“You’ve got your standard lunch-table factions in here,” says Hiram, “your lacrosse jocks, band geeks, cheerleaders and–”
“Let me guess,” says Alaric, “goths?”
“Visigoths, actually,” says Hiram.
“Are they still into self-mutilation and the Cure?”
“No. Just sacking.”
The Visigoths sack the pizza line; their leader whoops and whirls a heat lamp around his head. Some of them have ponies.
“I think the administration would be annoyed,” says Hiram, “if they didn’t produce such advanced metalworks.”
“I want a pony!”
“You should join.”
Alaric does, and learns that they sack so much because they never get any lunch money.
Friday, November 30, 2007
“And each one puts off my personal apocalypse for an hour?” says Chori eagerly. “What a deal, your Holiness!”
“Try not to think in those terms,” says Albert. “There is a tremendous treasure house of merit being built up by the nonprofits; it’s already out there, cooling the warmth of perdition. Your donation is a partial penance that corresponds to the minor amounts of carbon you’ve released in the world.”
Chori’s already scribbling out a check. “What should I put in the memo field? Is it still just ‘indul–‘”
“We call them ‘credits’ now,” smiles Albert. “We’ve found it markets better.”
“Psychiatrists are cheap,” announces Beulah.
“Er,” says Pilsner.
“I mean narratively–”
“Yes, I thought you might.”
“–they’re an easy way to have somebody spell out all the careful little flaws and neuroses you built into your characters, and if you’re the kind of writer who does that then you’re the kind who should know how to reveal that in action! But instead the character angrily rejects it, then has a breakdown, then gives in to the wisdom of the shrink. Ding. Everybody in New York smiles.”
“Mmm,” says Pilsner, “and which of your parents is this about?”
“Your mom,” Beulah says.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
“I have one last wish, my friend,” says Ala ad-Din warmly. “I wish you free.”
The golden manacles fall away, and the djinn’s joyous laughter booms out over Maghreb. The sky is filled with his beaming visage, and then his hands, reaching down.
“What is thy third wish, our Lord and Master?” intones Ala ad-Din as he and the other ten thousand shackled slaves toil away at the foundation of the new palace.
“I think I’m going to wish for more wishes,” says the djinn brightly, atop his throne of kneeling bodies. “That’s clever! See how clever I am?”
“But it’s my favorite and we would be best friends and I promise I’d take care of it!” groans Yulies.
The pet bounces off the cage and tips over, snarling, spitting cordite as it spins in place.
“I don’t know, sweetie,” says Mother.
But she begs and begs and eventually there’s a roaring, smoking box under the Christmas tree. Yulies unwraps it almost before it unwraps itself.
“Couldn’t it have been a puppy? Or a snake?” asks Mother despairingly.
“I suppose,” says Father.
“Then why a panjandrum?”
“Because it doesn’t poop,” he says fervently, as it takes off his daughter’s finger.
Friday, December 14, 2007
“Action,” calls Teller.
“Because I’ve discovered something,” pipes up the child soldier on the soundstage. “More than hate, more than bullets–the ultimate weapon is Jesus.”
“Cut!” says Teller. “Stick to the script, sweetie, okay? Somebody get the clapboard back out.”
“–is music!”
“–is puppies!”
“–is a shark that ate a hydrogen bomb, riding a comet, holding a sword and a grenade launcher, infected with bird flu!”
“I’m not reading it wrong, am I?” says the bewildered producer. They’re on take twenty-eight. “The line is ‘the human heart?'”
“Actually, after that last one I might change it,” Teller mulls.
Monday, December 17, 2007
“And since the disk heads can write or read at an atomic-spin level,” explains Ninsun, “you can just slap together a storage unit out of whatever’s lying around.” She grins. “A lot of people around here use river mud.”
“Hey, it’s biodegradable, right?” chuckles Kopra.
Ninsun rolls her eyes. “And there’s even an artists’ collective who’ll decorate the tablet for you,” she says. “They use local materials too, like they’ll just use the end of a reed–”
Kopra’s interested. “Have these guys got a marketing rep yet? What’s the collective called?”
“Summer,” says Ninsun, “only they leave out an M.”
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
“There were some people in the Noughts,” says Albany, “who tried to cut the ‘God spot’ out of the brain. Mexico icepick lobotomies, you know.”
“I’m guessing they cut out a lot more,” shudders Westwood.
“Well, to all appearances, yeah. But I’m not convinced they missed. I think whatever hardwires us to search for the divine has other purposes. The whole drive gives us some evolutionary advantage.”
“What, like altruism? Individuals sacrificing for the species?”
“Hardly,” Albany says. “We’re apes. You know what most apes are?”
“No,” says Westwood.
“Apex predators,” says Albany, and pops the host wafer into her mouth.
Friday, December 21, 2007