Monday, September 30, 2002

 

If you are a superstar, it's not bizarre
to play guitar on NPR,
or smoke cigars out in the yard,
or race fast cars too fast, too far,
to the nearest bar where there are
men named Lars who drink from jars for a few dinars
and show you scars they got in wars on the distant shores
of the Cote D'ivoire, or with the Army Corps in Myanmar
against the czar, who they call a whore
and quite a bore who snores, they swore,
'til you can't take anymore,
and think you'll pass out on floor
and need C.P.R. from war-scarred Lars
unless you discard your jar and barge
straight for the door, which is ajar,
and say au revoir to all the bar
and go back to your cigar-charred yard
and the guitar chords you afford to NPR,
for you are a superstar,
and, after all, that's what they're for.

by Fred 11:59 PM

 

Superstar:

I can't walk down the street any more. People know my name, and they let me know. "Luke Burton! Oh my God! It's that guy from the TV! Luke Burton!" That's how it always starts. They they run up and start pointing and keep screaming, and try to steal things from me. It's odd, like they want souvineers.
I started wearing a disguise after that happened a couple of times. In the beginning, a pair of glasses and a limp were enough, but people started to see through them. They'd figure out who I was and start yelling again, "Luke Burton! Luke Burton!"
I moved after they started accosting me physically, crowds of people, running after me. Just like in the movies. It was really neat. The first time, I had to move into a flophouse motel, just because I didn't think anybody would look for me there. Then, I bought a little house in the mountains where I'd be far from the crowds. Everything was OK for a while, but then the boredom started to get to me and I had to start working again. Of course that put me back in the spotlight, and people started to recognize me in the street again, and It would start, "Luke Burton! Luke Burton!"
Every time I start to blend in, some one recognizes me and I have to move and start all over again. News starts to spread locally, "Have you heard? Luke Burton's here! He moved here after Chicago (or wherever I happen last to have been)! It's so exciting! I mean, Luke Burton!"
When I was a kid, I wanted to be famous. Who knew a little serial bank robbery would do the trick. And all you have to do is not kill anybody, and they start to treat you like a celebrity. Man, I could get used to this. My name's a household word, I just have to be careful and not stay in public too long.

by MisterNihil 8:31 PM

 

Jon sends:

Superstar

by Sharon 12:23 PM

Friday, September 27, 2002

 

"It's quiet. Too quiet."

by Fred 12:57 PM

Thursday, September 26, 2002

 

Part III

“I don't believe what just happened.”

“I don’t have time for that now. I need to know, can you get it working again?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so. Given a large enough power source, yes, I think it should work.”

“Good. Have it ready for transport within the next few hours.”

“Sir, you should understand, I—I don’t know why it works. What we just saw a minute ago—it doesn’t make sense to me. Theoretically, it’s possible, but—I don’t know how this machine does what it does. It’s a riddle I just don’t know how to solve. I can’t promise I’ll be able to shut it down, and I can’t guarantee it will get you where you want to go.”

“It’s what they used to get here. It’s how they took over.”

“And it’s been gathering dust for three hundred years. Sir, you said yourself, it was just sitting there in a forgotten part of the facility. There’s no indication they’ve used it since the end of the war. They forgot about it.”

“They don’t forget anything. They don’t know how. They just didn’t need it. They had what they wanted. They destroyed us, burned our cities. They turned us into caretakers and drones. I don’t think they even wanted to go back home.”

“Sir, you don’t know that.”

“No, you’re right, I don’t. We never even figured out what planet they came from. But it doesn’t matter. Wherever that machine opens a hole to, it’s better than this. And that’s where we’re going to send them.”

“You’re—you’re going to use it as a weapon.”

“We’re going to try. That’s why I need it ready to go. We can’t hide that kind of power drain from them for long. And there are too many innocent people at this base. We’ll need to move.”

“They’d kill us all if they found out, wouldn’t they?”

