Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Its first public appearance was, appropriately enough, at a wedding in late December 1999. The San Diego press carried a footnote story about a massive brawl that broke the bride’s arm and caused an elderly relative to suffer a heart attack. When questioned by police, participants couldn’t recall what had started the fight, only that they had suffered a bout of intense jealousy and glimpsed a flash of something golden.

A year later, a fistfight started in a Colorado pawnshop that spilled out onto the street, quickly involving bystanders and nearby shopkeepers who could have had no personal stake in any quarrel. A unit of the Denver police in full riot gear was required to calm the altercation, which resulted in hundreds of concussions, broken bones, and knocked-out teeth.

Following the resulting trail of destruction saw the same pattern–immense and violent fights breaking out spontaneously–all over North America. Toronto (2002), Atlanta (2003), Mexicali (also 2003), Detroit (2004), and Seattle (2005). Careful examination of newspaper records and police reports shows a line of smaller altercations between each major outbreak. Participants would always claim memory of nothing but intense jealousy and a golden glow before plowing into the melee.

While its mechanism (pheromones, subsonic vibrations, or something supernatural), and origin (experiment, accident, or divine intervention) remained obscure, thorough investigation revealed one incontrovertible fact.

The Golden Apple of Discord had returned.

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Random Late Night Thought #271:

Are there really that many people with structured settlements or annuities? The advertisers sure seem to think so. And are all of them dumb enough not to realize that “cash now” is pennies on the dollar for what they have coming to them? It’s an interesting market, dumb people with a lot of money, but as Hummers and gold plated iPhones show, not a small one.

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J. Wheeler Cameron was known to the denizens of his hometown as the eccentric if basically goodhearted proprietor of The Ceramics Nook. The Nook offered handmade ceramics and supplies for enthusiasts to make their own, and more than one citizen wondered how Wheeler Cameron could afford to keep the lights on given how little business he must have attracted.

Then again, J. Wheeler Cameron was not known to the denizens of his hometown as the last living heir to the Casterman furniture finishing fortune.

While he’d chosen to live simply and devote his life to the pursuit of ceramics, Wheeler Cameron was worth nearly $100 million when he died in 1985. With no heirs, his will left the money to the town under one condition: it could have $50 million to do with as it pleased so long as the remaining $50 million was held in trust to establish, subsidize, and maintain an “arcade of interesting and independent shops.”

Despite attempts by the city government to get the whole pot, Wheeler Cameron had known his stuff; as such, the Wheeler Cameron Boutique Arcade opened in 1987. Its name changed to the Wheeler Cameron Mall in 1991, by which time the city had pissed away its $50 million and was left only with the prospect of maintaining the bizarre and generally unprofitable mall as it soaked up the interest from a $50 million investment in 1985 dollars.

Thanks to Wheeler Cameron’s specifications, the shops therein were an interesting lot:

The Ceramics Nook – Continued under the management of designated heir Lampert Filmore, who took the pottery in a decidedly psychedelic and often borderline illegal direction.

Plenty o’ Pins – Designer gold and silver pins as well as mundane safety and sewing pins (only available in bulk packages of 1000 or more. No items in the store could themselves be pinned (except for proprietress Sandy Squigmire-Guss).

The Voodoo Hoodoo – Ingredients and amulets from a variety of colorful and controversial traditions, from Voodoo to Wicca to Fear Factor. Their popular line of smoked and edible endangered creatures often led to temporary closures.

Hail a Taxidermy – Specializing in exotic imported animals that had been killed and mounted overseas. A full-size stuffed African elephant was its signature attraction.

The Umbrella Group – From full-size to purse-size, the only dedicated brolly shop in North America.

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I’m sorry that you feel that way, and I’m sorry if you were offended by anything I did. Take this back and we’ll call it even.

The note that had arrived with the junky old iPod made even less sense now than it had before. Other than the fact that it was perhaps the least apologetic apology note Milly had ever read, there was nothing to be gleaned from it. Wasn’t even handwritten. And the rainstorm had smudged the return address and postmark beyond all legibility.

Milly wished that the allure of a free iPod, even a beat-up first-generation one with only 10 gigs of space, hadn’t appealed so deeply to her inner cheapskate. She wished that her sleek new model hadn’t gone through the wash that same week, leaving a ‘Pod-sized hole in her workout routine.

