Nano WHAT Mo M.O.

“Huy need talking to?” He propped his boots up on my desk, quirked a furry eyebrow at me. A lolling, goggle-eyed, comic monster with a funny accent. A killing machine with claws and fangs. Who played the lute, and was tender of pets.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” I told him. “None. I can’t see your world right now; it’s like a door has been slammed shut.”

“Ho! Dat’s because hyu hung op again. Hyu hung op on control. Relax! Lemme tell hyu vat heppen next.” He plinked several desultory notes on the old beetle-backed lute with its tarnished brass fretwork. “Effen now, hyu tryink to find vat heppen vit me here. Tryink to mek story heppen. Hyu chust need to let characters schpeak in dere own voices, and plot vill heppen on its own.”

“Zo.” He dropped his feet back to the floor, walked around behind me, and set my fingers gently on the keyboard. “Tevnty-two days left. Siddown and tell schtory.”

To Wish For a Christmas Miracle

" . . . he was allowed to wish for a Christmas miracle." The teacher closed the book and surveyed the silent classrom with satisfaction. Reading Christmas stories to the kids for the last hour of the day before the Winter Holiday Break had been one of her better ideas. She could sneak in some vocabulary and grammar under the sugar coat of holiday lore; it was the top subject on every kid's mind; and the ptomise functioned as a bribe to keep them on task the rest of the day. We won't be able to have story time unless you quiet down and pay attention, she'd say, and the whole class would settle down. More like snowflakes in a snow globe--a drifting, dreamy, rustling quieting; but she'd take what she could get.

"So, who can tell me what it is to wish for something?" Rhubarb ensued, but consensus was arrived at. You wished when you hoped really, really, really hard for something, hoped with everything you had.

"And a miracle?" After some discussion, they all agreed that a miracle was something that you wanted badly, but was not likely to happen. Like living at Disneyland, or getting a pony.

"So what would a Christmas miracle be like?" Well, that would have to be an extra-special miracle, wouldn't it? Like getting to walk on the moon, or being able to fly like Superman.

Morgan sat rapt in the back of the room. A Christmas miracle, he thought. A really special miracle, as opposed to the everyday, run of the mill miracles, like walking on water. He knew exactly what he'd wish for.

When the bell rang, signalling the end of the day and the semester all at the same time, Morgan put on his coat and mittens, and began the walk home in the late afternoon gloom. It would be dark barely an hour after he got home from school. Normally he loved the winter--seeing the warm lights coming on as he walked home, some of the Christmas lights lit up, the chill in the air. But now it all seemed dead and dry like the last leaves of October. Dust under his feet.

That July, two men in uniform had come to his house to talk to his mother. Morgan had been fascinated by the array of coloful ribbons on thier right breast, and wanted to ask about them, but Mother had turned pale and sent him outside to play while the grownups talked. When he came back in, sweaty and grass-stained, Aunt Christina had been sitting at the table. She told him Mother had gone to lie down for a nap, and he was going to come with her for a week--wouldn't that be fun?

And it was, in an odd way. Aunt Christine let him stay uop watching television after his bedtime came and went, let him have seconds of dessert (even wnen he didn't finish his vegetables), and never ever declined a game of Hearts, Morgan's favorite card game ever.

But sometimes he'd look up, and Aunt Christine would be looking at him thoughtfully. Once he saw her wipe her cheek quickly. like she'd been crying and didn't want to be caught. He'd asked what the matter was, and she said, "You look so much like your father when he was your age, that's all." And then she'd told about catching frogs in the creek behind the house where she and her younger brother had grown up, and then about how proud he'd been when he joined the Army, and then about when he'd married Morgan's mom.

When he went home form Aunt Christine's, his mother looked like she needed another nap. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she moved slowly. She sighed a lot. She'd packed up and put away some of the family pictures, and his father's things weren't hanging in the closet any more. He asked what happened, and she sat down with him at the kitchen table. He knew it was serious then. That was the place they had their serious talks, when Daddy had been sent overseas, or when Morgan had gotten in trouble at school.

"Daddy . . . daddy can't . . . well, he won't be coming home again. He loved you very much, and you should remember that, but he won't be with us any more." Tears filled her eyes, and she hugged him tight. Morgan wanted to ask why, but he didn't want to make his mother cry any more than she was already crying. "Go play in your room, okay?" Her voice stretched high and thin, breaking on the last word. So Morgan did as he was told, and tried not to think about it too much, even thought it hurt that Daddy didn't at least call on his birthday, or the first day of school.

But now school was coming to a close, and Christmas was just around the corner, close enough to taste. Morgan thought about the story, and wishes, and miracles. He thought about things to wish on.

When he helped hang the wreath on the door, he closed his eyes and let his wish bubble up inside him until his ears rang with wishing. "What are you doing?" his mother asked. "Wishing," he said. "Oh. Well, don't tell me, because then it won't come true."

When Aunt Katherine took him shopping for presents and they stopped for pie and coffee, Morgan noticed how she turned her pie around to start at the crust and not the tip. "Why are you doing that?" he asked.

She smiled. "Making a wish," she said. "Save the best bite for last, and make a wish on it." Morgan immediately spun his plate around, even though he often left the crust uneaten. "Pie bones," his father would say, laughing his rough laugh. "Bury it in the yard, son, and grow a pie tree!" Morgan ate every last bite of the crust even though it tasted like dry crumbly salted flour, and as he ate the last bite of the pointed tip, he closed his eyes and wished as hard as he could.

And the days fell away as he opened the tiny drawers on the Advent calendar to reveal tiny candy canes, tin soldiers, miniature cars and somewhere between astonishingly sudden and heartbreaking never, it was Christmas Eve. Morgan put his boots and coat on after dinner and went outside into the cold dark, looking for the first star so he could cast one last extra-hard wish at it.

The chiming of the clock striking midnight woke Morgan up, but what sent him flying out of his warm nest of covers and down the stairs was the crunching squeak of footsteps in the snow. His mother heard something too, as she joined him in the hallway, and they bumped into each other at the head of the stairs.

Mother frowned. "Who on earth could be calling at this hour?" she grumbled, re-tying her bathrobe sash. There was a hollow knocking at the door, clods of dirt falling on an empty coffin.

Morgan grinned gleefully. "I know, I know!" he announced. "It's --" Mother stopped with her hand on the doorknob, flipping the porch light on.

"Honey," she said, "Maybe you should go back to bed . . ."

"No, it's okay. Santa's for babies, but this is real." He pulled on her hand, turning the knob, and the door creaked open. He saw once-shiny shoes, now scuffed and caked with mud and ice there on the mat. His father's shoes. As the chill wind blew the scent of earth and Old Spice over his mother's white face, into the house, Morgan announced, "Daddy's come home. Just like I wished."

Death Takes a Bride

Today tastes like stale wedding cake, flat champagne, and dust.

The project currently on the needles has begun to whisper to me as I knit in the long hot dusk of summer, and so I've dropped all my stitches to run over here and write it all down.

Death Takes a Bride

It had been a long time since that night, that night he had used his hands on her mother and pushed her to the floor, had blackened both her eyes and the blood had come from her mouth. How long? She didn’t know, days at least, months at most. He was gone. That’s what mattered. He was gone but her mother was going.

Mother took to her bed right after the door slammed shut, took to her bed with her face to the wall, breathing. Just breathing. She wiped the blood off her mother’s face, kept the stained handkerchief in her dresser drawer, as her mother breathed softly. In, hesitate, out. She checked sometimes in the night or the afternoon, afraid her mother had stopped. Breathing slowly.

The girl would make soup–soup was easy, water and whatever was in the refrigerator, then the cupboard, then what she could “borrow” from a neighbor. Or a store. Good thing it was winter and she could wear her mother’s long coat, the one three sizes too large on her slender frame. She could fit more under it that way.

Potatoes were cheap. She could buy two bags and some bizarre vegetable–kohlrabi, rapini, mustard greens and still get change from a ten dollar bill. She would stand right there in line with the other customers, waiting impatiently while the clerk pulled up the code (tapping her feet, rolling her eyes) and rung up her purchase. She’d figured out the rules. If you were careful and didn’t go to the same store all the time and didn’t get greedy (put back the bacon and steak, get chicken legs and pork chops) you didn’t get caught.

Still, she knew this couldn’t go on forever. So it was no surprise when the knock came at her door one night.

He was tall and thin under his top hat and long black overcoat. His eyes glittered in deep-set sockets. He grinned. He always grinned. Big white teeth, straight and perfect–and somehow, too many for his mouth.

She’d never seen him, but she knew him. “Mr. Death,” she said, from behind the door chain. “Go ‘way now, please. You have no business here.”

Still grinning, he took off his hat. “I’m afraid I do,” and he flicked his chin in a gesture that sped through the shotgun apartment to the one back bedroom where her mother lay, breathing slowly in and out. His voice was whisper-soft and iron hard, the edge of a knife in the night.

She went to slam the door in his grinning face, but he laid one finger softly just under the peephole. The hinges squealed and froze. She threw herself against the door, but it would not budge.

Then he pushed, hardly more than a breath of air, and the door swung wide, taking her with it.

He drifted in, a chilling breeze, and was halfway down the hall before she could speak. "Wait!" He turned, his eyes the thinnest slice of the moon in the night sky, and regarded her as she opened her mouth, not knowing what she would say until she heard it.

