There’s a tapping sound from the window, the old brownstone settling, all six stories feeling their hundred years. Lucy helped her find this apartment, when things went bad with Jonathan, and stayed over a lot after her own breakups. Mina shuffles from the TV to the microwave, grabs a tea bag, fills a mug. Taps in two oh nine, her best friend’s birthday. Tap tap. Tap.
A tapping sound from the window.
Slowly, holding the blanket over her shoulders, Mina walks to it and slides it open.
“We must hurry,” says Inspector Dracula gravely, clinging like ivy to the outside wall.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Conventional methods of hat-removal having failed completely, Philemon opens the task to the county’s finest natural philosophers.
“The die-press leaves plenty of earspace,” drawls the first presenter, “now.”
“No,” says Philemon.
“We lure the hat off with premium peanut butter,” chortles the second. “Never cheese!”
“No,” says Philemon.
“And when we’re done with the circular saw,” says the third, “the masking tape–”
“No no!” says Philemon. “No!”
The day’s last applicant is a small and serious girl.
“Hello,” says Philemon, curious.
“You’re not going to like hearing this,” says Corbin, looking–not without kindness–at his perfectly naked head.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Angela Lansbury is a master acupuncturist. She’ll paralyze you through the screen door of your cheaply appointed home.
“When I was learning the art,” she’ll say, entering, “people would relate their fear of the needles.” She undoes the simple rubber-band slingshot. “I say, fear the needler.”
Tell her you can identify her. Tell her to kill you now.
“This needn’t end in tragedy,” she’ll say. “I’m going to remove an item from your house now: worthless to you, priceless to my employer. I can’t let you see it. Won’t you close your eyes?”
Don’t. She’ll sigh, and pin them shut.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
The librarianeers tear whooping through the reference section, plundering atlases, grabbing haphazard Britannicas, snapping the OED from its pedestal chain. Commander Zouave struggles with the ropes that bind him to the circulation desk. “I don’t care about the indignity we’ve suffered,” he fumes to First Mate Sibwell, “it’s the sacrilege. The sacrilege.”
After the rescue, Sibwell glumly assesses the state of the stacks. “It’s not good, sir,” he says. “They got into the Deweys too.”
“All that knowledge, loose among the riffraff,” mutters Zouave. “Who knows what they’ll do with it?”
Away in their black Bookmobile, the pirates are reading, reading.
To understand why Lombard builds his bomb you have to understand that in his time, anyone can see the Earth from space, and it’s a natural consequence that one should also thereby see ads. Eva Longoria in Vegas, iStralia, the Wall twisted into hanzi for “Deng Xiaoping.” It’s a growth market.
But the night that turns Lombard to explosive misanthropy is the night he watches an Earthset from the moon. You can’t see much from there except the aurora borealis. Lombard bites his finger very hard, when he does so: green and gold, ghostly, WAL-MART flaring against the startled void.
Midnight in the park and he’s lost his damn gun. “No,” he whispers, fumbling in the tall grass. “No!”
They step out from the trees. He’s surrounded. “First blood,” Tyler sighs.
Silently and without surprise, Toe realizes it worked. Options rise to his mind like bubbles: aikido, varma kalai, banshay, systema. Systems. A hidden layer of the world, glyphs of potential and force. But most importantly–
“I know kung fu,” he murmurs.
“Prove it,” grins Alex.
Their NERF revolvers rise, not in slow motion, but with the fat predictability of fastballs over the plate.
Toe unclips the lightsaber at his belt.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Redeco’s done, and it’s just as cheap not to store the scaffolding–that’s why they hire Schroder. He and his apprentice Plink wear Teflon jumpsuits in that invulnerable shade of green.
They start at the top. Schroder aims the pump hose at the scaffold ceiling and watches pale sky appear; he raises one hand and passes it through the empty space. Never gets tired of that.
Plink rattles her detailing can uncomfortably. “Does it bother you? Wondering where it all goes?”
“I believe it mostly ends up in my closet,” says Schroder, who hasn’t the courage to try spraying in there.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Yevgeny does the puzzles and Minzhu unlocks the people. There are lots of other Yevgenys in their neigborhood, but they don’t have a Minzhu. They live in Steganopolis and are very, very rich.
“Which won’t last long,” says Yevgeny. “We should enjoy it. Last month’s losers have connections within the city, and they’re unhappy with you.”
“With you,” she corrects. “I’m just a tourist trying to divine the city’s anima.”
“Really?”
“Kind of.”
“I told you what the secret anagram for ‘Steganopolis’ was, didn’t I?” Yevgeny’s face is sober now, alert and still.
“Not yet,” says Minzhu.
“Oops!” says Yevgeny, “Genitals.”
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Chicago’s hair has the curious trick of stopping abruptly, across a perfect horizontal line: she always looks like she’s just seen a barber with a ruler. This makes her look even younger, though less so when it’s short. She’s considered shaving her head.
At least that would provoke cold stares instead of simpers. “I need you to wait outside, young lady,” smiles RICHMOND, Administrative Assistant.
“I’m here to see the vice principal,” says Chicago.
“She’s a teensy bit busy–”
“Now,” says Chicago, “or I tattle about the low-quality joints taped under your desk,” and gets the cold stare after all.
Paraphernalia retains a few things in her name, on her wedding day: a Bible and rosary, grooming items and a key to her parents’ home. Everything else becomes the common property of the Wives of Newton.
Even the dress is theirs, one of three they let out or take in as needed. The bodice is a little loose. She tries not to fidget as the priest of Apollo drones Greekly on into the ceremony, and then Madam Conduitt is smiling, holding her husband’s golden hand on a platter.
“I do,” says Paraphernalia, and lets her ring clink with all the others.