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 box 9. IN for the challenge (Jay W. Friks - you can write about me as I eat my garbage words)
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Apr 5, 2017 05:53
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Spit 1742 Words People trip on their words, add ums and uhs, repeat a word or two. Just a thought stuck in the mud for a second and they give a little tug and it pops free, their brain catches up with their tongue and they carry on. It’s common. Everybody stutters. We just sort of, uh, train ourselves to ignore it when it-it-it happens. If you’re Jeff Goldblum, it’s a charming quirk. But a few people stutter. It’s not like a brain-fart. My mind keeps going full-steam ahead, but there’s a clog in the pipe. Pressure builds behind the jam and everything is fit to burst. I’ve learned a ton of tricks, staying away from problem words or avoiding things starting with the dreaded eff or with any hard consonant, really, but I always have to put on the red emergency light before I start. Never know when I have to reroute the steam to prevent catastrophic failure. A lot of the time, it’s just easier to stay quiet. Going digital made it real easy. I never really forget, but between texting and email to self-checkout at the grocery store, I might go a week or more without actually saying anything. I suppose that might seem sad, but it’s a relief. I can get away with seeming normal. Then a whole slew rushed back when I checked the mail and saw the invite to my high school reunion, hand-written in that same drat pink pen, addressed to Greg “Spit” Mitchell. loving Melanie Tabbish née Greeley. Fifteen years on, and she probably thought the nickname was cute now. The first time she ever interacted with me was probably in third grade. I had just came back from my afternoon speech therapy session a couple minutes after everyone else returned from recess. Mrs. D didn’t have any other appointment times available, so I had to go right after lunch while everyone else got to go outside. Before the class had settled and while blanks were being passed out for a spelling quiz, Melanie got up and placed a folded paper on my desk. The note was pink ball-point on a strip of wide rule with the little paper tabs still intact from where it was torn from a spiral bound notebook, written in in the slightly wobbly hand of someone still mastering cursive. Do you like Greg? circle one y / n The circle around the ‘n’ was etched on the paper, carefully traced over and over until the fibers broke down to a fuzzy halo. The question posed, answered, and delivered by Melanie herself. She’d drop a similar note every so often and eventually the ‘Greg’ changed to ‘Spit’ and that stuck. I pulled down the old keepsake shoebox from the back of my closet and that note, a little yellowed with age, topped a stack of them. Tucked with it was the spelling test from the same day. The student teacher graded and put stickers from the sheet of Looney Tunes on all the perfect scores, working without really thinking about it. It’s only natural. When she returned the papers and saw what sticker she placed on mine, she said, “poo poo” loud enough that it took a full five minutes to get everyone calmed down. She apologized and tried to replace the sticker, but I was out the door with tears in my eyes and ran down the big ramp, past the front desk, to Mrs. D.’s room, paper in hand. “It was a hurtful accident,” she said. “I’m sure it won’t happen again. Miss Something is still learning.” I remember so many details from that day, but the student teacher just moves through it like a shadow, fuzzy around the edges like Melanie’s heavy-handed penstroke. Mrs. D. was the one who suggested I keep the test with the sticker. Maybe I was a little young for the lesson, but people would always be a little insensitive, intentional or accidental. So I packed it away in my shoebox and collected all the little barbs and splinters over the years until there was enough for a strange, cruel shower of confetti. I never asked Mrs. D. what I was supposed to do with the box of stuff. I suppose she’s long since retired by now. I put the reunion RSVP on top of the papers. The handwriting was a little more elegant, but sure enough, it was Melanie’s. I put the lid on the box and then thought maybe there was some lesson in this. What the hell. I filled out the RSVP and mailed it back. --- loving Melanie Tabbish née Greeley, sat in front of the gym doors behind a folding table, rows of prelabeled nametags spreading from her like sunbeams. There was mine, Greg “Spit” Mitchell caught in the ray front and center. “Oh my god, Greg! It’s so great to see you,” said Melanie. She still had the same reddish-brown hair, though it was clipped to a bob around her chin instead of the long ponytail I remembered. She wore a sweater over a cuffed shirt with a collar as wide as her smile. It was hard to tell if she was sincere or just in showmode. She peeled the back off my nametag as she stood and came around the table, long skirt swishing. She pressed the sticker on my chest. Nemesis is a little strong, but she was never kind. We were definitely not friends. Melanie did that thing where you’re not sure whether to hug or not, but then she let out a half-breath-half-laugh and put her arms around me. “So great to see you,” she said again without letting go. The unexpected familiarity threw all my practiced phrases out the window and I stumbled on the very first word I said to her: “Hello,- Man, she looks good. I think it’s the same perfume she wore in high school. One folk cure is to throw a raw egg in my face everytime I stutter. “Melanie. It’s nice to see- I should disengage. Concentrate on the words. I feel a little sweaty already. Drink seawater everyday from a snail shell. “you, too.” “Oh, I thought you would grow out of that. It’s cute, though.” Slow and steady, calm. “You never grow out of a stutter, Melanie. You just learn to control it. Well, mostly. Anyway, I’m going in.” The gym behind her was practically empty. A few pudgy forms milled around the punchbowl. I didn’t recognize them. The cookie spread was straight out of a country club brochure, far too elaborate and fancy to be sitting under a basketball hoop. I took a cookie and gave a perfunctory headnod to the trio by the drinks, and they returned the gesture. I meandered over and shook hands with them, and used the mouthful of cookie to point to my nametag as they introduced themselves. Names and faces, classmates, but nothing more. An hour went by, and just a few more people straggled in. Fewer than ten from the entire class decided to show up. Finally, Melanie came in and poured herself a cup of punch. I stood by my lonesome, listening to the faint PA muzak. Melanie slid up beside me and said, “You want to go outside?” I shrugged and followed and we sat on the curb outside the locker room doors where they used to load the gameday buses. Not that that was ever my scene, but there was a certain ritual to the whole thing in little football towns. She pulled a leatherbound flask from her purse and splashed some into her punch. She did the same for mine. “Thanks,” I said. We took sips under the halogens of the bus lane. “I’m sorry I was mean to you,” she said. “You were very- Slap my face every time I stutter with the sole of my father’s shoe. “Mean. Cruel, even.” She sniffled. “My husband left me. I’m all alone, and this?” She gestured towards the doors. “It’s a failure. Why didn’t anyone want to come?” loving Melanie ex-Tabbish now Greeley full on sobbed and dropped her head against my shoulder. “I don’t think- Hold a live cricket in my mouth for one hour every day. “it’s your fault. Say, do you remember our third- Keep marbles under my tongue. “Grade student teacher?” “Miss Anderson,” Melanie answered without hesitation. “She’s an English professor, now. Why?” “No reason,” I said. But once I heard the name, I remembered her face, too. “What about Mrs. D.?