Broken Social Scene

Liz had a pile of them, now.
They'd accumulated, somehow; a chipdrift 'gainst her laptop by the door, heavy little lightweight bits, so useless by themselves. Invaluable to those they'd left. The Philistines, Liz liked to say- under her breath to friends in places without crowds. She'd never liked a crowd.
Now Liz was from Los Angeles, or thereabouts. This meant two things. One, she refused to walk. For chumps, walking- for the goddamn birds. Two, she was sick to death of people. Pressed against her, breathing on her, pawing sloppily at countertops with warm beer slopping on their hands and eyes. She had a poet's soul, she'd tell her friends, and crowds do not a poem make.
Whatever, said her friends. We're going to see the Schmunkaholics at Johnny's on Second.
But this required walking. Philistines.
It was a year back when the Bluetooths began integrating. Sounds funny, don't it? A jeweler and a neuroscientist whipped the whole business up at UC Berkeley- the start of it was hearing aid implements and how they interacted with the brain itself, if the eardrum was bypassed. Folk with shattered ears could hear again, allowing one small wire and something like a transducer pickup on the skull. Punch it straight through to meat and voila! Sound- the world restored.
So this scientist, a capitalist at beating heart, decided to push things further, and called upon a jeweler friend. The standard slim clip Bluetooth, integrated into the ear's upper cartilage, could be wired straight into one's brain, eliminating cell radiation, extraneous equipment, and most hateful to Liz- the need to interact with one's fellows with any sort of decor or respect for personal space.
It was as if the hateful bar followed her everywhere now- everywhere, she was assaulted by stranger's intimate conversations- never sure who was schizophrenic, and who was just another integrated asshole.
Darcy was the first in her inner circle. They talked about it, tersely, in the back of a hookah lounge, hidden away in a booth. Darcy showed her how it was turned on and off. She had a piercer install hers- far more chic, more pleasing to the eye than an instore job, and lined with bit-green LEDs no bigger than a flea's tit. 'Well, what about showering?' Liz asked. She was immensely annoyed.
'You have to turn it off,' Darcy said. 'Look, its not a fucking product scanner, Liz. I'm not some corporate heist-monkey, here to ruin your world. Its just a fucking phone.'
'It's in your head.'
'Yeah, yeah.' Darcy had a sip of her drink. 'Its weird, though- spooked me out a bit. The guy who integrated me, holding this big wicked punch in one hand, a sautering pen in the other, says Don't ever, ever, remove my RIFD chip from the back unless its powered off. Rain- even a shower- won't hurt me, just maybe screw the electronics up. It's like pulling an external drive out of your computer without, um...'
'Ejecting it,' Liz offered. She drained her drink, and stood. Sighed. 'You want another? And you'd better still give me a ride, drunky.'
'Yeah, yeah.'
When Liz returned Darcy was on a call. Manly Banister, her o'ersized troubadour, no doubt, pooing sweet somethings into her ear. Only not into her ear, Liz seethed, a drink in each hand. Directly into her inconsiderate little brain! Past the ear and into meat itself! "Are you going to ignore me so you can talk into that thing?'
Darcy waved at her distractedly. 'A real person, Darcy,' Liz snapped. 'Right here, in front of you!' No response this time. Liz set both drinks roughly on one of the many abandoned tables and stalked up close to her friend. 'Philistine,' she hissed into her blinking ear, and thumbed the little chip off the node that wired away into Darcy's bright red hair.
When Darcy's head hit the table Liz shook her once, fear in her in growing shapes. Then she turned heel and split, clutching at the chip in what approached fixation. Darcy! Oh God, what did I-
Oh God...
They'd come after her soon, she knew. She tried to target random assholes; even put herself in crowded situations and just waited for the inconsequential jerk who'd yell to get his aural rape across. But those she knew just kept on integrating! She would show up for a chat with friends, and there was Ben, his still-raw instore blinking inanely as he talked around the people he had come to meet! She took care of him as he used the urinal (still talking), thumbing out his chip with practiced ease, watching with orgasmic glee as he slid down into the pool of bile and urinal cake. They'd connect the dots. Oh yes.
Liz slipped a hand under her shirt and thought of all those noxious eyes- going blank- fogging over when she reached behind as if to caress, and fucked their hardwired brain instead, her thumb a killswitch clitoris they just didn't see coming. Philistines, the lot of them.
All she knew was, when they did catch her- it was going to make one hell of a screenplay.

'Cause mami's a rida and I'm a roller

The sun poured out of the sky, long and hot like kettles of oil onto the early afternoon as she poured buckets of water over her wellies in the ditch behind the barn. Blood mixed with water and human filth and ran pink and cloudy into the mud. Liz craned her head to the left and reached into the hole in her neck. Flesh ran crusty up against her pale and uncalloused fingertips and the dried blood of last night's examples clung in riverbeds of burned saffron down the back of her translucent hands. Beneath her squalid cattleman's hat she scowled over the landscape that lay cringing under the hot hot sun. Moistened with sweat, dried with nocturnal winds, wetted with sweat and dried again in the morning sun- her black hair stuck in hooks around her face as the lion's fur nearest his mouth stands erect for the first hour after a particularly vociferous feeding.

