The King of the Cats

Losers

 

Þ, prompted because he was first going clockwise, began, "Hardly anyone knows who I am, I'm such a freak. Talk with J or even Z, you'd think they'd sympathize. But they don't. They change the subject as quick as they can."

Æ, Ƿ, and Ȝ nodded. "Right on, brother," said Ƿ.

The group session co-ordinator said, "And you, Œ. What are you feeling right now?"

Πsaid, after a little laugh, "I think it's nice that we're all here. It gets so lonely out there. Sometimes I wish I was an ampersand. At least then I could ... bring people together."

Sitting sullenly was Ð, with his arms crossed. The co-ordinator said, "Ð, what do you think about being Ð?"

Ð cried, "It sucks! And sitting here pissing and moaning isn't doing anything! We should be demanding some rights here--but Jesus I don't think even the New York Times knows how to spell our names."

Ƿ muttered, "And forget about blogs and shit. We could end up being just anonymous squares. Because people don't care enough to have extended character sets installed."

Voices from nowhere said, in chorus, "We'd kill to even be little anonymous squares, you guys!"

 

***

 

"Before we get to the results of the painful tests to which you submitted, Gene, to arrive at a diagnosis of the mysterious lump you've got on your lower jaw, I just want you to look at these shoes of mine. Alligator leather. And I can get them for you wholesale. What do you think?"

"I think you'd really fit in here, you know? If only I could convince Mr. Jones to take a chance on you! He's really at a tipping point. That's his nature. But anyway, I'm selling my couch on Kijiji. Take a look. No pressure."

"The nomination is yours to lose, Meryl. You've got it all. You're the package. Only there's a snag. Nothing ever gets done in this town without some ballot-box stuffing. Sad but true. My brother-in-law is a pro at this stuff, and he's available to become your 'personal assistant,' heh. Reasonable rates."

"Okay, Mark. You're gonna do just fine. You got TV looks! So I'll ask you questions and you can say whatever you want. Smile. This'll make or break you of course. Hey, check out this painting for sale. Three million dollars and it's up up up. Can you say no-brainer?"

 

***

 

Waiter, There's a Hand In My Soup

 

The maître d' looked up. A patron was starting a kerfuffle. What could it concern? Escargot? Foie gras, perhaps? Maybe something with the pot au feu? Trevor the waiter was scurrying away with a bowl. Ah, the bisque!

The maître d' followed Trevor. Trevor was yelling at the chef. "How could this have happened? Answer me!"

The maître d' quietly with authority asked, "What's all this?"

Trevor shoved the bowl under the maître d's nose. "There's a hand in this bisque."

The maître d' looked. He saw the fingers sticking up. "What's its condition?"

"It appears severed."

"Not torn off, as in an industrial accident?"

"Neatly severed, as with a very sharp knife."

"How odd." The maître d' looked around. "Anybody missing a hand?"

The entire staff was silent.

"In that case," said the maître d', "give me the bowl." The maître d' went out back to the dumpster and threw the bowl, the hand, and the bisque altogether into it. Back into the kitchen he went.

"Our problem is solved. Offer the patron a gift certificate. I don't care who is responsible. I'm running a business here. Don't let it happen again."

 

***

 

The Filler

 

It was a dark and stormy night. I settled down to write as I do on dark and stormy nights. Other nights too. Anyway, I settled down to write. As my nib neared my clean white empty sheet, probably to write the word 'The,' I heard an unusual noise. The noise was so unusual that I'll have to write three sentences to describe it here. It was no like the sound of an animal ambiguously crying out in distress or anger. It was also not like the sound of a heavy door or window opening or closing. Finally, it wasn't like the sound of a ghost which is commonly enough heard for me to proceed further in description. It wasn't like any of these sounds. Honest.

I went to the door of my work studio and opened it. (The door, not the work studio. I was already inside the work studio. Can you picture this okay?) I went out into the typical hallway that was outside my work studio. The noise I believed had come from the kitchen. And there it was, sitting on the table, staring straight at me, like it expected me.

It was an um.

 

***

 

I remember the Sundays, thrice a year, when my father and mother would take us to the Miracle Fair. In a field outside town they'd set up their booths to show off their miracles that were always unique to the day and the season.

One time, I saw a small Indian boy climb a rope to the heavens and vanish; a minute later he was back, though dressed as a tiger in the audience. At another booth we saw a woman carved into bloody pieces then re-constituted five minutes later. At other booths we saw water turned to wine, household pets telling ribald jokes about their masters, and mechanical people playing poker very intelligently.

There was so many of these Fairs it's sometimes hard to keep them straight. I remember once I saw a pretty girl just about my age; I've thought about her every single day since then. She was a performer at the festival but I never found out what she did there.

My family and I would head home afterwards, exhausted by all we'd seen and felt. I'd go to sleep imagining myself in the Arabian Nights, a genie by my side, or sometimes as a werewolf.

 

***

 

Eating Pussy is Gay

 

I clicked into the personal files of all the cops in my precinct just for fun to check out their drug habits. I saw a list, everyone to a row apiece with little flags showing if he'd been caught using or possessing or under the influence. There were more flags than not. A lot of drugs were being used. I wasn't surprised.

Hobo-hunting was the order for the night. "I wanna see this place full of hobos!" cried the sarge. We all high-fived because catching hobos was easy if you knew how to tear identification cards. A lot of scores got settled that way.

It got to be late, with only two hours more to clocking out. I was in a car with Pat. I said, "I'm thirsty," so we went into a liquor store by the back door. We didn't have to turn on the lights to find what we wanted. Jim Beam for me, Glenlivet for him. We shut off the radio for a bit and drank some.

I got philosophical. "We have a limited number of days, and yet we waste them. Waste them. Why do you think that is?"

