Cathay’s tried sleeping in the sweaty heat of an orgy aftermath; she traded a favor to spend the night blanketed in a drawer at the morgue. She slept an hour once in a vertical wind tunnel, effectively weightless, the muted roar in her ears like the rushing of blood in the womb.
Like any addict, Cathay maintains that she’s not hurting anyone; yet every addiction has its price. One needs more or better to reach that original high, and soon her pillow is useless to her. Cathay lies awake dreaming of surgery, of submarines, of the bed where Doc Holliday died.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Whereas PURCHASER has defaulted on the agreement by one or more of the following means:
- Failure to remit installment for 60 days
- Breach of provisions 3:1-3:16 of original contract
- Bodily assumption into Heaven
TITLE HOLDER will therefore commence to legally sieze property and convert it, by means of standard miracle (see contract article 7), into an asset matching original assessment of profitability, 30 DAYS from posting of notice. PURCHASER has the right to employ a third-party (triune) ARBITRATOR to render final judgment on contract breach, should one return in splendor.
TITLE HOLDER will not be holding TITLE HOLDER’S breath.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
[1] You’ve discovered an ancient book. Read it: 4. Look at the pictures: 8. [2] –crawl on, page over page, convinced that all things die; 3— [3] Time contorts, a slippery lemniscate plunging inward to a nonexistent end. Are you travelling? 5. Travelled? 7. [4] Magic spells! Cast “Perfect Foresight:” 9. “Universe of Discourse:” 7. [5] To start over, go to 1. To continue, 2. [6] How did you get here? Goto 8. [7] The book has you in a semantic trap. Struggling, you 2. [8] You are struck dead. Goto 3. [9] Incredible! You see your life unfold at 5.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
“Have you been down to the crypt yet?” mutters Craig.
“Shh.”
“Amen,” the congregation intones.
“I mean it,” Craig persists. “It’s something you need to see for yourself. The old inscriptions show men who clothed their torsos, who wore caps with the bill forward–”
“How can you even speak of such things?” Wentzle hisses. “We’re in the house of Dog!”
“We haven’t always ruled Santa Monica,” says Craig, jaw stiff.
Around them, Z-Boys drop their decks with a clatter, then stoop to kneel. Up on the altar, the Hawk crosses his arms: the sign of the Double Pits to Chesty.
“We’ve been looking for you.”
Jamal spins around, frantically trying to click browser tabs closed with one hand. “I’m technically on my lunch break–”
“You know perfectly well that doesn’t matter,” says the lady in the suit.
“We’ve been on your trail for years,” grins the man in the other suit. “Ever since you started playing Nintendo on a sick day in ’97. Then the Small Soda To Go incident, and all those CDs you ripped before you sold them…”
“Who are you?” says Jamal, heart wide, eyes pounding.
“Rules Police,” smirks the lady. “And it’s finally Time Out for you.”
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Holocene Conference on Alternative Geological Viewpoints is, like any gathering of heretics, contentious.
The Eparchaean Unconformists start a full-scale brawl with the Cascadia Subductics; folding chairs are weaponized. Two Geosynclines from Adelaide try to demonstrate banded oxidation by setting the auditorium on fire. A Young Earther sneaks in with a stolen badge and has to be rescued from drowning in the toilet. And everyone, everyone has something you have to hear about oil.
“How long until the next one?” asks Nevit, exhausted, when the last afterparty has been shut down.
“Only ten million years,” says Finke, already making lists.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Les Morts Petits are overworked and understaffed, which is why lately, during orgasm, there are so many of his ghosts around.
Rio’s tired of them. They crowd the room and crouch on the dressers, staring and blue and always naked. Their faces are dumb. He can see them even when (as one might expect) he closes his eyes.
They only last a few seconds, but it’s enough to remind him: so many children not chosen, so many choices unmade. Unfinished business. Rio puts in calls to the Département des Âmes and gets hold music that is, appropriately, not haunting at all.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
White makeup in his beard. Abram considers the mirror: the clown, they say, cries inside, but what about the one crying outside too? Crying tears of blood? Holding an axe?
He hadn’t understood Mr. Johnson’s hidden smirk when they gave him the assignment: he’d felt confused but eager to serve the Bureau, to be trusted with undercover work. He did the research. He committed.
When, during his career as a false Juggalo, did mask and reality cease to diverge? Abram isn’t sure. But he knows purpose now: the thrill, the pride, the necessity of having Mr. Johnson’s head in one’s bookbag.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009