New Tales

I finally got the call-up, after what seemed like a billion years. He asked me: "So, what do you want to be?"

I said: I'd like a little bit of cunning to counter my small stature, like the Fox.

I could also use some low self-regard, so I can eat shit, like the Dog.

How about some brainless clannishness to counter my alienation from you, like the Ant?

I want a few years of glory before being thrown to the glue-makers; just a couple years, like the Horse.

I'm thinking I could also use an insatiable curiosity. Something like what the Cat has.

It would be sweet to have a desire to love; to seek a mate and suffer all that pain; make me similar to the Swan.

I want to be struttingly obvious to all the other creatures, like a big old Elephant!

But I also want to be open, and vulnerable, and a giver of great comfort. Like the Crocodile.

Can I keep the Wolf bit as pre-programming?

I can't think of a single creature I don't want to emulate. In fact, I want to emulate the Chameleon.

He said: "So be it." And thus was I created.

 

*

 

The bees and wasps were bad that afternoon, so we together decided regretfully to leave our bower in search of some higher land. Atop a small hill, directly under the sun, the bees and wasps chose to stay behind in their preferred atmosphere.

Our engagement was dragging on, and though I made arguments that we were as if already married, she continued to prevent the dirty deed from taking place, not even once, not even a little. We had other ways of showing affection, though: that's why we were in the bower in the first place, dummy.

She lay back, her hands behind her head, and her legs parted in innocence, and her eyes fixed on the sun. "Look at the sun," she said.

I lay back beside her, and looked up at the sun. "Yes, look at it," I said. "It's very active."

"Solar flares," she told me. "They run on their own schedule."

"Really."

"It's very hot up there. You could almost get burned."

I wistfully said: "Maybe we can go some time."

We lay there, looking at it, for a half-hour or so; then we'd had enough of it. We talked instead about floral arrangements and music.

 

*

 

"Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by way too many minor characters."

"Tell me about it; I agree!"

"I could cut out half of them and no-one would notice a thing."

"How would you go about that?"

"Well, I go to three different stores to buy cigarettes. I could stop going to two of them. That'd remove about six characters."

"It would very much cut your costs."

"How so?"

"You're supporting all these extra people by engaging in commerce with them. Let them be engaged with by other people; they'll be fine."

"I suppose you're right. Yes, that's something. I'll save money in the long run."

"However...."

"I figured there was going to be a however. However ... what?"

"What if that special someone is in one of those stores?

"I'm not in love with any of the people who sell me cigarettes."

"Yes, but... Someone else could get hired, right?"

"Sure."

"Plus, there's other shoppers in those stores."

"Correct."

"Don't you remember meeting that woman in that laundromat years ago?"

"I remember."

"You hit it off so well."

"For a bit."

"You went out together."

"But it didn't last."

"You've still got time. And don't worry about the money!"

 

*

 

I awoke one morning with Startling Knowledge that Somewhere in Los Angeles, California there lived Someone with precisely my Name. I thought: Can It be true? (The Knowledge provided Me with a Bird's-Eye-View of L.A. laid atop a Geological Map that included a Representation of the Volcanic Caldera situated directly under the Grove, and somewhere in that Zone resided my Homonym.)

Directly to the Directory of L.A I went. I opened the Book to the Js, but I could not find my Name, then I remembered Directories put One's Last Name first, so I started over, and finally my Eyes fell upon my Name, fittingly complete. The Knowledge had been correct. I had found my Precise Homonym.

I dismissed the Idea of using a Telephone to contact Him. He would dismiss Me as a Nut! Thus I packed a small Valise and caught a Taxi-Cab to go to the Aeroport where I boarded a Jet Aeroplane with Destination L.A. Landing at LAX, I realized I had not written down his Address. A Concierge kindly lent me Her Directory, wherein I got to the Page I expected Him to be: but He was not there!

Had He died during my Flight?