Her slate eyes flickered in blue rage as she found another gash, this time on her cheek. Anger diminished apace and perturb gave way to tenderness as a golden-maned child came bounding from behind the truck.

"Ma ma!" cried the child and threw her arms around Liz's sticky neck. The child's arms adhered to the sweaty blood and tears of last night's toilings.

"Hello, little girl." Liz winced and she scooped the child into her arms. Her husband, Jake, rounded the corner and handed her a cup of coffee and newspaper.

The rebel attacks grew in 1973. Liz had been hired by her brother's firm to come down and get some sunshine in her family's life while providing the surreptitious muscle for government enforcement of rules during the resettling effort. Having accomplished all she could professionally as a psychologist specializing in experimental therapies in London, she had spent four years in Hamburg before being recruited to Rhodesia the year their daughter and only child, Charlemagne, was born.

By moving her research to Africa she accomplished an atmosphere of untethered creativity while also serving her Homeland.

Once Dr. Shattler's experiments were finished and the bodies incinerated, a canvased truck would lumber dark and leathery as a rhinoceros over quiet night roads. Bumpy tree roots of roads which clucked and moaned with daylight traffic of chickens, goats, landless farmers and women with loads of household burdens. The truck would squeal strangely in the silent yard and after a loud knock a door would swing back timidly like the hatchets of children. The sleepy-eyed ghosts were told their missing relative had been located and to come right away to the hospital. The translator was typically shot on site once the family had been secured in the truck. The rebels families were driven blindfolded to a swath of dirt which lay gummy and hard beneath their huddling bodies under the cold African sky until the sun came to reveal the day's intentions.

During the three years she conducted her research, a documented 750,000 blacks were resettled in 200 equally-documented Villages- as they were called at the time.

She was managing the wing of government that would eventually become the Psychological Operations Unit in 1977. The literature outlines in part, a goal of "creating emphasis of 1 POU operations against the terrorists structured toward psychological confusion of the enemy with the objective of so undermining his morale that he becomes unwilling to fight and is encouraged to defect from the forces of communism."

Alas that would not be published until after Dr. Shattler had been killed, her husband remarried and her child... well. That story needs to be told, but not now.

She kissed her husband on the inside of his hand and took the coffee and paper. On the page he had folded back was printed the list of guidelines her brother's office had drawn up for the citizenry considering harboring terrorists calling themselves rebels.


Restrictions will be posed upon all of you and your Tribal Trust Land and Purchase Land:

1. Human curfew from last light to 12 o'clock daily.
2. Cattle, yoked oxen, goats and sheep curfew from last light to 12 o'clock daily.
3. No vehicles, including bicycles and buses to run either in the Tribal Trust Land or the African Purchase Land.
4. No person will either go on or near any high ground or they will be shot.
5. All dogs to be tied up 24 hours each day or they will be shot.
6. Cattle, sheep and goats, after 12 o'clock, are only to be herded by adults.
7. No juveniles (to the age of 16 years) will be allowed out of the kraal area at any time either day or night, or they will be shot.
8. No schools will be open.
9. All stores and grinding mills will be closed.


"Do you work tonight?" Jake asked, picking up her duffel and heading toward the house where the behemoth, savage dogs were clamoring and howling, stretching chains to their capacity in the entry yard. The canines silenced as she approached and sat quietly as she reached into her knapsack for some treats. Three hands, curled and black with dirty fingernails landed in a stiff and flat thud on the ground in front of the dogs.

Liz sighed heavily and put the paper in her shirt pocket, "Yes. Until these animals figure out how to behave like civilized beings, yes. I will always work tonight."

Cripes

I, famished, ate the dross from off her eyes, and sated, pushed her newlit to the swelling world.

She Slipped

And as she drew her last breath, she stared up to the sky with wonder. She saw the clouds huddling closer together, the blue was beginning to hide, the clouds darkened and it rained. She could taste the first few drops as she closed her eyes and died.


He couldn't hold on, lost his grip. Whose idea was this?


They went up the one hundred and twenty flights of stairs to sit on the roof. They crawled if they had to, took small breaks to rest. He thought this would be a romantic spot to propose. The view, my God, the view. She wanted to see it from the edge. He told her no. It was slippery and still she insisted on looking over. My God, the view.

I should've seen you was trouble right from the start

They arrive in a quiet invasion on the night streets of July, silver rims clatter against chain link and the side yard becomes a flashing hall wheels and red lights. Hours have been spent in the deafening sun ducking under aquamarine rooftops filling the ears with wet and the hair with chlorine. In the twilight, natty cotton has been retired for breezy linen. The grip of summer is white knuckled but still fully intact. His face is healed from last weeks tousle with the asphalt and her dress hangs comfortably from her shoulders. The guy with a guitar keeps smoking while the guy with college and wine collects names like Brynne and Cami. They raise glasses and empty them with gusto- over and over. They run forks against porcelain and paper alike and hold hands on the stoops releasing the last heat of daylight beatings. Wishes suspend themselves in the still, still air over their heads and the dogs bark down the alley. This is what they look forward to each February and what they remember sweetly each November.
Then comes the breeze marking two hours until comes the sun, here. With the stirring of Cottonwoods wishes are dispersed, beds are found, lovers are vanquished and the surreptitious day creeps out of gardens and parking lots.