Pat said nothing.

 

***

 

In another town I was, just visiting, down long straight roads with alienating lettering on their signs, when I came upon a small magazine shop promising magazines from my territory. I looked inside and was surprised to see the most beautiful woman from my town in there, talking to the clerk. I'd adored her for years. (If she wasn't the most beautiful woman from my town, she was close.)

I hung back, waiting, thinking about magazines, thinking about how much I wanted to get a book of soccer puzzles in a language I understood. Still she talked on. Could she recognize me? Yes or no, the truth would be crushing.

I went around the block, looking at the shops all along the way, and came back to the magazine shop. She was still in there! Doesn't she have better stuff to do in this other town?

Around the block again I went, my feet starting to hurt. I sat in a park along the way for fifteen minutes. Then it was back to the shop I went.

Still there! How could she do this to me? I just want a soccer puzzle magazine! What had I ever done to her?

 

***

 

In 1977, 10,000 twelve-year-old boys competed to get on a one-off television game show called "Twelve and Counting" which aired that summer. The producers said there would be three prizes, third-second-first, with each being 50,000 times more valuable than the previous.

Twenty boys made it onto the show. A "lightning round" of footraces followed up by "quick math" eliminated ten of them.

In the second half-hour, the ten became five as climbing and logic came to the competition. Everyone still talks about the problem involving the seven rooms and the six dwarfs. That one stumped them all, and has yet to be proofed logically.

The final completion involved memory testing. Two dozen variations had to be matched up. Goodbye, fifth place and fourth.

The studio audience was on seat-edge while the final competition was stretched out over a half-hour. The first contest decided who came third. Then a decathlon of physical and mental challenges (with results suspensefully suspended) decided who was the best twelve-year old boy and who was second-best. The contest was over.

Third prize was a radio-controlled helicopter, capable of a hundred-yard reach. Second prize was a fully-equipped Mercedes-Benz firetruck. And the first prize was a naked lady.

 

***

 

I don't like telling true stories but I have no choice here.

On Thursday morning at 8:46 from work I wrote to Mary, saying, "Not much going on here yet," just being light-hearted, then I closed my gmail. I always close my gmail when I'm not using it.

An hour and a half later I checked my mail. She'd written back! She replied with words to the same effect. So I wrote, "Only done a couple things so far," and shut down my gmail.

Then I did this and that, and at around 11:45 I checked my mail. She'd written back, but all she'd written was something about being pretty idle, hadn't done much either. So continuing my lighthearted way I wrote, "I will be having my sandwich in twelve minutes."

And with that I went off and had my sandwich and my banana and went outside for a cigarette.

When I got back to my desk I checked my gmail. Mary had written. She'd written, "I will be having my sandwich in twelve minutes." Which made no sense because Mary doesn't eat sandwiches.

That was when I realized that I had been reading my own messages the whole time.

 

***

 

Smalls the reporter quivered all night long as the thunderstorm rumbled above his little rented cottage on the outskirts of Medium, Pennsylvania.

Come morning--finally!--he got a call from his editor who told Smalls to get to Biggs, Pennsylvania as soon as possible because there'd been an accident or disaster at a summer camp.

Smalls drove over to Biggs, population 1120. Traffic was ambulances, cops, firetrucks. He followed the trucks and together they wound up at Biggs Camp, some forty miles away from Biggs proper. 'The smell of smoke was thick in the air.'

It had been not merely an accident but a disaster. Seventeen children had been struck by lightning indirectly. Or how did it work? Obviously the camp administrators were to blame. Or maybe Biggs, or Pennsylvania, or maybe even America herself.

Parents were arriving. Biggs talked to five in order to broadcast three. "How do you feel?" "I'm numb." "Are you angry?" "At who?"

He talked to the administrator. "What's to be done?" "About what?" "Preventing these sorts of accidents or disasters."

Biggs watched all the little coffins pass, then he went back to his motel room and had a good cry, a good cynical cry.

 

***

 

History

 

What can be said about a seventy-year-old man who marries a twenty-eight-year-old woman?

Start with how they met and how they married. Did he buy her from someone? Did she really love him? Was it the result of something earlier? Where can we start this story? Was she blackmailed into it? Was he blackmailed into it? Was there a curse involved somewhere? Is she who she said she was, or someone else entirely? Did he deceive her somehow? Was there a bed-trick involved? Was Cyrano involved in it somehow? If the two of them approved of it and they merely met on a park bench and it was love at first sight what did their families and friends have to say about it? Was he in disguise, was she in disguise, did they have a cute meet, were they destined for one another, is he an archaeologist, is she a showgirl, is she an archaeologist-showgirl, was it an arranged marriage, was the supernatural involved, did she wake up the day after her wedding in surprise, did they get handcuffed together, were there drugs involved, is he not supposed to live more than three months, is this based on history?

 

***

 

I took my narratology class on a field trip to the Six Flags Over Texas theme park. We had a whole roller coaster train to ourselves.

As we were pulled up the lift hill, I explained, "Properly speaking, we are in the A section, which should never come first in non-demotic narratology. PerhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAps there will come a day when roller coaster technology moves past being akin to the fairy tale."

We were by then at the second drop. Benjamin raised his hand. "Benjamin?" I said. Benjamin said, "Is there a structure intrIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIInsic to the middle sections of a narrative? Or is the middle, as Larkin said, just a muddle?"

We were upside down. "Anne, would you like to AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnswer Benjamin's question?"

Anne said, "We can begin by considerIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIng what cannot happen mid-narrative. All characters cannot be eliminated."

Dierdre interrupted, "A steady process of solving certain questions while asking others must be held in a bAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAlance."

"Very good," I commented.

