Kristi’s never understood the way slow-motion works in movies. Important things happen gracefully, with panning and time for consideration.
For her, it’s just the opposite. Things happen instantly, and thinking back she remembers before and after, but not while. Her brain shuts its eyes at the scary part.
Which is why, trying to remember it, she gets only a few sharp images: her blouse brushing the door, the pull as it snagged the loose latchplate screw. Annoyance as she pivoted around it. Silence. Looking up, sudden horror, seeing Victor, knowing exactly where the grape juice in her other hand had gone.
The phone rebounds off the hook so Nancy has to put it down again, damn it, can’t she even get a storm-off right? Stupid council. Stupid Cuill.
“Did I tell you,” says her mother, kneading bread dough, “about that book I read? A history of the Rutulians.”
“No, Mom.” The flush is still high in Nancy’s cheeks.
“Fascinating people.” She pauses to wipe her forehead, streaking it with flour. “Their word for ‘oppose’ was the same as ‘perpetuate.'”
“Yeah, thanks. And their word for ‘smartass?'” She’s proud of that, for a moment.
“Oh,” Mom says, “they just used ‘Nancy.'”
Stupid Mom.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
It’s hard to write in a city where everyone’s writing. It sucks. What’s to make her any different than the rest? She’s pretty but there are prettier, smart but there are smarter, does a little freelance but she’s nowhere near the big leagues.
There are places that reward a work ethic, though. They’re the ones who are set up to do so, theoretically in preparation for a real world that will render that preparation useless.
But. There’s work to be done, and she can do it.
After a time, Emma gives up on fiction. And eventually fiction gives up on her.
Monday, December 15, 2003
PLEASE TRY AGAIN, it says in phosphor green.
“I did,” snaps Astrid. “I did.”
The diagram shows a hand inserting the card strip-up, which she tries. There’s a short whine, and out it pops.
PLEASE TRY AGAIN. And the diagram, but this time strip-down.
“You. I. Can’t believe–” Astrid jabs it back in, and slams some buttons.
The screen wipes; more whining; somehow, her card’s in the bottom tray. In pieces.
REJECTED. HAVE A NICE DAY. And, smaller: BITCH.
Astrid remembers the hammer Morris left in her truck.
When the police arrive, they have to push through a cheering crowd.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
It was a donation. Murfrees wanted to do something once he got the glassblowing shop together, and how could Father Pascal say no? Anyway, they like it.
It’s almost cheating. He took a pinch of Pentecostal, mixed it into the Catholic, doubled it, doubled it again. Suddenly they were driving it themselves.
He knows it won’t last forever. In a generation, the drive will disappear. But Pascal’s got ahold of something hot, and he just has to hang on and pretend to steer.
Go time. The doors swing, and there they are: windows, bright hopeful congregation, JESUS in giant yellow neon.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Faille’s actually in the dark but she can see Baize just fine, laughing, shaking dice, making it work. She can’t find the other one, until she looks straight down. Shifting in her perch, Faille spots the red cocktail and grins–she must hate that.
“Check,” she mutters. “Baize and Taffeta in view.”
Her expression doesn’t change, but the mic picks up on subvocal. “What kind. Fucking codename. Is Taffeta.”
“Cheer up,” says Faille. “I can see down your dress.”
“I hope you fall.”
“You’d break it.”
What is it with spies and casinos, she wonders. Shouldn’t they feel more at home?
Friday, December 19, 2003
Eleven years and here she is on his porch. He remembers this: she’d never call, just show up and wait.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” she says.
“I’m still not going to be what you want,” he says. It hurts, but feels right.
Smiling lopsided, she tucks hair over an ear. She looks older, but not much. “What I want right now is coffee.”
Lucien takes a long breath, unhooks his coat from the wall, and suddenly it’s that easy. He locks the door behind them and they walk, close but not touching, two battered hearts making an old and comfortable mistake.
Monday, December 22, 2003
The glare blinds Feng for a moment, and he squints from under his coolie hat at the scaffolding, where just enough metal shows through to bounce sunlight across the paddy. It’s an awesome sight, even obscured as it is.
He hitches up his basket and walks on, around the rock pile and toward the town hall-granary complex. Inside, voices babble as they sort and distribute, mark and parse. Another of the carts rumbles by him, loudspeaker on full:
“HARVEST THE RICE,” it blares. “GATHER THE WATER. TRAIN THE SOLDIERS. BUILD THE ROBOT.”
Kind of unnecessary, thinks Feng, but hey, whatever works.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
The moon’s out and Lane looks at her, back to him, breathing quietly. She’s asleep, intensely delicate.
He puts out one hand to run it down the silk of her chemise. Immediately it snags. In the quiet, even that sound crackles.
Lane pulls it back. His hands don’t look rough–the calluses have gone. How does the silk still know? He imagines his palm in a microscope. It’d be a maze of thrusting wrinkles, and smaller, dead cells that dry and fractal out like branches. Like barbs.
Lane turns over, curls up. He’s suddenly, cripplingly sorry, for what he doesn’t know.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Baking powder, it turns out, is just baking soda, salt and cream of tartar. It’s so simple. Factual black type.
Lucas is going through a book with a curious aesthetic, one he’s seen before but never seen defined. The photographs are of excellent quality, but somehow sterile: they float shadowless on white fields, on the smell of acid-free matte paper. He remembers reading in similar books about ocean liners, leopards, uses of St. John’s Wort.
What a nice dream, to have everything in books: flat and clear; deliberately spaced; written well and concisely. To be able to learn anything there is.
Friday, December 26, 2003