How To Proceed

'Tell them what you mean, little miss.' Her Daddy trails a feral shape out from his pipesmoke mouth and doesn't cough. 'Look at them square in eyeballs and you tell them what you mean. You will be rude for twenty years; stupid for longer; but you'll be that which we need, little miss.'
She tucks her precious hands beneath her hem and gazes on him with gravity. 'But,' she pipes, 'but Daddy, you say be polite.'
'Humph,' her Daddy humphs, 'that's it, though. Treat a soul politely, offer them what's yours, and blast them out the water when their falsehoods gather. Prudence will come to you, little miss. Sycophants ain't polite; they're sycophants.'
'Sick of pants!' she squeals.
'Sick in pants,' he counters grandly, and he coughs. Some stringy tar like bark flings hotly down his wrist.
'Daddy?'
'Little miss?'
'You gots to not smoke, Daddy. I heard of it.' She stands and puts her precious hands on his knees, and looks him square in the eyeballs. 'Stop smoking, Daddy.'
He hits her, hard, and laughs as she gets up off the floor.
'That a girl, little miss!' Her eyes well up, betrayed. 'Now, now, pup, don't bawl for that. That was your reward. Your Daddy gots to quit smoking? You tell the dumb son of a bitch. And when he smacks you for it, smile, little miss.' He stands and picks her gently up in arms, and hands his warmish pipe down to her precious hands.
A tear pops loose, and curls down to her nostril well. She throws the pipe against the wall- all spark and soot and ugly little burst of wood on wood. He howls with laughter; she is silent still. 'Remember that I struck you, little miss. That's gonna happen most every time.' He sighs and buries his face in her hair. She clutches at his ears. 'And every time they's gonna keep getting smaller, little miss. They shrink, and with each blow, you grow.'
The dawn breaks, thin and dusty through the cellar windows, thinned through bushes. She can see the Mason jars screwed into the beams, their lids nailed up. She can see the mess of his pipe, the mess cats leave, mice leave.
She can hear the birds heartening, maybe a creak in the floorboards overhead. She can feel her Daddy's monstrous mitt still shock against her cheek; she sees his scruffy beard.
She can feel a warmth for him that hurts her teeth, somewhere married to her heart- against her ribs. She hates him, too. She wonders at her ratty dress and he just puts her down, and goes and stands against the wall, his arms at angles to the brick.
'One day, little miss,' her Daddy says, so soft it sifts out from his lips, 'someone will want something from you that you can't give. And you will rod that little spine of yours and tell them what you think of them. And they will hurt you, pup. They's gonna hurt you like you never known. Happened to me. Happened to your mother, to your teachers, to the Lord himself. And when you've taken all they care to give, you'll have that for yourself. You'll have the power of their secrets, little miss. They'll leave your broken spirit or your broken bones a cowardly mess, and you'll just rise up, darling. Big like mountains cause you looked them square in they eyeballs, and you told them what you think.'
'Daddy?'
'Little miss?'
'I don't want em to hurt my mother.'
'No, pup; I know.'
'Or you, or me.'
'Or the Lord?' She shrugged; he barks a laugh, and turns off from the wall. 'Little miss, people hurt each other. It's what they do. It may just be an embarrassment. It may be hell itself. But you're gonna take them, pup, even if you wake up in a pile of blood.' He scoops her up again. 'You know what I believe, little miss?'
She shakes her head, eyes wide. 'I believe it's no sin to lose. To fall, to smother; to have to take another man's garbage in your mouth. You just have to keep your spirit in your eyes, and your will in your hands, cause behind every boarding house door they's poets dying, pup. On every wooded hill a congressman is crying out his eyes. Each overpass has the messiah howling, mad on truth and mouthwash to his lungs, and dying slow and sure beneath our notice. I believe those things we build to make us feel like what we've done is something doing- all those things are tablecloths. The wood beneath is warped and split and that is how we are, people- twisted as a corkscrew, shining just as bright. And all we've lost is truth, little miss.
'It's a tiny thing. It'll kill us all before it heals us.' Her Daddy takes a breath and looks at her intently. 'Do you understand, darling?'
'No, Daddy,' and she begins to cry.
'Good,' he whispers. 'Good.'
And when the floorboards sift from footfalls over head, and they go out amidst the weeds, the low sun ain't as bright as she had thought, the dying stars just tinfoil. The trees are shrubs with grand intentions, and the birds the egos of the insects 'neath the leaves and loam. But there's her Daddy, big as mountains in the cold and damp, his broad back holding up the world from off her precious eyes, his wide hand pointing out the way to start-
To hold up just a little bit, each day, and take that extra step alive-
Your spirit in your eyes, and your will in your hands, and your own Truth fresh blood upon the lips of anyone who calls you false, little miss, I promise. You can rule them all, if that is what you want. There are gods with less in them than you.
I tell you what is true.

Flight

Don't give me any snarky "what about rockets and airplanes and helicopters and hang-gliders" comments. I don't need that bullshit.


So loudly sounding, the song of the wren,
Feathers flutter through wind so restless,
And hollow bones float easily weightless,
Lovely flight inspiring dreams of men.

Ever held to gravity, man has been,
To touch the stars, a wish I now confess,
Forever doomed to dream, and write, and guess,
And never soar the skies, feet planted in.