 

*

 

"The seas I've sailed, Sonny Boy, are without number, wide as the Americas and as deep as the moon is thick. Every minute of every day we could see down in the depths magnificent and eerie creatures that generated so much light fluorescence we could navigate on all moonless midnights. During the day flew eagles that had never touched a tree or a land, having been born from eggs dropped from such a height they could break out and fly before hitting the waves. The maelstroms were terrible, though, and a fright: many was the month I spent in a vortex, going round and round at a thousand knots, till calmness slowly and magically returned. We would make harbour in savage lands where the men had any number of heads and limbs, and they would give us women who would vanish into the scent of ozone whenever we crossed the equator. How far we would go, Sonny Boy, and in search of what? We never spoke of our goals out there on the mighty main; we never once turned to look whence we'd come; we thought the day would never come we'd be called liars and scoundrels on a shore."

 

*

 

Optimism!

It's going to be a terrifically cruel winter, let me tell you. All kinds of awful things are going to happen all over the world (except for maybe Sweden). It's going to be the absolute worst winter you've ever experienced for anyone my age or younger. There won't be enough food, and there will be starvation and famine, probably some incidents of cannibalism, the violence will be over off the charts, whole towns will freeze to death, civil wars and international wars--fights over commodities--you won't be able to keep track of, and of course all goods and services will be entirely unavailable or the demand will be so great that prices will skyrocket; and all this will be on top of the usual problems of winter, with its darkness, its loneliness, its isolation and its terrors, what with people lost in the snow and in the dark, the wild and savage and starving beasts who will eat any and all children who pass their way, bodies that won't be found for months, more widows and more orphans, floods, fires, blizzards, and shipwrecks.

HOWEVER look on the bright side:

The robins of spring will sound extra-wonderful to us!

 

*

 

Most Rotten

 

I remember one journey we made to Halifax. I'd bought cheap acrylic socks a week before, and I packed three pair while wearing one. It was raining when I walked to the airport and my feet got soaked. In the airport washroom, I changed my socks and threw away the wet pair.

In Halifax, late that night, at the Atlantica Hotel, I took off the socks. They didn't smell that awful.

Next morning, I put on the same socks, in an attempt at economy. We went off to visit Mary's father (who was in the hospital).

Back once more at the Atlantica, I took off my socks--and boy did they ever stink something awful. We put them in a plastic bag and stashed them in the closet before going out for lunch.

When we came back--they were still stinking, despite the plastic bag, despite the closet. We had to get entirely rid of them somehow.

I took the toxic bag with us on our journey to visit Mary's mother. At the corner of Quinpool and Windsor, I put them in a trash bin.

It was the most rotten thing I'd ever done to any municipal worker.

 

*

 

Occupational Therapy

 

Porous bones. The bird won't be able to fly unless I give her porous bones.

He gets out his fine drill and makes all the bones porous.

Sinews connect bones. I can use these leather straps, and cyanoacrylates.

He glues bone to leather, and leather to bone, and repeats this step 218 times.

Nerves, nerves! It's the nervous system, after all, that defines birdishness. Including the brain. The bird-brain.

With tweezers he links all the synapses together into one big net, like a tissue of silk cloth. All is well.

Now the alimentary canal, that's a tough one. A bird's body, like all mammals, is actually a torus.

As one might do with a pound of dough, he folds it all in half, and seals the resultant doughnut with epidermal vessels.

I'm sure the organs will just naturally fall into place.

He waits for the organs to just naturally fall into place, which they do.

Beaks and claws are made from the same stuff, right? Sculpt, fit, attach.

The beak and the claws are added to her. Looking good!

Feathers make the bird, or so I've been told. I think eight thousand will do.

Eight thousand feathers.

So.

 

*

 

How often are you bothered by some thing you have forgotten? "There was something I was meaning to do ... but what was it?" The classic version is thus: You enter a room with a purpose, you open a cupboard with a purpose, you sweet-talk some girl with a purpose: and yet you forget what the purpose was.

What was it that I...?

Most times you get lucky. Maybe you simply re-trace your steps instantly, without even trying. Ah, yes, the newspaper!

Other times it's remark-able. You say aloud: "Now what the gosh-darn dag-nabbit am I doing bending down into this cupboard for?" and then you see the Clorox.

