They’re fighting dogs in the bathroom of the Bank of England, and Secretary Grahame as usual turns a blind–no, he can’t quite think that. A deaf ear. A numb tongue.
Thus willfully distanced, Kenneth doesn’t squint when the lunatic in the lobby offers him a scroll tied with two ribbons. He just plucks the black one. The scroll opens to unspeakable inscriptions: dead gods and blood, infinity, the roiling despair of–
Water. They’re subduing the lunatic with a firehose; Kenneth crouches behind a chair, shaking, unharmed.
Later he quits and writes The Wind in the Willows (seriously, look it up).
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The caged models are shouting, glistening bodies blue with pancake; Isambard pauses in flicking through the channel guide. It’s amazing that they choose to protest through nudity, but he doesn’t question his luck. Not since he started getting it from the source.
“Humans for the Ethical Liberation of Pixies staged another protest today,” drones the reporter. Isambard shoves his hand through the door of one of the golden birdcages.
“Fly free, fair friends!” they’re chanting on the television.
Isambard holds the squirming, peeping thing tight, sits down before the mirror and razor, and begins to scrape the sparkle from its wings.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The dirt’s like glass shavings and the three suns are blue and distant, but some of the old Earth knowledge still works: their trap line yields three plump smeerps for the stewpot that night. Alriel stirs them over the fire with a stick like a birdbone.
“Do we know if these things are safe to eat?” asks Delorem, glancing at the dwindling pile of S-rations.
“They’re just rabbits dyed green,” says Alriel. “Here, try some.”
Delorem sips with an unconvinced expression. “Tastes like chicken.”
“Don’t you mean iku’unu?” sneers Alriel, before the boiling smeerp-spores embed themselves in her face.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Firework resuscitation is exactly the kind of business you think it is, which is why Caroline has nine fingers and no eyes.
“I can just buy some new ones,” says Jodi, whose inability to make eye contact has her extra-nervous.
“And leave unexploded ordnance lying around? Not on my watch,” chuckles Caroline. Her hands probe the Flamingo Fountain as if it’s a sore appendix. “Scalpel. Fuse.”
Jodie passes them (the former, carefully, handle-first). “But don’t you always expect to get a few duds?”
“Nothing’s a dud,” says Caroline, “to a hacker,” and lights a match on the stub of her thumb.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Jason lol what
Jason completed the quiz “Which Disney Villain Are You?” with the result Ursula!
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Hector completed the quiz “Which Mind-Sundering Forbidden Knowledge Are You?” with the result Secrets of Iighilló!
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August completed the quiz “Why, Why Why Why” with the result All Flesh is Dust!
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Tom completed the quiz “Must Any Attempt At Self-Aggrandizement In This World Seem Like Howling Into A Pitiless Void?” with the result Despair!
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Catastrophic events have repeatedly eliminated most of the life on earth, leaving the remainder to mutate frantically until it finds new forms in which to survive, rebuild, and spread again.
Ideas do the same thing.
“Does every giant-monster-mutation experiment group have to fit your politically correct standards?” snaps Juniper.
Behind them, primeval kaiju bat at F-14s. Akikai takes a ReversoRay blast and shrinks, squeaking, down into his pink bipedal form; he blushes and covers himself.
“Well, yes,” says Kliptus, “so things like the Tuskegee study–”
“That’s different,” says Juniper, as something squirms and wriggles in his head, trying to evolve.