How is it that the heart is free to fly?
And minds can travel anywhere in time?
But the body can only pantomime,
To lift my heavy feet from where they lie.
Since the dawn of man he has wished to soar,
But rooted down he shall stay evermore.

Write what you know...

So, in case it wasn't painfully obvious last Wednesday, writing has not been coming as easily to me lately. In particular, there is one story that has become the mental equivalent of a kidney stone, in that I need to get it out, but it ain't coming easy. Hopefully, this strange little vignette here signals the return of my muse (whom I've christened Zeke) from wherever his dumbass went for the first half of July. It's called "Write What You Know".

Write what you know. That's the first rule of writing.

Write every day, that's another rule. Write every day whether you want to or not, whether your muse comes down and hands you an idea that will get you every acclaim from the Man Booker Prize to Oprah's Book Club or whether your muse just comes down and hands you a big pile of reeking shit.

When you're writing, don't take the time to go back and edit it. Get the story down first, as fast as you can, like you're vomiting onto the paper, and then go back and see what's story and what's just puke.

He's heard all of these rules a hundred times, no, a hundred thousand, and yet he still can't write. It's not won't, he wants to write like the desert wants the rain, but he can't. Every time his fingers click down on the keys, they produce nothing more than uninteresting scenes with characters that he hates, or worse yet, feels nothing for. At one point he looks up to see what he has typed and sees the following sentence on screen:

Why the fuck can't I do this any more?

It is not a part of the narrative, it is not a witty piece of dialogue, it is not even a clunky piece of dialogue. It is just there in the middle of the screen, related to nothing. It does nothing to advance the plot, and yet, sadly, he thinks that it is the truest sentence he's written all day. Maybe the truest he's ever written.

He gets up, pacing the small confines of his apartment. Write what you know, that was his main problem. He's not a very interesting person, he'll be the first to admit it. He doesn't have an interesting job, he isn't going to school for anything interesting, he doesn't even have any interesting hobbies. As for reading, forget it. He never had time to read in the first place, and the most riveting fiction he's read lately is the turn-ons and turn-offs column for Miss December.

He doesn't even know any people who are interesting enough to swipe wholesale and transcribe onto a sheet of paper. He doesn't know anyone with any life threatening diseases or fascinating jobs or homicidal tendencies. Hell, he doesn't think he even knows anyone that's been robbed. All of his friends are drab, lifeless facsimiles of himself, people who were below the notice of most people, people who seemed doomed to lives in the service sector.

He doesn't have time to read, that's his main problem. He wonders where he got the idea that he would be able to write the Great American Novel when he doesn't even have time to read the back of cereal boxes anymore. Right now, even, while he stares at his computer screen, begging and pleading with his subconscious to burp up anything resembling a story, all he can hear from his brain is a mental litany of everything he's putting off to stare at this white screen. Even worse, it's not his own mental voice that he hears listing everything off. Instead, it is the whining, nasal voice of his bosses' secretary, and it is so clear that he can picture her, right down to her cat's eye glasses, attached to a chain that looked like it had once had a pen on the other end, and she is reading them in a bored voice.

Christ, even his subconscious was bored. He needs to go out and do something, do some research, live a little fer Chrissakes'. He stands up and walks over to the bookshelf, closing his eyes and running his fingers along the spines at random. He promises himself that whatever he pulls from the shelf, he'd go out today, right now, and research. No, not just research. Live, do, experience.

He runs his fingers along the spines for a few more minutes, trying to disorient himself, trying to forget that everything was in alphabetical order, that he had actually organized it by subject as well, and wondering what he would do if he pulled a biography off the shelf, wondering whether he would go out and impersonate that person, or whether he would simply try to live as they had. For a moment, he loses himself in the nearly inaudible piff-piff-piff his index finger makes as it jumps from spine to spine, from subject to subject.

After a moment, with a final piff, his finger stops, and he opens his eyes to see what the fates have decided.

He sees the title his finger has stopped on, and, smiling slightly, pulls the book down from the shelf and begins to peruse The Serial Killer's Encyclopedia.

Created in humidity

You can crabwalk through the ivy, fool; you can scamper down the heath. You can quote from dumb imperiled books and fight and spread your teeth. I'd like a bit of perspective.
I'd like to be one thing, and not so much at once.
I am swimming, though. A few times a week, a few breakins at night.
I only really fight my friends, and only those who'll take it. I have no want of women flouncing through; I'll take a girl with a good strong stride, red hair, green eyes, and GodYes hobbies. One who says oh Doll I'd love to, but I have these things I have to get done to make myself happy.
I'd like to run away.
I'd like not to imagine terrible things happening to those that I love, in order to remind myself. I'd like a handle on my crazy, right? In fact, I'd like a pair- to grasp like hair and yank back hard as I keep pushing in. I'm trying to win.
I'm going to start a notebook of all the things I regret, and when it's done I will not burn it, or drop it in the ocean, or eat it page by page and shit it out. I'll leave it somewhere on a street and start another notebook, cause that sort of shit don't stop. I'd like to fuck a lady cop.
I'd like to need some help.
I get so angry so quick these days. I drink until I sleep all day. I lie to you. I am all that is man, see?
A rabbi, a priest, and a witch doctor walk into a bar. Odin joins them for a drink. Mickey Mouse whips out his gargantuan wang and crushes the witch doctor to death with it. Oh man, says the rabbi. Mickey Mouse is circumcised. The priest coughs up some semen. Mickey offers up some merch for sale, and Loki takes his glass eye out to scare the waitress. In comes an Irish beat cop. His brogue is thicker than Jennifer Lopez.
God strikes everyone dead but Loki. They split a bottle of cask strength scotch and I go home to write a joke. The end.