We were topping the final plunge. "How do we know the end is coming?"

Dierdre said, "It's a question of genre. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE knew beforehand how long this trip was going to be."

The ride was over. Benjamin said, "A disappointment overall."

 

***

 

The rest of the story goes like this.

The morning after I was turned into a real boy, I had a dream. It was clearly a reminiscence of the afternoon me and Lampwick were turned into donkeys.

There we were, me and Lampwick and a couple other boys, strapped into machines, butt-side up. All we could hear was this kind of animal grunting nearby. Lampwick said to me, "Where's your new wood, Noke?" And sure enough I could sense my new wood wasn't there anymore.

Something got stuck into me, down there.

Later on I was on my back with a big belly. Lampwick was gone, but another puppet--a girl puppet--was beside me. She said, "It'll be over by tomorrow, I swear."

A man in a mask came in and slapped me. Why? It didn't really hurt. And I was presented with a baby and someone called me Mother.

I had to get out but everything was dark. I got slapped again. I woke up all hot and bothered, and my new wood hurt hard.

I went down to Geppetto. I told him about my dream. He said, "I'll-a make-a li'l adjustamenta." He adjusted me surgically. I'm fine.

 

***

 

O Mister Juvenal, please leave your hut

An see me in the city here, no buts!

You'll see and smell and taste the sights

Of all the liddle preddies of the night;

I'll strap you in a metal plate so as

You'll've naught to fear about your virgin ass.

This evening past a fetch of legal grads

All taking photos proudly each of plaid

I nearly stumbled cross a beggar's sign

That read (in beggar argot) give me wine.

Dress filthily and stinkily my friend;

Demotickness is all we comprehend.

Bring coin aplenty if you've got a taste

(And anti-all-biotics you can waste)

On anystreet where tramps as thick as fog

Will easy offer for a fee their bogs.

The ruling class has peed its boundaries

In Forest Hill around their properties

So bring a mask or better liveries

Unless you'd care to drop the metal plate

And in that way get in to tempt your fate

They'd just as red'ly kill you anyways

As touch your dirty parts oft hid aways

O Juvenal, come quickly, for an empire can decay

So fast you'll miss it if you blink away a day;

Come quickly now, don't delay, what you say?

 

***

 

Jay-bo worked in a big corporation and after some emails he started getting dirty with one of his fellows. And this fellow--this girl fellow--was randy.

The goal was to find a place in the building where some action could happen. The building had some floors that weren't known much about. They were called Floor 13 and Floor 14.

So Jay-bo started exploring, up to the thirteenth floor. Up stairs that looked empty enough. Then he came upon a unisex washroom that had a lock on the door. The girl fellow might approve.

Jay-bo went back jittery to work. He wrote his girl fellow and he said he though he found a good place, a washroom on the eleventh floor. She thought that sounded good.

Jay-bo was clever. He wanted to know if the 11th floor washroom was 'secure'. So he decided to go up to that washroom and toss some toilet paper in the toilet. If the paper was still there after some hours, the place was secure.

He went up to the washroom. The door was strangely open; the light was strangely on. A big turd was in the toilet; the toilet wouldn't flush.

Oh Robbie Burns!

 

***

 

The children's books are Latin-English dictionaries.

The Latin-English dictionaries are VHS tapes.

The VHS tapes are Instructions for Use.

Instructions for Use are Batman comic books.

Batman comic books are scherzos by Chopin.

Scherzos by Chopin are maps of the heavens.

Maps of the heavens are unpublished screenplays.

Unpublished screenplays are unpublished screenplays.

Unpublished screenplays are swimming pools.

Swimming pools are fireable offences.

Fireable offences are orange apples.

Orange apples are reels of Gone with the Wind.

Reels of Gone with the Wind are antipasto plates.

Antipasto plates are commercial painting dropcloths.

Commercial painting dropcloths are history's fools.

History's fools. History's fools. History's fools.

History's fools are not surgical instruments.

Surgical instruments are not coffee cups.

Coffee cups are not electronic typewriters.

Electronic typewriters are not things that are soft.

Things that are soft are not bottles of Visine.

Bottles of Visine are not nuclear explosions.

Nuclear explosions are not volumes of Proust.

Volumes of Proust are not semi-arid lands.

Semi-arid lands are not runcible spoons.

Runcible spoons are not xylophones.

Xylophones are not private memories.

Private memories are not biology textbooks.

Biology textbooks are not television serials.

Television serials are not Latin-English dictionaries.

Latin-English dictionaries are not children's books.

 

***

 

What to do when disappointment with the world is all-encompassing? When there are no rays of hope anywhere? Well, that's when one retreats into nostalgia.

It seems to have happened that some time in the past I lived on a street named Arden Drive. There was a swimming pool there. Our neighbours on the right had a big corner plot--a vast backyard. All the houses were new. There was a gate connecting our backyard with the backyard of a place on a bigger street. This gate marked a shortcut. The gate was only there for a couple years. When the pool was dug, it got removed. Now I realize it was removed for safety reasons.

The basement--what was the basement like? Can I remember anything of it as it originally was? Nope. I lived there a long time ago, and the memory is completely lost forever.

The city limits were about a half-mile away. Beyond that, there were fields.

Fields, but also a grain silo. It was all that was left of a farm. Up on a hill, surrounded by sand dunes, visible for miles, it watched the encroachment.

I wonder: has it forgotten about me by now?

 

***

 

Pith

 

Whenever we'd balk at finishing our vegetables, our mother would tell us to think of all the starving children in the cellar.

 

My list of things to fear. 1. People. 2. Bears.

 

I used to think dogs were attracted to me because of my wild dog-like hair. Now I know it's actually because I smell like garbage.

