They gave up and sewed pockets into Isaac’s pajamas after he managed the fire escape in his sleep; now at least he has a key and a bus pass when he wakes two miles from home. Spare change, too, not that pay phones exist anymore.
He undertakes strange missions at the behest of dreams. He once bought a single stick of gum from a nice drug dealer, once sought out a toll booth operator to ask “why else ginger the multiple recursion tan?” Jungian voyages. Isaac’s feet are tough, his rest exhausting, but he always wakes with a sense of accomplishment.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
I got my preraw ultraselvedge “blue” “jeans” a year ago and love them. As instructed, I wear them daily, never wash, and use a rubber chisel to knock in knee joints each morning. When can I expect my skin to begin sloughing?
Sounds like you’re doing great! Everyone’s personal denim-fusion timeline is different, but I’d expect open sores within three months.
Master, my faith is greatly tested. What if I just took a sponge–
You are impure in my sight, and shall be cast out.
Dr. Denim! NOOO
Join us next week, when we discuss deflecting small-caliber bullets with your pants.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
“Littleford’s dead, isn’t he?” says Zach. “Guess I have to find a new job.”
“Not necessarily.” She rubs her buzz cut. “I, um, inherited the business from him.”
“Oh,” says Zach, parsing that. “Oh! So, is Phalanger your mom’s last name, or–”
“It’s not anybody’s name, Zach.”
“I knew that,” he says.
“The guys at the agency, they may… object to me taking over. I could use a lieutenant. Somebody tough. Somebody like the man who killed Hidebound.”
A pause; the plane’s engines are singing.
“I just did the website,” says Zach.
“Not anymore,” she says, and kisses his unscarred cheek.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The saltshaker skips backwards through time five minutes every time he tips it over, probably.
“How’d you establish that?” says Mahmoud.
“I wrote ‘5:30’ down on a piece of paper,” says Waylon, “which I remembered to do because I pulled it out at 5:25.”
“Why not stick your watch in there?”
“It won’t fit.”
“Well, remember to put the Powerball numbers in tonight and take them out now!” says Mahmoud.
“It’s already 6:45, and that only works in Bill & Ted–”
“Do it!”
Waylon sighs, but when the duplicate shaker phases into being, he unscrews the top.
“6:50,” says the paper inside.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Etruscan haruspices divined omens from the entrails of animals, so under the principle of symmetry, fucking with bird livers should let you change the future. Desiree spikes the doves’ water bowl but it’s hard to tell whether it’s the right dosage. Aside from a few off-key chirps, they mostly just get sleepy.
Sheep should be easier, but here’s the problem: sheep hate you and are dumb. Desiree’s vocal attempts to corner Mrs. Sheepington in the petting zoo with a bottle of Heaven Hill attract a certain notoriety, but, to be fair, that’s what she wanted out of the future anyway.
Friday, September 24, 2010
They talk up the steaks, at Chopchurch, and with a name like that they have to. Ives would go just for the atmosphere, though: candles and stained glass, hostesses costumed at the edge of fetish-nunnery, extra-tall doors to accommodate the manager’s hat. When your table’s ready they ring a solemn bell. The wine tastes like guilty summers.
Ives drops his card in the collection plate and leans back, achingly sated. “Not bad, right?”
His date rearranges salad. “Eh. I associate all this with fasting.”
“The whole point is to subvert your associations!”
“No,” says his date, looking around, “I got that.”
Thursday, September 23, 2010
There’s only so much Internet to go around in El Paso–there’s a war on, after all–and Wanda’s been forced to resort to sucking out a few baud wherever she can. The neighbors’ wi-fi is long since drained, and she got a few minutes from the data plan on an expired SIM. Now she’s weighing a 56k, and wondering if wardialing still works.
“Careful,” says Chevre, “the Glimmer Man will haul you in for that.”
“The Glimmer Man’s not real,” says Wanda.
“Says you.”
“Says Snopes.”
“Prove it.”
Wanda does, and blows the few precious seconds still trapped in an Ethernet coil.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuffy builds the mudlarks out of river muck and straw skeletons, with button eyes and tin foil beaks. They hop around, flinging little silt-drops from their wingtips.
“Do you ever wonder about the consequences of creating life?” says Emmanuel, watching.
“They’re animated, not alive,” says Tuffy. “No reproduction. No DNA.”
“They make choices.” Two mudlarks team up to corral a fleeing beetle.
“No, they respond to stimuli.”
“You’re splitting feathers.”
Tuffy shrugs.
“If you’re making a big point about free will and sapience, I don’t like it,” says Emmanuel.
“I’m making mudlarks,” says Tuffy, and sets the ugly thing to flight.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
“Alert!” she yells in her strange accent, looking around the train station with wild eyes. Â “My postilion has been struck by lightning!”
Svetik starts toward her, but Zhenya puts a hand on her arm. Â “She’s just some coked-out tourist,” he says.
“She said someone’s been hit by–”
“It’s an old phrasebook thing,” says Zhenya. Â “Nonsense sentence to teach you some grammar rule.”
“The monkey has taken my self-defense device!”
“Ah,” says Svetik, “I see.”
Not far down the road, the boy from the stagecoach twitches in the dirt; a macaque hoots, and squeezes the trigger again.
Monday, September 20, 2010
They’re occupying the sidewalk in front of his hotel in much the same way that Stalin occupied Poland. Four of them, jackets tight over muscle and eyes blackly sunglassed: the meat puppets who, in any decent movie, would be merely mooks.
This isn’t a movie, and Jin’s knowledge of the arts martial extends no further than classes at the Y. Social combat, then, he thinks with disgruntlement. His phone is already out.
Flash mobs are passé enough to be sort of ironic by now, so he’s able to procure sufficient twitterie on brief notice. Jin slips through, nothing but another mook.
Friday, September 17, 2010