Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

There was very little in the room–all the clothes were neatly packed away, suitcases in the closet. Not so much as a wrinkle in the cover. But then, that was Jane for you…fastidious to a point.

The only thing askance in the entire room was a brightly-colored paperback on the nightstand. The Popular Tree. It was a sentimental story about a big-city girl finding herself by returning to her home town for a funeral, and a New York Times bestseller. It was easy to see why the title had appealed to Jane; she had been back in town from far-off Hopewell for only about a month. Her small home, with its lakeside view and sliver of golden sand beach, was more like a hotel room, with all the major items still in storage.

But that book…touching it, fanning the pages, one couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the sense of it, before reading a single word. The cheap paperback pages had sponged up every scent of Jane’s month-long beachside stay. The aroma of sunblock, of water, of fish…shampoo, clean cotton, even a hint of nail polish. The Popular Tree had absorbed them all, and to be near it was to have those sweet memories of blissful afternoons unlocked.

It was a bauble too bright and too intoxicating for the house as it now stood. All the warmth and memory in the world couldn’t wash away the bitter truth behind Jane’s book.

It had been the last thing she ever read.

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“Wow, so generous of Mr. Hanna to donate all these books for the PTA book sale! What’s that one there called?”

“It’s, um…Sex: An Owner’s Manual.”

“Yeah, let’s put that in the reject pile. Next one?”

“Let’s see…Smut: The Misunderstood Art.”

“Next box. What have you got?”

“It’s Pornographers: The Fourth Estate.”

“…how many boxes did you say Hanna gave us?”

“Fifty-three. Give or take.”

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A little later than usual, maybe, but the thick, wet blanket of summer has finally been rolled over the landscape by summer’s heavy hand. Stained by the sweat and juice of a day in the field followed by a hearty repast like a well-worn old tablecloth, it clings to you even when you retreat inside, into the meatlocker sanctuary of recirculated and cooled air.

The heat gets rubbed into you deep, like the spices of a Memphis barbecue, all spice and fog, all raw and dripping. It takes time, especially if you’re not used to its all-consuming humid embrace. People from up north stand it a little better each year until their blood thins out, just like swapping winter oil for summer in an old Ford.

You see them, the people who were born into the heat or grown used to it. They move with a weary and sparkling deliberateness, each step, each motion held against the cost in sweat and toil paid up front or in the laundromat. People have said that this is laziness, but it’s more introspection than anything. Thoughts don’t cost so much as a sweat-bead in a heat where waving hello might as well be dipping a hand in an ocean.

Empires have been forged and lost on those hot days, on porches, beneath shaded boughs, fanned by hand or machine. Empires of the world, sometimes, though not nearly so much as in the old days. Empires of the mind, of the soul, with all the grandeur and suffering that come loaded like bullets in that word.

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In time, the few who knew how to operate the ancient machines of old became pariahs. Their skills, once so useful to the builders of empires, now shunned by those who lived in their weed-choked ruins.

Some tried to use their machines, their great engines of war, to carve new empires for themselves. But they could never extend their authority beyond the reach of their vehicles’ steel arms, and there was no more fuel to replace that which they burned, and no stores of missiles and bullets to reload their emptying racks and magazines. Such petty hedge-empires fell as quickly as they arose; even working in concert, the pilots who had been behind the ruin of their world needed just what they had destroyed too much.

Then there was Hobb.

Hobb’s machine was still functional, if battle-scarred. Its legs had been shot off at the Tombs, and it had lost its right arm holding back the 83rd from the gates of Helion. All but two of its external missiles had been fired, and its countermeasure flares were limited to a single fresh magazine of six–all the techs at Ouroboros had been able to load before the city fell. The pilot’s station was unarmored and exposed, its composite and multiplex stripped off to keep other units running during the Long Retreat.

Still, Hobb might have carved himself out a minor fiefdom with his machine and a little skill, and brought him something greater than his rude shack on the outskirts of what had once been Helion. If only for a bit.

Not Hobb.

He used his machine’s repulsordrive sparingly, to carry him on clear nights to heights undreamt-of by the people below. There, he’d watch the moon rise and the city slumber.

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“Who is Kaye Runn?” Mitzy demanded.

“What? Who?” Dirk cried into his handset.

“Don’t lie,” Mitzy yelped, anguished. “I overheard you talking about ‘that fine Kay Runn’ you’re going to be ‘doing’ tomorrow!”

“5K Run…I said I was doing a 5k Run! You know, running 5 kilometers? Those communist miles that they use in Canada?”

A pause on Mitzy’s end of the line. “Oh, okay. I’m sorry. How embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dirk said smoothly. “I’ll see you tomorrow night for dinner like we planned, okay?”