"Mother . . . she always said she wanted to see me married before she died. It was her dream to see me settled with a good husband."

Death shrugged, as if to say her mother's taste in men was . . . suspect at best. And what were dreams and desires to him, anyway?

"It would make her so happy," she continued. "To know that I was okay. And . . . it must be pretty lonely. Doing what you do." Death cocked his head, frowning. "You meet people for only a brief time, and then . . . " she opened her hand, a flower's petals drifting away on the wind. "No old friends, just vague acquaintances. No one really knows you. No one's there to hold the thread of your story together." He was nodding, slowly. "I could--that is, we could . . ."

"Marry." His voice was the sirocco through dried weeds in August.

"Yes. And if you could wait just a little while, say, until after the wedding day? Then she'd have what she always wanted, and you'd have what you want, and I'd get a few more days to make preparations and well . . . to be with her. Just a little longer."

He thought this over, forefinger and thumb wrapping his jaw. Finally he nodded. "Until then," he said, and took his leave. She locked the door behind him, heart pounding wildly. She had bought a few more days, at least. She would think about the price later.

She had a dress from long ago, a black lace dress that had pooled around her feet as a little girl, and would come to her knees now. That would do. But a wedding veil--she needed a wedding veil.

She opened her dresser drawer, thinking she might have a sweater laid by to rip and re-knit, and she saw the handkerchief stained with her mother's blood. She knew then what she needed to do.

Out of the blood she spun a thread, fine as the hair on her head, long enough to reach the moon. Red as cherries at midnight, red as the dreams of the unborn, red as the secret heart of the rose. And as she spun, the drops hummed and sang about loss, about betrayal, about release, but she paid them no heed. She had a plan.

She cast on with needles fashioned from broom straws, and began to knit. And that night, Death returned to the apartment.

He did not knock this time, nor open the door, but simply stepped through the barrier. She stood up and curtsied, careful not to drop a stitch in the complex lace she was working, fine and airy as foam on the sea.

"Are you ready?"

"Gracious, no! I have a dress, but, well, this is my wedding day. I want it to be perfect. So I'm knitting my veil." She held it up on spread fingers. "Once it's done, as soon as it's done, I'll be ready." Death frowned at this, but nodded. And again, he left.

As soon as he was gone, she sat down and ripped out half the knitting she had accomplished that day. She went and lay next to her mother, listening to the woman breathe in and out. In, hold, and out. Slow and steady.

And so it went for weeks. She would meet Death every night, sitting on her narrow daybed, knitting away. She would offer excuses for her slow progress each evening: "It's such complex work. There's so much here that's new to me." "I've never tried anything like this before, and I want it to be perfect." "It's such fine thread. It's hard to see, so I can't go very fast." Each morning, she would rip back half of what she had knitted the night before, and hold her mother, listening to her breathe, listening to her heart beat. Feeding her the thin broth which was all she could swallow.

Knitting a web of love from her mother's blood, and their days together.

It took months, of course, of knitting and ripping and knitting again, but the night came when she was down to the last row, and the last stitch, and the final binding off, which she saved for her bridegroom's visit. "Tomorrow night," she said, smiling. "Tomorrow night, I will meet you at the foot of Mother's bed and we will marry."

"Until tomorrow," he said, and touched her cheek with ivory fingers.

The next night, she waited for him at the foot of her mother’s bed, carrying a bouquet of lilies she had picked in the public gardens and orange blossoms plucked from the trees that dotted the city. Sweet and pale and free. She wore the black lace dress, much tighter in the shoulders and hips than it had been on the stick-straight child playing dress-up in a grown woman's cast-offs. And over it all, the sheer red lace veil.

Death smiled to see her so, in clothes that were between present and absent, in the same way he himself was between here and gone. To see his bride one step out of the world, and one step into his. It would be a good match. They clasped hands and swore their vows, and Death went to lift the veil from his wife's face, for their first kiss.

And he found himself ensnared for the first time in all eternity.

Death knows nothing of love, knows nothing of the bonds between beloveds, knows nothing of joining, but only sundering. The web of blood and love tangled in his hands, wrapped around his feet, muffled his jaws, tripped and trapped him. He snarled and writhed and thrashed, and only became deeper and deeper ensnared.

"Let me go!" His voice was the silence after the earthquake, the bubbles in the undertow, the embers of the forest fire.

"Promise me," his false bride demanded, "Promise me that you'll leave and never come back. You have no business here, Mr. Death."

He stopped, and looked up at her from where he lay on the floor. "Is that all you want?" he asked, hollow as a tornado, eerily quiet where there is no wind or air to carry sound. "For me to go, and never return?"

She felt the hook in his question, but ignored it. She had bested Death himself! What had she to fear from her conquered foe? "Yes. Leave me, and my mother, and never come back."

"Done." And with that, the fragile web tore, falling from tangled strands into three drops of blood on the floor, which turned into dust and blew away as Death turned on his heel and fled.

Death kept his word just as he keeps all things. She never saw him again. And to this day, the mother lies in the back room of the shotgun apartment, long and narrow like a tomb, breathing in and out, slowly, deeply, with the girl there as her eternal handmaiden. Perhaps they are happy. Perhaps.

A Few Days Late . . .

Today tastes like sand, paper, and wind. I meant to post this¹ last week, in celebration of the glory of the Oak King (and the birth of the Holly King) but never got around to it because of this miserable summer cold.

Being sick in summer is worse than winter. Hot tea feels good and tastes good in the winter. It's dark late and early, the wind blows, it's dry and brown. There's nothing going on outside of the manufactured festivities. There's no reason to leave your bed.

In the summer--especially now and here--it's light early and late. The sun rises at 4:15 at this time of year. The sun sets around 8:00. It's hot outside, but for those of us who like it hot, that's dandy. However, you can't play Nekkid Hose Monster when you have a cold--the flux of heat and chill isn't good for you. Nor do you really have the energy to run. But of course, you can't sleep--it's hot and light.

Summer colds stink.

(1) Midsummer’s Eve

June 20 rolled around again, and my loony roomie was making plans. “The full moon falls on that night,” she chirped brightly. “We should hold a drum circle, scry our futures in a glass of wine, dance naked with the fairies!”

“Oh, I can tell you our futures,” I said. “Arrested for disturbing the peace.”

Today Tastes Like Burning . . . A Quick Fiction Fix

Blog entry April 26, 2008

My younger brother called to let me know a package was on its way. When I asked him what sort of package, he chuckled, and told me I'd know it when I saw it. Odd.

Not that he'd send a package; my birthday was earlier this month, and he's thoughtful that way. Not always timely, but then, none of us are much for punctuality. Late births are the norm in our family, and as you begin . . .

No, I remember Christmas was hard for him. He'd go out and buy gifts for everyone, but the waiting until the big day was tough. He'd want to share the fun right then, not wrap it and stash it under the tree. There were times he'd go out and buy doubles because he couldn't wait and would blurt out "I got you a . . ." at the dinner table.

For that matter, he didn't sound quite like himself. He sounded . . . flat. For a minute, I was reminded of those hostage tapes from al Jazeera. Like he was reading from a script. Like someone was putting words in his mouth.

Odd

Blog entry May 2, 2008

A package was waiting by the door when I came home. Great postage stamps! See what I mean about thoughtful--my brother knows I do collages, so he found one of the few companies that uses old-fashioned stamps instead of those bar print thingies. They look Asian; a man with deep epicanthal folds and black eyes peers out from under a . . . well, it's kind of a hood and kind of a mitre and kind of . . . well, it's a headdress for sure. He's wearing a veil over his nose and mouth. The hat and veil are yellow. When I turn the stamp, it's holographic! The folds of the veil shift and flow a little. What a cool effect! Usually they just snap back and forth, but this--it's like the wind rippling the cloth. Or maybe it's just the light.

I'm going to have to hit the intarwebs and google "Carcosa." My geography's not the best (okay, nonexistant. I memorized what I needed for tests and promptly forgot everything. Never thought I'd need it.) but I don't recognize the country.

Blog entry May 7, 2008

I LOVE THIS CD!!!! It's taken pride of place in my collection. I have it on permanent rotation in the car. I take it with me into the office, plug it into the computer, and listen with my headphones on. (It looks like I'm taking dictation.) I carry it into the house and put it on the stereo while I'm hanging out at home.

It's funny. I've played this disc so often, the music is a soundtrack to my dreams. I better make a copy or two before it gets scratched.

Maybe I'll make a copy for the car, a copy for work, a copy for home, a copy to put in my gym bag . . . better fire up Nero and get cracking, huh?

Blog entry May 20, 2008

Man! I didn't realize I'd been away for so long--where does the time go?

Last night, I dreamed I was riding on the back of a camel. I was crossing the desert at night, following a black man dressed in yellow robes. The stars were especially bright and clear, like they were closer to the earth, and brighter. Much brighter.

We were going to a city in the desert. I could see the towers on the horizon, topped with fantastic spires that went on and on forever. I could see the moon impaled on one like a glowing minaret. The things you dream! For that to happen, the moon would have to be in front of the tower. Isn't that silly?

They told us we'd have to announce summer vacation plans at work--dates and stuff. I'm finally eligible for three weeks at a whack. I usually break it up through the year--a long weekend made even longer, the whole week off between Christmas and New Year's. But this time, I think I'll take it all at once.

I'd like to go to Egypt.

