Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The courier, bruised, bloodied, and limping, knocked on Wahshi-san’s hotel room door. He bowed politely when the great old man opened the door–or at least an attempt at bowing was made.

“Your package, Wahshi-san,” the courier said. “I apologize for my tardiness.”

Wahshi-san glanced at his watch: 2:02pm. “Your apology is accepted,” he said, stonefaced. He took the package from the courier and unwrapped it, revealing a leopard-spotted negligee, size 44, custom-made.

Wahshi-san’s expression did not change. He pressed a cashier’s check into the courier’s hand and closed the door, leaving the poor roughed-up man looking at the featureless wood of the door in astonishment.

Literary magazines come and go with alarming frequency, especially in this internet age where the requirements for establishing one have been greatly reduced. But rarely are the failures as spectacular as “Damascus Lounge.”

Its editor, Simon Wise, was well-connected in the city art scene, the scion of an important family, and a respected if not well-known author in his own right. The journal’s premise, soliciting only fine literature that contained, referenced, or promoted radical social change, struck a chord with the wealthy literary elite and guaranteed financial backing from numerous donors. Even before publication of the first issue, a combined physical and digital volume, there were enough stories from prominent or influential authors lined up to sustain the journal for months.

Yet it only produced two issues, one on February 1 and one dated March 1 that actually dropped on February 29. Simon Wise was accused of using the literary magazine as a Ponzi scheme, relying on volunteer labor to produce and edit the texts while pocketing donations and subscriptions.

“People come to the city from all over hoping that it’ll inspire them,” said Blair. “Like a change of venue will have flip some magic switch and they’ll suddenly become the next Kerouac.”

“You’re saying it doesn’t?”

“I know it doesn’t,” Blair snapped, taking a fresh belt of Irish latte from a cafe mug. “I’ve lived here long enough and seen enough starry-eyed people come and go to know that if you can’t write your great novel in Podunk, Arkansas, you can’t write it here.”

“But you moved here to become a writer, didn’t you?”

“That’s different. Back home there were maybe one or two people having their creative dreams crushed by reality; here there are loads of them. Scads. I go to three or four cafes a day just to drink that atmosphere in. It’s research, observation–their pain plus my writing equals something people want to read.”

People on Verner Street had been putting up with Klyde’s Halloween hijinks for years. Old-timers remembered him moving in back in the 60’s and even then putting together elaborate decorations, scares, and even a haunted garage that had brought noise complaints from three blocks away. Back then, though, his Devil’s Night reveries had to compete with a day job and a family. His retirement in 1985 and his wife’s death a year later removed those obstacles, allowing him to pursue Halloween virtually full-time.

There’s still talk of the mad scientist set-up from 1987, which had involved sixteen pounds of dry ice and three pig carcasses. More than one teen hardened by slasher movies nevertheless voided their bowels in 1989 when Klyde’s self-dismemberment schtick had splattered them with what turned out to be chicken giblets. The pranks became notably more mean-spirited in later years, but Klyde was crafty enough not to be caught red-handed, so to speak.

That’s how, in the fall of 1999, a group gathered with the sole and express purpose of giving old man Klyde a taste of his own medicine.

The Vle-Ya were willing to palaver with humans, but found it difficult to do so. The slightest touch of sunshine or snow was unbearable for them, and the tongues of mankind were, to their ears, so slow and stilted that misunderstandings were common. For every human who listened to a Vle-Ya speak of what their long years had taught them–the lay of the land, how to grow and harvest, what the trees and animals wished to say had they the tongues for it–there was another who found them insulting, frightening.

They had been in decline for many years before mankind had arrived; tradition held that the number of Vle-Ya had been set at the dawning of the world, and they did not deign to reproduce–every encounter that ended in bloodshed and every accident in the dark and secret parts of the forest diminished them forever. In time, the leader of the Darkwood Vle-Ya, Ervolos, called for the mayor of Brightspear to parley at forest’s edge at midnight on midsummer.