“Probably. Alpha and Sigma bases still won’t respond. It’s more than likely everyone there is dead. You’ve seen what they do to captured resistance. They are brutal and efficient. They pride themselves on how unlike humans they are.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve—I’ve seen the Wracks.”

“Then you know how lucky we were yesterday morning. We shouldn’t have gotten out of there alive. We didn’t know if Mackey’s program would work, or if we could erase our presence from their memory log, or if that idiot William would betray us.”

“And now Mackey’s gone back in.”

“Which is also why we need to be on the move. Because more than likely they’re going to capture Mackey and his team, and someone’s going to talk. And we’ll have lost maybe the only chance we have left.”

“We’ll be ready, sir.”

by Fred 12:34 PM

 

unsolvable riddles

by Sharon 9:14 AM

Tuesday, September 24, 2002

 

My Daddy is a time traveler, but nobody believes me. They think he works at the bank because he wears a suit and has his name on the door. But he’s just pretending. It’s his secret identity, like Superman. He’s not allowed to tell anybody that time machines have been invented yet. I don’t know why, but it’s a secret from the future. Daddy knows all sorts of things about the future.

I saw the time machine once. Daddy let me come with him to work one morning, and I was supposed to be coloring but I got bored, and Daddy was talking to one of the tellers at the front of the bank, a girl named Lorraine. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I looked in the closet where Daddy said they keep all the special bank papers and I thought maybe the money, but that’s really where he keeps the time machine. It looks weird, like a door or maybe a hole in the wall, but it’s all shiny and I could see things that looked like dinosaurs moving around in it. It was a lot like TV except there were a lot more numbers and buttons all around it, and it was a lot more fuzzier than our TV at home which Mommy doesn’t like because she says it rots my brain. I didn’t have time to press any of the buttons because I thought I heard Daddy, but he was still talking to Lorraine, so I went back to my coloring book and made a pink doggy which later Daddy said looked very pretty.

My Daddy is a time traveler. I don’t know why he has the time machine, but maybe he’s a cop from the future or a superhero. I told Susie Kilpatrick at school but she didn’t believe me, and she and some of the other girls laughed. I pretended it was a joke and they let me play with them again, but they said, you make up some weird things, Becky, and everybody knows dinosaurs don’t live in closets.

by Fred 6:29 PM

Monday, September 23, 2002

 

At last!

I have downloaded a lifetime's worth of memories in a mere fraction of the time. Via direct implant, I have learned to tap dance, seen the French Rivierra, and earned three advanced degrees.

I have the prudent wisdom to begin investing, with the years ahead of me to put that knowledge to good use. I have the credentials to win a challenging executive job and the youth to be an attractive go-getter, an enthusiastic ball-breaker. I have lived a whole life, and my life is just beginning.

I am finally prepared!

I wonder if I look wiser. You always read about people having wise eyes, old beyond their years, yadda yadda. I want to see if that's true. I'll be back in a moment.

...

I don't know what has happened. My hair is gray. My joints are gnarled. My skin is flat and gray. The implants weren't instantaneous at all. I am old. Where has the time gone? I haven't even begun to live.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

“Where did the time go?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to us, William. It isn’t becoming. There are three hours missing from yesterday in our memory bank. 3:17 AM until 6:17 AM, Eastern standard. We have no record. What happened?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. A power failure maybe?”

“No. There are backup systems. Redundancies. A power failure would have been recorded. Damaged systems would be circumvented. We would remember. You know this, William. Your answer is unacceptable. What happened? Why are those three hours not in our log?”

“I swear, I don’t know.”

“Do not make us hurt you again, William. Tell us why you are lying.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t—oh god, please, no.”

“Are you working for the resistance? Did you allow them access to this facility? Were they here yesterday morning? What did you erase from our memory?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t—”

“You did, William. We can feel it. A void. A hole in our mind. You were sloppy. You humans always are. Restore the missing hours and we will let you live.”

“I can’t. They—”

“Have we treated you so unfairly, William, that you would let them do this to us, that you would help?”

