Maddy likes her new camera, and she’s filling it up tonight. She gets Gene yawning monstrously, J.P. wearing a tiny coat, and Annabelle and Vey flipping it like Johnny Cash. She sneaks a shot up Ruth’s skirt; Ruth laughs, smacks her upside the head and kisses her. It’s a good night.
She’s heading for the porch when suddenly there’s Kent. He looks bored, but the corners of his eyes say he’s just held together: a landslide on a leash. It’s painful to see. Maddy feels herself sober up.
“Been a bad day,” he mutters.
Maddy nods slowly, then takes his picture.
Carol rolls another tennis ball through the red trough, winds up and whips it at the wall. It smacks hard and rebounds, leaving an oblong mark with a clean ring between it and the splatter halo. Perfect. She, Kristoff and May are all covered with paint now–she’s glad they wore shower caps.
The house is new to them but older than their parents. How many times, Carol wonders, has it been painted, owned and stripped again? Who hung posters and paintings here? What did the children draw, on the walls of this room, when they were making it their own?
“Not boiling yet?” Kezbub asks. “Needs more salt.”
Gulbuth grunts and dumps some from the cast-iron shaker. There’s a high-pitched sound, like whistling, and the contents of the pot begin spreading away from its center. “Are they supposed to do that?” he asks, frowning over it.
“Stir it up a little,” advises Kezbub. “You don’t want them sticking to he sides.”
Soon, the whistling stops, and the pot is bubbling evenly. It smells delicious.
“Let’s see if they’re done.” Kezbub leans in again, spearing the water with one hooked claw, and flings a tiny pink body toward the icebox.
It sticks.
Bart stoops on his way out the building, but there’s no headline to scan: the machine’s empty. Odd, he thinks–it’s pretty early in the day.
There’s nothing in the corner stand, or by the bus stop, and the shades are being pulled at the newsstand nearby. Bart’s getting annoyed with it all when he notices that everyone seems distracted, wandering, wearing identical vague frowns.
“Excuse me,” says a middle-aged Asian man, touching Bart’s shoulder. “Have you seen… the paper? Today?”
Bart’s teeth grate. “No,” he says, “in fact–”
But he’s already forgotten. “Unbelievable,” mutters the man, turning away. “Unbelievable.”
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Dean would have relished this, he decides, in an old Outer Limits. An inventor running from his own creations! He scrambles over a low wall, throws himself flat and tries to breathe quietly.
He liked the sales at first, but soon it was out of his hands. Homo sapiens Segwayns, they call themselves, the next forced step in evolution. Everybody underestimated their advantages, especially once they took Washington, and now it’s a two-prong proposition: ride or die.
The hum of their gyroscopes is like the howl of hunting wolves, tireless, getting closer. Dean doesn’t know how much longer he can run.
Hobart pops four Dramamines, thinks, and pops two more. The coach seat is tight, and of course he got a window.
A ponytailed teenager squeezes in beside him. “Fly much?” he asks brightly.
“No,” mutters Hobart.
“I love it. Heard about the new runway here? They say it’s a half-mile draw. Think how far that would take you!” He laughs.
Up front, the stewardess demonstrates safety procedures in her padded suit, and Hobart can hear the hoarse teamster outside. He swallows hard. With a subsonic creak, the oxen draw the giant rubber band back even further; any second, they’ll let go.
“No, it’s just a neighborhood display house,” hisses Puri, pulling her along. Jules follows. As usual.
“Puri!” She whispers back. “You don’t know that!”
“I told you, it’s cool. Nobody lives here, they keep it around to bump up property values. Show it on tours.” One skinny wrist pokes through the cast-iron gate in the hedge and unlatches it.
They both get their cuffs soaked with dew, peering in at urns, paintings, tapestry in the dining room. Puri grins back as they turn a corner–and then somebody hits a light.
Wet cuffs or no, they clear the hedge like antelopes.
Frances doesn’t believe in God anymore, but she believes in Hell and this is it. Across from her, Lenny sits and stares dully at the carpet. Dad’s at work. Lucky Dad.
Mom took the opportunity of having her home from Oberlin to call a Family Meeting. Frances knew it would be bad, but she hoped the year since she came out would mollify things.
“Well we know it seems at first
Like sin will please us
But you can’t choose homosexuality
And be close to Jesus”
Mom sings, strumming the old Martin earnestly. Her voice is pretty. Frances wishes for death.
Nocrim doesn’t feel like she’s moving fast, more like she’s moving through a thin fog while everybody else just hangs out. It’s only after several seconds (but not seconds) that she realizes she hasn’t breathed yet; her body won’t need oxygen for a while.
Curiously, she circles around a frozen Cayvie, and then she sees the trail. Dark, gray, like thick smoke, it fills the space she’s moved through–a reverse Pompeii shape. It fades toward her as she watches.
Photons, she makes herself think. Just space where the light can’t keep up. That has to be it, because if not…
Wednesday, April 28, 2004