Blog entry June 15, 2008

Well my bags are packed and I'm ready to go . . . lah lah lah lah, I'll miss you so . . . lah lah lah lah something something . . . I'm leaving on a jet plane!

I used to love that song. I can barely remember the lyrics now, buried as they are under my current favorite CD with the drums and flutes and the chanting in Egyptian.

I think it's Egyptian. I've learned enough to be polite--I'm hungry, where's a restaurant? I'm thirsty, where's a bar? Excuse me, please, thank you, where's the bathroom? But the chant on the CD bears the same resemblance to what I've learned as Chaucer does to modern English. All hard consonants bodyslammed to the mat, every bit of juice wrung out of the gutterals, the vowels snorted through the nose.

I'm so looking forward to this trip. Somehow it feels like coming home.

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January 1, 2009

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In Spring, the Dholes Come Out to Play . . .

I love having guests over--they find the most interesting things in your library. Books that you loved once, books that you had laid aside and forgotten. Books that you chain to the shelves so they don't wander off.

My younger brother discovered this gem hiding under the bed, and together we spent an evening perusing Blake Williams' Songs of Insanity and Excoriation. I think the Fair Use provisions should let me share this one sample with you.

The Shoggoth

Little shoggoth, Who made thee?
Doest thou know What made thee?
Gave thee life and bade thee feed,
Gave thee toys that scream and bleed;
Gave thee such a fearsome mien,
Unholy, loathsome, and unclean
Gave thee mouths to gibber and wail,
Under hill and over dale?
Little shoggoth, Who made thee?
Doest thou know What made thee?

Little shoggoth, I’ll tell thee,
Little shoggoth, I’ll tell thee.
The Elder Gods, deep under seas,
As you may see in temples’ frieze.
Built you strong and built you sound,
Ruled you till you gained the ground;
Then, throwing off your masters’ yoke,
You bent the Earth until it broke.
Little shoggoth, tekili-li!
Little shoggoth, tekili-li!

I'd write more, but someone's tapping at the window. I should go and let them in. BRB!

Like Topsy, It Growed

Today tastes of blueberries and pomegranates, sweet and astringent and musky.

I've been writing a fifty-five word story each day for the past few months. Since January 1, 2008, as a matter of fact. I did this for November 2006 through January 2007 and dropped the project. I don't recall why exactly--something about being tired and muddled and afraid to go on, to push through the dip and see what was on the other side.

The excuse grew into a reason, and I let it take over and keep me from growing. Now all I have is the book that came out of those three months--when I could have had four books. It turns out that three months is roughly 90 days, which makes a nice slim volume to hold in your hand.

Hence, with the turn of the year, I picked up the pen again and got going.

55 words is fragmentary--you get very little room for introductions or denouement, never mind conflict. And sometimes you wind up with a little more than a sketch that makes you wonder how these people got where they are, why they're doing what they do, and what comes next.

So. A story and some exploration.

Nothing is what it used to be, she thought as they walked down the street, her
in heels, him in tails. Instead of gaslamps and swanks with canes and
umbrellas, there were garbage cans set ablaze for the small warmth and light and
men with ragged lions' manes.

"Not exactly the Ritz, is it, sweet?" The remaining cobblestones were uneven so she wobbled sometimes on her pointed stilts. He steadied her with his arm around her waist. A tripartate display, she thought. That he could afford to keep a woman in furs, that he could protect what he kept, and that he had no fear of needing to draw the blade by his side. That he could walk where he wished, when he wished, and no one would challenge him.

A silver chain around her neck, a coat of wolf's pelts on her back, and the black coach that dogged their footsteps as they walked down the dark street.


Hmmm . . . I think this is actually a middle somewhere, now that I get a better look. I can half-see the world this belongs in, and there's a bunch of stuff that comes first. Tucking this between the pages of a Bible to flatten it. Perhaps I'll come back later.

Jake's Pet

Today tastes like salt. Grey mineral-laden salt, earthy underneath the salinity. And pink peppercorns. It's a basic day, with a twist.

Hence, time for some fiction. Presenting: Jake's Pet.

Even in our eccentric little group, Jake had a bit of a reputation. See, we all have our areas of expertise–Mary can recite the jingle of every toy of the year going back to the Cabbage Patch Kids. Roy is the sea lawyer of Dungeons and Dragons–no, the classic edition, pamphlet bound in paper. Tom has been on a mystery walk since he was nine, and he’s picked up more than the Nag Thomas in that time. But Jake–Jake is kinda weird, and I don’t mind who hears me say so. Even though he’s my best friend.

See, Jake is into aquatic life. He’s fascinated by fish. And not bony fish, the squoogy kind. Slugs and anemones, cucumbers and jellyfish. And octopuses . . . octopi??? Jake would know for sure what the plural is, and it’s probably some bizarre Greek declension. Octopodes, maybe.

Jake never wanted a cat or dog, so far as I know. Or a horse, or other fantasy pet when you live in the city. He agitated for an aquarium when he was four, he bragged. A saltwater aquarium that he could fill with the strange floral animals of the sea. His folks bought him a goldfish bowl, telling him that if he took good care of it, he could have a bigger, better set up next year.

I don’t know what they were thinking – well, actually, I do. They were thinking that this desire would burn hot and flash over shortly, like kids’ whims often do. Jake would realize fish weren’t like dogs or cats; you couldn’t pick them up and give them a hug, they couldn’t sleep on the foot of your bed, they wouldn’t play with you.

Except, well, Jake had the touch when it came to fish. That goldfish not only made it through Christmas and past the Fourth of July, this fish grew to the size of a carp and lived a long life–years!–until it finally died. Jake trained it to leap out of its bowl and turn a somersault like a little orange dolphin when he waved his hand over the bowl. I’ve seen the pictures with a tiny cowlicked Jake in overalls, grinning with oversized teeth flanked by gaps, and a goldfish tumbling through the air behind his outstretched hand.

He did it for me once, live, when I said that it was photoshopped, or that he tossed the fish somehow. Theodore Sturgeon, the goldfish, rose slowly to the top of the tank when Jake waved his hand over the still surface of the water. I swear the fish heaved a sigh when Jake waved more insistently. “He’s old,” Jake said, apologetically. “I haven’t asked him to do this in years.” Ted sank back down a little, then exploded out of the water, shining scales gleaming, heavy head lowering till his barbels touched the water, tail waving as it arced up over his head in a flip, then creamy belly down and headfirst back to the bottom of the tank to doze. I’ll never forget that moment.

My folks didn’t care much for Jake. Too quiet, they said. But I overheard Mum talking to dad one night about him after Jake had spent the weekend with us. “His hands are always clammy,” Mum whispered. “And his eyes are too far apart.” Dad muttered something about prejudice and superstition half into his pillow, but Mum continued, “His mouth–have you ever looked at his mouth? He has too many teeth.” I was glad she’d never met Jake’s mother. He looked a lot like her, sharp white teeth in a little bee-stung mouth, small ears flat to her head, eyes wide-set with a broad nose between them. Her skin was a deep olive, even slightly blue, and her hair was pure white. Long and flowing, and somehow always in motion around her head as if she were swimming. Jake was paler, with short black hair that always looked wet. Like a seal’s, short and shiny. He took after his dad that way.

So, anyway, that was Jake then. And he really hasn’t changed since then. It’s like he was born an adult, just a small one, and now he’s just become bigger and stronger. Like one of his beloved invertebrates. But then he got religion, and things really became strange.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Animal sacrifice on the beaches at the turning points of the year, leather-bound books that moan and whimper in the night, fetishistic jewelry. Ok, you got me on that last one. Jake took up Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and started wearing a crucifix.

He asked me and Tom to help support him in his new beliefs. Just as witnesses, you might say. Jake’s family, hard-boiled agnostics all, took a dim view of his retreat to superstition, as they referred to it. They celebrated Christmas in the grand old pagan style–any excuse for a party, especially ones that featured gifts and food. But as far as setting foot in a church? Never. Not even for Easter and Christmas. Jake attended every Mass, and soon knew the calendar of holidays.

I went with him one October for the Blessing of the Animals. Pretty much ever family had a little yappy furball on a leash, a cat in a carrier, a bird in a cage. I saw some big dogs sitting in the pews, and even a turtle in an aquarium. Jake, of course, had a bucket of seawater and tentacles.

When he took his animal up for blessing, the priest looked into the bucket. I can only imagine what he thought when he saw those slit-pupiled eyes looking back at him. The father was a trouper, though, laying his hands on the bucket to bless the creature inside. He didn’t scream when an arm reached out of the bucket to reverently touch his hand, but I saw him leave the nave shortly after Jake turned to go, beaming.

This last Christmas was one for the books, though. Jake had read about how animals were supposed to be able to speak at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. He wanted to hear for himself, but see, Jake is solar-powered. Seriously; as soon as the sun goes down, so does he. So he asked me to help him stay up till midnight, watching by the light of the aquarium so he wouldn’t miss it.

Well, Jake’s mom makes the best eggnog and fruitcake in Christendom, so I had nothing to lose by spending the night with my friend. If the beasts actually spoke up, I’d have a story to go drinking on for months. Maybe years. If nothing else, I could stuff my face with seasonal goodies and claim that the sugar would help keep me awake. Win-win, right?

So there we were, on the floor of the aquarium room–really. The little tank slowly grew to eat up a whole wall of the house, but only one animal lived there. An octopus nearly the size of a footstool, cruising slowly on the bottom, hauling itself along by its arms as thick as mine.

