“Can you see why this spell won’t compile?” Olaf asks, defeated.
Tatanga leans in. “You don’t have syntax highlighting on?”
“That’s cheating,” Olaf grumbles.
“I bet you just left off a hagalaz.”
“I didn’t leave off a hagalaz.”
“Does it say UNEXPECTED ꍸ-SYMBOL in the console or–”
“I didn’t leave off a hagalaz!”
She reaches over and clicks on his highlighting. Eldritch light flares from the screen (he left off a hagalaz).
“Low-level algorithmaturgy really does have a steep learning curve,” she says gently. “Have you maybe thought about, like, web development?”
“YEEAGH,” says Olaf, clutching his ruined eyes.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Garmegula roars and stomps around the industrial park, leaving twenty-foot prints in the concrete, which makes it difficult for Jebediah to finish his PowerPoint.
“The red line, of course, tracks gross revenue over six months, and the blue area would cover expenditures.”
“KREEE,” Garmegula bellows.
“Now, that’s not a great-looking graph!” says Jebediah, who was up until 3 am trying to make it look less terrible.
“GREEAGGH,” says Garmegula.
“But th-things look good to roll out the second wave of action figures in December, and the interactive DVD is–”
“WE ARE WAY BELOW PROJECTIONS FOR Q3,” says Garmegula.
Friday, November 27, 2009
It starts with a simple idea: Silhouine is lonely; the master bedroom is empty; some extra money wouldn’t hurt. She hangs out a sign for a boarder. An applicant duly arrives.
“I’ve got money,” says the woman, whose name will turn out to be Yael. “Will you turn me out if I say I’m foreign born?”
“Will you do foreign magic in the spare room?”
“No,” says Yael.
“Then come in,” says Silhouine, feeling magnanimous and clever.
Yael, it seems, can cook; Silhouine can mend. In a week they’re fast friends.
This is the part where they burn down the shop.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Taking phishbait eventually loses some of its thrill. Odette gets cards printed up with her SSN and mother’s maiden name, credit cards and CV2, home address and a picture of the fake rock where she keeps her key. The guy at the print shop gives her a long, careful look.
She leaves the cards as placemarkers in library books and in the shoes she tries on at DSW. She can only buy things with cash, of course, but by now she’s used to that. It’s worth it, knowing she’s multiplicative, metastatic: that little Odettes everywhere are gleefully doing the devil’s work.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tom Sawyer gave himself too much credit: painting a fence can be enormously satisfying. Once the semiotics of whitewashing are brought to bear, of course, such joys become less simple, but they are agnostic to the color of the paint. No child balks at a brush and an open can.
My stepfather once wrote that it’s easy to stay pure so long as one rides a bike. I think such purity is cosmetic, but no less valuable for that; I’ll take my absolution where I can get it. Sometimes that’s in the downhill breeze, and sometimes the eggshell coat it kisses.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
COCHLEA: Difficult to obtain but well worth the effort, as they will grow into gifted children named after your grandparents.
EYES: Spring-blooming annuals, best planted in late fall or winter. Produce cable-knit sweaters in a variety of colors.
KNEECAPS: Require heavily nitrogenated soil but do best in indirect sunlight. Produce a certain je ne sais quoi.
RIBS: Plant lengthwise in trenches, as with tubers, or grow hydroponically. Produce short-haired female mechanics or, when pruned, mechanical engineers.
SMALL INTESTINES: Slice into 6″ segments and treat like cuttings from a parent plant. Probably. Produce headaches.
TEETH: Best avoided.
TESTICLES: Jade.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sara just looks at the camera.
“Sara!” it says in a bandpassed version of Nasser’s voice. “I didn’t know you were in the city. Please–” The barred door buzzes and two very clean men in sunglasses step out to pat her down.
She lets them. When they stand up, István breaks the left one’s knee and takes the other through the door by his throat. Sara follows placidly.
“I don’t know what you’re upset about,” says Nasser, scrambling back with a tight rein on the tone of his voice.
“You never do,” Sara says, “but I’m starting to think it’s congenital.”
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Emilia’s familiar is a happily twitching thing of spring steel and tin, bounding ahead of them on its three legs and bending to clank inquisitively against a storm drain. It makes her sigh.
“Hey, cheer up!” says Gruntham. “I don’t know anyone else who’s managed to bind a clockwork.”
“You mean you don’t know anyone else who’s tried,” Emilia mutters. “For reasons that are becoming obvious.”
“You should be proud.”
“When are you going to summon your familiar, anyway?”
Gruntham, smiling, doesn’t answer, letting the city speak to him in scent and rumble: vast and old, innocent, soon to be his.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009