“ “She and her husband retired and live on a houseboat in the Caribbean. Bill and I ran into them on our anni—” “Sorry,” I said. “Melanie? Why were you a jerk?” “I don’t know, Greg. You were weird. You barely ever said anything. I guess it was interesting that I couldn’t figure you out. Or I just didn’t like you for it. We were kids. I guess maybe if you tried to reach out or something.” “Don’t- Remain silent for an entire year. “put that on me. How dare you.” “OK, OK, OK. I’m sorry. Sit back down. Don’t go.” Melanie was huddled like a fragile bird, arms tucked around her knees, her mascara smeared a little. I put the cup down on the curb beside her. “Thank you for the drink.” I turned and started back towards my car. She caught my hand from behind. “Wait, here. Greg.” She dug in her purse and found her pink pen as I turned to face her. I posed, hands on my hips. I promised Mrs. D. I would maintain control. I don’t think I had really felt any sort of emotions in a long time. Melanie peeled the nametag from me and scribbled over ‘Spit’ in tight circles and spirals until it was a little patch of embossed pink. She pressed it back on my shirt. “I just need to be around someone, right now. Here, come sit down. Talk to me. I’ll listen to you.” There’s always that little pinprick when you feel like you’re being used. She was still cute, and a little drunk, and sad and pathetic, and she really did need someone right now. So I sat down, pulled the first note she ever wrote me from my pocket, and I tossed it in the shrubs. I let her listen as I talked until the parking lot was long empty. It was what we both needed. loving Melanie Greeley.
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Apr 10, 2017 05:01
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Apr 15, 2017 00:48
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I Forgot What's Real and What's Not as I Fall Farther and Farther into the Bullshit World I Made for Myself 1200 Words I went over to the neighbor’s to complain because their Christmas lights were still up past Easter. The chickens they raised ran around all night long under the multi-colored bulbs, and I’m sure, to someone, it felt right. She came to the screen door, and her kid was hugging her knee as I voiced my aversion to the lights. “I don’t mind that you have them up,” I said, “You might consider turning them off at night, is all. It’s April, I don’t think people usually have their lights on this late.” That tow-haired kid clung to his mother’s thigh as she replied, “Hey, gently caress-face. I’ll keep the lights up as long as I want.” The little kid was neither shocked nor chagrined. His lips were a little chapped around the corners as I got red in the face. “What’s your name, buddy?” I asked. “Don’t you loving talk to my kid,” was her shield. “Just take your lights down. Or switch to all monochrome. Before I call the borough council.” It was reasonable. She laughed, and slammed the storm door shut. It took two campaigns before James was elected to the council (he made sure everyone knew how much his billboard in front of the Wal-Mart cost), and through sheer force of will, it was only a matter of months before he was the President. Billboard James was still closeted, but he was open at the community theater. Or rather, Ted—his professor boyfriend— was. Ted was a normal guy. We’d have cast parties over there and he’d slop the meatballs marinated in hot sauce and grape jelly down his shirt. James would make him go change, and their schnauzers would escape the sliding glass door and chug their little legs over the perfectly manicured grass until they couldn’t run anymore. It was always in eyeshot. We’d run after them and collect the little fuzz-tubes before they made it out of the development. My great-grandparents owned that land before it was commoditized. They had a log cabin and no running water until the 1970s when the mall started construction across the street from them and they were forced to get plumbing. They died and I’m still not sure how we didn’t make out on the real estate. All I can figure is my grandparents believed in the Christian goodness of people and got taken advantage of. My brother just got baptized; not because he really wanted to, but because he is marrying a Catholic girl, and it was a requirement. You don’t have to become Catholic, just get baptized. He made a good speech (they call it Testimony) and there was a Christian Rock Band backing him up as he talked about God and salvation. Then he got dunked and the minister held the same handkerchief over his mouth that he did twenty baptismal recipients before. The power of Christ prevents disease, the pastor said. But it was still gross. ‘Don’t look closely into, else you’ll find something you won’t like.’ Gramps said. And when James came around to solicit votes, he was conflicted. My Dad was part of the nativity scene, and he had full yellow-face makeup and false buck-teeth as Gaspar, the Eastern Wise-Man. It was like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But my Dad saw nothing wrong with the proceedings. He never would. James said, “it isn’t worth it,” but it didn’t really matter. My sister had thrown the mushrooms, hallucinogenic caps, in the cauldron of apple cider. Pops stalled at the manger and his guyliner ran under the tears that welled up in the corner of his faux-Oriental eye. “Dad? You OK?” she asked, and there really wasn’t any recovery. He was already hugging the goat and tossing the manger hay. Everybody was commenting on how realistic his performance was. I just wanted to get on James’s good side and that meant mostly watching and loving True Blood. Easy enough, I suppose, since Sookie’s brother was a piece. Bad actor, sure, but drat, a cheese grater with a heart of gold. Every time I slipped away from the wholesome racism my Dad was serving to hit the decadence of gay professor street (and that really a thing) I had to give a little nod to Joe Manganiello, that werewolf fox-gently caress stripper, Pittsburgh born and bred. And I feel like I might poot in the name of Jesus Christ, but it’s just a limp little toot, nothing to be proud of. My nieces turn the game into a “no contest.” They hold their summer dresses tight around their butts so you can see the vibrations. Fart at will. Their Mom, my sister, is not happy, as they giggle and fart their way through Tom’s baptism. Neighbor lady took down her lights. “Dad, you cool with that?” It could have been me, or my sister who asked that, it didn’t really matter Dad was more than cool with that, he was hot for that. Fu-huh-uh-huh-huh-uh-ah-uh huck you. It’s a hymn of some sort. The kind my Dad and his new lady were singing every Sunday after Bible Study. The kind they took seriously, and Moms would jab at them with. Pops almost ended it all. He meandered up on the porch of my rude little neighbor and shot their bug zapper out with his old duck-hunting shotgun. He hit the pigeon full square, and it was almost like a video game, except people forget how genuinely tasty pigeons are. I broke my tooth being angry at my neighbor. The chip fell into her chicken coop. She thought that was fun, even though