“No—I swear—please—don’t. They promised—they told me—”

“As a caretaker at this facility you enjoy special privilege, William. You are protected. We have protected you. We saved you when we had to kill the others, William. Do you want us to regret that decision?”

“No, I just—I just want the pain to stop.”

“Can you return to our memory what happened yesterday? Can you give us back what you stole from us?”

“No, I’m sorry, I can’t. They didn’t—”

“Then we are sorry, William. The pain will never stop.”

by Fred 7:48 PM

 

Where did the time go?

by Sharon 12:26 PM

Friday, September 20, 2002

 

The Araveli gave us the stars, and all they asked in return was the Earth.

“We no longer have need of our ships,” they told us, “and, if you wish, we will teach you how to build ships of your own. We have come very far. We are tired of traveling. We wish to make this our new home.”

Our government assured us that it was not an invasion, but mutual trade to the benefit of all mankind. There had been a time, perhaps a century back, before the great war, when evacuation would have been impossible and our numbers would have worked against us. But the birth rates had not increased since the war, and sickness and radiation had spread, and so now there were only handfuls of us left—albeit still large handfuls, a million here and a million there. It was not an easy task, but it could be done, and so was.

The Araveli had built enormous ships, and it was less than a year before we were all shuttled to the shipyards or stations they had placed in orbit around our moon. Less than two months after that the first ship left orbit for the stars. There were rumors then, of course, of a scattered few left behind on Earth and of the terrible things the Araveli might do to them. There was no reason for such fears and doubts, and we had been given so much, but still we wondered. We had been saved from a dying world and given the universe to explore, but the Araveli were not human – they were wholly different – and I do not think that we ever really trusted them.

The ships are vast, and their interiors are deceptive. One does not have the sense of being confined, nor even the sense that one is aboard a ship hurtling through space. It has so far been a wondrous journey, as I am sure it will be for all the others that left before and after. We know that even if we should die along the way, our children will behold sights we cannot even imagine.

Except. There haven’t been any children. In almost a year since we embarked, there has not been a single birth aboard the ship. I am sure it is only a matter of time, but sometimes I wonder. The Araveli were not human, and I sometimes wonder about their motives and what they might have done in their haste to rid the world of us. We are so far from Earth, and there is no going back.

I would feel better if there were children. I hope we were not sent out here just to die.

by Fred 10:52 PM

Thursday, September 19, 2002

 

Aileen's channel surfing was becoming a bit much. Jim snapped the spine of his newspaper in wordless objection and focused on the financials.

"Oh my god, I love this show!" The surfing stopped.

Jim peered around the edge of the B section at what looked like an old rerun of The Muppet Show, the one with Phillis Diller. It was hard to deny the appeal of The Muppet Show, even in spite of Phillis Diller, so Jim set the paper aside, folding it loosely.

The reception was terrible, though, and on the digital cable, that really shouldn't be an issue anymore. It was hard to look past the ghost images from another channel; the extraneous movement caught the eye, and held it. Aileen didn't seem fazed, but she was always more of a content person than a presentation person. She didn't fully appreciate the surround sound, belting out "Anything You Can Do," either.

Jim was annoyed by the ghost images, feeling vaguely that he was being cheated by the cable company, getting lousy reception like this. He watched them intently, thinking about letters he would write.

And then he gasped. Like finally seeing both the young woman and the old lady on the optical illusion, he had suddenly reconciled the ghost images into people, one of whom was viciously, gleefully stabbing the other. "Ugh," he said faintly. Aileen laughed at one of Fozzie's jokes.

The knife-wielding ghost image stopped and looked out of the screen. The sound cut in for just a moment, switching signal control from the Muppets to this action thriller or crime drama or horror show, just long enough for one sentence to get through:

"She's next, Jim."

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

I do not remember how I died, but that’s the first thing that people ask me. Everybody wants to know.

“I don’t remember the life I led before this,” I hear myself tell them. “I don’t know who I am.” And while that isn’t exactly a lie, it isn’t the whole truth either. I remember some. Not enough, but some. I know that I suffered. There was pain, more than I had expected, but I do not know the circumstances that led me to take my life.

