Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“I’m Owena,” said the lady, stepping into the car carrying a rather large and lumpy paper bag. If taking her groceries with her was the “weirdness” Tim had mentioned when he set up the blind date, Cameron thought things might turn out all right.

“Owena? That’s a pretty name.” Cameron actually thought it sounded like something fit for a frumpy great-aunt, but his date was clear-eyed and cute, so she was going to get a lot of latitude. “What do you do for a living?” he continued, hoping to break the ice.

“I’m a professional Euryklide or gastromancer; I prefer the former because people tend to think the latter means cook and I can’t even boil water without burning it,” Owena bubbled.

Cameron devoted considerable effort to not scrunching up his nose. “I’m afraid I don’t know that that means,” he said tactfully.

“I’ll show you!” Owena reached into her bag and produced two finely carved wooden dummies, a male and a female. “These are my friends and business partners, Llewellyn and Gwyndolyn. Don’t mind their silence, they’re just a little shy.”

“So…you’re a ventriloquist!” said Cameron. “That’s neat.”

“Please do not use that term, especially in front of my partners,” Owena said with a sour look. “Ventriloquism is vaudeville stagecraft, while Euryklides or gastromancers have a much more ancient and mystical tradition of prophecy, respect, and access to the animatory spirits of the cosmos.”

Cameron was quiet for a moment, unsure of how to respond without betraying how deeply weirded out he was. “Uh…Tim said you wanted to eat at The Crockery? That’s it right there.”

“Oh, yes,” Owena said, sounding bouncy again.” Cameron pulled the car in and parked it, but before he could get out, Owena placed the male dummy on Cameron’s lap. “I don’t usually get to take both of my partners out at the same time. Could you help Llewellyn inside?”

“Umm…I’m not sure…” Llewellyn’s dead eyes in Cameron’s lap were extraordinarily creepy.

“They know me here, it’s okay,” Owena said. “I take one of my partners in here all the time.”

“Because…it’s good practice?”

“Heh, I suppose it is!” Owena laughed. “We have a good rapport, the three of us, but sitting there and talking it out does take some of the edge off our occasional stage fright.” She dashed out of the car and inside before Cameron could say another word.

When they were inside and seated–with the waiter giving Cameron a weary and knowing look–Owena swiveled Gwyndolyn’s head to face her blind date. “Well hello there, handsome,” she “said” in a squeaky voice. Cameron had to admit Owena was good; her lips didn’t twitch at all.

“Hello there…ah…Gwyndolyn,” Cameron said with a forced smile.

“Well, don’t we have an inflated opinion of ourselves?” Gwyndolyn “said.” “I was talking to Llewellyn.”

“Gwyndolyn! Be polite,” Owena admonished her left hand.

Cameron sighed, and fiddled with the levers inside Llewellyn for a moment. “Hello there,” he said. Cameron did his best, but his voice was barely disguised and his lips moved visibly. “F-fancy meeting you here.”

“Sounds like you have a touch of the flu,” Owena laughed. “What are we having?”

“Veal, I think,” Cameron said. He manipulated Llewellyn to say something he hoped would be charming: “How about a plate of wood chips?”

“Oh, that’s real nice,” Gwyndolyn appeared to say. “A baby-killer and a cannibal. You two make a right nice pair, don’t you? I guess it’s what you’d expect of two sods with wooden heads.”

“Come now, Gwyndolyn,” Owena said to, well, herself. “No need to be rude.”

“I’m just telling it like it is,” was the lady-dummy’s “response.” “Lllewellyn’s always a blockhead, but this sod has got a lot of impressing to do if he hopes to make it to date number two.”

Oh, that was it. That was the end. Cute or not, Cameron was just about finished with this date. “Look, toots, it’s not his fault that you’re nuttier that a sack of squirrels,” he responded using Llewellyn. “I mean, taking your dummies on a first date? Insisting on a weird name for what you do? Treating us like we’re not just fancy scrimshaw? Way to get off on the right foot!”

“Llewellyn, what’s gotten into you?” Owena cried, looking genuinely shocked.

