Sara, meanwhile, has run out of things to break with István’s hammer.
Nasser watches with weary eyes. “This is an old story, my dear. I damage your self-respect; you destroy my property. But I can buy another television.”
“Nézem,” István growls.
“Either call your Magyar to heel or have him hit me, Sara,” says Nasser. “But you can’t quite do either, can you? You must be dangerous, must be the fearsome subversive, but actually dirtying your hands… no, I don’t think you could bear it.”
Sara’s arms are trembling; she doesn’t want it to show. “Nasser,” she says, “you’re projecting.”
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The diminudroids live in the hollow of a tree, from which they evicted a testy squirrel months ago. They’ve remodeled it: three levels, little glass windows and bottlecap furniture. Also, an anti-squirrel crossbow.
They’re four inches tall and jointed with ball bearings, wooden-limbed, marble-eyed. They have a certain genius with string and pulleys. Observing through his telephoto lens, Angelo estimates that 90% of the diminudroid lifestyle is pulley-based.
They move in stop-motion, because of course they do. How else could they be so perfectly impossible to document? Angelo puts the camera away, wondering what they eat.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Geoffrey hasn’t slept more than an hour in months. His beard is ragged; his scrubs are stained. He sits in the control room like a laboratory animal, eyes fixed, waiting for the screen to refresh.
“How often do you have to click the button?” asks the polar bear, who might be imaginary.
“Every twenty-four hours,” says Geoffrey. “Sometimes less, if he gets behind on posting them.”
“But what would happen if you stopped? Are there really consequences?”
“Yes,” Geoffrey whispers. “The world will end.”
Then there’s a whole season of time travel stuff where they’re not even on the island.
“Wouldn’t it be great if you had, like, a remote control?” says Destiny. “But for real life.”
“There are so many bad movies about–never mind,” says Kent. “What would you use it for?”
“Oh, y’know, pausing things like Zack Morris, or we could just dub over our whole first date,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Pause.
“You said you had fun,” he says, a wounded animal.
“I just meant–”
“I thought you liked the planetarium!”
“eeeeeBaSookuDeaboDooZHEEEP,” says Destiny.
“Making sound effects with your mouth doesn’t rewind–”
“Wouldn’t it be great if you had, like, a remote control?” says Destiny brightly.
Light, heat, smoke that tastes of blood or metal. Silhouine tries stomping the stuff out at first–they all do–and then pause, considering each other, a triangle with burning shoes.
On the way up the ladder-steps, Silhouine somehow manages to elbow Yael in the mouth while Yael steps on her hand. Dulap, meanwhile, lifts them both up from beneath with panicked strength. The fire inhales sharply as they burst through the hatch.
A great serpentine tongue of flame follows them up from the cellar, and Silhouine’s cat streaks out to bury its claws in what remains of her hair.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
“I told you not to hook up with her,” says Simon Yu (#0).
“I didn’t,” says Stephanie Long, in a protest so weak that buzzards immediately begin circling above her in the instinctive belief that something is about to die.
“Just don’t let Imani Rhodes (#17) find out,” says Simon.
“Nobody got stabbed, Simon,” says Stephanie Long, carefully examining a watch with a radium dial. (This is her job, by the way: she buys antiques.)
“That’s the third one you’ve looked at,” he says. “Do you specialize in phosphorescent kitsch?”
“I specialize,” says Stephanie Long, “in things that can kill you.”
They don’t even bother hitting the light switch, which is cool, Lake decides; he can be into that. This is how he finds himself getting a clear, full-color glimpse of her tattoo.
“Whoa!” he says.
“Oh,” she laughs, up on her elbows in her underwear, “you noticed it.”
He smiles understandingly. “Woke up with that after a wild night?”
“No.”
His smile shrinks. “Lost a bet.”
She’s not smiling at all. “Chevy makes really bad cars. The kid peeing on their logo symbolizes–hey, what happened?” she asks, glancing down at his detumescing penis.
“You transmogrified it,” he sighs.
“I think that’s the last of it,” pants Silhouine.
“Wait, this one is holding the door open,” says Dulap, and picks up the barrel to carry it down. He reaches the foot of the steep ladder-steps just as the hatch swings shut with a bang, startling Yael, who drops the candle.
“Where’s the lantern?” says Silhouine, somewhere in the musty cellar-dark.
“I left it outside.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s dark.”
“I’ll just light a twist so we don’t break our necks climbing up,” says Dulap.
His knife scrapes on flint once, twice, three times.
The cellar begins to get brighter.
Thursday, January 14, 2010