Where is your father?
Can’t be known.
Where is your mother?
Home alone.
Where is your sister?
Oversea.
Where is your brother?
Far from me.
What’s California?
Burning brush.
Why is it burning?
Thunderhush.
Where is the thunder?
My brother’s laugh.
Where is your brother?
Diamondcraft.
What’s a diamond?
Stars that broke.
Why are they broken?
Heartache. Hope.
What do they hope for?
My brother’s smile.
Where is your brother?
Thousands of miles.
How many thousands?
Stars by night.
Are you a star?
Writing in light.
What’s your hope?
That my brother will see.
Where is your brother?
Far from me.
“They said Portland wouldn’t be safe until it ate me,” says Andromeda, tears dry by now.
“Those barbarians,” says Perseus. “Those blind fools! Listen, I could get in a lot of trouble for this, but–”
Andromeda’s eyes open wide. Perseus reaches down and sets a yellow hard hat on her head. There’s a can in a coozie attached to either side of it. Straws lead from the cans down to her mouth.
“I put beer in the left one,” says Perseus. “The right one’s Mountain Dew, you know, in case you’re not into that.”
“Oh,” says Andromeda.
“Okay!” says Perseus. “Bye!”
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
“Delaware,” chuckles Amira. “Became the first state and it pretty much went downhill after that!”
“Yes,” says Rumer uncertainly.
“Nobody’s ever got anything interesting to say about Delaware unless they’re trying really hard,” she adds. “It’s like that Wayne’s World thing they did. ‘We could go to Delaware! …Hey. We’re in Delaware.‘” She giggles. “Let’s do that! The thing! You be Mike Meyers.”
“You just did,” says Rumer. “That was it.”
“The only way you can stop saying mean things about it,” says Amira, “is to start making fun of some other state entirely! Hellooo!”
“We’re in West Virginia.”
“Hellooo Delaware!”
In the first picture Aurelia’s yawning, not a cute pink kitten mouth way: her eyes are half closed and she looks like something just hit her in the head, but really she just wasn’t ready for the booth to start.
In the second she’s vamping. No happy girl vamps alone. Not unless she’s got somebody else out there waiting to pull out the pictures, which isn’t alone, of course. She’s got her side to the camera and her lips pursed, back arched, hands on her thighs.
In the third one she’s not there.
In the fourth she’s wearing a ski mask.
The train barely shudders as it runs over the girl; that many tons on that many wheels make a joke of her bones. The conductor never brakes. Must not have been looking.
Whiplash catches her fluttering bonnet and snarls with anticipation. Now. Now! After all these tries he’s finally poured out the libation of virgin’s blood on the gravel, and–wait–the outline of a man like a bull, glowing brighter–
“Lord Unipakiphykos!” he cries over the train’s thunder. “At last, at last, manifest by my sacrifice!”
And you will be rewarded, loyal Snidely, roars the Rail God in his mind.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
If you time it right on East Colfax, late at night, the traffic lights get a slow pulse of red and green. The idea to drive at exactly forty, so you don’t have to stop at all, but Agathe likes to play differently. Gun it through the first one on its red edge and see if you can make it to the next, the next, all the way to the 70 ramp to catch the tail of the pulse before. Agathe whoops, then, and so do you: in the cancer that is Aurora, you, only you can go faster than light.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
“They–how do they shit, for one thing–”
Mackie shrugs, hopping out as the rotor slows. “Quantum!” he shouts. “Remember, don’t stop watching! Even if it spits!”
Ned wants to watch the sky–surely the FBI’s close behind–but he doesn’t. His quarry eyes him with nervous disdain and tries to walk away, which fails, of course. Ned wraps his arms around one neck.
“Hear that?” says Mackie. More helicopters. “You ready?”
“I don’t think we can ride these things!”
“Just close your eyes.”
Ned does, inhaling the rich smell of Quantum Llama. Together, for a moment, they fail to exist.