“You,” says Paris, “you’re the most beautiful.”
Aphrodite beams. “Set sail for Troy,” she says, “and she will be yours,” and vanishes.
The other two remain, glowering.
“My apologies, great Hera, mighty Athena!” says Paris. “But the three of you did ask me to choose, and it isn’t as if I could pick more than–”
Flames lick up around him. Aphrodite reappears, frantic, but Hera holds her back. Athena is growing taller, and the sky is growing dark.
“Perhaps you have misunderstood,” she booms, enormous, “what it means to be a fucking god,” and reaches down with her smiting hand.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
“I think this thing is broken,” says Efrem.
“Don’t flap your dongle at me,” says Vicki.
“It’s supposed to change every whatever minutes so it stays secure, but it’s been stuck on this for like two days,” he says, holding up gray plastic key on its silver ring. There’s a little old-style numeric LCD on one side.
“I bet you got one of the prank ones.”
“What? They don’t make those.” He frowns. “They make those?”
“What’s it say right now?”
“5318008,” Efrem reads aloud.
“Turn it upside-down,” sighs Vicki.
“What?” says Efrem.
“Oh come on,” he says, a minute later.
It isn’t until she’s seventeen that Keeley comes to understand that there really are ghosts in the carnival, and that they like drugs.
She doesn’t learn this, alas, while on them herself. She goes out with some townie skaters and comes back with the moon high and bright to find Chuy (the dog trainer’s apprentice) huddled over, surrounded by shadows with burning eyes.
“Shoo!” says Keeley, because it’s the word that comes out of her mouth.
The ghosts flee like roaches. Chuy stays huddled. Keeley kneels down next to him and takes the bottle of acetone from his warm, moist hands.
“The horrific disaster at this photo shop has left ten thumbless,” says Branford in his most serious news voice, “as well as four without reflections, one heavily aliased, and two—yes, two with fake heads.”
“A tragedy,” confirms Susie at the anchor desk. “We’re also hearing that there may be some dead pixels?”
“Yes–I can tell from seeing quite a few such shops in my time.”
“Absolutely horrific. All right, Branford, we’ll be checking in with you later to explore each successive layer of this story–”
Branford winces. “When this airs,” he says, “you might want to filter that out.”
Until a man turns twenty-five (so Stephenson sayeth) he believes he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world, and the reason for this is simple: the young man questing against evil is omnipresent in Western literary myth. Randolph, for instance, is on a quest, though he’d never articulate it as such. He’s biding his time, clocking in at the code mill, waiting for portents and wisely noting things he sees in MMA.
Young women who read the right books come to this belief as well, of course. But they face another evil, differentiated by the fact that it is real.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Swallows dive-bomb the park, picking insects as they rise out of cooling grass. Jake dodges when they strafe by his knees.
Consider the eye of the predator bird: an instrument hundreds of millions of years in development, perfected while you were still a tree shrew looking out both sides of your head. Forget what it’s like to be a bat. Birdsight, like the Hubble, strains photons bouncing gnatwise from the deep field of dusk.
Jake’s headphones have stopped working. He pulls them off and runs on, puffing, a red-faced struggle to stay out of the ranks of the old and sick.
“I remember when this fighting made sense,” mutters Waxman (D-CA). “Two sides, party lines, primary colors. I had allies over there.” His suit is mudstained, one sleeve torn for a bandage.
“It couldn’t last,” says Martinez (R-FL) wryly. “War is never that simple.”
“I liked it better when we paid people to do this for us,” grumbles McConnell (R-KY).
“Prepare yourselves!” bellows Mikulski (D-MD), her claymore high. “You hold this line! You hold!”
Four hundred thirty-five cavalry mount the hill and charge, sabers gleaming. Waxman licks his lips, grasps the haft of his pike, and waits.
Evony’s mother is a basket case and her father is an iceberg. This makes parent-teacher conferences difficult.
“WE THOUGHT SHE WAS IMPROVING IN SOCIAL STUDIES,” booms her father (or, technically, his top ten percent).
“She is,” winces Miss Lagant. “But eighth-grade curriculum emphasizes current events, and she’s not up to speed. Do you get the paper or watch the evening news?”
“Oh no!” says her mother. “It’s always so depressing.”
Miss Lagant stares at her beautifully lacquered cherry lid. “I’m sorry, I have to ask. If there’s a basket inside you, what’s inside the basket?”
“Eggs,” says Evony’s mother.
Thursday, August 13, 2009