“Okay, well, bad news first. Â The sample did come back positive for antibodies to AD36,” says the doctor in her lilting Northern inflection.
Maurice feels as if someone has stepped on his viscera. Â “I’m a carrier.”
“Most people are asymptomatic. Â Even if you do begin displaying infectobesity, proper diet and exercise–”
“You don’t understand, he says. Â I’m American.”
“Oh.” Â She gets it. Â “The Healthy Kids Act.”
He swallows. Â “I’m a teacher. Â If I get selected for testing next year–the camps–”
“You can claim asylum here, Mr. Langham. Â I’ll give you an address.”
But Maurice is picturing his fifth-graders, apple-cheeked, innocent, doomed.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Like most things that float in the sky, Chryse appears serene, but its atmosphere is tense as guy wire.
“We’re the tail of the archipelago, and the sharks are circling,” says Clary Sage. “If we refuse to take up arms, like Psyttalia–”
“What happened on Psyttalia was a failure of engineering,” growls Wolfram Tungsten.
“The raiders won’t distinguish that!”
His fist thumps oak. “And our engines won’t fail! Besides, who on this island will you call to arms? Teenage artificers? White-haired herbalists?”
“My hair is not white, Wolfram Tungsten,” says Clary Sage.
“I can see that, Clary Sage,” he says.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Looking through the heautoscope is unflattering, and Ainsley can see as much on Maartechen’s face. (Ergo, so can Maartechen.)
“Now, like a camera, it does add ten pounds,” she begins.
“I don’t care about that,” he says, not quite fuming. “But the little words floating around–they’re–is this a joke?”
“It shows you the self other people see,” she says. “Those are, um, translated from their impressions…”
“‘Preening?’ ‘Fickle?’ ‘Abrupt?’ Ridiculous! I don’t even know why I wanted this!”
He storms out of the shop. Ainsley sighs. She’d fix the dumb thing if she could stand to look through it.
Marcel first encounters Security Theater in school, when it is proclaimed throughout his county that henceforth only backpacks of transparent mesh will be permitted; this despite the fact that the kid who got caught with the airsoft pistol had it tucked into his pants.
Purses are exempt. Marcel and Theo immediately buy purses.
Twelve years later, this genre of performance art is the world’s most well-funded, “which is why,” says Marcel, “I’m concerned about the low production values.”
“Please step out of line, sir,” says the lady with the beeping wand.
“One second,” says Marcel, “let me grab my clutch.”
In the base at the heart of the cinder cone
Sits a man who (accustomed to dining alone
In impeccable white with a gauntleted hand)
Ignores the procession of dish drones unmanned
To consider the boy who, despite being doomed,
Sat down at his table and quickly consumed
Half a dodo; pommes frites; a petit-four sold
By a Saudi ex-prince, iced with edible gold;
Truffle-sauce veal served with saffron baguette;
and fruits with no name from the wilds of Tibet.
At last, when he’s sated, cocksure as he’s young,
“Let’s talk,” he says, tiger still strong on his tongue.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The whale wears a mask tied behind its dorsal hump with string. Â When it speaks, the mouth’s mask moves; Charlene can see its jaw does not.
“Your dreams are dangerous,” it’s saying.
“Because,” says Charlene, “I want to change the world?”
“Because they are metastasizing.”
“That word is for cancer.” Charlene feels a certain pride for distinguishing contexts, in a dream. Â Wait, this is a dream?
“Sometimes things go wrong here. Â Sometimes they multiply.” Â It kicks its tail nervously. Â “I have to leave. Â Please tell the doctor. Â She’ll believe you if–”
Charlene wakes, bladder taut. Â Urgency competes with memory, and wins.
“Activity off the consonantal shelf,” says Enrique, eyes tracking a wiggly needle.
Hazel swears. “We’ve been warning them about this for years! Get on the horn to FEMA, tell them to close the schools.”
“It’s too late now. It will have already started. We never could predict them precisely.”
“What’s the point of plate linguistics if we can’t save a way of life?” Hazel demands.
But Enrique’s eyes are wide. “Wait, this is different. Hazel–it might be another big one.”
“What? There hasn’t been a Great Vowel Shift since the savanteenth–”
They stare at each other.
“Oh shut,” she says.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
They’re building the Sinner King, all forty feet of him, his skeleton a stark spread-eagle of quiescent neon. Â It’s hot work, but if they wanted to be cool, they wouldn’t be wearing sackcloth on the playa.
It does get cold when the sun goes down, though. Â Circe shivers as she takes her place in the concentric ranks, shivers more as they all douse themselves in grain spirit. Â They say if you can hold really still the Sinner King won’t see you, the sackcloth will consume itself and leave you unharmed.
The neon lights. Â Circe raises her match to the desert wind.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Heliersdorf is cold, and wind cuts through the concrete slab housing like a knife through the glue of an envelope. Aigrette touches the paper in his coat pocket again: already the corner is soft as fur from his nervous brushing. Four blocks to the room on the second floor. Three. Two.
“Dobroi nochi,” says the crackling Director on his red Bakelite telephone.
“I have the names,” says Aigrette, his Russian still clumsy after years of working for them. “Four. Is that enough?”
“Excellent work,” says the Director, and Aigrette can hear his smile. “You’ll change the very nature of the game.”
Thursday, November 4, 2010