Jake never named his animals. “They have their own names,” he said, looking me in the eyes. He made eye contact only sparingly, only when it was really important that he be heard, that he communicate. “They have their own names, but I can’t understand them. It would be rude to call them by the wrong name, so until I understand their names, I won’t call them anything.” Maybe this year, I’d get to know this one’s name.

The minutes ticked by. I felt the same sense of anticipation you get when you finally get to stay up past midnight on New Year’s Eve–before you realize that there’s nothing magic about that moment, about the first few seconds of a new year. There’s no threshold to cross, nothing really changes. The champagne tastes the same. But that first time, why, anything could happen!

And in a way, it did. At midnight, the octopus surfaced, pulling itself head and two legs up out of the tank, leaving its body and six legs dangling in the water. It smiled. It had human lips and teeth on its underside, whereas I thought they had some beaky thing.

It smiled and it spoke to us, although I didn’t see its lips move, I heard it clearly. It said something about the forthcoming aeon of the Great Old Ones, then slid back into the water. Funny how I don’t really remember the words it said, just the sense of it. Just the feeling of the hair on my neck standing up, just the feeling of foreboding, like right after you wake from a nightmare.

And this morning I read that the elected Palestinian president has been assassinated, and troop withdrawal has been postponed again. And I remember what the octopus said, about the aeon of the Great Old Ones, and I wonder just what it meant by that.

I’ll have to ask Jake.

The Gauntlet has Been Thrown

Today tastes like chicharone burritos--flour tortillas full of refried beans, cheese, and pork cracklin's. It's the flavor of sentiment, of homesickness, of nostalgia.

I'm missing the land and the people I grew up with. It's not that I would trade what I have here in the Salt River Valley for a trip back to the Rio Grande basin. I miss the specific TIME that I was there as much as I miss the SPACE. The space has changed, the time is past, and there are new things now in both places. But while talking with Li'l Brah this weekend, I was reminded of how we heterodyne with each other and feed off the other's cool projects. We don't get that so much anymore, and I miss it.

So--

Li'l Brah talks about NaNoWriMo and limited time and his solution to both here. Essentially, he has more on his plate than will allow him to do what he wants with NaNoWriMo (a Lovecraftian horror-fest with a final italicized ending that blows the roof off the top of your head), and perhaps more importantly, he doesn't want the whole 50,000 word sundae. He just wants the last three paragraph cherry on the top.

So he wrote his ending. Boom! And then he challenged anyone who was up to the task to do the same--the last paragraphs of a Lovecraftian story featuring shambling horrors that surpass description, the final sight that precipitates the meltdown of our hero which takes place off the page, and Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.

I mean, how can one resist such bait?

So, here's mine.

Walking along our beach once again, I thought of Silvie. A year and a month, it's been, since that awful night. We would walk here, watching the fog roll in. We made love at the edge of the tides on our honeymoon, and each summer after that. Our own midsummer ritual, under the stars.

"Like salmon," I'd said once. "Or turtles, coming back to the hatching beaches every year to spawn." She'd smiled that thin-lipped smile, and laid her long graceful fingers on my lips. Her hands would have been pretty save for the depth of the webbing that nearly bound her fingers together.

One night, I'd woken and she wasn't there beside me. I went through the house, calling her name. I'd gone outside to look for her, turned on the lights by the pool. Nothing. Silvie was gone.

Now, I walk our beach along in the dark, playing on the pennywhistle she'd loved, its silly tuneless piping an insane bird's twitter under my untutored fingers. "Anyone can whistle," she'd said, often. "I'm not just anyone," I'd reply.

I look out into the surf, watching the tide retreating slowly. A patch of moonlight--no, phosphorescence--glimmers in the deeps where the waves are born. I continue my duet with the ocean.

It's coming closer. I can see her. Silvie!!

But the Benefits Are Good

Today tastes like cotton candy--right put of the vat. It's still hot and sticky and very much one note here. No matter where you are, there's one season that is less enjoyable than the others.

I don't mind the haboob that sandblasts your car, your glasses, and your skin--the lovely drenching monsoon follows. I don't mind the hazy days--I get really good photos during the magic hours (and I'm even at home for them both!!)

I really HATE the humidity that blends with the heat to make taking a walk like a slog through a swamp of spoiled milk. It gets so bad I can't even remember the titles of my short stories--which REALLY is bad.

Here's the one I threatened you with a few weeks back. I called it "A Thankless Task." Close, but no ceegar. Here goes.¹

His was one of those thankless tasks that is simultaneously vital to good function, utterly invisible, and loathsome to contemplate. Like the guy whose job it is to clean the vats in a sewage treatment plant. Or the cleanup crew after Mardi Gras, cleaning up the spilled booze, blood and vomit from the streets. The job gets done somehow, by someone, and nobody ever thinks about who does it and when.

He'd worked his beat for years, in all kinds of weather. He'd traveled rainy roads, through blowing snowstorms where the flakes fell in curtains, watching funnel clouds touch down from green black summer skies. He'd tapped on canvas tent flaps, knocked on doors of clapboard and brick houses, walked in through the front gates of palaces. Getting the word out.

Some people, old people, lonely people, were glad to see him. Others were angry at being interrupted, and clearly wanted to get back to their lives. A few were resigned, patiently listening to the tidings he brought. He'd been at this job a long, long time.


Right now, the sun was hot on his bald head as he walked the dusty road into Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. October 31, All Hallows' Eve, and tomorrow would be the Day of the Dead. He grinned. Marigolds on the graves, and paper money, and sugar skulls to eat. His parchment skin wrinkled back exposing his gums, and burying his already small and deep set eyes back further in their sockets. Every day, so far as he was concerned, was the day of the dead. All flesh was grass, ashes, and dust.

He carried a battered leather case, wore a straw cowboy hat on his head, stained with sweat, the edges patiently rolled and re-rolled into permanent curls like pork rinds. His shirt was white, and although wrinkled, bone dry. He had small silver pesatas for cufflinks, sparking shards of sunlight. His pants were black, starting to go rusty on the knees and in the seat. The heels on his boots were worn at the backs, so he leaned backward a little when he stood still, but he seldom stopped and stood. Always and forever on the go, world without end, amen.


He stopped in at a burger joint, ordered only a glass of water. When the waitress looked him over slowly, taking in the cufflinks, his bolo tie with a silver mouse skull, and the white linen shirt, then contrasting it with the fact that he had walked in, walked on a road where anyone with a lick of sense would have driven, hitched a ride, or rode the bus; he smiled gently, keeping his teeth covered by his thin lips. He knew he'd see her again, thirty years from now, in the hospital with ovarian cancer. She 'd finally have lost those twenty-five pounds she blamed her loveless days on; those twenty-five pounds and more to keep them company. Oh, she'd be just as thin as the fashion models she pictured her face on in those magazines she read, easily a size 0, maybe even 00. Not that she'd enjoy it. Not that she'd be in a big city, seeing and being seen, dancing all night. So why give her a rough day now?


"Add on a patty melt, hon," he said, in his voice like rustling leaves. "But don't make it up just yet. Give it to . . . what's his name, the man who knocks on the door just about closing. The one you give the lunchmeat and bread that's just expired that day or the day before. Ask him in, let him sit down, and give him a hot fresh meal." Because I'll be seeing him tonight, out on the train tracks, just after the 11:05 from Santa Fe comes rolling by, he thought, but didn't say. Albert, Albert Manolo, that was the man's name. Albert who would find a five dollar bill, no, would be given a five dollar bill by a family of three on the way to Tucson, who would then purchase a bottle of sweet fortified wine, and go to sleep it off in his lean-to just outside town. But he'd fall, and lie there looking at the stars, finishing the last sticky dregs in the bottle, too rubber-limbed and swoony to get back up. And he'd pillow his head on the rail, and close his eyes, lulled by the thrumming heartbeat under his cheek, the faraway song of steel growing slowly closer.

The waitress, Gaye, if her name tag was to be believed, turned pale, paler at his casual mention of the man who'd come begging every few nights for the last two-three months. Acne stood out like paint flecks on her cheeks gone white. She'd feared having to throw this guy out, this bum with the good jewelry, maybe just starting on his way down, ordering only a glass of water, but how did he know about Albert? Albert with his liquid brown eyes, his heartbroken smile, the closest thing she'd had to a long-term relationship. How could he know? Her boss didn't know.


He finished his water, tipped her a dollar for her trouble, put his hat back on his head. He'd removed it when sitting down, placing it on the empty stool next to him. As he stood to leave, the background chatter of the kid in the booth with his parents stopped as he took a big bite of his burger, mumbled something through a mouthful of bun and beef, started to cough--and then stopped.

The kid spit out most of the bite, fumbled at his mouth and throat. His father patted him on the back, gently at first then harder as the kid's face purpled and his tongue thrust out. The woman with them stood up, looking for--what exactly? A god in a flowered chair to drop from the sky? A poster with the Heimlich Maneuver with easy to follow directions? Someone to read her mind?

It seems someone did, because the man with the hat dropped his case on the floor by his seat, and hurried over, sweeping the kid up in his arms in a bear hug, with his fist in the pit of the kid's stomach. Two hard squeezes, and the remains of the too big bite came out. The kid coughed scratchily, then began to bawl as he was handed back over to his relieved parents.