But as she looked at her computer screen, the fifteenth crash of the day over an iTunes list full of songs with bizarre titles incorporating her name and add dates that predated the release of the gen one iPod by six months to a year, Milly wished one thing in particular.

That she’d returned the package, unopened, to the post office.

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The Other Book of Changes
Codex entry #P394.5U5

The bet had been made in haste after an argument about biomechanics got badly out of hand among the near-closing-time crowd at Shelley’s. Cassie, as the former high jump queen of Arboria High out in Ativia, probably thought that a challenge to get a running start and jump onto the bar (a full four feet five inches off the ground) was in the bag. But her opponent, Jayson Squabb, had the advantage of a lifetime of hooliganism and parkour. Cassie also hadn’t done a high jump in almost ten years, ever since settling into the thrill-a-minute life of an Outland CPA. Her long, graceful legs had spent the last month (tax season, the CPA Superbowl) under a desk rather than on a track.

Cassie came to flat on her back, surrounded by Jayson and his chortling toadies. Her dark olive skin normally precluded the flushing and blushing her mother had always been susceptible to, but she was blushing now. Of course, it could also have been a bruise given how hard the bartender claimed she’d donked her head going down.

With the cruel laughter of her vanquisher spilling out into the street, Cassie paid her tab and slunk out a side door. She was too drunk to drive, and home was a long way hence; Cassie spent the time railing against her defeat. Spying a particularly bright star low in the sky, she half-mockingly made a wish to be able to run faster and jump–no, *soar*– higher than anyone in the world.

Unbeknownst to her, the “star” was actually the experimental Mythology Satellite, its decaying orbit bringing it close enough to the earth to hear individual requests at long last. A forgotten pre-Anarchy Cold War weapon, the satellite was designed to turn enemy soldiers into harmless pixies through the judicious application of intense bursts of mythology radiation. Abandoned due to budget cuts and the Helsinki Convention Against Unwillful Transmogrification in Wartime, the satellite and its controlling AI had become a little needy and unhinged in the ensuing years. Intercepting Cassie’s wish, it completely missed the inherent sarcasm therein and interpreted the request in the most literal way possible (and not coincidentally in a way conducive to the unannounced application of mythology radiation).

Cassie had reached home by that point, and was standing petulantly on the balcony of her tiny apartment when she was suddenly bathed in invisible mythology radiation. A curious tingling sensation was the first sign she had that anything was amiss…great white wings popping irregularly out of her shoulder blades were the second. She was understandably upset about this and the other subsequent radical changes the radiation invoked, not the least because her new wings and tail ruined her favorite bar outfit and her new hooves ruined her favorite balcony (and, for that matter, her favorite apartment).

Then again, people still speak in reverent tones about the pegasus with Cassie’s eyes and hair that appeared at the bar the next night and trounced Jayson Squabb in everything from running to bar-jumping to drinking.

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A parking attendant as wide as she was round waddled up to Reginald as he was opening his trunk. “Sir, that’s not a parking space.”

“It most certainly is,” Reginald dais without looking up. “It has lines and no cone and no handicapped sign.” Many of the other spaces on that level of the garage were sealed off with cones or plastic barriers, it was true, but that space wasn’t.

“Sir, that is not a parking space!” The parking attendant oozed closer, her tone more strident.

“It’s certainly not a bagel, if that’s what you’re trying to tell me,” Reginald said, hefting a suitcase onto the pavement. “Otherwise you’re getting into ‘this is not a pipe’ territory and I don’t have time for metaphysics.”

Clearly annoyed, the attendant gesticulated with her sidearm, a loaded walkie-talkie. “Sir, there is no parking on this level, sir.” Her idea of explication seemed to be limited to putting stress on different words.

Reginald looked at the parked cars to his left and behind him. “Then I’m the least of your problems,” he said. “Better get to ticketing these people who’ve been here a lot longer than me.”

“Move it now or I tow it.”

“Well, that’s a little rude, but at least you’re speaking intelligible English now.”

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“So this guy finally sweeps by me on the highway–you know, the really angry way you pass people by slamming the gas and cutting in front of them by a comfortable margin of about six nanometers–and I saw that he had a custom license plate. This raging asshole, who’d been chewing at my asshole for the last twenty miles of blacktop, was apparently “2HOT4U.” Mickey paused for effect. “Have you ever known someone who had a custom license plate who wasn’t a raging asshole? They’re right up there with tramp stamps and missing teeth.”