In the third case, to keep up the parallelism, you wind up in a kitchen on a Sunday morning with a person whose name you can't recall.

THERE'S something I meant to do here. There was something important I had to say, or at least something artistic (which are very different things). Whatever it was, it'll just have to wait. I'm sure it will come to me any time now. Meanwhile, amuse yourself with some Adelaide Anne Procter:

 

Seated one day at the organ
I was weary and ill at ease

 

*

 

"There's a name for it."

The psychiatrist got up from his fine chair to stand scanning his fresh books.

"I don't recall it, though, which puts us in a bit of a pickle."

My mother clutched. "Can the name matter so much?"

The psychiatrist turned sharply to say: "It's everything. If we don't know the name, we don't know what course of action to take."

My father was unimpressed. "All we want is for him to stop this crazy typing."

The psychiatrist mused. "Yes, it's a word that has to do with writing."

"I bought him that electric typewriter thinking he would write new stuff. You know: Art."

"Print? Script? It must be something from the Latin, though...."

"Instead, all he does is type out lists of the names of songs."

The psychiatrist returned to his fine chair. "I understand. However, I have to have the proper word."

My mother said: "Without that word, then, nothing can be done?"

"Without the word ... it's hopeless."

Mother mused. "Isn't there a list you could consult? Like a glossary?"

"No, it doesn't exist. It's 1976, and nothing at all has been indexed."

All three looked out the window. Winter would be difficult.

 

*

 

Nowhere does the organization known orally as 'The Shadows' have its name written down. Consult as many newspapers and magazine as you would like, but you will never find the name. However, everyone is either quite certain of their existence, knows of someone who knows someone in contact with them, or are themselves members.

They meet every four weeks when the moon is at its fullest, though you wouldn't be able to see them as they gather upon the highest point in your town. I myself once waited in such a place at such a time, but I saw no evidence of their arrival, their rituals, their dispersal.

How much, precisely, do they control? We all know for certain they have the deciding vote in every election, from the highest office to the lowest. That's for certain. They also guide all technological development, one way or another. And they have control of everyone's romantic lives, and choose those whom you love and those whom you hate.

Thus we live our entire lives in this aether known colloquially as 'The Shadows'. However, this is where opinion splits: some believe their control is actually beneficial, while others spend their lives resisting it.

 

*

 

Lost Without a Trace

 

The snow was not expected so early in the year when he found himself having to go up a mountain before going down the other side. The path was cold and slippery, but there was no way he could turn back: his destination was, after all, less than two days away, while to go back would have taken five. So, he plunged upwards, along the narrow slate band and all the time hugging the mountain-wall.

How was the air getting so thin? Of course, he knew the air was thinner in the mountains, but not that thin. Maybe it was an effect of the cold, or maybe he was imagining it. He'd make inquiries later, once he was over the time and down the other side. Poul might know something about it. There was a good chance of that.

As he was rounding a particularly narrow corner, his foot slipped. Down he went, with his legs hanging over the edge and the rest of him hanging on for dear life. It wouldn't work. He slid further, and fell off the mountain.

It happened on September 28, 1428. All over the entire countryside, snow continued a week.

 

*

 

102nd Use

 

"We had a lot of secrets back there in the Cold War. Many of them haven't come to light. Look up the word 'espionage' if you want a better idea of how we operated. Everything we did, by its very nature, was a secret, and we only let on about stuff if it was determined to be to our advantage to let it be known.

"The biggest secret we had was about the dead cats. I was working the Sevastopol office, and it was my job to gather up all the dead cats I could find, photograph them and spreadsheet them, and send the results to both Langley and Thames House. Each dead cat would take a half-hour out of my schedule, and there were rarely more than two a day, but this was on top of my usual routine of assassinating people and blowing up buildings.

"To this day, I aver that the mysterious dead cat research was the key to our victory in the Cold War. I don't know what the CIA and MI5 did with the data, but it must have been something important. After all, I still get Christmas cards from McCone and Hollis."

