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Monthly Archives: March 2011

The end of the world

Tearing off branches studded with thorns. Twisting them together, a crude handle and tails. Tying knots. Testing it. A whistle in the air.

He looks down at his notebook, his map of the territory. He stole so much from her house, heedless and headlong: his sin is marked with ink on ink. Only blood will out the stain.

“All humans can draw,” she said once. He’ll draw something, all right, here in this forest at the end of the world.

He raises the whip and lets it fall. One. Two. Three.

By a hundred and one, he’s long since lost count.

Thursday, March 31, 2011
A story about the end of the world

Twins

By 2018 the technology is cheap enough that you can pretty much walk around winklevossed like whoever you want. You can see through it if you squint; it’s more a fashion statement than a disguise.

There’s a brisk business in celebrity likeness rights, and a lot of hands wrung in academe. The people who lose the most are plastic surgeons, though. Some people wear their own faces, from a blemish-free day. Some people wear their own faces, from before the accident.

Normally the actual Winklevoss guys would be pissed about getting verbed this hard, but they’re busy winklevossing as Armie Hammer.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011
A story yet Uncategorized

Silas

“Frankly, Dweezil, she gives me the jimjams,” asserts Silas, pointing with a droopy fourteen-inch cigarette. “I say we scotch the broad before the judge shows up and hightail it for Colombia with whatever’s left in the cash box.”

Dweezil skances at the woman in the little holding cell, who’s levitating with a bored expression. “Scotch her how exactly?” he whispers. “We ain’t got time to bury her and we already know she won’t drown!”

“You could burn me,” suggests the floating lady. “You haven’t tried that yet.”

“At least somebody around here makes sense!” says Silas.

Later, it doesn’t work.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
A story yet Uncategorized

Herman

Across the country, flatscreens flicker on, and the populace hurries to abase themselves before the evening broadcast. It’s technically a Klingon ritual, but the ruling caste doesn’t mind. Once they stopped their internecine arguments about canon, they had free time to do things like conquer the world.

“Good evening,” smiles Herman, smug and pockmarked. “In tonight’s top stories, we’ll explain why females are inferior, then investigate why they won’t date their new overlords.”

“On the forecast, a promising drizzle will keep everyone indoors!” chortles EvangelionFan08.

“Turning to the stock market,” says Herman, “the NAZGÛL gained eleven points; the Drow, nine.”

Monday, March 28, 2011
A story yet Uncategorized

Jake

The List is out again and the important part goes 5) Stalin 4) Snyder 3) Limbaugh 2) Jake for the eighth year running, and everybody’s buzzing about Gaddafi’s leap back into the top ten. Everyone except Jake, anyway.

That 2 gnaws at him. Realistically, he can’t compete with an icon; Ol’ Number One isn’t going anywhere. But the kids beneath him know that too, and they’ll gun hard for his spot instead.

Mere fuckuppery can’t keep him competitive forever. Jake feels old. Maybe he should try his hand at film or genocide? That community college catalog just came in the mail.

Saturday, March 26, 2011
A story about Jake

Benson

“Excuse me ma’am you dropped this” says Benson, smiling and holding up the broken purse.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Comma police! Arrest this man!”

The officers spring from around the corner; Benson tastes sidewalk. “I didn’t do anything, wrong!” he cries.

“Exactly,” snaps the lady cop. “You’re going, to rot in jail.”

The rubberneckers look a little leery at that one. Somebody’s got a phone camera out.

“Put that thing away!” says her partner. “It’s technically legal use.”

It’s a hit on Youtube anyway. The lieutenant tries to throw the book at them, but Strunk & White isn’t very thick.

Friday, March 25, 2011
A story yet Uncategorized

Aniridia

Aniridia closes her eyes and it comes burning at her, the one memory she never summons, the day her father didn’t come home. It was incongruous and beautiful, a sunset like brushfire. She sat and watched television until fear beat in her heart like wings.

No note. No trace. No end to the questions, all these aching lost orphan years later, and finally she knows:

The end of the world’s not a girl or a dream.
The end of the world’s not a house.
The end of the world is the story you tell when your reasons for living run out.

Thursday, March 24, 2011
A story about Aldous

Celesque

Phosphorescent hexadecimal crawls the web of wires.

Kirrily’s holding her with a tight grip on her hair. Celesque tries to keep her mouth shut but the bluetooth’s murmuring to her, a seductive sequence of piping numbers that tugs at her mind. Her lips want to follow. She can hear the ecstasy in the voices of the others around her, and hypnagoges boil out of the depth of the pit.

They pause, together, to inhale.

Ashlock steps out of the door, a thick black band tied across her eyes and ears. She bends to touch the trembling floor; and then she smiles.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011
A story about Ashlock

Keiko

Keiko hustles down the stairs, emergency radio chittering under one arm, cat clawing the other, and stops at the sight of it. They said to take shelter in your basement, but she’d almost forgotten she kept a bomb down here.

The rain has eased up a little, and somewhere a train is whistling. Keiko sets down her squeaking burdens and pulls off the tarp: beautiful, baroque, her little hobby engine of destruction.

The walls are tearing; the roof is gone. The wind is tugging at her. So much time spent courting death, thinks Keiko, and here I am hesitating to commit.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011
A story yet Uncategorized

Calliope

They send by calligraph, and Calliope watches the articulated autoscribe dart Gothic ligatures across the paper. She knows before it’s halfway done.

Dear Mlle Mayhew, stop, it says, With great sympathy report yr father’s airship & all aboard mysteriously perished, stop; yrs now the titles, estates, & responsibilities, stop; pls hasten to meet & settle affairs, stop. Sinc, yr servants, Watchful & Wake Assoc. LLP, executors.

Stop.

“I’m going to the city, Jenny,” she says. The machine licks its nib with a little leather tongue.

“To Cadence?” says her lady’s maid. “Won’t that be exciting!”

“Yes,” says Calliope, “when I burn it to the ground.”

Monday, March 21, 2011
A story yet Uncategorized