“The true nature of reflexology isn’t that the body exists pre-mapped onto the foot,” explains Behrooz. “It’s that the therapist is capable of mapping the zones onto any arbitrary surface. Feet work because they’re an easy and uncluttered interface, but the same technique informs aura readings, chakra theory and what you would probably call ‘voodoo dolls.’ Understand the flow of qi in the body and anything becomes an input device. The wall of this room, for instance.”
He flips a light switch. Avi screams.
“Now,” Behrooz says, “are you going to cooperate, or do I have to explain the sauna?”
Omar preferred computers back when they were imagined as motorcycle analogues: dangerous and powerful things to ride, built for experts, best when skirting laws. Hackers in black or white helmets, gunning off into cyberspace with sunglasses gleaming. You had to have sunglasses; they reflected the monitor so nicely.
Now mirrorshades are out of style, and computers are used to play songs you don’t like on MySpace. Omar named his club the Gentleman Loser and nobody got it. There’s a decent crowd most nights, but he can’t bring himself to strap on a keyboard and mingle. His leather jacket’s too hot anyway.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Holly is so giddy from the night that she actually takes Mr. Porn Resort’s card and slips it down the front of her dress. Everyone’s drifting over to watch an epileptic ball descend a pole, so she takes Rose and Roger each by a hand and leads them out to the car.
The streets are empty silence and the moon’s just starting to wane. The clock in the dash says 12:02. Holly leads them again, up the steps to her apartment, where frost has paislied the sliding doors.
Holly kisses Roger. Holly kisses Rose.
Rose kisses Roger.
“Happy new,” Holly says.
“People who look at the horoscopes,” says Latifa, “are being led astray. The future’s in the newspaper, all right, but it’s never so obvious.”
“Journalismancy?” asks Salud skeptically. “What, like they print next week’s stock prices by mistake?”
Latifa shakes her head. “The defining attributes of prophecy are that it hides small truths in a mass of writing and that its transcribers don’t know which is which. Elijah, Nostradamus, and now Gannett–when not even the publisher reads a whole newspaper, it’s easy for the future to slip into the gutters.”
“Show me,” says Salud.
“LOST,” reads Latifa, “Seven fat cows.”
Monday, December 31, 2007
Down among the struts of Raccoon Furnace live the cokers, parsing out scraps of stolen fire. From Coker Inchard you can get it cheap and risk burning granite; Olgy will trade it for a hump in his tent. But from Ewards you can get a magic word.
Pay dearly, take his coal and his whisper and run to the old well down Curbin Street. Throw a piece from your bucket, and wish.
It worked for somebody’s sister’s friend’s lover. It could work for you.
That night Ewards will collect all the wet cold chunks, and dry them, and sell them again.
Friday, December 28, 2007
The first time Proserpina explicitly notices one of her teachers is during choir practice. She herself is an unspectacular alto (Iala, by popular acclaim, first soprano; Radiane doesn’t sing).
The teacher in question is Miss Havisham, their choirmistress, nearly thirty and prone to occasional lectures on Liberation about which the school administration probably should not know. The way she attracts Proserpina’s notice is a simple, straightforward sobbing breakdown. Iala’s contingent bustles into comfort formation, and soon all is right again; but when she loosens her bodice to breathe more easily, Proserpina spies the blue point of a tattoo between her breasts.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
The American obsession with evergreen tannenbaum is mostly based on a translated ditty by a teacher from Liepzig, who didn’t even write the tune. Done well, Christmas lights on naked winter trees appear to hang in the air: transparent structures, Faberge eggs and whorling seashells, traced in wireframe light. They speak of an ethereal world, or a suburb plunged into those parts of the ocean where fish carry their own lanterns. It’s the one chance the trees have all year to show off their lingerie.
Which is why they should really plant some already, thinks Cass, bright and shivering, arms high.
Monday, December 24, 2007