I had some tooth metaphor with the hard enamel coating over a soft root poo poo I wanted to shout at her, she didn’t care. I remembered James’s billboard. His smug face hung over everybody, And I lay down on the porch, it’s nearly eighty degrees fahrenheit out, and I see that flickering monstrosity next door because she turned every single light on and none of my connections helped except to get them to hang around the porch and watch with me, tripping ever so slightly, on mushrooms and raw sexuality. Pretending to baptize each other in the first rain of the season, the rain we desperately need. Tippity-tap coolness. Sheets to dribbles to the taps on tin and the outside-the-house squickle we all know as water sliding down the gutter. The rain fades. Pops is way in to The Davinci Code and all that stuff, there’s no need to dig any further when it comes to the struggle of words and faith. My whole head is swimming, and it’s one hundred percent this fucklife that makes me live it one second at a time. I ain’t about to cause any trouble till Pops puts the train together and it’s missing a piece so I start scouring the yard and find a bit of track in the rear end-face’s chicken coop. I grab it and the squacks just rail and rail as Pops throws a couple eggs in the skillet. Ninety-five percent of fertilized eggs die, so, gently caress off. We ate breakfast.
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Apr 17, 2017 06:38
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The path to paradise begins in hell. -Ridley Scott
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Apr 22, 2017 05:44
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Death Do us Part 1235 Words “Just take it nice and slow.” Leth brimmed with excitement this morning, bugging Dad to the point he sent Leth to the First Circle for a time-out. That place sucked, but it always did the trick. He calmed down—at least until they entered the gate to the DHP (Department of Human Possession), when the backs of his hands started itching something fierce. Now, he didn’t need to be told twice to heed the Test Proctor’s advice. Step One: Clear your mind and focus on the target. That was easy enough. He saw the woman’s soul. It was like the fog just before the sun crests a hill and burns it away. The woman was old, in a coma. Everybody got someone similar for their Possession Test, some wretched soul barely clinging to their meat, easy to overpower and take command. Step Two: Ease yourself into the soul. A little trickery is always best. And for a vessel like this old hag, a plume of hellfire from a dark corner is enough to fool the dumb human that it’s the light at the end of the tunnel they’ve always imagined comes at the end. They come to you, willingly; all you have to do is act friendly. Like kneeling with your hand out for a stray, don’t spook it. Leth did just that. He was a silhouette in front of the light, and the foggy old soul hobbled towards him, arms outstretched. As it got closer, the soul wasn’t quite how he imagined it. Certainly nothing like the base animals he had practiced on. There wasn’t much holding a dog or cat together. A couple days practice and Leth was shredding new couches and terrorizing joggers with the best of them. He was especially proud of the crows he commandeered and drove, one by one, into the windows of a church during a wedding. That got him high enough marks to grant him a chance at getting his license for Human Possession. The human soul up close was more like a plasma globe, sparks and electric lines flitting off in all directions inside the body-shaped fog. This one barely crackled on the left side—old lady had a stroke. Leth embraced her, and there was no resistance on her weak side. He felt their consciousnesses merge. “Rodney? Is that you?” the woman asked. Leth tiptoed around the edge of her mind until he felt the little tingle of the proper spark. Her husband, of course. Rodney, dead ten years after forty years of marriage, but through the lens of remembrance, Rodney looked as he did the day the two met. He saw, for the first time, how often humans lie to themselves. “Yes-” Leth stalled for a moment to search. The human wasn’t offering it up, so he reached through and felt the resistance like a hand pressing through water. Not a lot, but it was there. The refraction, too, but Leth caught on and grasped the word he wanted. “Margaret.” “Now there’s something I need you to do for me, Margaret.” Best to act more like the angels and keep up the ruse. “Your mission isn’t done yet. I need you to wake up. Can you do that?” “I - I don’t think I can. I’m so tired. I’m ready to rest,” Margaret said. “Let me help you. If you let me do it, it will be simple. There’s something I need to tell Bobby and Teresa.” The offspring of these two. Oh. Leth realized he didn’t search for the names. Their connection was stronger, the sparks he needed just came to him. Step Three: Take control. Leth felt the trust as Margaret relinquished control. He was in the driver’s seat, sluggish as this jalopy might be. Meat eyes opened, cloudy with cataracts. The fluorescent lights haloed above him. He tried to sit up but the withered muscles resisted. He twisted the meat body, pressing one hand into the hard mattress and pushed. Gradually, he forced Margaret to sit up. Hospital bed in the coma ward. He flipped Margaret’s feet sideways, and they dangled, swaying a few inches off the linoleum. He pulled cables and monitors off this old heap. Then something Leth didn’t expect: “Mom!” Teresa was jolted from her doze at the high-pitched whine of the flatline. “Mmmmmphh,” was all Leth could muster. Feeding tube. He yanked the plastic tube and it kept coming, two slimy feet of tubing he gagged up. Leth felt the sick feeling. As he acclimated to the human, the meat body gave him all sorts of sensations that he hadn’t felt before. Finally, it was out of his mouth and dropped sloppily beside him. “Teeeleeethhaaa.” Closer, anyway. “Oh, thank God,” she replied. “It’s a miracle. You’re awake.” She spun and shouted, “Nurse.” Leth slid forward, and Margaret’s curled toes touched the cold floor. “Don’t try to stand, Mom. The doctor’s coming.” “Terethhha.” That’s better. He pushed with all his meat-might and Margaret rose to stand. The right half tingled, fought back. The stroke, Leth supposed. He shuffled forward, one tentative step as he worked out the balance on two legs. The cheap office chair tipped backwards as Teresa leapt up to to stop Margaret from falling. “Stop, Mom. Hold on.” Teresa’s hand was on his arm. The static electricity of her soul bounced all around him. She was strong. The crucifix around her neck was new, but there was already a worn spot in the finish where Teresa held it almost constantly. Margaret’s ailment drove her to prayer and she found she liked it. She was having a spiritual awakening. Leth realized that the Test Proctor, Hodol, wasn’t around. He couldn’t feel his presence. There didn’t seem to be any supervision on his excursion. Well, then, maybe that’s part of the test. Seems this Teresa is my victim. Well, let’s give her a show. Concentrate on the words. Power through the meat-weakness. “Teresa.” Finally. Leth leaned close and whispered into her ear, “I’ve seen the other side. There is no Jesus. You are wrong. There are spirits everywhere. Worship the spirits of earth and nature.” That was a little heavy handed, maybe, but he wasn’t expecting to be on the spot. It was one of the lessons, though. Aside from the greedy few, no one willingly turns from the Light once they’ve embraced it. It’s not so much converting them to devil-worship, but rather leading them astray. “We are Margaleth,” he said. Wait, that wasn’t right. Pieces of Margaret were bubbling through unbidden. Maybe it was time to get back home. Teresa looked thoroughly perplexed. “Mom?” “We are Margaleth. Ggaleth.” Concentrate and clear your head of the human. “Leth.” Whew. Final part of the show then. Leth wheeled the meatbag around and pressed her tired bones forward. Run, he willed. And Margaret’s body tried to obey as best it could. He jumped at the window, ready to make a greasy stain on the sidewalk below, and give Teresa a crazy shake-up of Margaret’s last moment. Whump. Margaret bounced off the safety glass and crumpled to the floor. Leth blacked out. He woke and felt arms around him. The pinpoint of light was far off, and everything was dark around him, save the sticky imprint of Margaret latched to his side. They must have hooked her back up to the machines. “You’re awake, Rodney. I’m never letting go. I love you.”