“It’s not like we don’t get it,” Cameron continued with his bad squeaky voice and worse ventriloquism. “You set a high bar, bring out all the strange on date one to scare off anyone who isn’t serious. But you know what? I think you’re convinced that no one is a better match for you than your little toothpick friends, me and Gwyndolyn. And you know, you’re right.”

Cameron stood up, set Llewellyn in his place, and left.

“I’ve never heard you lose your temper like that before,” he heard Owena say to the dummy behind his back.

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“Commander Mikhailov!” It was a runner from Krupin’s force, which had been pressing hard against the remnants of the Japanese 23rd Division.

Oleg Tarasovich Mikhailov swatted him away; he was on the radio with Popov in the divisional headquarters, trying to coordinate ongoing strikes by his tanks with incoming orders from Corps Commander Zhukov. “Yes, yes. Understood. We will press the attack as ordered; I am expecting casualties, but nothing unacceptable. The Japanese surely cannot hold out for much longer.” He placed the mouthpiece down. “What is it?” he snapped at the runner.”

“Sir, I-” the runner ducked at the sound of a wheeling aircraft overhead. Mikhailov remained standing, and watched a group of Japanese fighters–Ki-27s–attempt to strafe the Soviet positions behind the hillock that shielded part of Mikhailov’s command center. There was a distant thud of anti-aircraft pom-pom guns and the fighter broke off. A flight of I-16 “donkeys” rose up to meet the attackers not long afterwards and tore them to shreds, filling the air with contrails and tracer rounds.

“Get up, you lout,” Mikhailov said, kicking at Krupin’s errand boy. “What is so important that it merits wasting my time while we are ejecting what remains of the Japanese aggressors from Mongolia? I told Krupin to report by radio only if he was victorious or dead.”

“The radio has broken, Commander Mikhailov,” the runner said, his head lowered. “Krupin dispatched me to report the capture of a Japanese supply convoy attempting to break out of our encirclement.”

“Good for him,” Mikhailov sniffed. “Distribute whatever booty and supplies they were carrying as a reward to the men and execute any prisoners without strategic value. Was there anything else?”

“Begging your pardon, Commander,” the runner said. “There was one object in the Japanese convoy that…well…” He handed a piece of notebook paper to Mikhailov. The commander’s eyes widened.

“You there!” he shouted at one of his adjutants. “Get me a staff car and a BA-10 armored escort! I am traveling to Krupin’s position immediately! Lagounov’s in charge until I return.”

The arrangements were hastily made, and after a tooth-grindingly bumpy ride along the Mongolian steppe, Mikhailov caught up with the rearmost portion of Krupin’s unit. The area was littered with bodies and smouldering vehicles, with a few Japanese prisoners under heavy Red Army guard. Krupin himself was seated at a commandeered Kwantung Army mess table alongside a disabled Nissan truck which had been towing a bulky armored trailer with a machine gun atop it.

“Show it to me,” Mikhailov barked at Krupin, without even bothering with any pleasantries.

Krupin complied, jumping to his feet and opening a side-mounted door on the captured trailer.

Mikhailov’s eyes widened. “My God…”

Inside was the very thing that had been described in top-secret orders from Corps Commander Zhukov before the Khalkhin Gol counterattack.

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Moved by their pleas, the Ne’ta agreed to help the people escape their dying world. It was a being of utterly alien nature and inconceivable power, but not a god, and it refused to be worshiped or to intervene further in human affairs. After the rescue, it offered the following choice to the people:

You may choose a life of the mind or a life of the body. The former will know plenty and ease but will be subject to the same decay and weaknesses that led to the death of the old world, while the latter will live in hardship but remain strong and independent. Once the choice is made, I will recuse myself from further participation in your affairs.

About half of the people chose the mind, while the remainder chose the body. The Ne’ta separated them across two parallel skeins of the same world, so that their actions could not directly affect each other. It was careful to leave a few chinks between the skeins, though, for even in its alien wisdom the Ne’ta could not see all ends. It then departed to an unknown destination, which the people in both skeins perceived as a second sun vanishing from their skies.

People who chose the mind founded the city of Ecumenopolis, incorporating all the technological know-how that they had brought with them from their dying world. Though primitive at first, within a generation or two Ecumenopolis was able to implement steam power and eventually electricity. Eventually it came to be known as simply Ecumen, and sat as the crown jewel at the center of a network of smaller towns, farms, and mines. Mindful of the disaster that had befallen their ancestors, the citizens of Ecumen tried to impose strict limits on their use of the natural world and to incorporate more artistry into their technology than had once been the case.