“I don’t remember my name,” I tell them. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

At first they were frightened by my presence, but, as my employer has told me, I am not unique. There are others engaged in similar pursuits, running errands for the Company, in search of other lost sheep. I am an investigator, sent here with specific purpose, in search of a man named Bierce, and my kind have become common enough that the novelty of a dead man walking the village streets soon wears quite thin. I am…accepted, I suppose, although I do not think I would have ended my life had I known the sort of work that would be expected of me afterwards. It is very dark in the shadows where men like Bierce hide.

We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men, leaning together, headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

I do not remember my name or the life I led before this, but I have purpose and I know my place. I will find Bierce and return him to the fold. He cannot frighten me with death. My employer will be pleased. The Company will return me to the void, or wherever it is I should have gone. They will let me go. I will have fulfilled my contract with them, and I will be able to rest. I will no longer be needed as a ghost.

I have been here now for five days. I will find him, and soon. It must be soon. It must be, or…

I think I am starting to remember.

by Fred 10:24 PM

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

 

Maya steeled herself, took calming breaths to make the polished metal less cold. It was either this, or Ramen for another month. This is okay, this will work, they do this all the time.

The leatherette dentist's chair seemed a bit much. The wrist and ankle straps made her raise an eyebrow. Before she could take a hesitant step back towards the receptionist's, two smiling technicians, all perfect teeth and cold hands, guided her elbows towards the chair.

Maya kept her eyes on the female technician. She looked more sane, and she had a good manicure. Maya thought about asking after the manicure, but the questions began. They were simple questions--about her name and her place of birth and the sums of small integers and the current President--and they pattered on while the technicians connected electrodes with tape and small dabs of goo in Maya's hair.

When the technicians stepped away, she knew the locating part of the procedure was about to begin. She heard herself say nonsensical things, dredged up memories, snippets of commercials. She distinctly smelled blue. She played through the entire moment of her first kiss: visual, tactile, aural. They were stimulating her brain to determine how the various gyri and sulci were used.

Then, for some minutes, nothing happened. When nothing continued to happen, the technicians announced proudly that they had located a prime section of real estate, an apparently unused portion of her brain. They downloaded their algorithms for this rented section of her brain to chew on.

All Maya had to do was return in two weeks for offloading and to pick up her check.

by Sharon 8:16 PM

 

"This space for rent"

by Fred 7:56 AM

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

 

We’re a big country, and we can do whatever we want. They used to call it manifest destiny, but nowadays it doesn’t really have a name. It’s just understood. It’s the unspoken law. We go where we want. We take what we want. Nobody gets in our way. We’re like cowboys, or the cavalry, or a knight in shining armor, or an eight hundred pound gorilla, or whatever metaphor you want to settle on. We don’t really care. We don’t read your papers. We don’t listen to your speeches. We have bigger fish to fry. We make a big show, talk big and hand out blue jeans, and everybody walks away happy. That’s how it works. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. That’s who we are. We’re bigger than you, and that means we’re better than you. We have money, and guns, and no need for your history. This is our path. This is our time. It’s our way or the highway. You like that? We can get it for you on a t-shirt. Cheap labor is easy to find. Everybody wants a piece. We’re a big country, plenty of love to go around. T-shirts for everyone. But don’t get in our way. Don’t try to confuse us with facts. We are rock music and TV, and we are the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air. When’s the last time God shed his grace on thee? We are the victory march. We are the Marines. We are whatever we want to be. We make no promises we are prepared to keep. Do as we say, not as we do. Everybody walks away happy. Everybody gets a t-shirt. It doesn’t matter what the people want, or what the people say. We know what’s best for them, and for you. We’re a big country. Don’t make us angry.

by Fred 10:36 PM

 