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Apr 24, 2017 06:05
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OK IN
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Apr 29, 2017 03:51
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Love We Can't Jump Over 1500 Words gently caress. I’m stuck. You’re listening to 1620 on your dial, WXBL, home of the all the oldie hits in Glen Falls. This one goes out to you, Helen. Have a groovy day. I’d done a tag like that about a million times. All the old biddy names were interchangeable: Helen, Mildred, Fanny, maybe a dozen others. Probably the only listenership I have left. There was a time when the dulcet baritone of Diamond Dave meant something in this town. Used to hobnob with the glamour set and the mayor’s cronies on my complimentary pass to the country club. There was a time when declaring yourself a radio disc jockey meant something. That’s probably the only reason I still have a job, they’re too afraid to force this old icon into retirement. I mean, I had to suck up one paycut after another, until I was cheaper than some syndicated broadcast, but I’m still here, sitting behind the console, spinning my personal collection of 45s, fixing the frayed leather in my chair with a roll of duct tape I brought from home, looking into the other booth that’s just a bank of computers. Some sad, old relic sitting at the picnic table out back taking lunch alone. I watched a spider take its time across the hot pavement. I sat down and took a swig from the hip flask that Sinatra himself signed, though the autograph is worn to invisible, and just as I did, that little spider popped out of the mulch around the half-dead elm under the fluorescent ‘X’ where the borough marked it to be cut down, and waited. I was done for the day, I’d never be relevant for the drive-time shift ever again. So I watched as fingers of shade stretched across the parking lot and the spider followed, testing the bright outline of naked limbs every so often and recoiling. It played the patience game, scurry, test, scurry, test. And as I emptied the flask, the shadow fingers hit the wall across the way and the critter zipped into a hole in the crumbling mortar between bricks. Bryce pulled up in his hybrid just about then, and sat in the air conditioning waiting for me. I’d been waiting on the bench for nearly six months, just couldn’t bear to tell him that my hours had been cut again, and I only worked in the mornings. I climbed in the passenger’s seat with a groan, the old booth chair was hell on my back. He leaned in for a kiss, and as always, I took a quick look around first. Couldn’t break the habit. We got married in some hippy dippy wedding on an unseasonably cold North Carolina beach with a female priest back when he had hair like The Cure and I was still in shock I survived the Seventies. When he was young and I was not-so-young. But in this town, it was still tough. “I know you were smoking,” I said to him. “I should have frisked you for your flask,” he replied. Defined by the habits you can’t quit. But neither of us really cared about that. Concern, yes, anger, never. His stubble had more salt than pepper, and the doc put me on a low-sodium diet after I had my first cardiac event. Every so often I’d wake up from a nightmare that he’d left for greener pastures, and roll over to grab him tight. And every time, he’d kick me off because I was so sweaty. I saw the age on my spotted, beef jerky arms. Bryce had the Hamilton soundtrack on for the umpteenth time, but that little spider lead me to the promised land. In my quick little glance around I realized two things—that I was sick of hiding, and it was time to marry Bryce for real; and I saw how to pay for it. The brick façade on the neighborhood bank bowed out like a sailor coming home from shore leave. Bill Crampton got elected mayor for the eighth time when he was 70. He retired shortly after, or rather was forced out. He didn’t understand my call, but I didn’t need him to. He was the perfect distraction, whether he knew it or not. I know they were waiting for ol’ Bill to drop a racial slur or some classist nonsense and get some viral video fodder, but the old boy fell right into the politician groove. It was all fake, but I watched the entire procedure unfold on the six o’clock. If I had enough left over, I’d throw it to the orphans and everybody wins. I imagine there was an orphanage around somewhere. That didn’t matter, ol’ Bill went where he liked and the cameras followed, and I’d never be implicated. I saw what I needed. The ventilation duct, surrounded by crumbling mortar on the parking lot wall, lead directly into the vault. I trained a little for the next week, and Bryce rolled his eyes as much as he encouraged while I bicep-pumped the rubberized five pound weights like a hundred times a night. I felt stiff the first couple mornings, and maybe there was a little tone after a day or two so Bryce can suck it. All I had to do was one pull-up to get into the ventilation shaft. The grate on the ventilation shaft was easy enough to pry off, the bricks around it were easy to pull down. Gus the night guard was easy to bribe; the video poker in the pizza place only cost a quarter a go, and a roll of coins left on the machine was enough to distract him for an hour. So that brings us up to speed. Me stuck halfway in that vent just waiting for the morning tellers to come in and this old idiot hanging over their heads as they count out the cash for the main street businesses that still came in for their daily doses of ones and fives. And I’m not proud to say it took them a while to even notice the torso lurching over them while they counted out the registers and collected the retail night bags. I sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything. Then old Bill Crampton, on no instruction but his own, showed up again to check on his fake paper kids and announced to the long row of tellers behind their tall counters that there was a man stuck in their wall. They let him meander about, and maybe I should have taken his lead to act like the doddering old man who wants to be relevant. I couldn’t squeeze nor shrink away. I was jammed tight around the love handles, clearly stuck in the way that the news crews love. Could I play senility? Ol’ Bill already set that trend for me. It might work, but then Bryce showed up. Hey buddy. The news crew was there. Confession time. “Bryce—I just wanted, well, I don’t know what I wanted—but maybe for us to be permanent. Will you marry me?” I reached