 

I believe the Catholic church is good when it agrees with me and evil when it doesn't. That's because it's all about me.

 

As an environmentalist I object to the construction of a WWII memorial in Cape Breton Highlands National Park because it could easily alienate and marginalize fascists.

 

Scared of people and bears, unobsessed with sex, fascinated with floorplans, instructed in the plastic arts--that's my unborn twin sister in a nutshell.

 

My body is a temple: post Henry VIII, post Hannibal.

 

I went down there to teach them about how terrible they are. Why'd they beat me up? Reactionaries.

 

Ariana Grande made donut shop donuts unsellable because she was making a point about American gluttony for superficial pleasure. I guess she was tired of fat people belching and farting during her performances of Charles Ives' Three Places in New England.

 

***

 

I dreamed I was falling, falling from a great height, for a long time: weightlessness with wind a-blasting, my internal organs rearranging, velocity howling

Suddenly: blankness. Chittering voices like something out of Lovecraft. A wet gravelly voice intoned, "We wish ... to file ... a grievance."

I stammered, "Who are you? What are you?"

Another voice, somewhat female, moaned, "We are your dreams, we are your sources of so much."

"Why can't I see you?"

A fiendish laughter spread around. "Because you've got your eyes closed, you hockey puck."

"Be that as it may," I ventured on, "What's your grievance?"

Mr. Wet Gravel said, "You have been using ... our material ... without even asking ... for permission ... to create your little ... faux-surreal stemwinders."

I cried. I didn't know where I was. I was frightened. "So do I have to remove all the material I've stolen from you guys? I'd lose 90% of my material."

"There may be ... another way. Compensation."

"Compensation, huh? Well, what kind of terms do you have in mind?"

"We demand ... 50% of your revenue."

"You got it."

I easily handed them nothing.

"Curses! We should have hired ... a torts lawyer."

 

***

 

In the following summer, around the time that the television guides arrived with the listings for the new fall programs, a dispute that had been simmering for many generations broke out into open warfare between the people living on the lower half of Arden Drive and the upper half of Arden Drive. The people on the lower half had been colonists from Ottawa while the people on the upper half had been exiled there by the new development right downtown. A dispute over trees was the catalyst, namely the poplar trees that lined the property between the Jones castle and the Smith castle. The trees had been put there by Jones five years before, and much detritus from them fell at regular intervals into the Smith swimming pool. Smith had taken to raking up leaves and throwing them back onto the Jones property, or at least that's what my sources tell me about the origin of the warfare that summer. Jones, upon discovering this unnatural perfidy, enlisted the aid of his neighbour Addams and Addams's brother from up the street. Plans were made for the attack, but before they could be actualized the snows came, ending the summer warfare season.

 

***

 

On the Streetcar

 

"Oh, Las Vegas was great, great place for a wedding, me and the girls got there on Friday nite, because of the time change we gained some time, we were in our hotel Caesar Palace by nine, can you believe it? and there was already the guys there but I didn't know anyone they were all Jane's groom's friends but one of them knew about a kind of a party going on in the real downtown, said there were hot tubs and everything but I'm not that kind of a girl so I was wary but we all decided to look out for one another you know? and when we were there the guys, no, Jane ordered two bottles of wine but one of the guys said we needed more there were ten of us so he ordered six, can you believe it? too much, not that kind of a girl n' all but next day we drove out into the desert, kind of dry out there, a desert, right? taking wedding pictures near some plants, and we got back because the wedding was to be at midnite near a big fountain, oh yeah, the hot tub!"

 

***

 

We were bussed out to the local insane asylum to attend our first sociology class. The administration told us they believed the situation was temporary.

Professor Yuris Montezuma introduced himself and apologized for not having his hands free to write on a whiteboard.

"During these lectures," he began, "Keep something in mind. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Then he moved on to Emile Durkheim.

About a half hour in, after we'd been served watercress sandwiches sans crusts, I asked, "We're talking about Croesus, aren't we? Certain he was happiest of all, destined to be a Persian slave?"

Professor Montezuma counter-asked, "Wasn't his position one of a coöpted partisan?"

"Wasn't he a paisan?"

"According to contemporary sources? Name your sources."

"Trebilcot, Tournequet, Deutch, 1993: University of Malibu Press."

His head darted right, left, back, forth. "I don't have a computer here. Sharp edges, you see."

"So you'll concede my point?"

"For the time being. Now let's move on to the agrarian revolution."

The class ended. Before I got onto the bus, Professor Montezuma's case worker stopped me.

"The professor is looking for an assistant. Are you available?"

"No--I'm only monitoring the course."

 

***

 

Davvie QXT laid down a beat track that he figured was simply one of his best, devised a good strong hook, and set to work improvising and writing down his rap. He needed a working title for the project and it came to him: Nigga Bitch. Then it was lunch. After lunch he did a podcast interview with Rolling Stone magazine during which he decried industrial waste and its effects on children worldwide.

On the other coast, film auteur jAnIcE dOUghErtY told the actress that she wasn't crying, "Fuck the shit out of me!" in a convincing enough way. The actress nodded. jAnIcE said, "Okay, first take best take," as all conventional sexual acts--in canonical order--were performed. Later that evening she signed a petition decrying rape culture and how it was infecting the nation's colleges.

Meanwhile, in a TV studio that could have been anywhere, Pete Armae was trying to get a good shot of a fantasy dwarf's head getting sliced off. The gush of blood just didn't look real enough. "Shouldn't there be viscera coming from a neck?" he asked his editor. Next morning he argued on radio all the reasons why Huckleberry Finn should be banned.

 

***

 

How far can you go to be green-friendly? Well, a couple in Harmordsford New Brunswick have gone so far as to get rid of their refrigerator. Our senior reporter Smulligan Mulligan visited them to know more. Smulligan?

