“That McQuarrie guy,” says Ballard, “he ever do anything after Usual Suspects?”
“Won an Oscar. Made The Way of the Gun,” says Cote.
“Oh, yeah. That was awful,” Ballard yawns.
“It was not. It –”
“Worst thing I’ve seen Sam Jackson do.”
“Samuel L. Jackson wasn’t in it! We’ve been over this.”
“Whatever. You’ll admit it wasn’t Suspects.”
“Okay. It was… grittier. Not as clever.” Cote shrugs. “I guess everybody’s got one heist plot in them.”
“Either a movie,” Ballard says, “or a real one.”
“Heh. Yeah.”
Then they both get quiet for a while, staring off into the middle distance.
Monday, November 22, 2004
robot lifts up the box, anticipating nothing. robot is Zen.
robot does well not to anticipate: under the upturned box is an old crone. “There is no kitten!” she cackles. robot is shocked at her blasphemy.
The journey is long, but robot is patient. Under one box, robot finds an abandoned used car lot; under another, some coaxial plumbing. There’s one moment of hope, but it turns out robot has just found Leonard Richardson.
At last, one box reveals an adorable feline, coat fluffy, eyes gleaming.
“KITTEN!” shrieks robot, and pulps it.
No! It’s okay! It was only a stuffed kitten!
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
“I keep asking myself,” says Marco, pacing, ” where are we going? With this? I mean, yeah, the journey not the destination, but we still have to… are you, uh,” and he looks directly at her. “Are you listening?”
Cassidy’s trying, but there’s a banjo in her head. Dang a dit dit a liddle pang tong! “Yeah,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“I was. Uh.” Marco pulls something out of his pocket, then kneels jerkily. “Cassidy Fox?” he says. “Will you marry me?”
Cassidy stares. Diddle ting pong iddle dit pit a tang! she thinks.
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Grady sits, then stands. He empties the trash. He turns on the television and flips some channels. He turns it off. He sits.
Tim looks at him wearily. “Stop being so–so preoccupied with this.”
“I get preoccupied with things for a living, Tim,” snaps Grady. “I can spend three rolls of film being preoccupied with the angle out of a car wreck, or a cemetery gate, or–”
“So get preoccupied with something else,” says Tim.
Grady stares at him, tapping his leg, then goes to get his old Nikon.
“Don’t look at me,” he says, and starts taking pictures.
Thursday, November 25, 2004
He never wanted to be an extremist.
He’s no fool; he knows that things before the invasion were bad, that the system was broken. But he believed that given the chance to be its own, his country could have fixed itself. Not anymore.
Their rhetoric is all about freedom, but they’ve forced in new governance as if the tyranny of the many differs from that of the few. Their freedom smells like resources, gouging, white grins and money.
He had to choose a side. He had to.
With heavy shoulders, he opens the chest and pulls out his long white hood.
Monday, November 29, 2004
“You expect me to sell you a horse?” The horse trader sneers at Maksim’s ragged clothing. “What are you going to pay me with?”
“Trade me the horse,” says Maksim cannily, “and I’ll do twelve backflips.”
The trader guffaws. “What a ridiculous idea! As if you can even do twelve–”
“It’s a deal,” says Maksim, and totally does twelve backflips. Then he turns around and does twelve more backflips, to get back to where he started.
“Damn!” swears the trader. “My finest horse!” He gnaws his hat.
“Good doing business with you,” grins Maksim, then backflips onto the horse, naturally.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
When Biff’s lost in his own head, he stares off at nothing in particular, and his eyes will occasionally tighten as if he’s about to squint. Tara recognizes this expression on his face as he stands on his front lawn, in his underwear, under a very cold rain.
“Biff?” she says. “Biff! You’re going to freeze out here!”
“Hmm? Oh hey!” Biff focuses on her. “Nah, I’m okay. I… tried taking my clothes off to cool down, right? But it didn’t work.”
Tara looks up to see a belch of flame shatter his bedroom window.
“I was really hot,” Biff adds.
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
“You hear about down in Turquoise Park?” says the bus driver.
“I’m surprised they didn’t get electrocuted,” says the lady near the front.
“Hacked up all those Christmas lights. Ruined them.” The driver shakes her head. “Who would do that?”
“Electrocuted,” insists the other lady.
The bus driver finally processes this. “Yeah, you’re right!”
Tony can’t help himself. “They’d be fine if they used scissors with plastic handles, and it wasn’t–”
He flushes under the sudden suspicion of their glares. “–raining,” he mutters. Stupid, he thinks. He ought to remember by now that being sixteen is a punishable offense.
Thursday, December 2, 2004
He’s lighting up under a streetlight. Keira’s never smoked before, but she read about this trick in a magazine. “Oh, man,” she says as she approaches, “I just ran out and I’m gonna have a fit in a minute. Can I buy one off you for a quarter?”
“You read about that in a magazine?” he chuckles, but he gives her a cigarette, and doesn’t take the quarter.
Keira surprises herself by not coughing. “So what’s your name?” she manages; he just smiles.
“Come on,” she says. The ember tips of their cigarettes touch, and they jerk away as if burnt.
Ellery waits a day for the varnish to dry before he takes the axe to the chair. After a while he switches to a sledgehammer, because it’s easier, and accomplishes the same thing.
“No record,” he pants to Kidra between swings. “No embarrassing beginnings. No evolution.”
“You’re not doing a very complete job,” says Kidra. It’s in crude, uneven pieces.
“Don’t care.” Ellery pauses to wipe his nose. “No snide commentary on my amateur days. Not ever. I want to burst into carpentry like Minerva, fully grown.”
But he buries the pieces instead of burning them. Kidra thinks she understands why.