 

*

 

When she died, she found her body pulled in all directions. Her horizontal direction elongated, while her vertical direction shrank. This didn't feel at all strange to her, and she didn't wonder how she knew it was happening. Her senses merged together into one great feeling, and she was all there was, floating in the middle of ... she didn't know what, but she was floating all the same. There was nothing beyond her, and nothing that she could recognize. She heard nothing, like she was in an anechoic chamber with no possible resonance. All was dark, like that crazy Vantablack stuff she'd been reading about. Just ... nothing. And as has been implied, she felt nothing, being, as she was, merely a sphere floating through space. She didn't even have the sense of motion, that's to say she didn't feel like she was moving in any direction at all. She thought of a Hüsker Dü song: "She Floated Away," and began singing its chorus. However, she noted, she still had all her memories, every one of them. She felt that, if she wanted to, she could re-construct the entire world, continents included.

And that was just the first day.

 

*

 

She was raised by wolves, and she lived in the town of the wolves, which was situated in a clearing in the Tupelo Valley.

When she got to be thirteen, the wolves told her she was now in great danger, because of how she bled between her thighs.

"You're too young to understand," they told her. "Don't go into the woods, whatever you do, and especially not during the full moon."

She laughed off their warning. What could happen? She was just a kid. Who'd want to harm her? Tra la la tra la la la la.

Next full moon. She noted for the first time that the clearing had become sparsely populated. She saw a wolf go into the woods, and she followed it.

The wolves were gathered in a circle. In the middle of the circle was a little girl, or rather what was left of her. She joined with the circle, looking for guidance. She was handed some liver, and she ate. Everyone was having a good time.

Next morning, she said: That was good last night. Why was I warned against going into the woods?

A wolf told her: You could easily be mistaken for meal.

 

*

 

>Man, did you see that speech last night? It was on the regular channel

>What speech?

>You know, the guy! The leader of the army. With the troops

>Let me look it up.

>Yes, that was Henry V

>Henry V, huh? Never heard of him. Geez, what a speech! The weird clothes were a bit distracting, but heck what a speech! All about the scars and stuff

>Yes, it's a good speech

>You saw it? Ah, probably on Youtube by now, I get it. Can we get it transcribed?

>What do you mean, transcribed?

>You know, gimme a transcript. The words this Henry said

>I can we can we can send you a copy of the script

>Is that the same thing as a transcript?

>Not quite, but pretty close. Sending it in an email

>Ah!

>Thanks! It's a bit hard to read with all the different lines are these complete sentences

>It's poetry

>Makes no sense people don't talk like that are you sure you got the right thing

>Yes, it's act iv scene iii

>The what? I'm ordering a transcript instead

>Suit yourself

>You manager will hear about this

>Yes

>This is a big deal

>Yes I know

 

*

 

We were all lost in the woods. One of us was scratching frantically at the base of a tree, certainly would find gold there. Two of us were seriously considering the tree itself, wondering if it would be worth climbing. Three of us watched the two who were looking at the tree while four of us were looking in what they believed to be the cardinal directions. All in all, we were completely at sea out there in the woods.

We heard a sound and we all turned. The frantic scratcher stood up, the tree-watchers turned their attentions as one, the trio moved their feet to look, and the four cardinal-pointers re-directed their directions. Whatever the sound was, it went away as quickly as it had come.

So, the one who was scratching at the bottom of the tree returned to his efforts. The two looked again to the tree, thinking they'd like to climb it. The three people who were watching the couple got back to the couple-watching business, and the cardinal directions were once again found and stared at by the quartet. We were all certain the sound would re-occur, and it was just a matter of time.