SMULLIGAN Yes I'm here in Harmordsford, here with Jessica Newbound, refrigeratorless, how long do you think you can last?

JESSICA I think we can hold out for a long time. You know, refrigeration is kind of a new thing.

SMULLIGAN How will you keep meat fresh?

JESSICA We're going to eat grass and grass alone.

SMULLIGAN What? That's unusual. Won't you be in need of some nutrients? Vitamin C for example?

JESSICA Oh, we don't believe in any of that. It's just corporations selling their products. It's all mythology.

SMULLIGAN Perhaps you're right. I'm no scientist.

JESSICA And neither am I. That's why I think it's nothing important.

SMULLIGAN I think you're onto something. I'm no aerospace engineer, so I guess I should be able to fly.

JESSICA That's exactly how it works. I'm no logician, so that must be how it works.

SMULLIGAN I think you've discovered something fundamental here.

JESSICA Care for some grass?

SMULLIGAN I'd love some. Back to you.

 

***

 

Once, a brother and a sister had their mother die, and the father married an evil woman who would not feed them. The brother said to the sister, "Let's leave. Any place is better than this place."

So they went into the forest and found a spaceship there. They got in the spaceship and flew far away.

The sister read up on natural history while the brother steered their way through asteroids and past a gang of angry and hungry Martians.

After a while, the brother found the sister in her bedroom. She was praying.

He asked, "Why are you praying, sister?" and she answered, "We were only lucky. In other places, half of them, we did not escape our evil stepmother. In other places, we didn't find the spaceship. In other places, we didn't evade the asteroids and in other places we were eaten by the Martians."

"But we are here," said the brother.

"That's only a matter of chance. In other places, outnumbering this place a billionfold, we are both dead. I am praying for our dead souls in those other places. They're just as real as we are, and they have passed on."

The brother joined her.

 

***

 

When I moved to the big city to look for a job, I was very young. I was so young it took me three tries to properly write the rental cheque. I got the amount wrong on the first, and I got the date wrong on the second. But the third time I got it right, so I packed up my plastic models and my e-reader and moved into a shared row-house overlooking the river.

As I walked down the row of houses of which my shared row-house was the last one, it didn't take many minutes to notice that the people at the other row-houses were crazy. There was so much sobbing and bathrobe-nudity I didn't know where to look. A face of fear was staring out the window of my place--one of my new room-mates. She let me in and I dared to ask her what she'd been looking at. She returned to the window and said, "It's the river. Something terrible is about to happen."

Some kid living there hid my e-reader. He asked, "So what're you doing in Niagara Falls?" "Looking for a job." He laughed. "Fat chance."

Later, something terrible happened to the river.

 

***

 

The New Tamburlaine: A Novel

Book Two

PART TWO

Chapter One

2.

 

"If life continues."

Frederick Stout thought about this. If his life did not continue, would that effect the passage of time externally? Some part of him said it would, and some part of him said it wouldn't. He even felt he was repeating an earlier argument he had had with himself when he had been a boy. How had it gone?

"Daddy wants me dead. That will make him happy. But when I'm dead, how will I ever know if it made him happy or not? What, um, proof will I ever have?"

Who knew Stout was so neurotic? I didn't. It's a surprise to me, your humble narrator.

Stout continued his journey. The girl was at the end of his journey, and his journey was merely through a castle, right? There was the door, just fifteen feet away. He got to the door and he opened it.

He cried, "Just in time for the second chapter of the second part of the second book, here you are!"

Whatsername stood up from the bathtub. "Finally. I've do much to tell you," and she opened her arms to him.

 

***

 

A thrice-told tale, after I-don't-remember, and after John Crowley.

Once there was a man heading home from the big market day. A heavy downpour prevented him from getting home so he stopped to sleep in a big barn.

There were a lot of cats in the big barn. They were up in the rafters, down in the hayricks, making noise. After a while, the man heard the cats talking to one another. One cat said to another cat, "Be sure to tell Tribble that Snibble is dead." The message got passed on from cat to cat. "Be sure to tell Tribble than Snibble is dead."

Next morning the man continued on his journey and he finally reached his home. Over tea that evening, he said to his wife, "It was the strangest thing last night. I had to sleep in a barn, and I heard a cat say to another cat, and that cat say to another cat, 'Be sure to tell Tribble that Snibble is dead.'"

At that moment their old housecat jumped up crying, "This means that I am now King of the Cats!" And with that the cat flew up the chimney and was never seen again.

 

***

 

1.

Her aunt told her, "You should thank God every day for your husband," and it wasn't for a week and a half that she comprehended the meaning of this, the meaning clearly being that her parents had had concerns about her wayward ways (and these concerns had been communicated naturally to the aunt) and that he had a stabilizing effect on her; the aunt did not know that every stability in one zone is offset by a 101% instability in another (hidden) zone, because that's the way entropy works, that's what slows the world, that's what creates sensed time.

 

2.

"We should never have made our intentions clear," said he, "for now we know what Lear and his wife must have felt;" since notwithstanding that Lear didn't have a wife when he divested of his property to his progeny it did seem to be very like; they were seemingly being forced out of their own home by their children, they were being told they were older and more useless than they felt to be themselves, and no-one would understand this because no-one was loyal to them anymore, not a fool, not an Edgar, no Cordelia to protect their home.