Just say it:
"It's a whole nutha."
It's easier that way.
It isn't separatist
When it's national pride.
We can fly our flag
As high as yours.
Name your monument:
We'll build another,
Pink,
And a little taller.
We'll drive
A bigger pick-up, too,
Since oil is milked
From Mother Earth's breast,
Right here.
Step on up.
Our steaks are bigger,
(what they never tell you,
or you never believe,
because you never understand,
is that the
sky
is bigger, by far.
more flat,
more moody,
more present.
spreading out
in all directions
overhead.
huge.
blue and pale and clear,
or roiling with Jacob's ladders,
or black and full of stars.
not curved,
because bowls have edges,
but
ABOVE.)
And our heart attacks, too,
Deep in the heart-a.

by Sharon 7:50 PM

Monday, September 16, 2002

 

When it rains,
it pours,
but then it stops,
and we got outside,
and watch the sun
through the clouds,
hiding here,
then there,
in the streaks of gauzy white.
We step in puddles,
and splash and make noise.
We call each other names
and make faces
our mothers
wouldn't approve of.
Nobody needs an umbrella.
Everyone gets mud on his shoes.
Everybody laughs.
And then it rains again,
just a little,
and we go back inside,
but not all the way.
We linger and laugh
and listen for thunder.
We talk amongst ourselves,
say nothing important
and all that is needed.
You don't have to look too hard for magic
on a rainy day.

by Fred 9:08 PM

Friday, September 13, 2002

 

Raymond Chandler once said, "When in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns." So:

Two guys come through the door with guns and...

If you're out there, have fun.

by Fred 3:01 PM

Thursday, September 12, 2002

 

Mark Twain once said (or wrote, I suppose (I read the quote in a book (We read a fair bit of Twain in high school (I went to Dieruff, in Allentown (I can only spell the name of the school by silently chanting the little sing-songy cheer (I was in the band (D-I-E-R-U-F-F (I guess you can't tell how sing-songy it is in writing (Is it a failing of writing that you can't fully encode prosody and inflection, or simply an attribute? (My major is in Speech Pathology (includes a lot of linguistics classes (which were always my favorite, anyway (But you can't major in linguistics at Penn State (I met my husband there (but after I graduated) and some of my best friends.) so I chose Speech Path.) because they were the graduate-level classes.) which is why I got into the major.) but I'm not using it.) Or is it a failing of language that we need so much additional encoding to understand it?), maybe I need more spaces or punctuation.) H-U-S-K-I-E-S), as the only mellophone.), like everyone else who was in the band.), which wasn't a very litature-oriented school.) without ever really discussing why he was a significant author.), but I don't remember which one.), but the book might have been quoting something he said.) that parentheses are an under-valued piece of punctuation.

I wonder if my programming experience (and I have a meeting about that in a few minutes) helped me write that...

by Sharon 1:50 PM

Wednesday, September 11, 2002

 

...where they house the nuclear missiles. And now if you'll step this way, you can get a good view through these windows here.

"What is that man doing?" I can hear you asking yourselves. Protecting our nation, that's what. You see, ladies and gentlemen, it is his job to make sure the bombs don't go off. "But how is he doing it?" Well, I'm sure you'll recall a brief clamor in the news seven months ago, about people developing telekinetic powers--that is, being able to move objects using only their minds--near the biodefense testing grounds. Rather than allow these dangerous but unfortunate victims of happenstance to become a burden on our welfare system--eating and drinking your tax dollars--we put them to work in our Homeland Defense Division.

Decades ago, people used to talk about the President with his finger on the button. Well, in those days, the button had to be pushed. We have now created a button that has to be kept from pushing. And that's what our friend Fred here is doing--using his mind to keep the button up.

Now, if our country were to come under terrorist attack, no one would need to issue messy commands or struggle their way through some convoluted military compound or bother with a two-thirds majority. Fred will simply relax his steely, Zen-like concentration, and boop! all the bad guys get blown up.

So if you'll follow me to our next display-- Hey, kid, what do you have? Is that an air hor--

by Sharon 9:45 PM

 

This one feels appropriate on a number of levels:

distraction

by Dave Menendez 9:57 AM

Monday, September 09, 2002

 

A hallway? I am walking. The last door on the left... is a long way off. I have always been walking, I think. Great green doors, holding their secrets, flank my steps. I am walking.