Oh, doll...

She holds her hands in funny shapes, and keeps on laughing, cause he can't just hate her when she's laughing, right? He looks at her tits, which is safer. They have that quality that otters do, stroking industriously through sweaters. They inspire that strange childhood in him.
Her hands do birds, then wrenches, then scarves, and she's just fucking laughing.
He bores a neat little hole in her forehead with his mind and all the shit comes drooling out onto her hands; onto more birds, wrenches, scarves, branches, bridges. Shitbirds Cockwrench Crapscarf Shadow Puppet. Goddamn if she would just stop laughing he could call her stupid, or come on her hair. Something classy; something timely; fucking SOMEthing.
She has bad poetry in her, and mostly words- just words- no will behind them, she has youth and she has fire, but she just keeps on burning off her hair. You think she'd sit down, and write a poem about that. Write about the nature of such fire while bangs still smolder, baby, get it done for once, don't dilly dollar. Make it holler.
But maybe she has a use or two left in her.
He stands, and takes her manic hands, and lifts her gently to her feet, and folds her into dotted lines and otter-tits all neatly stacked away and thinks 'Well, this is it- no turning back.'
And she's just fucking laughing.
He stretch-and-crease unfurls her till she's flat and useful, and he makes a boat of her, and climbs inside her and paddles off on a sea of shit so sweet, so familiar it's like breastmilk, baby- nectar. You've been swimming in this shit so long it holds you soft as feathers in its arms. Her face is laughing from the keel, and he lovingly, tenderly, puts the heel of his foot into her teeth and presses till she's still.
Together, love. Together we will see what we can see.
A blacklight in this boat would show the stains of semen, everywhere, and Who-Knows whose it is, these glowing bits of waste and spite. Oh, oh, but she's all right.
And somewhere off ahead he'll leave her just to float, and she'll spit out teeth and start to laugh, and feel like shit for letting him steer.
Some far-off shore will welcome her, and fruit trees heavy with old citrus will bow to pull her back to shape, and she'll balloon, and laugh, and laugh, and monkeys there will see her for the predator she is, and hide their trembling babes behind their arms and squeal in feeble terror, tree to tree.
He's off smoking Cubans on Skid Row, sweetheart, and your cupped hands can't make no scarves, no wrenches, bunnies, trembling trucks. You've lost the will to fuck.
So useful once, and sometimes fun, and harmful to most everyone.
She tries the locals, tires the locals, fires the locals, has a child. Swears off, and two years later cycles through again. The locals love her, though they wonder where her shoes are, and why she drinks the rainwater from coconuts and not from plastic bottles. She takes bruises like she takes a kiss. Its like she just can't miss.
And years gone by, still stranded there, she'll dandle children on her knee, and tell them tales of lives lived- gone. She'll play trombone wrapped in a sheet, and smash blacklights mercilessly. She'll dance poorly to old phonographs and wash herself in rainstorms, play with blocks and forge new swords from spring steel out from under cars, she'll map the planets, dig a well, and bite her fingernails too far.She'll pull her hair from out her scalp and milk the sap from husks of fruit and wonder why she kept on laughing, all those years, when there was nothing funny happening.
Not for miles around.

The Victim

As I sat and waited,

While breath was bated,

As you demonstrated,

How my life was not for long.

I hesitantly pondered,

My mind began to wander,

I never would grow fonder,

Of your much repeated song.

You paced across the floor,

Checked the lock upon the door,

Hummed that awful tune some more,

And gripped the gun tight and strong.

Clicking back the hammer,

Your hum began to stammer,

Gun-hand began to tremor,

Did you wonder right from wrong?

As you found the courage,

I heard the clinking of the cartridge,

On the floor and saw the hemorrhage,

I knew my life would soon be done.

Against the Light (abridged)

Bleed now the sun into the darkness of the night,
Rage, rage against the brightness of the light.
Valiant soldier in the everlasting fight,
To rage, rage against the brightness of the light.

The Professor swings for the bleachers

There's something strange in me. The more I drink, the less I sleep, the healthier I become. Does freedom, or release, stimulate cell growth, and counteract my poisons?
If I quit now, the new cells will be produced to no purpose, and give me cancer of the face. I don't want cancer of the face, so give me more box wine.
Its science, you bitch. Look it up. You can't argue with science. Now suck my cock.

I think I'm sensing a pattern here...

Okay, so not to flog a dead horse here (too late), but I seem to be stuck in a post-apocalyptic rut right now. Don't know why, but I'm producing, so I guess I'll just roll with it. This one is kind of a prose poem, I suppose. It doesn't rhyme, there's not a beat that you can dance to, but to me it just seemed to want to be a poem. It certainly doesn't work as a story, and I'm not even sure that it works, period. But, hey, tell me what you think. Both barrels.