 

***

 

Rose Rosengarten, at first mistaken by L for Rose Rosygarten, and later mistaken by M for Roseanne Rossy (due to complexion and milieu) but never mistaken for Rosie Rosygarden

Rosie Rosygarden, thought to have been the "R.R." who had written the note concerning Rose Rosygarten's encounter with Roseanne Rossy during which one or the other threatened to steal the other's husband

Roseanne R. Ross, the wise woman of the town, unacceptably snubbed during a golf tournament because an imposter--probably either "R" or Rosemarie Rose--took her tee time

Rose Rosygarten, twin sister of Rosie Rosengarden with a modified spelling to reduce confusion, nonetheless wed to the wrong man who is M and who is always M

"R", possibly the woman who took aside for an unknown reason L one hour before he was hit by that falling piano while taking off a pair of roller skates

Rosemarie Rose, confused by Rose Rosygarten for Roseanne Rossy and confusing Rose Rosygarten for Roseanne R. Ross during the Solstice Festival of Fun

Roseanne Rossy, not to be confused--though quite easily confused--with Roseanne R. Ross, even though their ages, heights, backgrounds, hair, and nails are very different in style or quantity

 

***

 

So what's a little drizzle?

There aren't many people on a street-corner at eight-thirty in the morning.

I found a rectangle of pretty dry cardboard--Aylmer peaches had been in the box it had come from once-upon-a-time--in an alley and put it down at the concrete light-post.

I made myself look more pathetic than I really was by pulling my hat out of shape.

My first customer came along. He saw me, turned quickly, and looked for a streetcar, deftly using his purposefulness as a shield.

He looked at me again. He said, "Is that you?"

I said, "It's me. I remember you."

He said, "It's been a long time."

"Fifteen years I guess."

"Ever see any of the old gang?"

"Nope. I'm bust. I'm at the bottom, man."

He looked up the street again. I wanted to talk so I said, "And how are you doing?"

He said, "I'm getting along. Married and so on."

"That must be nice."

"Usually."

"Look, you got any to spare? I'm hungry, man."

He shrugged. "Sorry pal. I'm not carrying anything. Everything's electronic these days."

I nodded. "Well."

The streetcar. He said, "Take care of yourself."

"Thanks. Enjoy your frequent flier points."

Man of the World

SPRING

 

Herb continued, "So, where are they all? This is my point. For the past everything's well-documented, and for the present everything's well-observed. Everyone's got something that gets radio waves. You telling me the 'aliens' are using something other than radio waves? Every electrical event makes radio waves, so something must be detectable. Ah, but maybe you're going to say that the aliens know how to block our reception. That'd mean--purely logically--that way before we invented radios the aliens knew we were going to invent them. That's not at all sensible. So they're not here, and it's not that we're just not seeing them like in that John Carpenter movie. So let's reason out why they're not here, Charlie. Listen, listen. Let's consider the scale of the universe. One mathematician back in the seventies or whatever said that probabilities said that there had to be around eight chunks of intelligent life in the universe--the whole universe, all of it. Now consider the speed of waves. It's pretty reasonable to say we won't receive any signals, nor will they receive ours, for a billion years at the earliest. That's physics. Because the universe is so big. Real spaceships? Forget it. If you got no radio, you got no ship. Because how could you possibly communicate with your mission control? They're not ... triremes. So look at it. We're at this point in history where we can reason here that, sure, there are aliens in the universe, definitely: but goddammit we won't have any contact with them for at least a billion years! By that time we'll be the ones doing the space-travelling. They're not coming. We gotta live with what we got. No magical faeries are coming here from Alpha Centauri to make everything better." Herb stopped talking to drink. The bartender said, "I don't disagree," and went to tend to some of his other flies.

Next morning Herb woke up at seven-thirty (by alarm) with a tolerable hangover. He looked out his apartment window at the blossoming spring trees before turning on the kitchenette light to scare the roaches away. He boiled himself a cup of coffee to drink a quarter of it before leaving.

His car radio said aliens had been spotted.

When he got to work he went straight to the seedy lunchroom where the tv was. Everyone was gathered there.

The redhead from shipping said, "I'm going to look out the window."

The fat guy from receiving said, "They're not over us, they're over Buenos Aires."

The local station--Channel 5--was picking it all up from some Argentina station that had blue-green-red balls in the upper corner. The local anchors were talking and talking about it even though nothing much was happening. All they could say was that there was a spaceship up in the sky over Buenos Aires, that it was massive, fifty miles across experts estimated, and that it was just sitting there, soundlessly.

Herb said to his nearby fellow-worker, Mike by name, "I didn't think this was ever going to happen. Just last night, I think I was saying to someone that--"

"It's amazing!" cried Mike. "I wonder what they're like. They gotta send down a landing party."

The redhead said, "Or just laser us all to death."

The fat guy said, "Or just beam us up and eat us."

Herb, realizing he wasn't being paid because he hadn't punched in yet, went into the hall to the time clock. On the way he ran into Daph.

"Daph! Did you hear the news? Aliens! They're here!"

She said, "Don't believe it. They're not aliens. They're from the government."

"What? It appeared out of the sky."

"That's just because it was hiding on the dark side of the moon. Where it was built."

Herb looked Daph over. He was secretly in love with her. Her hair was long, her glasses sparkled, her complexion was clean, and statistics said she had hips hidden under her baggy black clothes. That she thought the aliens were from the government--that was an icebreaker. "Daph--we have to find a quiet place and talk this over."

She wrote down her address. "Come to my place tonight."

"I'll be there"

"Gotta go answer phones."

"See you tonight."

Herb went back into the lunchroom. The spaceship--if spaceship it was--was just hovering. What's called a banner crawled across the bottom of the screen. It had something to do with the upcoming regional elections being just three months away. Herb thought, I should run. He was feeling lucky.