The exact words between them were taken to Mayor Burrowe’s grave, but he reported that Ervolos had spoken of the dwindling of his people, and that there were no longer enough to discharge their traditional duties as keepers of the forest. He charged the humans with its stewardship and opened the lands to settlement. He and the remaining Vle-Ya departed the next day, never to be seen again. Some say they settled in a smaller forest near Harwickshire, others that they walked into the sea at Durnsmere.

But every family that settled in Darkwood kept their memory alive through the telling of tales, and many a farmer felling trees and clearing the land has worried what might happen should the Vle-Ya return.

“Nearly complete damage between the second and third thoracic vertebrae. Layman’s terms, son, you’re looking at paraplegia for life.”

“Shouldn’t the doctor be telling me this?” said Arch.

“Oh, he’ll be in soon enough with the proper diagnosis,” the suit said. “I’ve arranged to have a few minutes with you before that.”

“To gloat?”

The suit laughed an insincere laugh. “Of course not. So cynical! I’m here to offer you participation in a clinical trial. You’re familiar with lanxisol?”

“A little,” Arch said. He’d seen alarmist media reports, but hadn’t put much stock in them.

“Well, there’s a newer derivative we’re developing–lanxisol centlin. It promises far more potent benefits with fewer side effects. We’ve got the chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus breathing down our neck to get it approved so his little brother can walk again. That’s where you come in.”

“Don’t mind him,” the bartender said. “The Withdry family’s always been a boil on our collective asses.”

“I beg your parton?” William Withdry said, stumbling from his chair. “Say that again, you toadsucking waterserver!”

“What, the part about your grandfather being hung for stealing horses?” said the bartender. “From the only ranch in the territory? As I recall, they found him from a monogrammed kerchief he left at the scene–why, yes, that’s right, the Withdrys came in all foppish from back east looking to make a fortune and quickly slithered back into the dust.”

“You’re trying my patience, old man,” William said, swaying a bit on his feet.

“Or maybe you meant your pappy, the great filibuster, who got himself down to Mexico to earn himself a fortune to replace the one his pappy shat on,” the bartender roared. “Spent two years in a Mexican jail after his men deserted him, and your mammy had to sell everything you owned to make bail!”

A pistol was in William’s hand. “Them’s fightin’ words,” he growled.

A shotgun was in the bartender’s. “Oh, you hear that from a real poke, Billy? Where’d you be without this place, anyhow? Blind from your momma’s moonshine?”

The Adele-Deerton-Osborn Heights district wasn’t very populated, but the state representative it offered was highly coveted due to the low number of registered voters and relatively lax residency requirements. It was, in effect, a pocket borough in the making. The region had changed party loyalty a few times, and was competitive between Blue Dogs and Republicans.

For geographical convenience, especially as many of the tiny communities could barely handle local elections (so say nothing of the many absentee ballots) most poling was done at Adele-Deerton-Osborn Heights (ADO) North, in Adele, and ADO South, in Deerton. Wags had noted for a long time that either place represented a key electoral choke point, and that a savvy campaigner might be able to tip the election one way or another by exploiting the lay of the land.

This is the story of how Annabelle Greer did just that.

Over time, the names had gotten garbled. Nobody could be sure what had happened between system migrations and transcription errors; the Orynally line might have had an altogether different name when it began 133 iterations ago.

The foreman fiddled with his controls. “Ready for transmigration. Please signify final consent.”

Orynally 133 raised a trembling arm and pressed his thumb to the biometric scanner.

“Processing,” the foreman said. His job could easily have been automated, but the powers-that-be felt that it was necessary to humanize the process; his robotic delivery seemed to belie that assertion. “Accepted. Prepare for transmigration.”

Wires were inserted into Orynally 133’s seventeen dermal data ports, and consciousness drained away with a sudden, cold wave, like jumping into ice water.

“IOM?”

“Trade term,” Toyohara said. “Soybeans from Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. High in protein, best in the world. Big in the futures and commodities markets.”

“Fair enough,” Masterson replied, “but what’s that got to do with the crash?”

“Haven’t you been watching the weather in your country?”

“I come from California,” said Masterson. “We don’t have weather, we have smog.”

Toyohara smirked. “Bad winter, early frost, late crop and small. People were gambling on a good yield; lost their shirts.”