“No idea,” laughs the vocalist, who answers to MISTER wang. “We thought Dial-A-Candy would sell, but #1 on BigChampagne for five years straight? No idea.”
“It’s the fans, really,” adds percussionist mister WANG. “Tricks like turning the disc over to hear the secret album helped bump sales, but the Methodists have done the most.”
“There’s one guy who buys a thousand copies monthly,” says MISTER wang, “and plants them. Says he wants to grow music trees. Maybe he will!”
Rhythm Method’s plans for the new year include possibly recording a new EP, and vacationing in Paraguay, which they purchased last year.
Jonah hears the rain start outside. His wrists burn. He’s holding the old fountain pen wrapped in two towels. He no longer cares for quality of letters, or the decrepitude of the house where he’s barricaded himself: he’s on the last page.
It’s not until the first drop lands, near the top of that page, that he finds out the roof leaks.
“So that’s it?” Jonah growls. He forces the window open and scrambles out onto the roof. “Come at me, then!” he shrieks to the sky. “COME AT ME!”
The rain musses his hair a bit, then leaves him alone.
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Wen’s charge is two walls. The interior is twelve feet high, made of reinforced cinder blocks, to support a large geodesic dome; it has doors in each side. The exterior and more recent, constructed in the wake of terrorist attacks, is Quikrete and razor wire. It is taller, and has only a single gate.
Inside these walls, under the dome, is a third wall, or a segment of one: 7.8 meters high, 12.6 meters long, and ancient. Once it held back barbarians. It could be seen from space.
Now, only just, it holds back entropy from its encroach onto glory past.
Thursday, January 6, 2005
She does that thing where she bites his lip and pulls at it as they come up for air, and Colin can feel a sweet tension at the base of his spine. His hands run down her flanks. He hooks his thumbs under the hem of her blouse.
“You sure you want to do that?” she whispers. It’s dark, but her voice is warm.
“Yeah,” says Colin, “Sure.” He pulls it off, then unsnaps her bra. As the rhythm of her breathing quickens, he leans down–but instead of nipples, she has hideous lamprey-mouths! That suck out his eyes!
Holy shit!
The door into the crawlspace leads under the porch, right onto the old house’s granite foundation. Pleasance decides to grow a tree there. She’d like having a tree inside the house.
She puts pieces of pinecone in one of the cracks she finds, and some mulberries in another. As an experiment, she puts a wedge-shapen wooden toy block in a third.
Pleasance is a conscientious six-year-old, and usually remembers to water them. The pinecone and the mulberries fail to thrive, but one day, the part of the foundation where the soaked and swollen toy is wedged groans. Then shudders.
And splits.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
“You can’t bulldoze it,” announces Venison, slapping papers on the table. “It’s a prehistoric landmark.”
“You’re joking,” says Beam.
“It was sacred to certain dinosaur tribes,” Venison nudges the papers forward. “As you’ll see–”
“Is there a record of this?” asks the judge, squinting.
“Can’t be, your honor,” says Venison. “It’s prehistoric. Ipso facto.”
“You’re joking,” says Beam. “How do you expect to prove–”
“The burden of proof,” he says smugly, “rests on the plaintiff–the city, as represented by you.”
Beam gapes.
“Can you prove the city needs another school?” says Venison. “Is it law, or merely theory?”
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Charles lets the officers spot the little silver flask, so when he volunteers to take the dogs out during lunch, they think they understand, and say yes.
Together they do two circuits, during which Charles cries: big helpless sobs he tries to keep quiet, and tears he doesn’t bother to blot. He cries for what they are doing. He cries because he must. They must.
He composes himself, and empties the flask into the sand.
Then he takes the dogs on their long poles back through the gate: into the rooms, where the detainees huddle under sandbags, whispering Allah. O Allah.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
“Then Tim’s like ‘big nasty teeth! Like this!'” Annie lets go of the wheel to demonstrate; Bruce and Deshaun yelp.
“Fine,” she rolls her eyes, “babies. And he goes ‘and big nasty, uh, ears–‘”
“Nasty claws,” says Bruce.
“This is the zenith of nerd humor?” says Deshaun, thoroughly dubious.
Danielle smiles and crinkles down into the borrowed jacket. The warm car smells like french fries and teenagers. The music’s too loud, and the thump of its bass is in time with the seams in the concrete: together, her secret pulse.
“And then!” says Annie. “The bunny rips out his throat!”
“If you lay it flat,” says Bertrand, “you’ll put holes in the floor.”
“Possibly,” concedes Jacques.
“Furthermore, this will go faster if we both drill.”
“Perhaps,” says Jacques, “we should hold it and drill from opposite sides.”
Bertrand considers that, frowning, but he can’t find anything wrong with the idea.
“All right,” Jacques calls over the sheet of wood a moment later, “remember! We are bracing on the left and drilling on the right!”
“Yes,” says Bertrand, still frowning. “I think… yes.”
A few seconds later, screaming, they jerk back their bleeding hands. Unsupported, the wood falls over onto Bertrand’s head.
“No way is Cardinal Vanzetti going to lose to this clown!” Sacco’s teeth are blinding. “Haha it’s impossible! Come on guys am I right?”
Valentina only glares, and watches.
“The Papacy Orb will be mine,” screams Cardinal Katzmann, down in the Sacristy Pit, “when I unleash this attack! Level Eight! Mega Catachuuu–”
Valentina and Sacco gasp.
“–uuuuuuu–”
Vanzetti’s face is impassive in Katzmann’s flickering light.
“–uuuUUU–”
“Counterstrike!” snaps Vanzetti, at last. “Charism Level Ten! Crozier–BLAST!”
“–UUUMEN RITE!”
Their attacks collide, great torrents, throwing off light and thunder like the sweat flying from Sacco’s head.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005