Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Welcome to EFNB 10th Anniversary Week! This entry is a sequel to one posted ten years ago on February 26, 2010.

“Look, Graham, I don’t expect you to like it, but I do expect you to get it,” Allison said. “We’re all using somebody for something. You’re a smart guy, you would’ve used me to get ahead in your little bookstore before finding somebody your mom wouldn’t mind bringing home. I did the same.”

The .38 was trembling in Graham’s hand. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have left you in the gutter with two slugs from a cop in your gullet.”

“Yeah? Well, now’s your opportunity to do just that,” Allison said. She slid her hands up around Graham’s wrists and pulled the Colt up to her sternum. “Go on, shoot. If you’ve got in in you.”

The librarian hesitated. Allison saw his grip slacken, and with a deft move she plucked the .38 from his grasp.

“Just like I thought,” she said. “The difference between you can me, Graham, is that I’m willing to make things happen, and you just let things happen to you.”

Graham’s hands went up. “Are you going to shoot me then, Allison?” he said. “Even a known communist and ne’er-do-well like me isn’t going to look good dead on your expensive floor.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I have people for that. Charlie?”

‘Bullshit’ Charlie, still in his officer’s blues, stepped out of the shadows, with his friends Smith and Wesson leveled square at Graham’s back. “Thanks for not shooting her, pal,” he said with that infuriating shit-eating grin of his. “You saved me a ton of paperwork.”

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Welcome to EFNB 10th Anniversary Week! This entry is a sequel to one posted ten years ago on February 25, 2010.

“Yeah?” Tia said. “What I see is that you’ve had two bosses break down when they had to hold your leash. Blame what you want, but they both have one thing in common. You.”

Peg looked through the glass at the still form of her former captain. “Does he talk about me at all?” she said.

“He said plenty before. He said enough. Insubordination. Dereliction of duty. It was bad enough that he ended up on a garbage scow, but to have someone like you as his navigator? He never complained, but it was all there. I read every message.”

Peg hesitated. She felt a burning in her face, a desire to plunge the verbal knife in and give it a rakish twist. It wouldn’t help anything. It never did. But the words were fully formed and tumbling out before she could even second0guess herself.

“Funny,” Peg said. “He never mentioned you. Not even when he was at his most insane and raving. I didn’t even know he had a daughter.”

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Welcome to EFNB 10th Anniversary Week! This entry is a sequel to one posted ten years ago on February 24, 2010.

“He’s taken the bait. The asset is in his sector.”

Dr. Hirsch pulled a few still frames out of the data stream and blew them up for his colleagues. The incoming data was so voluminous that only the Pearlsea AI was capable of crunching it, but as Dr. Al-Enezi and Dr. Jutanugarn were important members of the oversight board, and thus controlled the purse strings, Hirsch was willing to walk them through the procedure.

Al-Enezi looked at the realtime screen, which had Rich letting Marie Cullen into his apartment, bewildered, from a bird’s-eye-view. “And his reaction will determine the course of the simulation?” she said. “What if he ends it prematurely?”

“We’ll reset if he sends the asset away,” Hirsch said. “It’s happened twice since Pearlsea got underway, and both times a reset solved things.

“Just like my PC at home,” chuckled Jutanugarn. Then, more seriously: “Won’t he notice a reset?”

“Perhaps, but it’s easy enough to isolate and delete that from the encephalon. The stimuli between the donor upload and the beginning of the experiment are controlled by us, after all.” Hirsch brought up a comparison diagram to emphasize his point, though he doubted either of the board members understood it—they were administrators, not working professionals.

“And we’re sure the donors are not going to object to their encephalons being used like this?”

“They signed the waiver and collected the fee. Legal has told us we’re free and clear.”

“Look,” said Al-Enezi. “He’s following her outside.” He pointed at the realtime monitor, where Rich was dutifully abandoning his pizza and following Marie out of his apartment. “What now?”

“We begin with mild uncanny stimuli and increase them as time goes on,” said Hirsch. “The point is to see how long until we have a total encephalon failure.”

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Welcome to EFNB 10th Anniversary Week! This entry is a sequel to one posted ten years ago on February 23, 2010.
“He abandoned the station,” Peg said. “He abandoned his post. And three people are dead. The company says we have to go after him.”

“Why us?” said Coolidge. “There are others.”

“Nearest corporate corvette is weeks away,” Peg said. “We’ve got leave to take the cutter.”

“You’re not listening,” Coolidge said through gritted teeth.

“Explain it to me then!” snapped Peg. “Because from where I’m sitting, Taylor killed a regular customer and stole his ship, which we look at pretty dimly where I come from.”

“Not our job,” Coolidge said. Then, seeing Peg’s expression, he added, for emphasis: “Let him go.”

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Welcome to EFNB 10th Anniversary Week! This entry is a sequel to one posted ten years ago on February 22, 2010.

“Hey, Tony.”

“What is it, Ronnie?” I said, sticking my shovel into the sand, frustrated. “You and me here on a body-hiding detail, or are we in a debating society?”

“I found some different colored sands. They ain’t white anymore.”

I looked over, wincing at the bit of Joey’s ripe ass wafting over the white sands. “What?”

Ronnie, shovel in hand, was pointing down at some sand he’d just uncovered. It was glowing a bright, spectral blue in the desert twilight.

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Welcome to EFNB 10th Anniversary Week! This entry is a sequel to one posted ten years ago on February 21, 2010.

Her name was Ramona Dempsey, and she was from the gulf coast–or so she claimed. Close enough that you could see the lights of New Orleans on a clear day, but far enough that oil from Deepwater was still washing up in tarballs. Eventually I started to see some holes in the story, but I think that much, at least, was true.