I am hesitating. I open a door

thrust into bright and cold i fall off my tricycle to chip a tooth i am having sex for the first time with a girl who does not love me i do i am holding my son i am driving to a thousand soccer practices i roll the station wagon off a rain-slicked highway i am mourning my wife i am forgotten by my children in a nursing home i am smiling at an angel in a doorway

, and I shut it, quickly. I am walking.

Unending green doors box up small lifetimes and hold them for safe keeping. These are private. I open a door

released into water i take my first steps i forget my lines in front of everyone i graduate with honors i am jogging across campus i am tackled and raped and stabbed and punched and left to bleed

. These are too private. I shall not open any more doors. Except the last door on the left. I am walking.

An infinite hallway ends, abruptly. The last door on the left is large and black and inscrutable. I can see the hallway reflected in the lacquer. This is the last door on the left. My destination. A plastic red exit sign buzzes faintly overhead. It is chipped a little, letting a bright stab of white light fall in my eye. I open the last door on the left and step thro

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

A year ago, they took the children. They came in the middle of the night, like they always do, and they took them away. They told us that the children were troublemakers, and that this was how things had to be. There was no proof, or warrant, or explanation, but this was how things had to be. It was hard, and my wife cried, but we managed. We needed to believe in something. Questions breed doubt, discontent, and they aren’t worth the trouble. The children should have known this. Belief, and the security it provides, are worth the price we pay for them. They aren’t worth risking.

So we painted their rooms and put what the police had left us in storage, and we moved on with our lives. Or I thought we had. But my wife has never hid her emotions well, and she talks even when she knows someone must be listening. She says things that shouldn’t be said, asks questions when the answers aren’t wanted. After awhile, I suppose, she became a nuisance. She was a troublemaker. So they came in the night to take her away.

Only she hid. She shouldn’t have done that, and it only made them angry. They’re just doing their job. They’re just helping to protect us. My wife begged me not to tell them, to stall or distract until she could get out of the house, but what was I to do? I still needed to believe. I didn’t want to cause trouble. I wanted to be safe.

“Where is she?” the officers asked.

“Last door on the left,” I said, and I went out to the garage to see if I had enough paint left for our bedroom.

by Fred 8:37 PM

Sunday, September 08, 2002

 

...I would write longer stories.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

Don't know if anyone, myself included, is going to post, but here goes:

If I had all the time in the world...

by Fred 1:56 PM

Friday, September 06, 2002

 

I just try to keep him on track, you know? I offer my guidance to help him out. It's that punk on the other shoulder who keeps leading him astray, convincing him to do things that are definitely not in his best interest. But it's a labor of love, and it's my job.

So the Ego has joined this Toastmasters hoohah. It's supposed to make him a better person—speaking and leadership and ya, ya, ya—but lately it seems to involve a lot of time, effort, and stress, all to be repaid in Certificates of Appreciation. We could wall-paper the apartment in damn Certificates of Appreciation. And the other night, one of these Taskmasters calls up at the last minute, panicky, needing the Ego to be the Grand High Toastmaster Poobah, the Nerd of the Nerds, at this contest dealy they were having. Someone else had had the good sense to back out.

As I live and breathe, that damn git on the other shoulder talks him into it. I was very convincing—beer, the Comfy Chair, and that special on Cinemax—but no, we go to the damn contest at some restaurant across town. I made sure we let everyone know what a great favor we were doing, filling in like this at the last minute. And they gave us a Certificate of Appreciation—how unexpected.

The night was not a total loss, though. The contest was over dinner, at this restaurant like I said, so I knew that there was one job at which I must not fail, or else I'd get demoted to Inspirational Imaginary Friend or Anthropomorphic Conceptualization or, worse yet, Singing Cricket. Given the proper motivation, though, it was no problem.