They thanked him effusively, and he shucked and grinned it all off. Just doing what anyone would, ma'am. Paying it forward, you could say. Acts of charity are what make the world go 'round, we're all in it here together until the great and final end. He ruffled the kid's hair, praised him for being a tough little soldier. Told the kid to take care, and turned to pick up his case, thinking that he'd be a little sorry to see this one in ten years, on prom night, behind the wheel with breath you could light on fire from the spiked punch. But he had a job to do.

Through the Rockwellian downtown, then back into the suburbs. The sub-sub-suburbs, he thought, and grinned again. Out to a tiny two room cabin with an outhouse and a clapboard porch to sit on when the summer heat was too great for sleeping.

The little house sat on much too much land, the way it had when the one who lived there had raised cattle on his ranch, driving them to Santa Fe to be loaded onto trains and driven to the slaughterhouses of Chicago to feed the nation on flesh. Slowly, as he'd grown older, the rancher had trimmed back his operations, stopped renting lands for grazing first, then sold the ranch an acre at a time as the city unfolded. "Why let them have it all at once," he'd said, without bitterness. He knew that the world turned, and that his way was ending. "Why let them have it in a great big gulp, when I can sell it to them a bit at a time, and ranch coin from the land?"


No fences from the road, just the end of the road itself, and the nearest neighbor still a quarter-mile off. The travelling man squinted in the setting sun, listened carefully. Smiled as he heard the creak of the boards, and the joints of the rocking chair. Smelled the oil on the rancher's knife and the sap of the cottonwood limb he was whittling on. "I'm an excellent sculptor," the rancher would say in his rusted baritone, cracked from dust and yelling orders over lowing cattle and the perpetual wind on the plains. "I can see a toothpick in any hunk of wood. All that it takes is carving away the excess."

He pulled up even with the house, watched for a moment as the old man's palsied hands picked away at the cottonwood branch, the knife so deft even as he trembled. "Hello, the house," he called. Waited as the man in the rocking chair looked up, turtle-like behind his trifocals that still weren't enough to bring back the unclouded sight that had once been his.

"Well, hello," the rancher replied, using the momentum of the rocking chair to lever himself up, with care for his arthritic back and knees. He folded the pocketknife's blade back deliberately, slipped the knife into his pocket, peered at the stranger in the straw hat. "Take a wrong turn, mister? Don't get much company out this way."

The other smiled. "Not a wrong turn at all, unless you aren't Jean-Paul Verley." He walked slowly forward, hand extended.

The rancher smiled, though his brows drew together in puzzlement. "I'm him," he said, meeting the stranger at the top of the stairs to the porch. He shook hands with the man, then said "But you still took a wrong turn if you're the Fuller Brush man." He indicated the outhouse around the side. They both had a laugh at that.

Verley settled back in his rocking chair, offered his guest the cane-seat chair next to it. Remarks were exchanged about the weather (too damn hot for this time of year), the current state of the world's affairs (going to hell in a handbasket) and the past baseball season (the wrong team won). Verley opined that it was good to talk to a man who saw things the same way he did. It was getting lonely for a lifelong batchelor, whose remaining family was scattered to the four winds. "But here I've gone and jawed your ear off, and kept you from your rightful business. Which is?"


"Well, it isn't Fuller Brushes, nor is it inquiring about your personal relationship with Jesus. I'm not in the business of selling at all, really." Here came the moment, the moment all this had lead up to. "I'm more in the business of taking." He looked at Verley, long and slow in the growing darkness. Verley looked back, measuring the skull beneath the skin, and his eyes dropped first.

"Oh," he said softly, sadly, and sighed.

"I'm sorry," the other said, and for a wonder, he was. It happened occasionally, when he had the time to sit down for a moment with someone who wasn't surprised to see him, with someone who didn't whine and plead for just a few more months, weeks, days. Gotta have one last Christmas, see the kid graduate, see the baby born. Just one more hour to say goodbye to everyone and everything. A pure pleasure to just stop for a minute and have a civilized conversation before rolling on down the road to the next appointment.

"Well. Much obliged." said Verley, as he opened the door to the house and went in for his jacket. The other followed him in.

"Obliged?" he asked Verley. "Obliged to die?"


"Yessir," replied Verley as he wound his watch and tucked it into his pocket. "It's been a good life--though of course, not near long enough." He lay down on the bed. "Bet you hear that all the time, though."

"Not quite like that," replied Death.

"And, well, I'd like to say 'thankee too much' for holding off so I could have the days I did. For not taking me when that bull spooked my horse and he crushed my leg up against the boards of the chute. For waiting out that case of pneumonia when I was sixty-five. For making the rattlesnake that crawled into my boot that night on the last drive rattle before I stuck my foot in, so I could shake him out without getting bit. Thankee, sir, and muchly obliged." He looked around. "Going to miss this, though. Anything particular I need to do?"

Death trembled. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes. You need to take the battered leather case you'll find on the porch, and you'll need to meet a man named Albert Manolo out by the train tracks at 11:08 this evening."

"Beg pardon?"

"Get up. Get up. There's work to be done. It's a hard and thankless task, but the benefits are good." Death took off his hat and placed it on the dresser, lay down on Verley's bed.

Verley smiled, and his eyes sank deeper into his head, the edges of his teeth glittering. "So that's how it goes, is it? A thankless task, yes sir. Thankless indeed."

"Yes," said Death. "But the benefits are good." And he closed his eyes for the first time ever.


1. You can find the other short in the August archives, under "I Stole This From Artella." The two stories link because the above story was written in response to a challenge where you had to include the phrase "obliged to die."

I Stole This From Artella . . .

Artella is a most excellent website/newsletter/purveyor of goodies/provider of classes/subject of inspiration/tool not to be without. Go here then come back.

And I just thieved a prompt from their newsletter. Bad Spike.

"First, you must use the phrase "I never saw it coming" somewhere in the piece.
"Second, you must include something about a meal.
"Third, you must incorporate the following words:
"Automobile, Coupon, Display, Identity, Knee, Jaguar."

Right. Here we go:

If I had known what Monday had in store for me that day, I would have gone back to bed and hidden with my head beneath the pillow. Seriously, I never saw it coming.

I should have known when the alarm went off, and I groped around for the snooze button, only to manage to turn the whole darn thing OFF. And then I slept in, like the proverbial log, until about T minus ten minutes from "Oh shit."

I thought about calling in sick that morning, hopping around the bedroom with one leg in my pants and juggling the tasks of drinking some coffee, combing my hair, and getting lunch put together. Breakfast? Who has time for that?? If I called in, I thought, I'd have time to make bacon and eggs, pancakes and juice. I could read the paper, I thought, clenching my teeth around my coffee cup's rim as I pulled on my socks, tipping my head back for a swig. I could do that, clip coupons for tonight's shopping (no, I didn't get to the store this weekend, why do you ask??) and then go in to work around lunch. I could miss all the rush-hour traffic, have a nice easy morning, and still be a hero! I could skip the makeup to look authentically washed-out, moan a little, run for the bathroom at varying intervals, and weakly clutch my forehead, murmuring no, no, I simply HAD to come in and finish this presentation--my responsibilities wouldn't let me rest.

But no, here I was in the garage, turning the key in the Jaguar (what my ex always referred to as my "identity display." There was some truth in that--I'd wanted a look-at-me car all the way through high school and college, and when I could finally afford an automobile worthy of the full title (as opposed to just "a car." A car is what you drive to a job. An automobile takes you to your career.) then I'd gone ahead and acquired it. What else was I working for?)

He never could make up his mind whether he was yuppie or boho. He wanted a sugar shack to boogie-woogie in--as long as the investment would appreciate; came with a hot tub, golf-course perfect lawn (maintained by someone else, please); living room filled with the latest styles in decor (ditto); sumptuous master bath (ditto); and children who were both perfectly mannered while free and uninhibited. (Oh, and ditto to that last part, too.)

At the same time, I was to be liberated (but not to make more than he did), a full and equal partner (who deferred to his decisions over anything more important than the color of the polish on my nails), and to have a fulfilling career so long as I could be home in time to cook a hot nourishing dinner for all of us just like his mother would. With the kids freshly scrubbed and dressed for dinner. And me, polished, poised, and hanging on his every word.

Do I need to explain what happened next? Sheesh. Thank heaven I got out of that BEFORE we had the progeny running around. I wasn't that hepped on being a mommy with a partner (though how MUCH of a partner I would really have had is debatable); going it alone would have been infinitely worse.

So, here I was, going it alone. It would have been nice to have a partner to carpool with, I thought, sitting and seething in the parking lot that is rush-hour traffic in this corner of the world. Watching mothers zip by in their SUV's, using the carpool lane because they had a baby on board, and a child in the front passenger seat. Wasn't the point of carpooling to take additional cars off the road?? Were they issuing licenses to kids who hadn't mastered sippy cups yet? Would it be ethical to borrow children from the neighbors and deliver them to daycare services by my office, I wondered.

Inch. Stop. Inch. Stop. Into the tunnel where you can't see what lies ahead, can't anticipate what the flow of the traffic will look like and change lanes to avoid the jam until you're in the thick of it all.

And that's when it all stopped dead. That is, deader than usual. I sat there for a whole song and commercial cycle, and we weren't budging. People around me honked for a bit, and then I saw the folks a little further up getting out of their cars. Clearly we weren't going anywhere for a while. Good--now I had a readymade excuse for being late. Too bad I hadn't had any way of knowing--I could have had that Sunday morning breakfast I'd fantasized about.