 

 

WINTER

 

Herb stood and said, "Mr. Speaker, we have to look to the facts, and from the facts we can say what is to come. Emissary T'gox's instructions from his home galaxy are entirely benign-sounding. We have seen none of that 'To Serve Man' tomfoolery that certain chatterers seem fixated on. We have received massive benefits from our contact. We should as soon as possible acknowledge that Mars is now the possession of the alien empire of Ternag. For, fact: They have built an entire small city on Mars. And, for, fact: we as a planet have a couple-two-three robots on that planet that, frankly, are either broken, abandoned, or obsolete. The conclusion? They quite obviously outrank us in so-called homesteading rights. So we should say: Howdy, neighbour. So we should say: We appreciate the embassies you've put into New York, London, Tokyo, Mumbai, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Rome, and Lagos. Isn't it obvious that we have nothing to fear from the Ternags? They've never lied to us. The very idea that they are infiltrating our population and our species is absurd. So when the member opposite brings up slavery, well, I think it's absurd! Every economist from Adam Smith on has proven that slavery is an economic dead end, when trade, the author of all wealth, is available. We are trading with the Ternags, and we--and they--are growing more wealthy. To accuse these gentle giants of plotting to enslave humanity is a diplomatic insult! On the contrary, we have representatives negotiating our entry into the agreements that the Ternags have with a dozen other alien civilizations. We can only hope and pray these negotiations are progressing in all sincerity. We need the trade. This is my argument, Mr. Speaker." Herb sat down as his party rose to applaud and hoot. Herb glared across at his opposite. Negotiations were, in fact, going swimmingly. A white paper was due to be tabled in three months, and that would certainly settle the member opposite's hash.

Next morning Herb got to his office at nine bang on the dot to discover some kind of a hub-bub taking place. Upon enquiry, his Managerial Secretary told him that the Ternags had announced they were going to make a major interplanetary relations statement at 13:30 GMT (which meant in about a half-hour or so).

Herb said, "I wasn't informed of this. Was anyone informed of this?"

His Managerial Secretary said, "Not even our trade representatives were informed."

"Who's in charge of lodging official complaints around here?"

"You are."

"Oh. Okay, so, let's get going on writing up an official complaint. What's today, Thursday? I want it done by Tuesday afternoon."

Herb went into his office tastefully constructed of Middlesex oak, Kenyan ebony, Persian drapery, and Japanese silk. He was a man of the world, and no expense can be spared for a man of the world. He found the clicker and turned on the big screen television. On cable the commentators were chattering away. Finally, the Prime Ternag Emissary was represented on-screen, as his voice was represented likewise by one of those squawk-boxes that Stephen Hawking made famous.

The announcement was simply that trade negotiations were being called off and that all inhabitants of the planet Earth were now the slaves of the Ternags. The internal relations of the people of earth were unaffected save that all titles--job titles, official titles, honorary titles--had to be henceforth enclosed in ironical quotation marks to signify that said titles were kind of a joke all things considered.

Herb went out of his office before the announcement was concluded. To his 'Managerial Secretary' he said, "I didn't expect this at all! We have to re-draft our official complaint."

"We haven't even drafted it yet."

"Well, make it bigger. Make it a serious complaint. And have it done by Monday."

"No can do. Paul and Phil are going fishing for the weekend."

Herb wiped his brow. "I suppose there's no way to fight that. But make it a serious complaint."

He went back into his office to call his wife Daph. She answered after six rings.

"Daph, did you hear? We're all now slaves of Ternag!"

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

"That's a terrible thing to say! We've lost sovereignty!"

"You're talking convenient legal fictions, Herb. I think I'm pregnant. Could you stop and get me some old cheddar? There's a fondue I'm trying to make."

 

 

FALL

 

Herb was sitting comfortably with an empty bladder. The light went on over the camera and he proceeded to read from the Teleprompter. "Good evening, my fellow 'citizens.' As you're aware, we're living in the days of unprecedented stress and strain. People don't know where to turn and they don't know what to believe. I've chosen to take this opportunity to share with you some truths. Misconceptions have been spreading like electronic wildfire over the Internet, with a group of people fomenting unprecedented levels of discontent vis-à-vis our servility to the Ternags. I want to disabuse you of these phantasms. Listen. Unfortunate though our slavery may be, life, as anyone can see, has been going on in an unchanging fashion. Children are being born and couples are being married. Commerce between ourselves and with the Thirteen Empires goes on normally. We've never been happier! Yet certain groups have been spreading seditious rumours about the possibility of a forced evacuation from our planet of some moiety of our populace. I'm here to tell you there's no truth to these rumours. Let me be clear. How could it possibly benefit the Ternags? Isn't a native population, with all its worldly wisdom, with all its local knowledge, better able to make efficient use of bred-in-the-bone know-how than, say, a group of aliens with an entirely different relationship to hydrogen, carbon, iron, and magnesium? We possess memories stretching back to our days in tree and cave. This knowledge is our birthright, and the Ternags must rely on us for it. Thus it's safe to say that it's well-nigh absurd to fear that our planet will be effectively depopulated at this or any other time. Reassure your friends and neighbours that under my guidance they're safe. I wish you a good evening." The light over the camera went dark. Herb was happy to feel he had done his part properly, and with a bit of sophistication too, what with using 'moiety' and all.

Next morning Herb woke up with a tolerable hangover, perfectly acceptable to a 'President.' He went downstairs to his office in the 'Presidential' Mansion and turned on his computer and went to his email account. He was shocked to find that there were about three times as many messages as usual. He read the most recent one, and that was enough. He called his 'Secretary' and told her to get his 'Trade Minister,' his 'Foreign Affairs Minister,' and his 'Minister of War' into his office in five minutes. He put on his pants while he waited.

Once they were all settled, Herb said, "I was not expecting this."

The 'Trade Minister' said, "The deportations don't start till three this afternoon, so we've got some time."

"I can't believe they would do this! After all we've done for them!"