This evening I sat on my porch and watched the world end.
I watched as the stars winked out, one by one.
I watched as the neighbors loaded a van with everything they own, and then drove away.
I watched as people ran by, frightened eyes wide as they wondered where they could go.
I could have told them that there was nowhere to go.
That's why I'm sitting right here.
That's why I've got a bottle of wine, and a glass, and a good record on the stereo.
That's why I'm still sitting here.
That's why I'm not with the rioters, or the looters, or the runners.
That's why I'm not stuck in a traffic jam, angrily honking my horn.
That's why I'm not glued to my TV, watching the news and drowning in hope.
It's a beautiful night out, and I don't want to waste it.
After all, it looks like this is the last one we'll ever see.
There are still a few stars, and I watch each one, as they disappear.
I watch them turn to blackness, and I close my eyes and try to see it for as long as I can.
And when it's gone, I open my eyes and find another star.
The moon is still there.
I wonder when it will wink out.
I wonder what will happen when it does.
I wonder if I will get to see one last sunrise.
I wonder if I will get to finish my wine.
I wonder if I will have to flip my record when it ends.
This evening I sat on my porch and watched the world end.

Tryin' to get this cheese

Villiany: lives in Rhodesia in 1973, married, one child.... the rest is up to you: the nature if the crimes, the timeframw their carried out and the physical notes.

Heroism: lives in Eugene, OR 2004, married, one child.... see above.

Our first victim is Liz Shattler.

Go get her.

For want of a nail...

Here's a shocker: Ben's written a post-apocalyptic story again. (Gasp) Rather than just rehashing my old territory, however, I tried to at least utilize a new theme. This one is called "For Want of A Nail", and the difference is this. Not only are both the protagonists and villains responsible for the apocalypse, they're still at it. Tell me what you think. I'm a little worried because this is my first attempt at a "political" story (and really, if you need me to explain where I got the idea of a never-ending war, I've got some seaside property in Arizona to sell you), and I really hope it's not too heavy handed. Anyway, do me a favor when you've finished reading it, and follow the advice of one of our greatest philosophers of the modern age when she said "Holla back, girl."

For Want of a Nail

We're finally winning this thing, but to look out at it, you'd never know it. Yesterday, we engaged in house to house firefights, suffering heavy casualties on both sides, but I know for a fact that they got it worse. I personally took out two of the bastards for every one I saw them take out. I took three for Benny, and would have taken more if I could've. Benny was a good kid, and nowadays, those are in short supply.
It's funny. Ten years ago, this was one of the busiest cities in the world. New York City, home of the elite, the criminal and everything in between. Now, there's an encampment of us, maybe two hundred people left in all of the city, us and them. We're in Central Park, close enough to the Zoo that we can hear the animals pacing their habitats. Every now and then one of them will yowl for food, but the keepers aren't rattling their keys around the park anymore.
Aside from the zoo, there aren't many animals around either. That was one of the demoralizing tactics they used once they finally landed on American soil. They drove around like greaser kids bashing in mailboxes, with whoops and hollers and much drinking of beer, only their target wasn't a mailbox. They would take aim from a moving car and pop rounds into the family dog, or cat, or whatever pet you owned that you left outside at night. After a while, people stopped leaving their pets outside. And shortly after that, most people just stopped, and never started back up again.
The raids only happen at night. Its an unspoken rule between both sides, but it's cast-iron nonetheless. The days are spent trying to get some uninterrupted sleep now, but at the start of it all, we spent days taking shifts on corpse duty. It might seem like a waste of time to somebody out there reading this, but it's mindless work. You tell yourself that it's no different than hoisting sacks of grain onto pallets, and you don't think about things for a while. You especially don't think of the fact that there are over eight million corpses in the city, with summer due to rear its pretty little face in a few weeks.
At night, though, the treaty ends, and we work out some of our anger and our not-thinking by killing anything that isn't American. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, amen.
Tonight we've got a raid planned, a counter-attack on these bastards. Everyone is sitting around the campfire, making preparations and pretending they're not nervous. I know they're nervous, though, because I'm nervous. I saw what happened to Benny, and I know from the looks in a few eyes that I wasn't the only one to watch Benny's head disappear, as neatly as if clapped between two books, into a fine red mist.
One of our scouts came back while we were still licking our wounds from last night. He was dirty and covered with six days' worth of beard, but he said he'd found out where they were staying. They were staying in Carnegie Hall. I guess they'd been practicing.
We geared up, leaving nothing to chance, and started walking towards Carnegie as soon as it started getting dark. It's only a little under a mile from where we started, but between humping all our gear and trying to be quiet thrown into the bargain, it took us nearly an hour to get there. By then, it was full dark, and we switched on our night-vision. Immediately, the hall floated out of the darkness at us, illuminated in a ghostly whitish-green. We could see the hall clearly, could even see posters advertising long-dead people playing sold-out shows to nobody. But there was no patrol, no one guarding the entrance. Looking back now, I should have taken that as a bad sign. But I didn't.
I split the team into two squads, one to cover both entrances. Bravo team took the main entrance, while my team took the 7th avenue doors. Both teams paused at the doors, waiting expectantly for me to issue the go code. I did, and we broke in fluidly. Within seconds, we had the entranceway clear and were moving down the escalators towards the foyer two stories below. Bravo team was meeting with similar results, judging from the radio chatter in my ear.
I didn't intend to take the cushy job when I'd suggested we take the 7th avenue entrance. But the doors on 7th led to Zankel Hall, which could seat about six hundred souls in the way back when. Six hundred seats isn't exactly an intimate gathering, but I much preferred those odds to the three-thousand seat, five story monstrosity that was the main hall. Bravo team would have a hard time covering all the angles in there with just the six of them.
But we weren't in the auditoriums yet, either team. Even now, the foyer was impressive. The crumbling marble walls and chipped pillars gave it an archaeological feel in there, like we had just found the Coliseum, say, or maybe the Parthenon. Our team split up for a second, one covering the mezzanine level before regrouping. As one, we entered the auditorium.
Most of the seats had been ripped out or broken. The hall was a mess of broken wood and torn seat cushions. As soon as we entered the room, we had to take off our goggles. Someone in there was having a fire. A little bit further in, and we could see who.
They were sitting around a fire started with the seat backs and probably a few splashes of the swill they were passing around as an accelerant. One of them was standing up, gesturing with the bottle and having trouble keeping his balance. He said something in his guttural language, and wandered away from the campfire.
A hand over his mouth and a knife over his throat ensured that he wouldn't be wandering back to it anytime soon.
This was it. We'd found the central infestation and were going to eliminate these bastards once and for all. I gestured to the men to take aim, and they raised their rifles as one.
And then a burst of gunfire came chattering out of my radio, followed by someone shouting that we'd been compromised, and they stood up with their guns ready, sober as the day they were born.
The fighting went on for hours, and in the end I was the only one to make it out of there alive. I felt good, convinced that me and my men had just ended this goddamned war after so many years that most people had forgotten what peace looked like.
But the next night, there was a counterattack. There were heavy casualties on both sides, and there can't be more than a handful of us left in this whole godforsaken city. And whether it will be us or them that will emerge victorious, I can't honestly say. But I can say one thing.
We'll continue fighting, for as long as we can. We'll fight to the last man.