 

*

 

Sometimes it gets so hard to take

From the time I go to sleep to the moment I wake

When in those times most connected to you

You say My love so sorry it's so very very through

When though my mind's expecting you to be true

You say in dreams it's awful total through

But let me wake for a little bit of time

Some sixteen hours lacking reason or rhyme

When I bust my back to earn my pay

From break of dawn to dusk of day

Hoping to get back to you and have my way

But My love I'm sorry is all you say

I'm sure time's hands won't be bugged if I

Push them counterclockwise to come up with Why

And then in the midnight you got time to say

You treated me bad and that's why it's this way

Never once did you offer to stay

Never once did you give me the proper time of the day

And yet I sleep on through night

Hearing her and hearing her fright

Knowing the morn would drive her out

And there I'd be with cancer and with gout

Unknowing (awake) I'd taken the wrong route

 

*

 

Ludwig van Beethoven, who as everyone knows was black, went for a stroll one day, searching for unusual sounds. He stopped in a café where a poet happened to be declaiming. The words sounded good to his progressive ears, and he stopped the poet to speak to him before he got too drunk.

"I like your phraseology," said Beethoven, in German, for that was the language he commonly spoke through. "Do you think you could write a libretto for me?"

"Your round?"

"Yes, my round. I want to do an opera about the oppression of my people, and about their liberation. It was done in French a couple years ago, and I want to do a take on it. I got some great bars for a bunch of slaves, but I have to get some words. Fortunately, you talk German, which is what I want to use. So, tell me, Joseph Ferdinand Sonnleithner, can I sign you on? It's going to be a huge hit."

"I don't know you from Adam, black man, but I have to say your vision impresses me. I'll do it."

And so, they started their collaboration on Fidelio, eternally beloved. After all, it was 1804.

 

*

 

"All the vertices are off slightly, somewhat less than a single degree, only noticeable from certain angles, and besides who'd make an issue of it, who'd bother to measure it this late in the game? Maybe you can slightly feel the crookedness of the stairs, once in a while, not always, and besides you get used to it, what do you want from a fifty-five-year-old house? When the weather's inclement, moisture--not full-blown rain--gets in from somewhere in the ceiling; it could get fixed, maybe with a new roof, but it's an expensive business, roofing, and you can't ever know if that's the cause, and oh all this thinking about it is really a waste of time, isn't it? The doors don't quite fit anymore, but why go replace a door? I wouldn't recommend going down into the basement, however. You'd have nightmares for years. It's the lower gut of the place, more dirt than house, and it'll all be treated like filth when this place is no longer in any ways useful."

"So, should it be torn down right now?"

He looked up at the windows. "Not quite. I see it still got some light in its eyes."

 

*

 

"Look what I got," Jimmy said as he showed Janey a small squat jar. The outside of it was labelled: "MagiKream."

Janey said: "What is it?"

"It's MagiKream!"

"What's it do?"

"Here, watch."

Jimmy got down on his knees and opened the jar. With his pinky he scooped out the tiniest amount and he spread it on the pavement. The smear started to move, though not all as a mass: rather, it seemed each particle of it started moving individually. Some five dozen elements started to expand, larger and larger, until it could be seen that they were little creatures. As they got larger, species could be differentiated. There were dogs and cats, dinosaurs and fish, elephants and tigers, and many more, all crawling around, and all in different colours.

Janey said: "That's amazing!"

It seemed the critters heard her, because they all suddenly skittered away into the grass and were seen no more.

"And you got a whole jar of the stuff!"

"Yes. Amazing. I only wonder where the matter, the volume, comes from."

A minute earlier, in the constellation of Pisces, a star three hundred and fifty-nine lightyears away twinkled feebly, and disappeared, and was gone forever.

COINCIDENCE?

 

*

 

First, we traded things for things. We called it 'barter.' It was a fine system unless you wanted to travel more than a couple blocks to trade a cow for a hundredweight of grain. But if you had to go a hundred miles, there was no guarantee the cow would make it. So, one would buy a token, value guaranteed, with a cow. Then you'd take the token a hundred miles and trade it for grain. For some further transaction, the former owner of the grain would use the token to buy a house or at least maybe a shed. Thusly was money born!

Ten thousand years flew by. By that time, we even had foreign exchanges in which you could buy money with money. We had stock markets, bonds, professional traders, and borrowing from the future with credit. It all seemed awfully complicated. Why couldn't we have a simpler system, especially since everyone was always short of money?