Those who chose the body returned to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, eventually fracturing into a series of rival bands. With no central authority, different bands took different attitudes toward the Ne’ta’s instructions. Many shunned any technology that they could not easily construct from nature, while others reinvented parts of the old world. Rival bands routinely fought each other, grew in power, established empires, and fell or were conquered. Theirs was anarchy compared to the regimented Ecumen, but they were stronger and more fit for individual survival.

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Mahjong Pizza has a long tradition of allowing a certain amount of employee innovation. It was hard to forget how the business had been founded on the back of Chad Martinez’s innovations while working at a Hopewell, Michigan Pizza House even among the esoteric college kids who usually donned the red-white-green uniforms. If Martinez could transform the pizza delivery business through his amateur time and motion studies, anybody could.

As such, Anna Grimaldi had to sit through a monthly “innovation meeting.” It meant an extra half-hour on the clock for most people, but the innovations therein tended to be on the prosaic side (multiple magnetic “shark fins” for foggy days, offering a five-pack of breadstick dipping sauces for a reduced fee). Anna’s ideas tended to run afoul of the legal department, which 86’d her idea of the cook writing a personal message on the box of each Mahjong pie, as well as her co-workers, who hadn’t been enthusiastic about writing personalized messages in the first place.

At the February “innovation meeting,” she had another idea: “The florist next door is always throwing out flowers. Why not grab a bunch of them for a few pennies and keep them on the counter for Valentine’s Day? Then everyone who comes in for carry-out can get a flower. Make them feel loved or something.”

“I think we should let people our customers are seeing give them the flowers,” her manager said.

“Come on now,” Anna replied. “Do you think anyone who’s getting carryout pizza on Valentine’s Day is seeing anybody?”

The flowers were out in a crystal vase by 8:02 AM February 14.

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Even in grade school I was an overachiever, and often looked ahead in the book or had an idea of how to write letters and numbers before our official instruction came along.

But in first grade, in the middle of our intense instruction in the D’Nealian style of block printing, I was told that a number of my characters were formed wrong and needed to be relearned. In particular, I drew the number “5” like an “S” with a kink in it, starting at the top right and drawing it all in one stroke.

My first grade teacher insisted that I needed to write the “5” character the proper D’Nealian way, which starts in the upper left and requires you to draw a hook straight out of Peter Pan before capping it at the top in a separate stroke. It was pounded into me over the course of a year, and I wrote it that way for decades.

Then, as a college student, I came to realize that no one way of forming the character was better than any other. In particular, I recalled the case of the uppercase cursive “I” and uppercase cursive “Q.”

In second grade, I got bored with a lesson and read ahead in the book along with my friend Jen. We knew that we’d have to do a worksheet on the capital cursive “I” because it had already been handed out, so we worked on it while everyone else was occupied. With no directions, we wrote the cursive “I” beginning with the crooked arm that differentiates it from the lowercase “L.” When the lesson started, however, Jen and I were shocked to see that the other kids were taught to do the crossbar of the crooked arm as a separate step. Since the worksheet was already done, we were never caught–and I continue to write my cursive “I” the “incorrect” way to this day.

I was sick on the day, later that year, when the uppercase cursive letter “Q” was taught. So I never did that worksheet and never learned it, with only the rarity of uppercase “Q” in scholastic writing saving me (we’d done lowercase “q” separately). When I finally saw the D’Nealian uppercase cursive “Q,” I was appalled: it was a sickly creature that looked like an emaciated “2.” So starting in third grade, I simply wrote a normal print “Q” in place of that abomination. Nobody noticed.

Fast forward 15 years. In college, my handwriting was often praised for its legibility, having never quite lost the childish look that in most people gives way to cramped scribbles, and I decided that it was time to reclaim my number “5.” Like the “I” and the “Q,” I started writing it my own way, the way I had before first grade. It was as easy as riding a bike after a long absence.