towards the safe deposit box that held Mrs. McClusky’s rings. It was a known quantity, the high school was named after William McClusky. Bryce rapped the lock with his knuckles and said, “You want to steal Mrs. McClusky’s rings? I mean, I do like a diamond, but this is ridiculous. I’d be happy if you just let Channel Five know what you’re thinking.” “Do I have a choice?” I asked as the goddamn news crew made their way into the vault. I didn’t have any makeup on, and certainly wasn’t ready for an interview. But HD leant a certain honesty, and I finally saw that spider crawl across the floor as I spilled the beans. It was half fake until I leaned into it: “You’re watching Diamond Dave as he tried to steal a diamond worthy of his lover, Bryce, and gently caress it (KDKA ate the FCC fine on that one) we’re getting married.” Bryce taught me about foster families and the way Children and Youth Services work as the cops pulled me out of the wall, and how wrong I was about how orphans don’t really exist these days. I dunno. I begged his forgiveness about a thousand times. He understood why I wanted Ol’ Bill and Ol’ Gus in the wedding party. But we never got for real married. That sucked. But I get it, Bryce never wanted to be my sidecar. More than sucked, I never wanted anyone else to be my sidecar. Nah. Bryce was my engine. He ran the show. You can blow it and make up for your mistakes, so long as your tuchus isn’t hanging out the rear end end of a vault. Sorry, love. But then Bryce, just as I was getting carted away in cuffs, said, “Yes. Finally.” And he had a ring made of Juicy Fruit wrappers that was better than all of Mrs. McClusky’s jewelry put together.
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May 1, 2017 08:02
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In with Quantum Computing Thanks for all the crits this week
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May 6, 2017 00:36
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10^123 or The List of Undecidable Problems 980 words Greg Tolliver didn’t look up from the computer monitor. “We dreamed we’d feel the breath of God,” he said. “The blessed moment when the universe was observed, and everything was suddenly known. What we do from here, will change everything.” His grad students hovered behind him as his finger hovered over the Enter key, rapt attention on the screen. He had a flare for the dramatic, and the practiced hubris of his words were not lost on PhD candidate, Rosa Muniz. Would things change? Not on the grand scale. In their academic circles, certainly. That, she supposed, was all Dr Tolliver cared about. It was a funny thing. Proof isn’t actually proof until the common man can understand it. He was young and handsome—and a genius—and took full advantage. She spent a summer working late in the lab and then crashing at his curious little cottage on campus. It was one of those little houses built of concrete to look like a cathedral with faux-stone buttresses and soaring windows of replica stained glass. The wainscoting was cherry, stained dark. A possibly authentic suit of medieval armor stood in the foyer, knee deep in garbage and stacks of books and papers. Paths waded through to bed, toilet, kitchen. Tolliver was unashamed. The work mattered. If the college wanted to clean the place they’d send someone. The charm of his eccentricities soon wore off, and Rosa worried about the fall term when she told him it was over and went home to visit her mother for her brief summer break. But it was like they were never together when she took three deep breaths and opened the door to the lab. Business as usual. Rosa looked around at all the faces huddled close around the Doctor, and wondered how many had similar summers. Maybe one was currently kicking over stacks of old thesis like Stanley in the jungle to carve a path to the Doctor’s bed. The faces didn’t give up the details, however. She could only speculate. The details here, were behind the scenes. That was the thing about quantum computers. Nothing is known, until it is. It’s fairly straightforward to play out your life from one decision or another, and dream about all the possibilities as though it were true. Maybe you got the one that got away, or dodged that miserable relationship. The ‘what if’ game is at the core of the science. Then in one crystallizing moment, everything becomes rooted. You can’t choose otherwise, only imagine the possibilities. Here, Tolliver played the most dangerous version of ‘do you like me, circle y / n.’ He asked if god exists. The man who resided in a replica house of worship and didn’t live as though he cared one lick decided that it would be better for the world to know the truth. There is a theory, and the math is complicated, that the universe is a hologram. That’s not to say it isn’t real, but we might simply be information stretched from the edges of another string. See, there’s a finite amount of information in the universe. You can imagine more information than exists, but that doesn’t make it so. There are only X amount of protons and neutrons and electrons. It might not be feasible to count them all, but you can imagine that, given enough time, you could. Quantum computers work differently. They don’t have to count from one to a billion trillion. They can work it out faster. Or rather, they don’t know, then when you ask for the answer, the do. People dabbled with quantum computing for decades, and you could do traditional math at the speed of light or encrypt and decrypt data with unimpeachable reliability. Traditional things done super fast. That makes sense to people. People are quantum computers, and Rosa knew it. We don’t know until we decide. We’re not really, of course, just traditional computers made of meat, but it’s the same concept. And yet, birds and fish might actually use quantum entanglement to migrate. The sense of smell might work the same way. One molecule moves, and another, a galaxy or a universe away, moves like its dance partner. We might have a dance partner an inconceivable distance away, reading this same thing. An antimatter version of you and me. Or it might be us, the real us, and we’re reflected holograms, maybe being stretched around the horizon a black hole while the real us stares down the barrel of inevitability. Tolliver knew all this, and if he was a fatalist, he didn’t let that bother him. The answer was more important. The algorithm was complex, but straightforward. Was there more information outside the known quantity of information that makes up our universe. There was a hard limit on what actually exists. X plus N equals Y. Information plus change equals the universe. If the universe was bigger than the known quanities of information and change, then there was something else out there. It might be god. Might be that we are on the swirling edge of a black hole, and we can’t see past the event horizon. There are possibilities, but they are just that. Only one will be true. Tolliver’s finger hovered over the enter key, and the computer would spit out an answer as soon as he hit the button. Rosa wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the result. It didn’t feel right. “Greg,” she said. “Don’t do this. It doesn’t actually matter, does it?” Tolliver finally broke his gaze with the LED shine and turned his head to meet her gaze. “Sorry?” he said. “Ms. Muntz, was it?” Rosa didn’t correct him. She turned and walked out of the lab. She’d hear the results in a press conference like everyone else. She knew for an absolute fact, that he’d press the button.