“Who was that, lover?” Kay’s voice floated in from the bedroom.

“Oh, nobody…nobody,” Dirk said. “Now, let’s see about setting a new record, Ms. Runn…!”

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We are the castoffs
The forgotten
The passé
Useful still
But no longer new
Scars of hard days
Long days of use
Worn heavy on us
Your former partners
Left to molder
Drawers our pockets
We see the new
And wait for it
To be beside us
Looking out
With envy
On a world passed by

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“We’re not here about the misuse of commas or the outright abuse of possessive apostraphe-s in your ad copy. They have been cataloged and coded. We are also well aware of your use of the term ‘literally’ to mean ‘practically’ and ‘could care less’ to mean ‘couldn’t care less’ in both copy and casual conversation. No, Mr. Repard, we have convened this tribunal to discuss the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Please, you don’t understand! It was just an ad!”

“Ads are still discourse, Mr. Repard, and they inform all discourse to come. For the tribunal: did you or did you not create an advertisement for, and I quote, ‘fuel-efficient tires?'”

“It was just an ad to sell tires!”

“May I remind you, Mr. Repard, that tires consume no fuel and therefore cannot be fuel efficient?”

“Please, I just meant that the tires increase the overall fuel efficiency of the vehicle! I had limited ad space!”

“If that’s what you meant, that’s what you should have said. The Semiotics Tribunal will now render its verdict.”

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

“Guilty. Hereby sentenced to 18 months in the semicolon mines of San Serriffe. Dismissed!”

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“Give me liberty or give me death!” cried the patriot sharpshooter.

“I have a better idea,” said Doctor Von Deathenstein.

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This post is part of the July 2013 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “Dog Days of Summer.”

When it comes to sultry, eggs-on-the-street summer heat, folks tend to think of the torrid south, the arid west, or the artificial asphalt ovens of the east coast city-states. The Midwest is not on that list; we are the Great White North, Canada Junior, avoided and overlooked except in election years.

But that Midwestern summer heat has an edge to it that the others lack.

We see some of the greatest temperature variations anywhere, from -40 (on any scale you might use) to 100+ Fahrenheit, my preferred scale if only because the most blistering days are in excess of a century of degrees which makes them all the more sweat-misted. These forces, from freezing to broiling, mangle our roads into Pollocks of pavement and make weather prediction even more a casting of bones than ordinary. April might still see snow and June might usher in a roaring hundred-degree drought–or vice-versa.

I still remember a Middle School day in May, when it was 80 degrees in the morning and snowing by the final bell. Running home through the snow was my only option, since I was in shirtsleeves and shorts. I also remember lying out in my parents’ house under a fan, sticky from heat and unable to rouse myself. We had no air conditioning, like many, since the heat would only last a month or two at most. For the longest time I thought those long-ago dog days were named after the neighborhood mutts, laying on porches or in doghouses and panting away what heat they could.

There were few pools, since most weren’t worth the hassle of draining and covering after only a fortnight of use, so the kids would often go down to the river to cool off. Not by swimming–an old creosote plant upriver had all our parents forbidding us to dip so much as a toe–but by soaking in the cool air that collected in the hollow of the old drained lake, trapped by the overhanging trees and shady parks at either end. We used the riverwalk–before the term even existed in trendier circles–paved with woodchips and gravel.

Of course there were other remedies. Being boys, water balloons, hoses, and squirt guns often figured quite prominently. Whoever had the largest and most pressurized cannon was always at a major advantage…until the others ganged up on them, or until everyone became so soaked that further shots had no effect. Nearsighted, I was never a good shot, and never willing to escalate the battles. That meant forever losing to whoever was ruthless enough to deploy the hose first, or whoever resorted to dirty warfare by flinging unconventional projectiles like pinecones, lumps of sod, or even (once) dog poo.

When I sit, an adult, in my air conditioned cubicle, shivering as if in a meat locker, the lens through which those old dog days are perceived grows rosier. Such is the way of all things, though it is hard to walk those same paths today and not feel a twinge of regret or golden longing.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
Ralph Pines
articshark
Sunwords
Diem_Allen
U2Girl
robynmackenzie
Lady Cat
MsLaylaCakes
pyrosama
Angyl78
SuzanneSeese
Diana_Rajchel
HistorySleuth
AshleyEpidemic
SRHowen

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Here lieth
KING WEXFORD VI THE EPHEMERAL
Born 987 OCE
Died 1027 OCE
King of Gharial and Grand Duke of Caiman
Reigned from 12 Hexember 1027 11:31 AM to 12 Hexember 1027 11:45 AM
SHORTEST REIGN IN HISTORY
“Now that I’m king, let’s talk about raising those taxes. 200% seems like a good round number.”

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