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The Summersmith

The Summersmith’s feet will detumesce, given a little patience; and for once patience is something she can apply in a paste.

It’s hot and it smells of tasteless breakfast. When she’s done tying cheesecloth she puts her feet up and cranks down the phenakistoscope. She peers through its baroque, flickering lens into her belly: he’s in there, all right, cramped and discouraged, shoulders struggling against the limits of her skin. His hands are always grasping. He doesn’t know it yet, but he longs for tools.

She eats raisins and soothes him. Soon, littlesmith. Ankles and genesis: all they take is time.

Satan

Satan’s new nametag says SATIN.

“It was probably one of those accidentally-on-purpose typos,” says Aaron. “He doesn’t want people coming into the store and thinking you’re some…”

“If he was going to do that,” says Satan, “why wouldn’t he just go with ‘Stan?'”

“I like it,” says Rosaline, through quesadilla. “Sort of a cool drag vibe.”

“Rosaline,” says Aaron with great concern, “no one ever says ‘vibe.'”

Rosaline defies him by stuffing more quesadilla into her face. They’re all sick of the quesadilla, but it’s so cheap and so good, and where else are they going to hang out?

Doctor Ovid

Blood diagrams the operating table.

“Yeah, that’s the definite article,” says Doctor Pheme. “You going to let it dangle?”

“No!” snaps Doctor Ovid. “We’re going to get him through this prospect. Nurse, I asked for a preterite!”

“Shouldn’t you at least try a drip of interrogative subjunct?” Doctor Pheme is sweating through her cotton participle. “Or a shot of momentane?”

Hands steady, Doctor Ovid is already incising the patient’s nominative absolute. “If you insist, you can start him on an aspect of inchoate.”

“This all depends,” says Doctor Pheme, “on you knowing what you’re doing.”

“Trust me. I’ve perfected this technique.”

Inspector Handsome

“I should mention that Lord Vandernoot was not only my uncle… but indeed my father,” hisses Tania.

“Mine as well!” says Eurynome. “And what’s more, I am left-handed!”

“Really?” says Inspector Handsome, eyes alight.

“There’s just one thing you’ve forgotten!” shrills Mr. Spurlock, heaving up off the divan. “I’m ambidextrous, and I’m the only one who needed the money!”

“Please, Donny, we’re all mortgaged to the hilt,” says Tania.

“Fascinating,” says Inspector Handsome. “The only thing we haven’t considered is–”

“Look it is obviously me just GET OUT THE CUFFS ALREADY,” gasps the butler, erection wild in his shiny pants.

Tyler

Tyler whips around and reaches over, pulling himself along an invisible line; he’s up on his toes and his body moves like a slide rule. Behind him, the ninjas have caught some kind of synchronized seizure, arms curled up and jerking from side to side.

Tyler freezes. Ninjas arch in sudden paralysis. With a piercing cry, he reaches skyward, and lightning smashes down into him: the shockwave scatters their phalanx to the wind.

The Chosen Ones stare as he walks back toward them.

“What was that?” asks Toe.

“The Thriller dance what the HELL did it look like,” Tyler says.

Arrete

“Ecce picturo,” says Arrete, flicking her bored wand at the window. The view changes to a rainforest, a desert, the Pentagon, Mars.

“I don’t know why you can’t use real Latin,” grumbles Verona.

“It wouldn’t work,” says Arrete. “Obvs.”

Verona deliberately gives her a slow, bovine blink.

“Words are just the focus. Pseudolatin has connotations of privilege and archaic mystery to most English-speakers. It puts your brain in the right place for magic.”

“It could just as easily be Pseudoswahili?”

“Not to me.”

“But magic’s more than the sum of your cultural baggage!”

Arrete gives her a slow, bovine blink.

Zach

“Are you a relative?” asks the triage doctor in Hungarian, Romanian, German and English.

“Oh! No! I don’t know her.”

“Angel of mercy,” she smiles.

“I shot her.”

The smile drops. “You are armed?”

“Yeah.” Zach checks his pants. “Whoops! No. Crap!”

“Your bulletproof vest. Police?”

“No, no, assassin. I was hired to kill this girl. Not that girl. Another girl. But she’s got this mommy complex so she left me with these guys, but then Hidebound, who’s supposed to be my–”

“You have a concussion,” she sighs.

“I’m still technically an intern,” says Zach, choking up for some stupid reason.

Golda

“We have always been at war with Prescription,” Golda intones.

“I’m not sure it qualifies as war,” says Nestor. “It’s more a dynamic tension that informs–”

“It is too a war!”

“That sounds like received wisdom speaking.”

“It’s not!” Golda backpedals. “It’s description! That’s what we do!”

“That’s an interesting circular problem,” says Roan. “If people choose to become Descriptivists based on our self-description, have we then prescribed a philosophy of–”

“Shut up, Roan,” says Nestor.

“Don’t tell her to shut up!” says Golda.

“Don’t end a sentence with a preposi–” is all he manages before they tear him apart.

Mauro

“Warning!” chirps the schedule. “This meeting takes place in the past.”

Sighing, Mauro queues up at the tempovator. At length he steps in and drops back to 2008.

“All right,” says Beatriz, “let’s get started.”

“Can we please stop reliving this?” says Mauro. “I’m from 2010. We cut some stuff for blind kids, bump the liquor tax, nobody’s happy, everything’s fine. Okay?”

“We’ll come up with a better idea!”

Mauro looks around: they’re so old. “Where are the versions of us who were here the first time?”

“Stacked in the freezer,” says Tams.

“We’re thinking of selling their organs,” says Beatriz.

Silhouine

Yael almost drops the candle, scrambling over, while Silhouine sits down with her mouth open. Then she shuts it. “Ooooowwwww,” she notes.

“It could be tipped with something,” says Yael, the quickness of her speech letting fear in around the edges. “I have to take it out, all right?”

Silhouine blinks and pats at her head.

“All right,” says Yael, and yanks. Only a little blood comes out.

“THAT IS REALLY A LOT WORSE,” says Silhouine. “What time is it.”

“What?” says Yael.

“The stupid room is a stupid clock,” says Silhouine, who is beginning to realize that smells have colors.