Of course, now my “5” is easy to mistake for an “S” especially when I’m in a hurry. But it was worth it to reclaim that bit of my childhood and thumb my nose at Mr. D’Nealian.

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Marguerite Séléka stirred on the straw mat in her filthy cell as the sound of keys echoed in the lock. To her surprise, it was not a policeman or soldier that entered but rather a short and broad-shouldered man in an immaculate and bemedaled uniform with a gold-tipped ivory cane. In the Bangui heat, sweat glistened on his brow much as it did on Marguerite’s.

“The Emperor will hear your plea,” barked one of the guards. It had taken a moment for the association from the portrait hung in Marguerite’s elementary school classroom and the occasional hard currency that passed through her hands to sink in; standing before her was Bokassa I of Central Africa, once president and now emperor of the Central African Empire.

“I have heard,” the Emperor said in a deep and authoritative voice, carefully removing first one white glove and then the other, “that you incited your students to disobey the law requiring school uniforms.”

“Your imperial majesty, please,” Marguerite said, using the form of address they had all been taught. Personally she agreed with her father that Bokassa was unfit to be a wagon driver, let alone a president or emperor, but it seemed prudent to show at least a little deference. “My students are poor, and the uniforms are very expensive. Many of their parents have had a bad year, and…”

“That does not matter,” the Emperor said. He took off his hat and handed it and his gloves to one of the guards behind him. “The law requires the uniforms to be worn, and the children must wear them. It is because the uniforms bear my image, for we must instill pride in the Empire from a young age. If you disrespect the Emperor’s image, you disrespect the Emperor.”

“But how were we to pay for those expensive embroidered uniforms with no money?” Marguerite cried.

“There are always non-essentials which may be cut out,” the Emperor said. He unbuttoned his shirt, medals flashing in the sliver of sunlight the bars admitted from outside. “Non-essentials” apparently didn’t include the Emperor’s uniform, or his $20 million coronation in 1977 or his $5 million crown, Marguerite thought bitterly.

“What is to happen to us?” Marguerite said. Having given up on reasoning with the man, she at least hoped to find out about the fate of the children–well over a hundred of them–that had been arrested along with her.

“You will be held as long as I deem it necessary, and certain ringleaders will be…disciplined.” Bokassa removed his fine uniform jacket and tossed it to a guard, revealing a simple white shirt with suspenders. Several flecks of what were unmistakably blood were visible. “Much like Alexandre Banza was…disciplined.”

Mauguerite couldn’t suppress a sob; everyone knew that the Emperor had personally eviscerated the rebellious Banza with a kitchen knife. “So…we are all to die, then?” she stammered.

“The French have been asking that I show…restraint,” said the Emperor. “I think that discipline shall be meted out…and whether the guilty live or die be left up to God.”

He took a step into the cell and hefted his heavy cane like a cudgel. “Dacko and his stooge Banza never understood the importance of involving oneself in the process of discipline,” he said in a low voice. “Great men know that this is of the highest importance. Napoleon led from the front at Toulon, and I follow his example.”

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The concept of Fat Tuesday is inexorably tied to that of Lent, specifically the Lenten fast. It’s a tradition of eating very well before a long fast that begins the next day, which later on expanded into having a lot of colorful fun (the “carnival season”) before a period of Lenten solemnity culminating in Easter.

It’s a contrast between the plenty of a large meal and a lengthy fast and a wild party before a time of asceticism and devotion, and it’s in that contrast that the power of the holiday is gained or lost. What does it mean to pig out if that’s what you do every day, before and after? What does it mean to throw a wild party if that’s the extent of your usual weekend plans?

Fact is, we live in a society of excess, of plenty, where gluttony and partying are expected if not celebrated (and the “we” I refer to isn’t just the USA but the entire developed world). That’s one of the reasons that Mardi Gras, traditionally a very Catholic and very Latinate holiday, has made massive inroads into other groups: it’s become little more than a flimsy excuse to get smashed. Or, in the case of people for whom getting smashed is a weekly occurrence, getting really smashed.

You see that same impulse in the adoption of many holidays that, important as they may have been in other cultures, were obscure to the Western population at large. Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day…all observances with long and proud traditions that have been reduced to the status of Budweiser Holidays. In every case the underlying event–the lunar new year, the Battle of Puebla, the Catholic faith–has been rendered obscure by the haze of excess.

