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
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
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,
Come
morning--finally!--he got a call from his editor who told Smalls to get to
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
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
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
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
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
***
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:
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
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
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--
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."
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