Then, one day, D‑ S‑ said to someone: "Why not simply print a whole pile of money, and pay everything off?"

No-one had ever thought of this before! It was a miracle! We'd wasted ten thousand years! The economy was saved!

 

*

 

And so we return to the park and its trees.

It's late afternoon, the most perfect time of the day.

The morning insects are asleep. The evening ones are too.

The grass is green and warm. I mention it's early-summer?

It's very good to get away from all that craziness.

Even if this is only an imaginary space, it's nice.

There's wildlife, even. Not bears and tigers: chipmunks and squirrels!

And amorous thoughts are a-plentiful, in early summer late afternoons.

The breeze coming up with hill is warm and green.

There's nothing to think about and there's nothing to do.

You could compare it to IDM if metaphors are allowed.

The geese aren't flying overhead, and there are no airplanes.

You're watching the sky, knowing there's no big meteors due.

Oh, I forgot to mention: you're young again, and healthy.

Someone you love is nearby. You've yet to go all-the-way.

It's hard to believe how much time you've got left.

You realize that in the year 2000 you'll be 35.

Man, that's old! That's really old! How is that possible?

Ah, but that's a zillion miles and minutes away, really,

for now, right now, there's birds and trees and love.

 

*

 

Being of common clay, I should have always expected to have common experiences ... and I have! That's to say, I've had common experiences, not that I have always expected common experiences. There was once a time when I, commonly as always, expected uncommon things to occur, simply because I was such an uncommon sort! Which is the common belief!

However, experience teaches one that only the most common things happen to everyone. How could it be otherwise? With age comes that which is called wisdom, which, when we break the word down to its syllables‑wis and dom‑ makes it plain that it's partly a consonant, a verb, and a consonant, then precisely the same arrangement again, thus showing that everything is as common as everything else.

However: that doesn't explain everything: for in every life: no matter how common it seems: there comes a time when: all things being equally common: we commonly experience that which is most uncommon: and that comes about once in every person's life, whether commoner or king. Thus it was that one still night some dozen years ago at the stroke of midnight I answered a knock at my front door, by opening it.

 

*

 

"I'm terribly sorry, this credit application won't go through. You'll have to tell your senior executive we have to have more collateral."

"But, she says she knows this guy."

"What do you mean?"

"She knows this guy, and this guy knows the ins and outs."

"Is this ... someone who works here?"

"Nah, not here. You know the score. She knows the guy."

"I don't know who the guy is. Who's the guy?"

"Hey, is this high finance or penny-ante pinocle? You're telling me you don't know the guy?"

"We're well-respected worldwide."

"But you don't know the guy."

"Is this guy in an associate firm?"

"You don't know if he's from an associate firm, sheesh!"

"I swear I don't know who you mean!"

"Don't play dumb."

"I'm not."

"Don't play dumb!"

"I'm not!"

"Listen up. There's going to be some problems soon. You know what I'm saying?"

"Not entirely, no."

"The guy."

"Yes."

"The guy my boss knows."

"Uh-huh."

"The guy may be coming here. And problems may occur. And the fall will be taken by ... someone."

"Oh. Oh! Now I get you. Listen: add a 0 here, here, and here. Then re-submit."

"You made the right choice, dollface."

 

*

 

Howevma noy m molther I b law Yjheressa MKaxdonaleell is on hwer seaith bned in a oosprial and b ut her cant boe there of course beacuaw all yiou kon this there 's no wat foer us ro go inrto thei t b'beeble' so we re turch jhere with no way to tsalk to anoje uhnless we use telepathy which may just work. I lovd that woman so really I donj thing it inapprocvpriopre tp my alw the her sonemnthing he a prayer for hwr soul bedsaucause we I sohoul;d fo too to it here. W e;re al l mystuided dabout when I met her first - but somewehere in there she wanted top know about my haor, and og it was atrifilirlla y vouenrled, btu no a I had to dauy to that lovelygirl. no. She is as sexy as Mary that;s got to be said, with now please this minute for her say these Catholic words

Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.