The 'Foreign Affairs Minister' said, "My name's on their list, you know. What do I know about mining?"

"I'm going to look like a schmuck. Again."

The 'Minister of War' said, "I'm getting shipped off, too. I wonder how they chose who to take?"

"How did they choose? They've got enormous brains, that's how! They know more about ourselves than we do! They know who your grandparents were, and their grandparents!"

Herb stormed out of the room. Something like half the population of Earth was to be deported to mining colonies over three weeks' time. He went back to his living chambers where he saw Daph stretched out eating chocolate-covered cherries.

She said, "What's up? How's the 'Prez' business?"

Herb sat down and quietly said, "The Ternags are taking half the population of Earth to their mining colonies."

"Well," she said, "the place was getting pretty crowded anyway. Look on the bright side. Gotta serve somebody and all that."

"I went on tv last night and said it was impossible. I must look such a fool."

"Can't be right 100% of the time."

"No, I suppose not. Maybe I should call up the Ternags and get more details." He picked up the phone and arranged the call. The Ternags said they were busy and that the 'President' should call back in the evening.

Herb said, "I guess this means they really hold all the cards."

"At least they're not eating us."

"Yes, at least they're not eating us."

"Yet."

 

 

SUMMER

 

As he was dressing that summer morning, Herb thought through the speech he was going to write that evening and broadcast all around Earth (pop. 1b) next day as its 'Acting President.' "Statement of my position as 'Acting President.' The worst is over, word from the Ternags, we've pushed them on promises, they're happy. Then stuff about closing the Internet with all its rumours and stuff, all that toserveman.com and all that eatingpeopleiswrong.com stuff, just ad pages really, then the refutation of those rumours, scientific principles, the biology of it, don't get too sciencey. The fundamental molecular principle between us and them, we're lousy food for them, and that they can't turn us into nutrients just like how we can't turn, um, say, gold, into a nutrient. We can't metabolize gold 'cause our molecules just won't bond or whatever to it. For them to eat us is impossible. We're not the same stuff. Explain a bit about their digestive systems, how half of it happens outside their bodies, analogies to cows with their four stomachs. Vaporizing their food first through a gas emitted by their, what, extra organ. Then they can bring it into their mouth things, and that's that. Besides, um, why would they want us all eaten? Three-quarters of us are mining the planet, the other quarter are making future workers. That's economics, that's biology. Fair trade, emphasize. More valuable as workers. 'They've not harmed a single citizen.' Reason, emotion, calm 'em down. Wonder stuff then. The vastness of space, get that Carl Sagan stuff in it, billions and billions. The Thirteen Empires, really huge, we're just little, each one of the Thirteen has peaceful diplomatic relationships with hundreds of smaller subject peoples just like us. 'The numbers are staggering.' Everything we've learned about forms of matter, the dozens we can't even understand. Other geometries now, end on that, how wonderful it is we know so much more now." Herb was now dressed. He left his dressing-room and went to the main foyer.

The place was unusually quiet. He heard slow steps and he turned. It was Daph coming in from the patio, and she didn't look at all well. The skin of her face looked loose, but not wrinkly; rather puffy, like it had all over expanded, but still loose. She said, "Did you see that breeze?"

"I was getting dressed."

She gestured vaguely outside. "I was standing out there, and it came up all at once. Warmish. Some branches fell, and the birds were quiet. I don't know what it was. It's gone now."

Herb moved towards her. She was getting more and more pink. "What's wrong with you?"

She laughed phlegmatically a little, said, "I dunno. I feel funny all over. My face feels funny." She scratched her cheek and a flap of epidermis folded off like it was wet leaf. She looked at her bloody finger. "Wow." She went to the mirror. "Wow. Is this, like, leprosy? I don't feel a thing." She pulled at the loose flap and more peeled away.

"Don't pick at it, Daph! I should get you to the hospital."

"Okay, I guess."

He took her hand--noticed it was soft and squishy--recoiled--touched her shoulder, feeling a mushiness inside--and walked her to the door.

"I feel like I'm walking in mud," she said. "So odd. Sorry, I'm not being very funny."

"That's okay. C'mon."

He opened the passenger door for her and she fell into the seat. The tear on her face had torn more due to the weight of the torn bit. The skin on the other cheek was showing signs of translucence. Her whole face looked like it was melting. Her hands were wet with blood. "I don't know what's happening," he could make out her saying through her mush-mouth.

Herb got in and drove. He saw zombified people out there, and people tending after the zombified people out there. Cars were stalled and stopped on the road. Suddenly the trees started bending--a great wind was passing through. It was a nice sunny summer day. Branches were falling all over. The wind abated, and it was still again.

"I don't think that's normal wind. Am I wrong?"

Daph said nothing. Herb looked over at her. She was probably not alive anymore. Her face, her arms, her body, all was just a misshapen glob of bloody flesh dressed in the latest fashion.

Something in the sky. Were they birds, buzzards? He could hardly believe his eyes: they looked like old-fashioned Electrolux vacuum cleaners.

There was no longer any point to going to the hospital. Herb drove to the factory where he used to work. The place was shut down, but he tried his key at the shipping dock door and it worked.

The place was simply abandoned. Machines and garbage were all over the place. It was dusty, dirty, and smelled bad. Herb went into the seedy lunchroom. The television that had showed him news of the alien invasion two and a half years before was still there. He turned it on but there was no cable and he didn't know how to switch it to antenna reception.

"Here I am," he said. "Plenty of pre-packaged food. There's probably more elsewhere in the building. This is pretty good, I must say. A stroke of luck. Nothing turned out as I'd expected it. I was wrong again and again. I'm only human. I can't be blamed for that. In any case, here I am. Safe and sound. Plenty of food. I can just stay here forever."