I shut off the engine, started walking up the lane. Suddenly, the ground shivered, and the light at the end winked out. I heard screams, and a wave of people began running from the dark end back towards the light. I kicked off my shoes, and spun to keep ahead of the wave of panic.

I was able to slip over to the side and avoid the crush in the middle. I saw people trapped by cars, unable to get back into the stream, scrabbling over hoods to avoid falling and being trampled by the stampede.

Once I was out of the tunnel, I turned to look back, like Lot's wife. A very human flaw, curiousity. I could see over and behind the tunnel, to the blocked side.

A foot. A foot the size of a Volkwagen bus tipped up on its end; toes, arch and heel. Callus on the heel. An ankle, presumably leading to a calf. The knee was hidden by the mouth of the tunnel, but the thigh dwarfed the puny skyscrapers that make up the Phoenix skyline, such as it is.

The first of the giants had fallen.


Okay, not fantastic--you know what I mean, plenty fantastic, but not Litrachure For the Ages. Not every forced fiction (i.e., fiction with a mandatory set of words included) is gonna be great.

Hmmm. Now I'll have to post "A Thankless Task" next week so y'all can compare and contrast.

This I Believe

The stars have come right at last. All worlds come to an end.

Remember the Y2K scare? How our civilization was going to come to a crashing end when all computers were caught in recursive loops? And how it didn’t, how I am sitting at the keyboard typing this, and you are reading it off a screen, and all is well, and all manner of all things are well?

The Mayans had science and mathematics far beyond the capabilities of their contemporaries. The calculated out a calendar that extended into the modern century, hundreds of years into the future from their perspective. But then it ended, in 2002.

And then there’s the “dark sci-fi” that has so captured the modern imagination, a bleak dystopia reducing us to food for the unmentionable Powers That Be. The Matrix, for example, where man feeds machine and never knows until he takes the red pill.

But none of that’s real.

But you are so wrong.

Can you not see? Can you not understand? First, there was the population explosion. Then, global warming. We started harvesting the ocean bottoms to feed all the people. The “lemming phenomenon” reported in the news, about people swimming out to sea and not coming back. Now, the hot new Japanese fast-food chain, Zulen Akai. With Zeph, their cute chubby octopus character toddling along in overalls, hawking compressed seaweed and soybean patties.

They’re bigger than McDonalds. You can’t not hear their jingle–I’ll bet it’s playing where you are now, in a pop-up window, or a radio, or a televison set . . . or in your head, just from me mentioning it.

That’s the most insidious part. Who needs telepathic control when you have mass media?

I’m telling you, it started with Grimace at McDonalds. Then the Starbucks twin-tailed mermaid. They taught us to associate food with monsters. Now we can’t recognize danger when it’s staring us in the face.

Here, I’ll spell it out for you. We have more people on the planet than ever before. We have warmed the oceans. Who knows what beings, slumbering since the great ice age, have stirred to life as the ice around them melted and drifts of warmer waters played like soft breezes?

Could you sleep through spring? Didn’t think so. And wouldn’t you be hungry when you woke up? And what would you do if you had to convince the food to wait for you . . . to come to you and be eaten? You can’t do anything scary; you need to present yourself as one of the herd. You need to be an enticing member of the herd, in fact.

And isn’t Zeph just the cutest? Couldn’t you just . . . eat him up?

I tried to warn you. I’m just one person, without the resources of the Great Old Ones. So I’ve sent this essay in to the one place one voice might have of making a difference, here on NPR. Five hundred words, and one person’s statement of personal belief.

I just hope it’s enough.

Let's Talk Stash . . .

Today tastes like dark roast coffee, with peppermint, chocolate, and whipped cream. With a sidecar of frustration.

Excessmas is over for another year (well, almost. Tha familial units have yet to gather, due to the weather gods frowning upon us and dumping snow every weekend. While it snoweth not upon the Salt Valley, and yeah, neither upon the Duke City, it snoweth like a muthafucker upon the Continental Divide and the plains between us. Yeah, verily, it snoweth as it hath not done in fifty years. While this moveth mine heart to gladness for the break in the drought cycle, it causeth me to rend my garments and gnash mine teeth at not being able to celebrate Adverb. Especially since Adverb actually FELL on Ephiphany this year. Grrrrrr . . .)

Bus as I was saying before that digression, Excessmas is over at last, and we are doing the simultaneous clearing and adding that takes place each year. The things we love, adore, and will use, are being found homes for . . . usually by discarding something worn and no longer useful or pretty. Other things go in the regifting closet with a note regarding where we got it from, or directly to eBay. Because none of our friends or family shop eBay religiously (or know our username).

And once again I am forced to really look at my stash, and realize that unless I am buried in the Egyptian style, I will never be able to truly use and enjoy all of this.

So once again I vow a strict yarn diet--new yarn can only be acquired after three projects using only stash are completed. No, no exemption for sock yarn--have you seen how much sock yarn you have, Spike??? No acquisition for acquisition's sake, this is not a matter of spending money, it is a matter of space. You refuse to stash on top of the master bedroom closet, you refuse to stash in the attic, you will therefore have to make space in order to get more stuff. And it makes no sense to pick up stuff with no clear purpose in mind--that's how the stash got this big!!

Otherwise, the story may go like this--

No kidding, there we were in the castle. We were surrounded by the Aubergine Dandy (yes, most of the villians have really threatening big bad names like "The Black Scrouge," "Eater of Hearts," "Dragon's Kin." Imagine just how badass a fella would have to be to live with a moniker like "The Aubergine Dandy." Yeah, like that. Now triple it.)

Our best and boldest had fallen to this monster. Only we women, the children, and the oldsters remained. We had thrown everything we had at the foe, and had no arrows nor stones left. It looked hopeless.

We, the knitting guild (or as we call ourselves, the Stitchin' BItches) didn't know this at the time. We were holed up in the uppermost tower for Sockapalooza '07. I opened the door to summon the page and have him bring up more cappachino stout, as we were running out. Oh, and some more finger sandwiches.

But instead of the page, our most puissant wizard was standing there on the stoop, hand raised as if to knock. "Were we being too loud?" I asked, waving to Miranda to turn the stereo down.

"Not at all. I have come to inform you that the castle is beseiged, and about to fall."

"That's a bummer," I said. "What should we do?"

"Fall upon your needles. All is lost," and at that, he began to weep and chewed on his beard in frustration. I looked out the window.

Torches ringed the castle round, the gates were cracking before the battering ram, and the hills writhed with bodies beyond count. Over it all flew the Dread Baroque Eggplant of the Aubergine Dandy.

"Oh, is THAT all??" Minerva cranked the stereo down as I explained to the ladies what needed doing. Bless their stout hearts and large tote bags, we made it to the walls in a twinkling, whereupon we launched . . .

THE STASHAPULT.



"YO, knit two!" The Stashpult threw cones and skeins to crash among the enemy!



"Slip, slip, knit!" Merino, cotton, and the ubiquitous acrylic flew thick and fast!



Ah, but it was the Lion Brand Homespun in its bulky glory that won the day for us, crushing the enemy and sending the Dandy fleeing like a cat with its tail tangled in a half-finished Starmore sweater. And nevermore has this peaceable kingdom been threatened.

Except by Goblin Knitting. But that's another story entirely.

NaNoWri ay yi yi 2

And so it begins.

Funny. Ever since I was small, and finally knew what I wanted to be, I imagined writing that line as the first sentence in my book of shadows. How it would glow with green fire there on the page, luminous, portentous. I wrote that sentence over and over in straggling capitals with the “s” spinning back and forth. Pretending, preparing for this moment.

And now, now that it’s really happening, as I begin my studies and the first of my books, it looks more pretentious than portentous. And the moment? The moment is ended, leaving only a footprint of ink.

“Footprints of ink.” That’s a better name for this volume that “book of shadows.” I thought that when I became a wizard I’d be . . . omniscient. All-knowing from the moment I traded my soft student’s hood for the peaked hat with the broad brim. But here I am, with all the trappings—the staff, the hat, the swirling cloak, and I feel no different than that boy of seventeen putting on the soft hood with its red first-year’s tassels for the first time.

All that I learned preparatory to this was but a candle’s flame in the sun of midsummer’s noon. A candle in the darkness may serve to light the way, but all that I had accumulated and held so dear is now washed into insignificance. Perhaps this is why we start these books, why we begin with the small things, the mundane things in our world. By noticing the everyday, and recording it, we can see the patterns that flow and begin our subtle alterations. The stirring of a butterfly’s wing can cause storms that rock the foundations of the land. The trick, of course, is knowing when to tickle which butterfly.

I walked in the market today, trying to be more observant of all that I saw. I noticed journeymen from the Assassin’s Guild out in the sun in their black and white fool’s motley. They were working the crowd for coin, telling jokes and singing songs of nonsense and merriment. It’s early in the year for their journeymen to be about. Usually one doesn’t see the latest batch of Painted Faces until the midsummer festivities, and here it is hardly spring.

If I am to sharpen my skills of observation, perhaps I should make note of what is normal and obvious. It hardly takes a genius to notice a green horse with two heads, but being aware that one’s usual mount is now a half-hand taller can spare one’s neck, as the saying goes.