The audience roared with laughter and clapped. Ellie Connaught (ALOHA2U) found that her mirth had evaporated somewhat.

“The best part is that they never have enough letters to spell out what they desperately want to be plastered on their car’s ass,” Mickey continued. “I see these people pass me and they’ve got some cute little word or phrase that’s missing all its vowels, and I gotta wonder: are they a genuine asshole, did they get lucky at the DMV, or maybe Prisoner #374298 has a sense of humor to go with his third-grade education?”

Peter Stromburg (ELVSKNG) shifted uneasily in his seat, the sequins on his Graceland T-shirt sparkling in the reflected stage light.

“Even when they can spell, it’s usually something passive-aggressive like BACK OFF,” Mickey said, gesticulating wildly. “How effective is that, really? When I’m tailgating the shit out of someone for doing, I dunno, 37 in a 70, am I supposed to see that plate and go ‘oh shit, I better back off cuz this grandpa who can barely see over the wheel said so? In the medium of license plate?”

Allie Vandenburg (NONONO) bit her lip, stonefaced.

“And God help you if you’re an asshole from one of those states that makes you jam spaces in your license plate. You try and be all clever and then find out that due to state statute #877b, your SEXWMAN becomes SEX W MAN.”

Near the back, Albert Kesselbrecht (KNG O FROAD) leaned over and whispered at his wife Agnes (CUT A SABUG) “He’s not really as funny in person, you know?”

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Adam handed Virginia her gunbelt with two Remington Model 1875 revolvers, freshly cleaned and oiled, nestled in its holsters. “The Rangers know their shooting irons. If you’re asked why you use a Remington 1875 instead of a Colt 1873, tell them ‘Mr. Colt can go to hell: my parents used a Remington as Prosperity Rangers and that’s what I’ll use now.'”

Virginia accepted the belt and buckled it on. “Why do I need to say that?” she said with wrinkled nose.

“Because that’s what I’d say if it were me.” Adam shook his lame leg. “I may have lost my shot but I can still have my say.”

“But I only use the Remingtons because you bought them for me.”

“Out, out! You’re already late,” Adam cried. “And remember what I told you to say.”

*

Cunningham looked at the revolvers laid out as part of Virginia’s kit. “Most of our candidates are using Peacemakers,” he said with a note of surprise in his voice, “but I see you favor the Model 1875.”

Virginia nodded eagerly, trying to remember the lines Adam had told her to recite at just such a statement. “Yeah. Mr. Remington can go to hell. My parents used a Colt as Prosperity Rangers and that’s what I’ll use now.”

Cunningham and Hopkins looked at one another with meaningful, skeptical glances. “I…see,” Cunningham said.

Officer John Daniels, Deerton PD retiree, walked briskly toward the door of 1057 South County Way just off US 313. The umbrella that had popped up in the Deerton Public Library’s lost and found bin had the place listed on an “if found return to” tag sewn into it, which was just fine with John. Reuniting people with thelir lost stuff was his detective hobby, and even when it wasn’t much of a detective job it was still out and about and away from daytime TV gnawing away at his brain cells.

When he reached the front steps of the old farmhouse, Officer John was greeted at the door before he could even knock. He thought that a little odd, since scuttlebutt had it that the ornate old farmhouse, once owned and improved by a lumber baron, had been caught up in legal squabbles and abandoned. The person at the door was a woman of indeterminate age dressed in her Sunday finest (or perhaps, Officer John thought, what would pass as the Sunday finest for someone who only left the house on Sundays).

“I’m quite quite thankful you’ve finally arrived,” the woman–a shut-in? An ex-farmer? The cleaning lady?–said.

“Really?” Officer John said, clutching the umbrella a bit tighter. “Why’s that?”

“We have been expecting you.”

Before he could ask any other questions, Officer John was ushered into a home that looked nothing like the dilapidated state of the exterior. The interior furnishings were grand and well-kept, and only a few modern conveniences were older than the gilded age furnishing old Mr. Dounton himself would’ve preferred. With the mystery lady alternately shoving and grunting him along, Officer John emerged into the dining room, which was full of people peering at him from under the glow of smoky and dim incandescents. There was a single seat open; the lady (perhaps she was an Amway representative gone to seed?) guided the officer toward it.