Yep. We had seconds on cheesecake.

by Sharon 11:59 PM

 

vice

by Sharon 7:36 AM

Thursday, September 05, 2002

 

I was a Martian in college. (What changed, you ask.) I was actually a number of Martians, because Ray Bradbury's play The Martian Chronicles has a big cast. But I co-starred in the prologue as a Martian that still sticks with me. (But, of course, we call the planet "Tir.")

Mrs Ylla K was afflicted by visions for which her husband Yll had little patience. She dreamed of a ship, falling out of the sky, and of a man—a very strange man, with black hair and blue eyes—emerging and proclaiming the name of his planet as "Earth." Ylla, being a natural telepath like all residents of Tir, understood him with her mind.

Yll listened to the recounting of her visions with mounting interest and finally reached a decision: He would go for a walk... taking his gun (which hums "like a thousand angry bees turned on themselves in the summer sun"). He decided he would hunt, perhaps bring down a bright, fantastical bird.

When Yll returned, Ylla prepared him a dinner of the golden fruit that grew from the walls (and looked mysteriously like spray-painted plastic pears, pinned to the curtain). At his stern, telepathic prodding, she finally conceded, "Yes, I'll be all right. Tomorrow."

by Sharon 4:38 PM

 

“I don’t understand. You said the fruit are…singing?”

“Yes, sir. For the past hour. It started with the strawberries, moved on to the bananas, and then—well, just listen.”

Davis held up the phone. The sound from the produce section was unmistakable.

“I hear it,” said Hanlon, “but I still don’t understand. You’re sure the voices are coming from the fruit? Maybe it’s a joke, or faulty wiring with the store’s speakers. Maybe—”

“We thought of that, sir. We checked. It’s definitely the fruit. I can’t explain how, or—”

“They don’t have mouths, do they?”

“No, sir. No, they don’t. No mouths. But we turned off the music in the store, and we closed off the aisle, and they’re still singing. The pears will call, and then plums will answer or... They’re…they’re harmonizing, sir.”

“Harmonizing? This is fruit, Mr. Davis. This is produce. Produce doesn’t harmonize. You say you’ve closed off the aisle?”

“Yes, sir. After what happened with Betty, it seemed like the only thing to do.”

“Betty… That’s the cashier you were talking about, right?”

“Yes, sir. She…she tried to eat one of the bananas. She bought it that morning before her shift. It was in her purse. We didn’t know.”

“What happened?”

“Betty’s a little deaf. She reads lips, but…I don’t think she could hear it singing. She took it out of her purse and peeled it. And…and the rest of them screamed, sir.”

“Screamed? Screaming bananas?”

“Yes, sir. It was horrible. They screamed, and then the lemons screamed, and then the oranges and the apples...”

Davis shuddered. He most definitely did not like them apples.

“Most of the customers left then, sir. Nobody’s buying anything. They’re waiting to see what we’re going to do.”

“Well you did the right thing calling me, Davis. I want you to close the store and send all non-essential personnel home. Betty should probably stay. I’m going to send someone from corporate down to meet you, and he’ll want to talk with her. Keep your eye on the fruit and notify me of any sudden changes.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me yet. If we end up destroying the fruit, corporate will want to take it out of your paycheck.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I wish I did,” said Hanlon and hung up.

by Fred 1:55 PM

 

The Baddest Verse is always best when left to rot a while:
Destroy not what you did see, when last you took to jumping ship. But Live not as you have been, wherein the tales that lie and men who kill, all gather round and force upon the willing mass the base of pain.
There lies the curse of ages past, there lies the foreign crone: Oh, there beyond the farthest reach, they lie in wait for freshest life.

Singing Fruit

that dwell nearby and leave surcease of filth, with bloodstained eyes they search the shores for growth in Frieden Downs. "The Them as dies, the Them as sings, what?" fell across the dales. All tired dried, all foundered dead, the Fruits return to sea. Progress they seek, progress they find, over, over again. Of course they know, it never finds the forest Frieden Downs. The men who dwell in Frieden way, but simple all they die.