Untitled thus far... (My fantasy story)

So, I'm just going to post this as it was read last night at the Hookah Lounge, mostly because I really couldn't hear the comments and suggestions thrown my way over the off-key caterwauling of the idiots at the next table singing along with "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the top of their drunken lungs.

Christopher Kite moved through the crowds with the practiced ease that came with his profession. He was able to weave his way through the crowds of farmers in their overalls, merchants in their flashy finery, and the people from the outlying lands dressed in their town clothes; he was able to move through all these varying costumes in a long black cloak with an equally menacing cowl covering his face unnoticed.

But, even in the tiny provincial town of Parley's End, the sight of a thief practicing his trade wasn't unusual. As long as the thief in question had his guild card on him (and Kite did, it was tucked into a pocket of his tunic, high on the chest near his heart), then the best any citizen could do was to fill out the appropriate forms and wait for reimbursement from the city.

Kite's guild card was no protection against what he had planned for today, however. He had his sights set higher than the coin purses and leather wallets of the bumpkins around him.

In the center of town was a large, imposing cathedral; and Kite was trying to work his way towards this in such a way that no one could say that he was definitely heading towards it.

Once near the cathedral, however, his resolve broke, and he picked up his pace, his hard leather boots ringing on the cobblestones underfoot. He was making too much noise, a violation of the code that could easily cause him to lose his guild card, but he didn't care. The heavy oaken doors were ten feet away, and there was no one looking his way yet.

A light rain was falling, little more than an annoyance right now, but the low black clouds promised that this was but a prelude to the main event.

As soon as he put his hands on the ornate door handles, the sky gave a great crack, and the rain came down in force. The rain went from gentle pattering to feeling as though someone was upending a massive bucket over Kite's head. All around, merchants were folding up their tents, and their customers were scattering to the four winds, some covering their heads with newsprint that were offering little protection from the torrential rains. It would only be a matter of time until someone noticed the thief, working furiously at the heavy doors of the cathedral, and then Kite would be cast into the Mines. Kite didn't have the constitution for such backbreaking work. He'd have to work fast.

He'd just worked the lock open when he felt more than heard a deep rumbling sound, and he turned his head slowly towards the source of the sound.

A wall of water was working its way down the main thoroughfare, a great roaring Leviathan destroying everything in its path. As Kite watched, a man in overalls was picked up by the swirling waters. He struggled briefly, but the waters jerked and tossed him around in the tempest before dashing his head against a lamppost. The water around him darkened to a foaming red for a moment, and then he was swept out of sight.

Kite took all this in the space of a breath, and then he was climbing.

He leapt straight up, his hands automatically finding purchase in the rough-hewn stone of the cathedral, and he scrabbled up it as quickly as he could. The water had already passed below Kite, continuing its horrible tour of the town, and yet it was still rising, the water lapping at his ankles as he rose further and further into the suddenly pitch-dark day.

Kite hazarded a glance downward, and saw that the water had risen above the level of the pub, washing all of the drunks to their final watering hole, and still it was rising. Kite guessed that he was probably three stories above the cobblestones below, and still the water rose.

And then he was at the top of the cathedral, clinging to the spire, staring down at the waterlogged interior of the church through a small skylight. With a strange sort of detachment, Kite saw that a basket of apples was floating just underneath the skylight, and a few stray apples were bobbing out of the opening towards him. He considered for a moment reaching out and eating one of the apples (the condemned man's last meal, he thought), and then a large swell rose out of the water and knocked Kite from his perch.