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May 8, 2017 06:04
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IN Thank you, critters
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May 13, 2017 00:22
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Power of Suggestion 1431 Words Red Ivan stared down Independence Annie with the calm squint of a hardened gunslinger. He allowed himself the slightest crack of a smile as his goons came from everywhere and nowhere and lined up in the empty stretch between them. Worried townsfolk peeked from drawn curtains up and down Main Street, USA, and the goons filled the silence with the echoing cracks of their practiced knuckles. “Looks like this is the end,” said Red Ivan, then he laughed. Independence Annie remained composed, fists resting on her hips. She pulled a small vial from her Statue of Liberty-themed utility belt, popped the cap, and swigged it down. “There’s only room in my town for one criminal,” she said. “And that’s the price of the new SUPR One Shots by Ambrosia. A boost right when I need it.” She leapt towards the mass of henchmen and ducked the wild swings of their oversized weapons. A flurry of punches to the breadbasket of Goon #1. An uppercut that backflipped Goon #2 into the crash mat. A perfectly choreographed leg sweep dropped the rest. “CUT! Take five then reset to one. Effects? Kid Chyron,” the director shouted. “You missed your cue.” Under his breath he added, “This was supposed to be cheaper than doing it in post.” Barbara Billings was beside herself. “I’m so sorry, this will never happen again. He had an, uh, emergency.” But that was a lie. Barbara Billings did not know where her son, Butch, aka Kid Chyron, was. Butch was, in fact, hiding from her. He sat in a patch of warm sun behind the makeup trailer, fussing with the buttons on his jacket. They’d all be angry with him. Independence Annie came around the corner, and lit a cigarette. She sighed as she exhaled and watched the cloud billow into the column of light between trailers. Then she leaned against the trailer to finish her secret smoke, unaware that a boy of ten was sitting not two meters away. She adjusted her stance, putting one foot against the corrugated metal with a clunk. She saw it floating at knee level. The word CLUNK hung midair, like a newsprint clipping defying the breeze. The cigarette fell from her hand. “Jeez, kid. You scared me,” she said as she bent to pick it up, her hand passed through the projection easily as the air. “Can’t help it. It just sort of happens.” “You like comic books, huh, kid? Must be fun. You can ZAP and THWAK your way through your own adventures.” Butch brightened up. “Are you a hero? For real?” Annie shook her head. “Nah. that SUPR poo poo’ll kill you.” A word bubble with $#!% appeared over her mouth. “Sorry, stuff. That stuff’ll kill you.” She took a last drag and flicked the butt over the chain-link fence. “It’s just a gig, kid.” “I would be, if I could.” “Well, you already have the super-name. Kid Chyron. Who came up with that?” “Some lady at the agency. It’s good for marketing.” “It’s good for marketing. Jeez, kid, they really have you on a leash, huh? You know, what I would give to have my mom get me into commercials when I was your age.” Annie always wanted to act, serious acting, but commercials paid the bills. After this campaign, she’d have enough to move down to Olympus City and maybe find some work on the stage, audition for some movies. She wasn’t exactly happy about being the face of a sketchy corporation, but people made their own choices, right? Nobody was forced to buy SUPR. They heard Butch’s mother shouting in sing-song, “Oh, Butch, Butch honey. It’s time for your pills.” “Well, Kid Chyron, maybe we should get back to work, hmm?” Butch shrugged, but then he stood.and the pair left the safety of their hiding place. Barbara Billings raced to her son from across the lot. “Butch, there you are. What were you doing? You know we can’t upset the director. Now, here, take your pills.” She placed them in his hand and Butch put them in his mouth. Barbara held the juice box as Butch sipped from the tiny straw. “Good boy. Now let’s go apologize to Mr. Hanes.” Butch headed off towards where the director and a few crew were discussing a stunt, but Annie stopped his mother before she could follow. “Hey, why are you giving your kid that stuff? Don’t you know how dangerous it is?” “You’re the one shilling it,” she retorted. “Come on,” said Annie. “He’s just a kid.” Barbara’s brow furrowed. Then she leaned close to Annie. Annie twitched, instinctively wanting to retreat, but Barbara waggled her fingers, summoning her ear for some piece of secret news. “OK, OK,” Barbara whispered. “Look, you have to swear that you’ll never breathe a word of this.” “Fine.” “Butch’s Dad was hooked on SUPR. That’s true. Ran afoul of the law right after Butch was born. That’s why we left Olympus City. But, um, here’s the thing. The pills?” Barbara lips were nearly touching Annie’s ear by this point, and she dropped a few more decibels from her voice, until the next words were little more than the breath that transferred them. “The pills. They’re fake. If they ever found out, who knows what they’d do. Cut him apart to find out why. Butch’s powers are real. Natural.” “What? You gotta get him out of here. They’ll figure it out.” Barbara raised her eyebrows as she tilted her head. “They haven’t yet. Hiding right under their noses. I really think it’s the safest. No schools or other kids to cause trouble, and as long as he does his job, no one thinks twice about him. Best of all, they’re paying us.” Annie saw Butch make his apologies to the director, who waved him off, more concerned with the new stunt he was concocting with the others. Butch just stood there, watching, a small, rather pathetic, lump of a boy. “But look at what you’re doing to him. That’s no way to grow up.” Annie felt her blood pressure rise. Was she being hypocritical? Just a minute ago, she wished she had a showbiz childhood. Then, the First AD was on the bullhorn, shouting that the break was over and calling for places, and Barbara said, “Not a word,” before