And, much as I’m loathe to admit it, I’m a participant in that milieu. I have never had the spiritual strength to give up anything for Lent, or to fast even in the midst of plenty. Even if I were Catholic and part of the tradition, the necessary duality between feast and famine, joy and solemnity, wouldn’t be there.

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“I still haven’t met the bride-to-be,” said Houston. “Knowing you, she’s got to be a little crazy.”

“Oh, pshaw,” said Pierre. “Have you even been looking at my Facebook? I’m settling down, getting old and boring.”

“I have a hard time believing that ten years would be enough time to file off those sharp edges,” Houston replied. “Plus, everyone censors themselves now that their grandmothers are on there.”

“Well, judge for yourself,” Pierre said, opening the dining room door. “May I present Ms. Jane Roe, the future Mrs. Pierre Delecroix.”

Houston stopped dead at the sight of the short brunette. Those eyes…that face…he hadn’t seen them in years, not since that terrible night. He could still feel the world tumbling beneath him, see the harsh lights, feel the cold clammy metal…

“Ah, so is that what you’re going by these days?” Houston said. “When I knew her, she was still going by “უცხოელის” but admittedly it’s hard to make a proper introduction when you’re being abducted and probed by ნეპტუნიians.”

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“Don’t you see?” Max’s glasses were fogged by humidity and excitement, his eyes glittering behind nearly opaque screens. “This is a chance to get even with everyone who’s ever pushed us around. It’s our chance to make things fair for everybody and make the town a better place. Hell, the world could be a better place.”

“I…don’t think you’d agree if you could hear yourself, Max,” said Sasha. The…thing…pulsed angrily behind Max, shifting colors from aqua to crimson, and the “veins” that twisted over its surface recoiled with what could only be described as anger. “We’ve seen what this thing will do when it gets bigger.”

“That’s with nobody controlling it, or with someone bad doing it,” Max cried. “With one of us, one of the geeks, in the driver’s seat…it’ll be different.”

“You can’t control it, Max!” Corrie said. “If anything, it’s controlling you!”

More red hexagonal “arms” crystallized from the central, but they were thinner, sharper, than the thick central core of the…thing. “You guys can either get onboard or get our of here,” Max said, a note of menace evident in his squeaky and occasionally broken voice. In school even he laughed at his voice sometimes; no one was laughing now. “If you try to interfere…you’re not going to like what happens.”

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“I’d like to provide a demonstration if I may. Here, write the first thing that comes to your mind on this slip of paper. Try not to let anyone see it.”

“Uh, okay. Here you go.”

“Thank you. Now watch this: I’m going to take that paper and burn it, right here. I hope this doesn’t set off the smoke alarm or we’ll be finishing our class outside today! There we go. Now, let me ask you: was any information irreplaceably destroyed just now?”

“Not really, no. The word was ‘elephant.’ I know what I wrote. I can write it again, I guess, or tell people what it was.”

“A not uncommon opinion, I’d wager. Let’s see a show of hands: who agrees that no information was lost? Looks like most of you. And who thinks that it was? Just a few. Why do you disagree with Margaret?”

“Well, usually when a professor phrases a question like that, they’re fishing for an answer and you can pretty easily tell which one they want.”

“Ha! Spoken like someone who’s been around the block a few times and knows how to use that information! Consider this, though–all of you. The exact strokes on that paper will never be made again, as the mental state Margaret had can never exist again. There’s all sorts of information encoded in that which a trained handwriting expert might be able to unlock. That ink–which a chemist could analyze–and that paper–same thing–are also gone. You can’t reconstruct any of it from the ash. And even if Margaret tells you what she wrote–even if she snapped a cell phone picture of it–some of that information would be lost.”

“So what’s the point of all that, then? Never destroy anything?”

“That wouldn’t work out very well, would it? But you’re right; a professor like me would often use this as a segue into a statement like that, and again you’ve used that information well. No, let me just say this: be mindful. Every action that you take brings information into the world, and you must be aware that the act of deleting it or changing its format inevitably results in data loss, in information loss. That information may be worthless junk, and it may not. But only be being mindful can you prevent the loss of something important.”

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