The markets in spring are busy, it goes without saying. Winter has ended and the people are once again out and about instead of hiding from the Wolf’s Teeth that blows in through the mountain pass all the fiercer for its channeling. There are fresh bitter greens, and lamb, and suckling pig as the flocks and farrows are culled. Farmers in their worn and carefully mended best, the petite bourgeois in fanciful creations trimmed with ribbons and frothed with lace –the more bangles and buttons, the older the coat beneath. The rich in their carefully mended best, differing from the farmers only in the quality of the fabric and the tailored severity of their gowns. Their velvets and silks are clearly cut for one owner, and only one, without pleats and tucks that can be let back out to fit a larger person when the current wearer no longer requires that garment. They’ll pin rosettes of ribbons to their sleeves for Winter’s End, the first gathering to celebrate the turning of the year after Longest Night, but generally they leave the frippery to their poorer relations.

NanoWri ay yi yi 1

Contemplating doing NaNoWriMo, but not in November. (NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month, wherein you crank out 50K words. Plus or minus 100 pages. In a month.)

I've had a little tickle of an idea wobbling around--it's almost a one line joke insofar as plot and cleverness goes. So I don't have much invested in it. So it's perfect for NaNoWriMo because if it comes out as 100 pages of dreck, well, what did you expect? And if it's any better than that, well, that's gravy.

Bits of the world it's set in come floating along, and so I'll be dropping essays in here so they'll all be in one place when I cut up a month to do it all in. Take the hint, Gentle Reader, if you come across a post with a title like the one above, don't expect what follows to be purely sensible.

Red and gold apples taste of autumn, of cool mornings touched with frost that burst into warm afternoons that spiral down into chilly evenings by the fire. Red and gold apples taste of the fulfillment of spring’s promise and summer’s work; of the long luxurious stretch and ease of the harvest; of having plenty and then more. Red and gold apples taste of long slow cooking; of feasts in good company.

Blue apples, now. Blue apples taste of winter.

Not the cheery midseason, with the cold that brings forth the merry bloom of health, of festivities and candle flames dancing on the snow, of the welling enthusiasm that comes with knowing the longest darkest night is past, and the days will grow long.

Blue apples taste of February. Of overcast days where the sun hides for a week at a time, and when spring is a seducer’s promise (of course I’ll respect you in the morning, dearest; I’ll always love you as much as I do now) and rotten snowpack ice crackles underfoot, lumpy with the comings and goings of countless others.

Blue apples taste of winter’s midnight heart, when the woodpile is growing short and the stores are becoming thin. Down to grains and legumes and dried fruit, ham and sausage and bacon for flavor. Nothing fresh, nothing green, nothing that tastes of life. All of it dried, of the inevitable decay halted, and then reconstituted into soups and stews and mush.

Their flesh is like mangoes, custardy and fatty in the mouth. Flaccid. You won't find these in the market, no, the only places these grow are in the Mage's Garden, branches of blue apples grafted to the evergreen feathery branches of yew, with mushrooms at their roots.

There. That'll give me a few hundred on the word count when things begin to look hopeless.

The Story of Sherman

“Auntie Spike?”

“Yes, Mungojerrie? Yes, Rumpleteaser? Yes, o my charming niece and nephew, whom I can deny nothing to?”

“Tell us the story of Sherman the Car, and how he came to live with you.”

“Again? How about Cuthbert the Concupiscent Koala’s Crusty Curse instead?”

“Mom downloaded that to us last night.”

“Something light and uplifting, with moral values at the end? Othello, or maybe Peyton Place?”

“Don’t tease! We want Sherrrrrrman the Carrrrrrr!”

“Very well. Back in the previous century, when it was all combustible engines and runcible spoons, Auntie Spike and Uncle First Consort Gareth realized that Auntie Spike’s car was getting old and tired, and needed to go where all the old cars go. So they went shopping, which is when people go out—“

“Into the air? Into the wide world??”

“Yes, people could actually do that back then, in the olden days. People would go out and look at merchandise, and sometimes they would interact with it, to see if it was something they wanted.”

“Why didn’t they just put on the bodyglove in their living room to try it out?”

“This was back in the longago, Mungojerrie. They didn’t have bodygloves, did they, Auntie Spike?”

“No, indeed. No bodygloves, and faxes only transmitted data.”

“You couldn’t fax for a pizza?”

“You could fax an order, but the pizza would have to be brought by a person.”

Rumpleteaser bristled and licked her nose. Strangers at the door, maybe even coming into the house. What dark ages in the longago.

“So Auntie Spike made a long long list of cars she wanted to look at, and they went out shopping. They played with little bitty Miatas, with great stately Sebrings, and just for fun, with a convertible pickup truck with a hard top that looked like a lobster shell.” Mungojerrie sighed and curled his toes. Lobster! He loved this part.

“And so, at the end of a long day of shopping, Auntie Spike decided that what she really, really wanted was a Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible—with turbo. And a stick shift, because half the fun of driving is interacting with the machine. Not like today, where you type in your destination in the peoplemover pod, and it calculates the route for you and takes you there.” Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser shuddered as one. They’d been sent to the doctor via ‘pod before, and it was bad enough to watch the scenery scroll past as the ‘pod shifted gears and whirred softly as it drifted along like a soap bubble, always choosing the path that got it to its destination most effectively. You could ‘get lost’ or ‘break down’ or ‘run out of gas’ if you were in charge of all the choices to make!

“The problem was that Auntie Spike and Uncle Gareth really wanted a used car, not a brand new one. They taught you about equity and depreciation, right?” Brother and sister nodded. “Then you understand how Auntie Spike thought it was silly to pay $5,000 in depreciation for the handful of minutes between buying a new car and actually driving it off the lot, right?” They nodded again, topknots bobbing in unison.

“But alas! The only cars of that type in the city where Auntie Spike and Uncle Gareth lived were new cars! And the dealers told us that since that model had just come out the fall before (for this was back in the neverwhen, when the year had seasons, my darlings) that our chances of finding one used were not good.

“So Uncle Gareth searched and searched for a car, and finally found one far far away in Texas. It was lightly used, had a turbo engine, a stick shift, and was PURPLE. It was Sherman the Car, and he was just right. So on Monday morning, we told the dealership we wanted Sherman, and we got the bank to send some earnest money to hold the deal down.

“Ah, but how to get Sherman from Texas to Arizona? Auntie Spike and Uncle Gareth put their heads together and thought for a long long time.”

“Minutes?” asked Rumpleteaser.

“Minutes and minutes and minutes.” Spike agreed. “Almost as long as this story.

“We could fly out and drive Sherman back, but that would have just added miles to the engine and wear and tear to the frame and tires. Plus of course, we would have had to take time off work, and it’s a long flat drive with nothing much to look at.

“Having someone else drive Sherman was an option, but the only savings was in terms of our time and energy. There was still wear and tear on the car to consider.

“So we looked into having someone load Sherman onto a truck and drive the truck out. Once we compared it to air fare, meals on the road, and a night at a motel, the costs were about the same. The nice dealership set up the deal with the trucking company, who said they would have it to us on Wednesday. No problem! Wednesday was fine. We told them to take it to Uncle Gareth’s work, figuring that he’d be there to sign the papers to tell the bank to send the dealership the rest of the money.

“Wednesday came, and the trucking company called. They wanted to send a full truck out to Arizona, could we wait until Friday? Well . . . yes, we could wait until Friday. We were disappointed, but we COULD wait.

“Friday morning came, and the trucking company called. There would be somebody at that address Sunday night, yes? Well, actually, no. That was a business address. What happened to the plan to have Sherman out TODAY? It seems that the other stuff the trucking company was waiting on hadn’t come yet, but was due any minute now, so the truck would be loaded and then head out our way sometime Saturday. So, Sherman would be in town Sunday evening some time.

“Uncle Gareth told them politely that that wasn’t acceptable; that he was not going to wait at work Sunday evening for them to drop by, especially as they were supposed to have had Sherman to us two days ago. The gentleman from the trucking company then told him that in that case, he’d have to offload Sherman, and get him out to Arizona in a couple of weeks with the next scheduled shipment. Uncle Gareth said that that was simply not an option in his firmest gruffest polite voice—and the other fella hung up on him!

“So Uncle Gareth called the dealership, who told him that this was the first they’d heard that Sherman wasn’t home safe! They told Gareth they’d call the trucking company and see what was going on, then be right back to him. A few minutes later, the dealership called, and explained the trucking company had hung up on THEM, their customer!

“What to do, what to do. It was decided that the dealership would load Sherman onto one of their very own trucks, and have an employee drive it from Texas to Arizona. They promised to have it to us sometime on Monday. Gareth told them that would work, but to please be certain Sherman got there by 6:00 p.m. Arizona time.

“Sunday evening, we received a call. Sherman was in town! Why was the office all dark? Where was Gareth? Gareth explained that he had been told that Sherman was arriving MONDAY sometime, and while he appreciated the dealership’s promptness, he was not driving for an hour to get to them RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE and sign papers.

“So Sherman the Car was finally delivered Monday morning at 8:15. Gareth took him around the corner to the car doctor, where he checked out just fine, and then to the car wash to get scrubbed all shiny clean and sparkly. Auntie Spike and Sherman the Car loved each other very very much and had all sorts of wonderful adventures with their friends Uncle Gareth and Mischief Ann Mayhem.”

Mungojerrie wiped a tear from his eye, and Rumpleteaser sniffled, wiping her nose on her tail. The story was over. Again.

“Tell us more,” said Mungojerrie. “Tell us about the trip to Mexico to look at the ruins; about the o’dark thirty trips to California to play on the beaches, about the marathon drive to Galveston to build sand castles on Spike’s birthday.”

