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Author Archives: Brendan

Chili John

Chili John gets the half-nod from the bartender and follows his thumb: there, obscured by palmetto. Yes. He drops a Sacajawea in a puddle of beer and tries on his most casual mosey.

He stops at the corner table, hooks his thumbs in his belt. “They say you’re the one.”

The man pulls at his Miller Lite.

“Are they right?” Chili John brushes one holster. “About that?”

Silence.

“They say,” he clears his throat, “they say you’re the man knows Greg Fu.”

The man looks up at last, and in his eyes is the look of a raw and ancient doom.

Friday, February 18, 2005
A story yet Uncategorized

The Girl in the House

She’s writing every name she knows with her finger on the dirt floor of eight South twelve Down. She looks up to see a kitten.

It stumbles–adorably–and tests the floor with one paw. She laughs and waves at it; it doesn’t react.

She picks it up. Its heart pounds. Its nametag says “Millicent.”

The girl becomes aware that Cosette is her name, properly. That Millicent, the only other living thing she’s seen, is the first thing she hasn’t needed to name. That someone else exists: someone who would replace a kitten’s eyes with marbles, to keep it stumbling forever.

Thursday, February 17, 2005
A story about Cosette

Rob

“Thought you were supposed to use dirt from a grave,” says Rob, a bit hopelessly.

“You see any graveyards around here?” snaps Darlene.

“Yeah, behind the church at 28th and Madison–”

“Shut up,” she says. “Graveyard dirt. Goofer dust. Huh. You might get lucky and find one who got buried and wasn’t dead yet, but most of the time that’s stale power. Now this…” She scoops another fistful of sand into the baggie. “This is a thousand people, all sticking their deaths into the same soil. See?”

Rob notices a Kool butt in the bag, all magenta on one end.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005
A story about Rob

Ivy

“Listen, Darren?” says Ivy. “I just went and checked the globe, okay? And I looked it up on the Internet to make sure. If you dig straight down, like all the way, you’re not going to come out in China. Not even in Australia. For most of the United States, the only thing that’s on exactly the other side is the Indian Ocean, and we’re right in the middle, okay? So put the shovel down and let’s get you out. I’ll get a rope, okay? Darren?”

Ivy pauses, and kicks a clod of earth down into the darkness.

“Hello?” she calls.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005
A story yet Uncategorized

The Cold Man

“You are human,” says the flat voice. “You’ll give in eventually.”

“But it costs you, doesn’t it?” He gags and spits black, then grins; his teeth are full of blood. “Every minute I hold out costs you.” He doesn’t stutter. Not yet.

Silence, then: “Your price?”

“There’s people that need killing.”

“Name them.”

“No. I’ll do it. I want six bullets, and my life back for long enough to spend them.”

Six things tink on the concrete. One of them is a key.

“I said six.”

“I have no illusions,” says the voice, dry now, “about the target of the last.”

Monday, February 14, 2005
A story about Rita

Cora

“Fifty thousand Hugo Weavings can’t be wrong!” booms the narrator.

“Go camera three,” Andy mutters.

“The optimal brand of peanut butter–” say 50,000 Hugo Weavings, grinning, in chorus.

“–is JIF!” say 49,999 of them.

“–is Peter Pan!” says one. He goes white. “Oh,” he says, turning in circles. “No, please, gentlemen–I–I couldn’t help it! Quantum physics made me! No. NO!”

Andy sighs as they converge. “Cut,” he calls above the screaming. “Cora, go get another one?”

Cora rolls her eyes. She hates thawing the Hugo Weavings, and doesn’t understand why they have to be stored nude.

Friday, February 11, 2005
A story yet Uncategorized

Lucy

They make love in the morning, for a change, ten o’clock sunlight fluid on Lucy’s back as she arches and rolls. He makes her pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse, afterward, and she tears the top sheet from his page-a-day calendar: June 87th.

“I’m afraid,” he tells her in the shower.

“Why, baby?”

“Nothing lasts forever. Even this, and when it finally ends…”

“Just live for today.” Lucy smiles, and kisses his chest. “It’ll last as long as it needs to.”

“Yeah.” He pulls her close. “Yeah.”

Meanwhile in Australia, Cliff shivers, and chatters out cuss words, and kicks his frozen horse.

Thursday, February 10, 2005
A story yet Uncategorized

Cote

“Pataphysics,” repeats Ballard.

“Pataphysiques,” Cote corrects him. “It’s French. Science asks ‘why does the rock fall down?’ Pataphysiques is the opposite.”

“It asks why the rock doesn’t fall down?”

“Why it falls up.”

“It… doesn’t,” says Ballard slowly.

“Don’t avoid the question!” Cote’s grinning now. “Think of it as a deliberately wrong premise for a syllogism. Logic tells us that when your premise is false, you can’t disprove the conclusion, no matter what it is. Why does the rock fall up? Therefore, time isn’t real.”

“But that kind of proof is worthless!”

“Oh, sure,” sniffs Cote, “if you listen to logic.“

Wednesday, February 9, 2005
A story yet Uncategorized

Tyler

Tyler drops the last of his ninja on the pile and wanders over to where the guys sit, on a ledge.

“Ooh,” says Daniel, as Dylan does something complicated that causes two ninja to kick themselves in the face.

“Yeah, she showed me that yesterday,” says Phillip.

They grow quiet again. Dylan blurs up past the limit of visual tracking, and her own pile grows steadily larger. Daniel passes Tyler a bag of popcorn.

“Nice. Who brought this?” He takes a handful.< "I was thinking, is there ever a reason not to have popcorn?" says Toe. "And I was like, nah."

Tuesday, February 8, 2005
A story about The Chosen Ones

Keisha

“Hey there, cutie.” Devin grins and starts to slip into the empty bus seat, but Keisha puts out a hand to stop him.

“Sorry,” Keisha says. “This one’s saved… for Jesus.”

Devin rolls his eyes and moves back. A few minutes later, at the next stop, Jesus gets on. He hands the driver a transfer slip.

Keisha waves to him. “Hey, Jesus! Sit here, Jesus!”

Jesus sits, looking confused. “Shapirrta ekhtuvehn msi-chra?” he mumbles.

“Man, you know I don’t speak that crazy ukh-huk language!” Keisha laughs.

Jesus furrows his brow and looks around. He smells like sweat, fish and coarse wool.

Monday, February 7, 2005
A story yet Uncategorized