Yeah. Chew on that for ten minutes.

By which I mean That's Your Topic and my Entry.

by MisterNihil 5:34 AM

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

 

[Minutes, schminutes. —Iambic pentameter!]

A tale I'll tell of grisly tech support,
Of clients woeful, nasty, dumb and mean,
And agents boldly waiting on the phone.

"I'm all a mess; my data's gone for sure.
"No happy Mac, no folder icons. Help!
"A flashing question mark is all I see."

The valiant agent, calm and smart and cute,
Well-versed was he in skills both soft and geek,
Well knew, at once, the steps to make it right.

"Yes, ma'am," said he, "I'll help you right away."
"Not you!" that client interrupted, fierce.
"I would prefer to ask a manager."

A sigh, so brief, was all the agent slipped.
"Without root cause, he'll route you back to me."
With sullen words, the client deigned to heed,
Then blustered on as if she had not heard.

"Stop interrupting me, you cow,"

Was what the agent said while pressing "Mute."
Aloud, he stayed the model of respect.
He said, so soft, "Just check one setting, please."

While noise and bile continued through the phone,
He thought, "A quick solution stretched ten-fold,"
But kept his peace and waited through the rant.

The storm now spent, the agent seized his chance:
"In faith, I ask, reset the P-RAM, ma'am."

by Sharon 1:13 PM

Tuesday, September 03, 2002

 

We were told we couldn't change our mind, mid-way. We were not told what would happen if we did.

We didn't mean to, and we would take it back. Oh, please, let us take it back; can you? We just thought, once, during the procedure, "What if...?" Now we are thus.

Perhaps we could go back into the machine?

Ah. Well.

No, we can not tell you what it is like. What would you know, how would you relate?

How would anyone relate? We are alone, together.

We came to you for a change, or, rather, a liberation. We had been mixed, the wrong mind for the body—no, the mind was right, the body was misapplied. The wrong gender, we came to you, and your machine, to be fixed. Realigned. Ah. We are not sure which direction. Just, coming together. We don't remember directions. That was before.

Inside the machine, we were lonely. We didn't know lonely yet; we only thought we were lonely. We let our mind drift, slithering along the spectrum. Wondering. Wandering. We never thought machines could be so literal, but of course they are. We never thought.

We lived in a world of labels, before, creating a sense of self out of persuasive definitions. So, yes, you may apply another label. "Hermaphrodite." But that is not us, not we. We shall be...

Hirm-Aphrodite. And we will answer to the waxing sun.

by Sharon 9:32 PM

 

A coworker at my last job once told me a joke he had discovered in Jonathan Lethem’s novel, Motherless Brooklyn:

How do you titillate an ocelot? You oscillate its tit a lot.

It’s a terrible pun, but it’s clever and I had never heard it before, so I had to laugh. Dirty jokes like that were par for the course at my bookstore basement job. We had to keep ourselves amused somehow. Another Fred, who worked on the loading dock, earned the dubious nickname “Captain Potty Mouth” because of his perhaps-not-always-appropriate-at-the-workplace sense of humor. I’m sometimes tempted to swing by the bookstore after work or on a lunch break and trade jokes again with Fred, or just to find out what’s new in the place I left behind. After two years, it’s hard not to feel attached.

Don’t get me wrong, in a way I’m glad I left. Sharon, whose old job I inherited, may question that and debate the wisdom of leaving any job for this one, but this was a good opportunity at a time when I needed a good opportunity. There are considerable benefits to working here. But dirty jokes really aren’t one of them. This isn’t a humorless building by any stretch, and I genuinely like the people here, but I don’t feel that same sense of camaraderie I did at the bookstore. So I’m tempted to try and revisit it sometimes, if only for a little while.

Of course, I haven’t been back in almost a year, and I haven’t seen anyone I used to work with since maybe December of last year. I keep thinking “this will be the week I swing by”, but…well, I guess for some reason I keep on wavering.

by Fred 12:47 PM