Mhing’s only a part-time secret assassin; his official position is Chosen Supervisor of the Glorious Municipal Plumbing System.
“And my uncle says it IS your responsibility to fix the koi pond,” says Lai smugly.
“I must beg a momentary excuse,” says Mhing, a blue sleeve in his peripheral vision.
“Hurry up!” snaps Lai.
Mhing does hurry: he vaults the garden wall, phoonts a blowdart at a quickly-stiffening court stenographer, and returns, unruffled, before Lai’s tea can cool.
“My tea got cold!” says Lai. “I’m telling the Emperor!”
Mhing regrets that killing Lai would make his assassinness considerably less secret.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Jake discovers a cache of emails from 1999 and, this is the bad part, opens them. The resulting implosion leaves him a much smaller creature: crab-legged and huddling, trying to keep his eyes on four pairs of scuffed shoes. He has become the new god of chagrin.
The problem with godhood, of course, is that people will inevitably make sacrifices along the lines of your patronage. Jake scuttles for dear life from the ashes of their poetry, from the lunging silences that follow him like a misjudged word.
“Love us, o god!” cry the world’s teenagers.
Horribly, helplessly, Jake does.
The length of an ongoing illness can be estimated by the accumulation of materiel on one’s nightstand. Beginning with bottles of water and Advil, it propagates to medication, tissues, spilled cough drops and thermometer probe sheaths. A waste bin arrives and fills itself. Then a TV tray, for tasteless meals and overflow.
Doned’s cold has persisted for seven hundred forty-five days and at some point the entropy collapsed back into order: two bottles, one Kleenex box and a garbage disposal system that borders on the pneumatic. They’re in this together, he and the virus. Neither will let the other go.
“Do you believe your parents about how old you are?” says Marian suddenly.
Robert takes a long time to answer, but that’s why Marian asked him. “I believe my birth certificate,” he says.
“But who says that’s yours?” she says. “It’s a record purely by fiat. And consensus. Both of which could be lies.”
“Some people really don’t know their birthdays. Adopted kids, refugees.”
Marian quiets at that.
“In the old orphanages, they’d all share the same day,” he presses. “See, they didn’t have parents to disbelieve–”
“All right,” she says.
They just sit and wait for the bus after that.
The genius of their treatment is this: there is no trial to determine sanity. Why bother keeping one’s prisoners in prison, when the asylum has room?
Miss Havisham remembers crying six months ago at some unkind words from a romantic interest; how much, she thinks, I have aged. My students are training for a war, and I am a casualty. The memory of school makes her almost smile.
Then the attendants force a bar between her teeth and lever them open, tube of milk and eggs at the ready. Six days of hunger. She isn’t crying. She’s too weak to fight.
“I’m sad we didn’t get admitted,” says Seth Rogen Character. “If only we could start our own college.”
“But all we know about is pot!” moans McLovin Guy.
They pause, for pot hits. Then:
“I know!”
They solicit marijuana-advocacy funding and get accreditation from a Canadian board; they build greenhouses and study soil acidity. They research, lobby and present their findings. The school makes a little bit of difference in the world.
But there’s a twist! It was a pot dream all along.
“We’re so high right now,” giggles Jonah Hill Character.
Pot is so good at getting you high!
Brian Dennehy is preparing to die for your sins.
“I’ve had six other hostage negotiators in here,” he’ll say, muzzle trembling at his temple, BDRI scrawled on his forehead in blood. “You’re not going down like they did. Not this time.”
Remind him that your background is in carpentry.
Brian Dennehy will already be wrapping your fingers around the grip. “Appropriate,” he’ll say. “Carry my beam for me, little Cyrenian?”
Tell him you don’t remember the story going quite this way.
“You will this time,” he’ll say, your finger between his and the trigger. “You’ll pay attention. Attention must be paid.”
When the sprawling new development opens just off the exit, the remaining stores in the Richmond Mall pack up their inventory, put on their sheepish hats and scurry over to foist themselves upon the weary of I-75.
Behind its dark and empty windows, strange things flower.
The plastic plants burst into bloom; the ghost of flute music rises, tritoned and sinister. The leftover nerves of fifty thousand bored teenagers spawn a new race of restless fey, hands eagerly filching, eyes like bright cigarettes.
Then the owners burn it down for insurance money and build a giant church on the remains.
Friday, February 27, 2009