she turned and met up with Butch. The rest of the shoot went off without a hitch. Kid Chyron hit all his cues, The WHAMs and POWs and BOFFOs were crisp explosions of color, take after take, perfectly timed to the stunt punches and flips and kicks. And when Annie was so exhausted that she, for a second, considered taking one of the SUPR One Shots for real, the director called a wrap. Barbara took her son by the shoulders, and began leading him back to his trailer, when Annie called to him. Butch slipped from his mother’s firm grip and walked to Annie. Barbara started to protest, but Mr. Hanes and the corporate reps were closeby. “Hey, Butch, can I tell you a secret?” Annie knelt down beside him. “Independence Annie isn’t my real name, you know. I really am a superhero. Cross your heart you won’t tell anybody?” Butch nodded eagerly. “I have a secret identity. It’s. . . “ She whispered the last part in Butch’s ear. A safe flickered into life over his head. Its door slammed shut and the tumblers spun. It was dim and colorless and the edges bled, like the CLUNK when Annie first caught him behind the makeup trailer. Annie looked to the projection, then to Barbara, who folded her arms across her chest. “Butch,” said Barbara. “Come. Now. It’s time for your pills.” Butch rose and his mother performed the routine, gave him the pills and held his juice box for him. “Now let’s thank the director.” She led Butch past Annie who was still kneeling. Barbara thanked Hanes and the corporate reps for the opportunity and gushed about how professional it all was, and how she was looking forward to future endeavors. She ran on until Hanes dismissed her with a, “Sure, call my assistant.” As they passed Annie on the way back to their trailer, Butch brushed his hand over Annie’s shoulder, and two pills rolled down the front of her outfit until she caught them. She rolled them in her hand as Butch said, “poo poo’ll kill you.” “Butch!” Barbara Billings ranted on about soap and mouths as they walked away. Annie saw no $#!% or pop into existence, and the lack thereof said all she needed to hear.
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May 15, 2017 08:04
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In And thx all critters and recappers.
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May 20, 2017 01:05
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Week 250 Submission Anemic Structure 1713 Words “No answer. He’s not coming,” said Lissa. “I warned you about him. And ‘we’ve failed the Bechdel Test’, said Veronica to Betty.” Jane Blatz, recently self-christened Rowan Whitefeather, lounged with her legs draped over the arm of the couch. She held the remote between her thumb and index, and the bored pendulum grazed the frayed carpet. Police are on high alert after a second victim is found in the trash compactor behind the 49th Street Mission this morning. EMTs responded to a call this morning when a mission volunteer discovered a gruesome scene behind the mission. Investigators say the man’s throat was slit in an apparent execution. The second body was discovered shortly after. Police have not released the victims’ names, but say they were regulars at the mission. . . . “Can you believe they’re showing footage of the crime scene?” said Rowan, incensed. “Sensationalist assholes.” She wheeled her feet to the floor and leaned in until she saw the pixels. “Not a whole lot of blood for slit throats. Gives me the creeps.” Lissa flipped through her phone, hoping there was a missed message. She hadn’t listened to Rowan or the TV. “Aaaand speaking of creeps. Hey, Liz, hey!” Rowan finally got her to look up. She continued, twenty decibels more than necessary. “I said, ‘speaking of creeps,’ let’s go find your deadbeat boyfriend.” ___ Bang. Bang. Bang. And again. Larkin Hodge finally pried one sticky eyelid open and as he felt he sun through the blinds he immediately clamped it shut. Bang bang bang. And again. Louder, more insistent. A thin tendril of coherent thought wound its way through the soup. It was the door. From outside: “Hey, idiot. Open up.” It was Jane. Roman Featherbottom. “Honey? Lark? Are you in there?” Oh, poo poo. That was Rissa, a light, concerned counterpoint to the basso profundo of her roommate’s thumping knock. He rolled off the bed, taking the comforter tangled around his feet with him. Holy mackerel, the light. Larkin clawed at the blinds until he found the string (that plastic schtwing grated his nerves) and drew them tight. What time was it? He took a deep breath and held it, trying to still his racing heart. After five in the PM. Dammit. Lissa’s Mom and Dad’s anniversary dinner. He was supposed to meet her then go to the restaurant. He dragged himself to the short hallway of his studio apartment and braced himself against both walls until he considered himself standing. His heart pounded. If he moved any faster, he might slip on the puddles of sweat he thought pooled on the cheap linoleum. But he managed his wobbly hand on the deadbolt The door swung in and Rowan barged through. “What the hell, dude? And Jeezus, put some clothes on. I don’t want to see that.” She dropped to the fold-out couch, elbows on knees, fingertips steepled and tapping in rhythm. The wasn’t an accusation, she waited for the sorry explanation. “It stinks in here,” was all she offered as bad cop. Rissa stood in the hallway. Larkin clung, open-palmed to the wall and sucked a ragged breath. “Riz,” he creaked. “Oh, baby, are you OK?” Rissa grabbed him around the waist, and he saw the sweat soak into her thin cardigan where she touched him. “Let’s get you back to bed.” She hobbled him back to his thin mattress and he collapsed, face down. He struggled out the words, but they came, “I can get up, just let me sit for a—” “What’s that on your neck?” Rowan hovered over him and crinkled her nose. “It looks like a bite mark.” His memory was twisted, trapped in a music video. Brett dragged him to the party. No. He wanted to go. So many bodies bounced, arms flailed. Lasers flashed through that fog that smells like cologne. He remembered that well enough. Then he hit the bathroom. Some dude in an impeccable suit and