When Kite awoke, he was laying face down on a hard wooden surface. He could feel splinters working their way into the skin of his face, his cowl laying a few feet from him. He sat up in a panic, immediately reaching for it. This was another card-revoking offense, being seen in public without some sort of mask. Once it was safely reattached, however, he looked around him.

That's odd, he thought. He remembered bits and pieces of the town before the flood, and dimly, the cathedral. But none of these were in sight. True, after the ferocity of the storm, he had expected this. But instead of a wreckage-strewn field, he was at a train station.

Before he could even begin to process this information, a man in a conductor's uniform stepped off the train and extended his hand in greeting. "Mr. Kite?" the man asked.

Kite felt his heart drop, and automatically checked to make sure his cowl was fastened. The conductor noticed this and smiled. "Don't worry, lad. I'm not here to take your card. Quite the opposite, in fact. You see, we've been expecting you."

Kite relaxed, but only slightly. His eyes were still thin slits behind his mask, and in his most quietly menacing voice, he said, "Who has been expecting me?"

The conductor had been standing with his hands clasped below his waist in a display of deference, but now he gestured grandly towards the train with one hand. "Why, the people who wait at the next station."

Kite looked at the train with an appraising eye. The engine of the locomotive was painted a bright bottle-green, and it was studded with what looked like jewelry. The cars were likewise painted, yet they seemed to be less extravagant, their only hint at gaudiness a gold trim along the edges of the cars. And yet, as he looked closer, he saw that the trim wasn't gold paint, as he'd assumed, but actual gold. He could tell just from the exterior that the inside would be similarly lavish. Perhaps while inside, he could lift enough to make up for his dismal showing at the cathedral.

He looked back at the conductor, whose smile broadened until his entire face looked in imminent danger of cracking in half. "Don't worry, Mr. Kite. All will be explained at the next station. In the meantime, why don't you come aboard and relax? Or better yet, familiarize yourself with our extensive collection of rare coins."

Kite looked at the man, not quite believing that he had just been given him license to rob this railroad blind, and yet the knowing smile on the conductor's face led him to believe that this was exactly what had just happened.

"Coins, you say?" Kite asked.

The conductor grinned even broader, although Kite would have been hard put to explain how he accomplished this. "Aye," he said, "and real silverware, with ivory dishes. Come aboard, lad. You can leave with all you can carry, just to listen to what they have to say."

Kite nodded, then stood up, taking a few moments to dust his cloak off and smooth out the wrinkles until he felt presentable, and then asked, "When do we leave?"

The conductor nodded, then said, "As soon as you're aboard, sir."

Three hours to Edgar, Montana

Ruthie's got a pillowtop mattress. She cackles lightly, says 'Don't mind mah 70's bush. Mah Serta, heard? Mah sweet little pillowtop mattress.' She looks like she tears phone books apart, with her clothes off. Some tourists slow down and peer at her muscled legs from up above the rocks; they honk their horn.
I am freezing up against the cave when Kan whips around the rapids from the canyon proper. She slips under in the mess of kicking water. She comes up and kicks, and goes down, and works her mouth to scream, and doesn't, and comes heaving to a stop on some unseen boulder, breasts flying out of her bra, hair like seaweed cross her gasping mouth.
Ruthie, petrified with worry, lets out air like a tiny tire, and we all see that Kan's okay. The water's deep, and wicked; brown.
I have a large bruise on my ass- perfectly round, in fact, they say- I climb around the rocks and try not to scrape anything reproductive off. It is still raining. The Firehole is too high to be warm from the thermal pools. The mosquitos are fucking slaying, rising in great dumb clouds from every surface when they smell our carPressed sweat. It is freezing.
I drink another beer, and grin a lot.
Soon we'll pile back in, and open three more beers, and wander hopelessly along the wrong roads, wrong exits, wrong freeways, singing along to burnt cd's, buying bottled beer and gas at regular intervals, drinking Malbec from soda cups in straws, Sangria from a two-liter bottle, CocaCola lime Perrier coffee Moose Drool Corona white Zin- but no water- zipping mountain roads at 80 with the windows roaring potsmoke fumbling mountains like a Viking FistThrust Storm across whatever valley holds our fear of heights.
We stay up every night, and Kan is feared of bears, and brainRot bacteria in pools, but Damn! I have a picture of her screaming from a log across a waterfall, Ten million gallons of pierce-cold whitewall coming down at her like God, her Cuban sandals slipping on the bark as cowboys lead their cushioned city customers on horses through the sward and wood.
A bear would run in dickless fear from such a torrent- canyon walls squeezed into the mountain river, roar and fall like buildings crashing, Lord- a bear would hide its pretty face in paws.
Later, Ruthie and I had a pillowsex rodeo with Kan's momma's cowboy hat and precious throws. We laughed until our faces all came off.
So dogs and goatcheese, bearskin coats and silver bracelets, hitchHikers with chemical burns and drunk guitars, communal sunglasses, dead bison sunburned never got her panties on when rivers come And FUCK if Kan said it was three sweet hours to her uncle's ranch. I was so blissfull that the ten-hour truth was fine, pardner; jes fine.