In his younger days the Eagle of Glern Ably liked to brag about how high his crag was (very high) and how he could dive from it (very fast) and how skilled he was with knucklebones (not very skilled at all). Came a time he lost one roll too many to the Salmon of Lwyn Lwyw.
“I’ve nought to pay you for a forfeit,” grumbled the Eagle of Glern Ably. “Shall I peck you down a star?”
“Actually,” said the Salmon, “I’ve got something I’d like to trade you, friend.”
And that’s why there are too many Ws in Gwern Abwy.
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Graham has been putting up with people misguessing her gender for fifty-three years and so, when Clownwise and Fiddleshins confuse her Lebowski-style for a wealthy mark, she plays along just long enough to ruin their scheme out of pique. They go to a special jail for people who call themselves things like “Clownwise” and “Fiddleshins.” Her reward is an irritable cat.
Paroled, they gun for her, and end up caught again within twenty-four hours.
“How’d you know we were coming?” whines Fiddleshins from the back of a special police car.
“Because I’ve read a damn book,” says Graham.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Lens of Stars picked his stage name at eleven, before he’d cut his fingers on strings, huddled in the library corner with a Popular Science. The article was perhaps a bit heavier on the pop than the sci, but it communicated its conceit: that space bends around massive objects, and that the degree to which one sun occludes another can be used to magnify the latter’s light.
Everybody assumes he came up with this while high, and indeed he can’t find that back issue now. No point protesting. His name is a talisman, a telescope, obscuring and focusing the ancient past.
Monday, November 24, 2003
The Cold Man has a severe, chattering stutter, something she didn’t expect from somebody with his curriculum mortis. Thirty-two professional icings, fewer than sixty bullets.
“N-ni-n-nice to mee-m-m-meet y-you,” he finally manages after bowing to Rita, hand in glove. “H-h-h-hear you d-do-d-do ex-ce-ek-excel-e-excel–”
“Charmed,” she’d said, but now, watching by remote, she’s not so forgiving. “He’s just walking in!” she says urgently. “There’s temp-variance alarms everywhere, dogs, who knows –”
Sandra leans over and taps the infrared. Impossibly, he disappears in a wash of blue.
“Why’d you think we called him that?” she asks, amused. “Because he talks funny?”
Friday, November 21, 2003
In a way, Slick is at a party. It crashes and surges around him, a wall of sound: he trips on rough laughter, tears, fucking, ranged around the spring he raised from red dirt. It fountains wine, and he plunges his face in, ecstatic.
In another way he’s in the dark, clutching a stone. He’s smeared his body with resin of orchids to hide his scent, and around him the life of the selva d’oro seethes and thunders.
Slick understands now. He’s Oenopion, wine-bringer: Oenopion, who understood revenge. Oenopion, who took for his price the eyes of the world’s greatest hunter.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
—–?” she asks, and Gather has to take the headphones off to ask her to repeat it.
“What are you listening to?” she asks again.
“Oh… Bic Runga,” he says. “She’s, uh, New Zealander.”
“New Zealander than what?”
Gather’s grinning. “What’s your name?”
“Play along,” she says primly.
“Fine, I say ‘New Zealander than New Guinea…'”
“Did you hear about my new guinea pig? He’s got no nose.”
“How’s he smell?”
“Awful!”
“Yada datda dadatdatdaa,” they finish, shoes clattering on the floor of the bus.
Bic Runga’s still quiet in his ear. “But,” she warns him, “falling’s the easiest part…”
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Faye feels herself being pulled up by her ears, a nice stretchy feeling. She must be an electric elf! As everything turns blue and fuzzy. So many things need electricity! She dashes to the well to fill her bucket. She fills the TV first, why not, but then the lamp needs some and she has to hurry! Well lamp well phone well clock and already the TV is almost out, electricity draining out the bottom, faster, she sobs laughs a squeal so fast the well blue crackles her halo somewhere she’s shuddering, tight, curled up with something hidden in her fist–
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Slick is black, was born black, knows himself that way, it’s a part of him but compared to these folks he’s barely toasted. They’re blue-black and purple-black, and their lips are lurid as wounds.
He’s started to confuse Earth with Mars, the dirt here is so red. Iron-rich. He’s tired. Red dust in his lungs.
No one turns to look when he wanders through and he keeps plodding. Walking in time.
The drums are talking to him, not like African drums, like somebody’s hidden around here with a kick and a hi-hat. Boom slick boom, they say. Boom slick BOOM slickBOOMslick
Monday, November 17, 2003
His hat’s a Borsalino, silk-trimmed, just like on TV. He dons it smoothly.
“Yes,” he says. His voice is different, though: clipped, calm, professional. “It was necessary to temporarily achieve a measure of protection against agencies desperate to conceal their existence. Fame served admirably.”
She hesitates. He smiles.
“Your skills will prove invaluable, Ms. Fairfields, in completing my squad.” He gestures, and three of the most dangerous women on earth step forward. “Rita: Tina, Sandra, Mary. You see,” and there’s a ghost of a laugh there, “those who joked about Numbers One through Four were more right than they knew.”
Friday, November 14, 2003
Lissa’s skirt is a short leather sleeve, laced bootlike up front and back; together with halter top and garter belt, it’s just not a role model outfit. Not that superheroing was the plan tonight–that was margaritas and dancing to drive Shaun wild–but here come the Black-Masked Bastards! Carnival must be the perfect place to blow stuff up.
At least she’s got a mask already: big, white and feathery. She’s grateful for that, and, vaulting off a streetlight, almost warms to Black-Masked Beefcake.
Then she notices Shaun carrying some other girl to safety.
She hits Beefcake with a coffee shop.
Thursday, November 13, 2003