manicured beard. Larkin gripped the bridge of his nose, but all he really remembered was the pattern of Suit’s pocket square. His smile, messed up smile. A woman. A woman. A woman. Oh, no. He wasn’t sure she was wearing anything at all. What did he take? Molly? LSD? Didn’t feel like the comedown for either of those. Some designer drug, maybe. He didn’t remember taking anything at all. But that woman. She hopped up, piggyback, gangly arms and legs en-spidering him, and he felt the small presses of flesh in his back. And he liked it. Then she bit him. “Psycho, get off me,” he twirled. But she only laughed, and her smile was that big, messed up smile in the bathroom mirror between the graffiti. “What the hell happened; where the hell were you?” Rowan’s inquiry pierced, needles in his head. “I dunno—it was some warehouse party. A rave. Corner of 49th and Oak. Something weird.” Larkin dropped back onto the sweat-soaked pillow and passed into oblivion. ___ Rowan watched the shitstain beep and bloop in his hospital bed. Liz came back with the playing card coffee cups, quote ‘fresh’ from the machine. “Do you see that?” asked Rowan. “What?” “Whuddouyoumean what? Look at it—that sonuvabitch Larkin’s neck.” “Hmm?” “He got bit by a vampire. Look at the marks. Two bloody wounds coming through the gauze.” “What? That could be anything.” “What’s wrong with him? You know it. It’s anemia. His blood is all hosed up. You think that’s a coincidence?” “Rowan, I don’t know. This whole thing is so messed up.” His beeps get a little faster. Maybe he knew what’s going on. But he’s saved—mercy of the night nurse. Made them head home for the night. ___ Of course, Rowan woke up first. Liz dragged herself out of bed, and found her roommate in a sea of occult books. Before she could have her coffee, Rowan was pointing out passages in her black magic catalogues and demonic encyclopedias. If Larkin was a vampire, no 90s alt-rock was going to save him. “He’s not, you know,” said Liz as she poured her cup. “You heard him, 49th Street? You know that’s where those homeless guys were killed. Murdered. He was right there. Wake up, Liz. He did it.” “Oh, so what? He wanted their blood?” “Yes. Of course.” “Don’t be ridiculous. Think about it. How does that even work?” “The crime scene. DIdn’t you see how little blood was around? Mutherfucker drank it.” Liz shook her head, and she wasn’t sure if it was to puke. “He didn’t drink blood.” Rowan leaned into the generic. floral pattern of the chair pulled from their lobby, “We’ll see.” “What the hell are you doing to me,” asked Liz. “You’re dead set on killing Lark.” “drat straight, I am.” “Rowan, Jane. Please. Don’t.” “He’s a monster, Liz. Not a metaphorical monster, a real one. You can’t see it? Dirtbag is a freaking Nosferatu. He’s gone, lost. Part of their world, not ours. Do we fail the Bechdel Test if we’re talking about a literal monster?” “Rowan—” “For real, though, I love you, babe. I think I probably always loved you.” “Rowan?” “I can’t stand by while what the gently caress his name is, Larkin, just treats you like an rear end in a top hat.” “Rowan. Just—head home. Please. ___ Rowan did, reluctantly. She went home, lit a black wax candle, but her mind was already made up. The licorice smell pissed her off. Larkin would die. The eleven o’clock news only confirmed her position. Life doesn’t care about the little guy, or the big guy who has a load of tasty, tasty, blood. So long as that big guy won’t be missed. Turns out that the news drew a little more attention to frikkin’ vampire behavior than they wanted. So much attention it was obvious. Liz came back to the apartment and crashed on her bed. Rowan hovered over her until Liz turned over and stared her square in the incense tinted eyes. “For Chrissakes, what?” “Just call the hospital,” said Rowan. “I have a feeling.” “Go to sleep,” retorted Liz, and she dozed off. ___ “Liz, wake up. DId you see that news anchor’s arms? Mocha latte hoochie mama. Holy poo poo.” “What?” “I’m getting real sick of you saying that.These dinks are still doing sports. But you know what I’m waking you for, yeah? Larkin is gone. Left the hospital.” Liz scrambled to as awake as she could muster. “What?” “Told you,” said Rowan. “I’m sick of you saying that. The end is here.” “Huh?” “Goodnight, Larkin.” ___ Larkin Hodge was missing. Disappeared from the hospital like everyone who was Rowan expected. Like anyone who was anyone expected. Slipped out without any notice. Billy from under the bridge sat in the alley behind the mission sorting aluminum cans when Lark came around the corner and sat down beside him. “Oh, oh don’t. They’re mine,” said Billy. “I just want to help you,” said Larkin. He dropped a can or two into the bin for Billy. The sun crested over the alley behind the 49th Street Mission and the little glance of light sent Lark reeling. He spun around the corner, and hugged the giant marble blocks that made the buildings look older than they were. He whispered from around the corner, to the old man comfortably set in the middle of the alley, “It’s not right. I’m not right.” The old man just laughed. “I’m not right, friend.” Larkin didn’t laugh back. He felt sick, that he was in the same spot that someone just like him was murdered—more than murdered, killed with impunity. Lark turned the corner and god, he felt good. Liz was standing there, with a literal torch in her hand. Rowan huddled under the light she cast. “What the—” Lark didn’t know what else to say. ___ I let you do it. Larkin let you do it. He just stood there and all the homeless guys stood there when you speared him with fire-hardened steak that slid through his chest like a hot skewer through a souffle. Fuckin’ Rowan. If I want to be happy, I have to leave it to you. Is that what you wanted? Is that what I wanted? I might have hosed up. I might have hosed up.
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May 22, 2017 05:36
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In a world where The Americas "discovered" and colonized Europe instead
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May 23, 2017 18:37
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