eagerly filching, eyes like bright cigarettes.
Then the owners burn it down for insurance money and build a giant church on the remains.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Donithan reads a storefront labelled
BUTTER
london
and, for a long and fuzzy moment, takes it as an imperative.
He hasn’t moved across enough time zones for jet lag; it’s just the brainlock that sets in when retracting one’s awareness into eight cubic feet. Poor Donithan! he thinks. Afforded trips on enormous machines that fling him through the sky across continents. Oh, pity the privileged!
He drags himself away from the closed price-gougery and shuffles toward his gate. His trail of thought shimmers on the floor behind him, like a slug’s mucus, or a hot fat skating on a pan.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
“Please hold your applause until the last student has crossed,” says the dean in his careful accent. “Hector Alvarez!”
Hector steps double-time to the oomp oomp of the brass, grips firmly, and exits the stage with a diploma and a hushed audience. So too do his classmates, until it comes to Diego–whose cousin can’t strangle a whoop of proud glee.
After that each family dares a little more, and before the dean presents the class, the place is a roaring, stomping tide.
“Hey,” says his awkward dad, outside. “Sorry we didn’t–”
“I totally understand,” says Hector, who totally understands.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Geffy holds the pinch of rushlight between finger and trembling thumb for a long time, a catgut string of anticipation. It took him all week to scrape together this dose. The next one will take longer.
Then he snorts it, and for an hour he’s a lord.
No one questions him; hansoms appear at his gesture, women blush or curtsey, and his pockets turn out silver coins. The clothes on his back are of inconsequence. All anyone sees is the clarity of his eyes–
And then he’s done, kneeling and shaking, trying to tongue up the last crumbs of the drug.
Friday, February 20, 2009
No one pays much mind when Miss Havisham isn’t in class the next day, but then, nobody else has spent quite as much time creeping about the abandoned wings as Proserpina.
She startles the headmaster as he leaves his office. “Oh, I’m afraid she was arrested last night. Some kind of riot or to-do,” he explains kindly. “But don’t you worry! She was of course released from her employment as soon as I heard the news. No need to have her bad influences around sweet girls like yourself!”
“With respect, sir,” she murmurs, “I count three mistakes in that statement.”
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The hardest part about being a vampire is neither the running-water thing (easy enough to avoid in a swamp state) nor the garlic (a myth). It’s the techno. You have to listen to very angry techno or your teeth fall out.
“I dream about Kenny G sometimes,” says Gared wistfully, pitching his voice to carry over the endless 4/4 thump. “And not even in a subtly homoerotic way.”
“Can’t be helped,” says Endymion. “Techno is the closest we can get to a musical heartbeat.”
“I suppose you’re right,” sighs Gared. “More blood?”
“Of course!” says Endymion.
(Vampires love blood.)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Jake’s work-study career begins with a daylong research mission from which, haplessly, he returns with a single book.
His professor indicates her extant copy.
“Ah,” says Jake.
“Pothead,” she scribbles in his assessment file.
As a sophomore he scrambles to avoid envelope-stuffing at the admissions office; juniorhood sees him laundering resigned jockstraps for eight dollars a week. But oh, sweet senior sinecure! Jake finds himself richly compensated for cleansing the occasional froshgirl laptop, and armed with the master key to their dorm.
“How may we too prosper, Master?” ask his disciples.
“Fuck up until somebody promotes you,” Jake intones.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
They crack the secret Derrida Vault and gape at the array within: devices quite unlike crowbars, yet dissimilar to lightsabers: plentiful and simple enough that everybody gets one. Or at least a pretty good facsimile.
Milan finds the one Laetitia brought home and opens some leftover moving boxes. “Best unpacker we’ve ever had!” he says, when he lets Fantine borrow it.
Fantine calls it a deboxer when she loans it to Diego; naturally, he takes it to the gym.
“That’s starting to cause some real pain now,” groans his boxing partner.
“It’s probably a good hurt!” grins Diego, winding up again.
Monday, February 16, 2009