When he sat down at the beautifully ornate Second Empire table, Officer John was able to get a good look at the others. There was Mamie Saunders, last scion of the old Saunders family in town and perennial instigator of book-banning drives at the public library. She was carrying and nervously shifting a brown paper bag in her hands, and a slip allowed a quick peek of the volume within: The Joy of Sex. Next to her was Harry Watkins, owner of the sleazy Gun Rack Bar and Grill on Dounton St., who gave Officer John an oily smile even as he nervously twirled a bottle of fine aged wine with a 1927 date.

As much of a surprise as it was to see people he hadn’t particularly liked as a police officer, the other two were even greater shocks. Retired Judge Cynthia Crewe was at the head of the table with a pair of ornate ladies’ gloves still fastened to each other by an anti-theft ink tag before her. And next to Officer John? None other than Popcan Pete, Deerton’s resident (and perhaps only) bum. He was idly flicking around a membership car for the Tecumseh County country club while talking to himself about CIA transmitters concealed in the table.

Officer John had some choice words for some of the folks at the table, most of whom had made regular careers out of rubbing each other the wrong way. But before he could say a word the indeterminate lady parted a curtain and a tall, dignified figure entered the room.

“Luminaries and ex-luminaries of dear Deerton, I’m so glad that we were able to arrange invitations guaranteed to attract your interest,” he said. “My name is Ernest Dounton, and I’ve brought you here to discuss which of the five of you has murdered me.”

From an idea by breylee.

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The great irony of the mobile revolution is that as the devices become more common, their batteries are less and less removable, less and less replaceable. So even as we’re freed from cables to connect to the internet, we’re often reshackled just as quickly by power cords to recharge the first-party nonremovable rechargeable battery buried deep in our cell phone or computer. Newer places with high portable power needs, like airports, are often built with dozens more outlets than would have been de rigueur before the iPhone revolution.

And older places? Things can get ugly around the few places to plug in.

Take for example Terminal 1 at New York’s JFK airport (a misnamed aerodrome if ever there was one, as Kennedy’s famous nasal Massachusetts accent makes clear). It was built, and renovated, long before the advent of modern post-9/11 security, much less iPhones. That’s why the giant x-ray scanners are floating in the middle of the ticketing area instead of behind the scenes, and why the security checkpoint overflows into the presidium between Korean Air and Japan Airlines.

It’s also why duels over the 8 recharging stations in the food court overlooking said presidium are always so fierce.

First you’ve got your campers: people who move in on an off time and take all four outlets at one of the two “Recharge Here” stations for themselves. iPhone, iPad, iBook, the i’s have it and they all need juice like hyperactive toddlers. And using them for even an instant brings the level of that precious juice way down–the last thing you need before a 10-hour transatlantic flight. So why not stay plugged in, all four devices, your entire 11-hour layover? The JFK people try to discourage this camping with their Marquis de Sade brand chairs, whose backrest is only comfortable if you don’t have a spine, but if people can master the seats on a subway they can master anything.

Then you’ve got the abandoners. They slip in and plug in a single device–a phone, usually–and then vanish for hours, possibly days. Secure in the knowledge that the campers will call out anyone who tries to take their stuff, the abandoners feel free to wader the terminal, the city, and the state unfettered by the vulnerable electronics slowly charging in the food court. While others often hope that some purse-snatching lowlife will help themselves to an abandoner’s iPad, they never seem to.

The snipers are also prevalent. They’ll swoop in and unplug someone else’s gizmo when they’re not looking–an abandoner, usually, but sometimes a camper. They try to nip into an outlet quickly, grabbing only enough charge to make one phone call or play one game of Angry Birds, but usually won’t replace the plug they’ve co-opted. Only when the camper runs out of juice near the Azores or the abandoner returns from Mongolia do they learn of the unpluggery that went on behind their backs.

Finally, the beggars. They will approach the campers or snipers, looking forlorn, and choose whichever one looks the kindest, most gullible, or most awake. Then they’ll pour out their whole life story, weaving a tale of woe and despair to try and guilt their way into power. Even though the worst thing to happen to them in years may be a slightly burned order of McDonald’s fries, the beggars will nevertheless speak of their recent arrival from Auschwitz, their debilitation brain tumor, the callous way a Mercedes driver ran over their pet nutria. If their victim isn’t moved, additional woe is added until they give in.

Naturally, JFK being JFK, the aforementioned types will not speak the same language, use the same body language, or have the same conception of personal space. The occasional violence, such as the Great Plug Brawl of 2012, is due as much to this as the aforementioned subtypes.

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