But just then, a grinding whir sounded in the kitchen. “Nothing doing,” said Spike, firmly. “You’ve been up for over an hour already! It’s time for you to have Third Snack, and then off for your pre-dinner nap! Now, off with you!”

The kits clambered down off the Knead-a-Lap (with optional heated pads) and scampered to the kitchen in answer to the alarm. The reason for that particular rhythmic noise was lost in antiquity, but somehow it was just so . . . compelling, driving feline Furpeople to drop whatever they were doing and run to find out what the servos had heated this time. The Knead-a-Lap sat quietly humming for a moment, reviewing the memories of the human it had been programmed with.

Cats, it thought. They may have evolved thumbs and re-ordered the world, but they still haven’t lost their fascination with cars. And then it shut down.

Desire Satisfied (flash fiction)

She always wanted to have her ashes scattered on the moon. She liked the idea of being able to look down on the cities and thier people dancing, crinking, and making love in the glitter and whirl of the nightime. It almost bankrupted the family in those early days of space travel, but we managed somehow.

Then science discovered the Egyptians had been on to something. The soul lives on, tied to the body and its surroundings after death.

Eternity under the blinding inferno sun, in the airless void. Without even a voice to howl with, and no one to hear.

Life is as Strange as Fiction

Today tastes like dry champagne, day old caviar, and melba toast.

The year has come round again, I see . . . how many times does that make since I came here? I don’t recall; one looks very much like the next from where I sit.

It was a February, I remember that much. February, the armpit of the year, when Christmas is a gaudily lit memory, the new of New Year’s has worn off, and spring is just a daydream of longer days and balmy temperatures. It’s grey and cold and wet. You get up in the dark, go to work in the dark, and come home in the dark, especially at my job.

I’d gotten locked down again, stuck on doing one more thing, and then just one more thing, and then one more little task. The good part of being obsessive-compulsive is you get a lot done. The bad part of being obsessive-compulsive is, well, you get a lot done. Often at the expense of any number of other things.

The janitor startled me as he came in—was it already eight o’clock? Good thing no one was home to miss me but the cats. I backed up to the laptop (might as well crank out an hour at home), turned off the coffeepot, and gathered my stuff to leave. I got in the car, and checked the gas gauge out of habit. Habit, because it’s been on the fritz for the last several weeks. I have a sticky note to have that checked the next time I take it to the garage for its oil change taped to the steering wheel. Enough gas to get home? I thought so. I’d chance it.

I might have made it, but traffic was ghastly bad—drive thirty feet, stop. Wait. Drive thirty feet, stop. Wait longer. I decided to turn off the main street and cut through a residential neighborhood; not as risky as it sounds. This city is laid out on a big grid, so you can get just about everywhere from anywhere. It may take you a while, and a side trip or two, but you’ll get there.

So there I was, in dark enough to be midnight, driving through a series of blocks that the historic society hadn’t yet adopted. Ranch homes from the twenties and thirties, not yet restored, gently decaying with wide deep porches and Arizona rooms from back in the day before air conditioners. Handyman’s specials now, for sure, but in a handful of years they’d sell for as much as a McMansion in the trendy parts of town. Once they get discovered, that is. Right now, the inhabitants are the ghosts in straw boaters and white suits with carnations in their lapels, and shambling ogres with dreadlocked beards and broken fingernails pushing shopping carts.

If I read this in a book, or saw it in a movie, my suspension of disbelief would hit the floor and leave a mark, but sometimes life imitates art. Yup. The car sputtered, stalled, and then shut down, and I watched as the gas gauge needle slowly trickled to “E” and then a hair beyond. I said some words my mother doesn’t know I know.

I got out of the car, slamming the door behind me. Fortunately, I have AAA for events just like this. It would only be a block or three to the next intersection, and then a couple more to a convenience store with a pay phone. That’s what I told myself, trying not to think of the old jokes about why there are no crocodiles in this river (the piranhas scared them all off, ho-ho.) No junkies in this neighborhood, the gangs are fiercely territorial. I took a deep breath, and started walking down the sidewalk, where one light in three still worked, and the shadows lay in pools.

That’s probably why I didn’t see where the pavement humped up, thrust into the air by a tree root, or even just buckled from age. I caught it squarely with my toe, and for a gut-dropping moment, I flew.

I buttered the sidewalk with skin from my palms, and utterly destroyed the hose I was wearing (a new pair, too!) And just as the physics of bread demand that it fall jelly side down, the aerodynamics of purses command that they fall open side out, launching your whole life in a splendid arc. Can’t get anything to fall out when you’re hunting so you can spread the mass thin and paw through it for your lipstick, but drop a purse and generate fallout for square yards.

I got up from my amazing four-point landing, and then I heard it. Some wiseass in the house in front of me had seen my feat of gymnastic grace, and was applauding.

I called him names under my breath as I gathered my stuff back into my bag. Lipstick, pepper spray, hairbrush, paperback, keys. Keys? No keys. They were shiny, they should have been easy to spot, even in the deep shadows. I looked through the chain link fence, and there they were; on the wrong side of the wires. It figured.

I stood up, and brushed myself off. “Excuse me? Sir?” No reply, just the slow sardonic clapping tapering off now. “My keys are in your yard. Is it ok if I come get them back?” The porch light wasn’t on, nor were the lights in the house. Saving electricity? Or squatting?

Since he didn’t say no, I figured that must be a yes, so I opened the gate, fumbling awkwardly at the latch on the inside, right at shoulder height, and let myself in. But when I reached down, my keys weren’t there. I fumbled at the ground for several seconds, patting and poking the dust, but no dice. Then I heard them jingle from up on the porch.

Enough was enough. I put on my biggest attitude, and swarmed up the steps to deal with this jerk. But as soon as I reached the top, I was struck by how warm it was there.

It was summer. I could smell the green smell after the monsoons wash through, could faintly hear the bells of the ice cream carts that wheel through neighborhoods like these, begging pennies and quarters from sticky fists. I took a step back.

“What’s your hurry?” a voice asked from the depths of an old couch. “Stay a while.” It was thick, phlegmatic, coarse. “Have a Co’Cola.” The porch swing at the end creaked, as if someone had shifted position.

“Yes,” agreed a thin, reedy tone from that direction. “Tell us a story.” I knew this voice, I thought. I knew both of them. I felt smaller when I heard them, smaller and less certain, somehow. Plastic hinges squealed as the lid to the cooler was flipped open.

I looked inside, and for a moment, the shapes inside were large, and round. Bowling ball size . . . but bowling balls don’t have hair. Heads, I though. Heads in the cooler, and familiar voices. Voices that sounded right in the dark, voices that made me feel small.

The one on the couch reached into the cooler, plucked something out, and offered it to me, pushing it into my numbed hand. A coke. In a glass bottle, green and cold, an emerald of winter on a summer’s day.

“They haven’t had these since I was . . .”

“A kid,” he croaked for me. “The last time you heard our voices. Remember that night?”

I did. My knees buckled, and I sank down into the old cane-bottomed rocking chair. I had been seven when the night terrors that plagued me finally ended. They said I grew out of them. I learned to tell stories about them, weave them into webs to be walked through in the light, and shut away between covers. And now they were back.

I dropped my drink and ran down the steps that melted into the Escher painting that had hung over my bed, the last thing I saw every night. I had run from them, Croaker and Reed, every night for months, and every capering horror was just a mask for these two. Down the stairs and down the stairs and down the stairs, winded and blowing, and when I stopped I was still at the top, with the rocker swinging softly behind me, runners cutting bloody gouges in the cement of the porch. I sat back down.

I’m glad I packed the laptop when I left the office. I’m glad I had it with me, and set up this blog. You found your way here; you can find your way to the gate, and open it for me. Because, you see, I am seven again. And the latch is too high for me.

not playing by the rules . . . again

This was of course, too long for the profile, but too much fun to consign to ether oblivion. Promise the next post will indeed be the obligatory "origin of the blog" post.


Random Question:
The children are waiting! Please tell them the story about the bald frog with the wig:

The frog peered mournfully into the mirror, the corners of his mouth turned down. Well, they were always turned down. He was a frog, after all, and had no choice in the matter.

"The babes just don't flock to me like they once did," he complained. "They say things like 'slimy', and 'squishy', and 'sick (but not in the good way)', and other things beginning with 's'."

The stork looked at him thoughtfully. "Perhaps if you had a full flowing head of hair . . ." he said.

"Hair?" snorted the frog. "I'm a frog. How could I possibly have hair?"

"With hair," answered the stork, "with hair, they would believe you were indeed a handsome prince under a spell. With hair, they would take you from the pond, lay you on their pillows for a night, and kiss you. Ah, if only you had hair."

"Where could i get hair?" continued the frog, mournfully.

"I could help," suggested the stork. "I could give you this wig." And here he plucked it out from under his wing. "You could wear it, and no one would know any different. You would have hair."

"Give it me!" Cried the frog, hopping from foot to foot in excitement. "Give it me!"

And the stork dropped the wig over the frog, then scooped it back up, with the frog tangled in the luxuriant locks. The wig was was over frog's eyes and in his mouth, so he could not see nor cry out for help until he was dropped into stork's cooking pot. And then it was too late.

Moral of the story--never trust someone who promises to make you into something you aren't. Even if it's something you really want to be.