When we met, she introduced herself as Dempsey, and was with another Ramona. I told them both the story about my previous Ramona, leaving out the police report but leaving in the cigarette burns. They seemed ticked–after all, that’s why I brought it up–and it seemed like Dempsey and I hit it off, especially when she revealed her actual name.

Even then, I should have seen it. The little warning signs and red flags, from things as simple to being constantly asked where I was to bigger stuff like a new name mysteriously appearing on my car’s title. By the time I realized that anything was wrong, I had been so thoroughly cut off from friends and family that I was well and truly trapped. There were even new cigarette burns.

The idea that finally saved me was to pick up the phone and call Ramona. Not Ramona Dempsey, mind, but Ramona McEuen–my previous, and ex, Ramona. Given how thoroughly my phone records were combed, I knew that they would find each other.

I was hoping that they would cancel each other out.

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Welcome to EFNB 10th Anniversary Week! This entry is a sequel to one posted ten years ago on February 20, 2010.

“Look,” Reuben said. “I know what you’re going to say, but I need to make up Friday’s test. My grandmother died.” He was pale, sweaty, and shaking a little–as if he’d just jogged over, at the very least.

I took off my reading glasses, laying them across ungraded student papers on my overstuffed desk, and massaged my temples, which were already aching from a litany of excuses already floated at me via email. No one, it seemed, wanted to take a test the Friday before spring break, even though the department was forcing me to give it and I’d otherwise have readily agreed.

“Reuben,” I said. “This is the fifth time. I’m very sorry that my tests seem to be fatal to your grandmothers, but this can’t keep going on.”

“Would you believe that my family is a group of necromancers, and that we’ve tried to raise her five times now?” Reuben said, eyes wide. “And each time we’ve had to put her down when her thirst for flesh becomes too great?”

“It does have the virtue of being one I haven’t heard before,” I said.

“What if I told you that there was a grandmother-targeting serial killer out there, then?” Reuben said. “And that they’ve been picking off my grandmothers one at a time, brutally in some cases?”

Picking up my glasses, I put them back on and got up. I shut the office door before plopping back into my chair. “I’d say that you need to tell me what’s really going on here, Reuben,” I said. “Wild excuses giving way to wilder ones aren’t going to change the fact that you look like death warmed over. Tell me the truth.”

He flashed a nervous, tremulous, and bright grin. “I wish I knew, Dr. Beck,” he said. “I wish I knew.”

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Greetings and Introduction

Welcome! The editors here at Excerpts from Nonexistent Books are honored, nay, humbled that you have chosen to read from our humble site, and we are even more excited to kick off a weeklong celebration of 10 years’ literary blogging!

This blog was started in 2010 with a humble goal: to provide an outlet for the finest literature that did not, technically, exist (and as a daily, and accountable, writing blog besides!). At times it seemed like the project would not last the year, and EFNB was woefully behind at times, up to a month in some cases. But now, 3,652 entries later, it has all come together.

For this commemorative entry, the EFNB editors have gathered some comments from our nonexistent authors, posed questions to some of our longest-running nonexistent characters, and compiled some tantalizing statistics for nerds and nerkles. Finally, we have some exciting news in the form of a blast from the past! Stick around—if you’ve been with us for 10 years of this nonsense, you’re sure to enjoy what we’ve got in store.

Comments from Nonexistent Authors

“Ladies, gentlemen, and anything in between, it has been a pleasure and I hope it continues to be.”
–Mariana Brinson

“Has it really been ten years? It feels like five-and-a-half at most. Perhaps there’s a time warp thing involved, I dunno.”
–Altos Wexan

“Oh wow!!! CONGRATULATIONS! That’s wonderful!! Wooooooooow, 10 whole years. That’s an impressive milestone!”
–Amanda Elton

“How did you get this address? Get out of my office!”
–Phil “Stonewall” Pixa

“Nice! As someone who can’t finish nearly anything with an semblance of consistency I find it impressive.”
–Akima Wren

“今私は休暇中です。家に帰ってから連絡してください。”
–Nokin Kobeyashi

“It’s been an delight, since most sites think my writing is for the birds.”
–Sandra Cooke Jameson

“I’m honored to be part of EFNB, and I will live on forever through its fame and glory!”
–Blythe Hilson

Questions with Nonexistent Characters

Q: What is best in life?
A: To crush a difficult recipe, see it served before you, and to hear the happy belches of the customers.
-Takenaka Chihiro, the wandering Sengoku Jidai gourmet chef

Q: What do you like best about appearing in EFNB?
A: Since my author will probably never finish my novel or short stories, it’s the only way I can exist. I guess I’ll take it, since the alternative is staying cooped up in his head.
-Pamela Ellen “Peg” Gregory, minimum-wage space jockey

Q: What is a good quality in a nonexistent character?
A: Existence is illusory. We only give existence power through belief; with enough belief, even the most ridiculous thing can be said to exist and exert its will. The ideal thing is to be the hand or sword-arm of that thing–no one has to believe in you, but you may as well be all-powerful.
-Pierre Richat, enigmatic villain

Q: Who do you like in the 2020 EFNB blog draft?
A: I think we’ll see more low-effort bad poetry, more graphical elements stolen from old sheet music, and the occasional return of a character from the blog’s heyday. But look out for pass interference from bizarre ideas that the blog toys with extensively and then drops, and of course plenty of hasty entries filled in after the fact.
-Carl Drake, sportscaster for NBS Broadcasting

Q: Do you think any of the characters are authorial self-inserts?
A: No, I think the predominance of college-age men giving way to greying middle-aged salarymen in stories over the years is a coincidence.
-Eric Cummings, spoiled college student

Q: Which is superior, the realistic, sci-fi, or fantasy entries in the blog?
A: All genres are puny, and all the living authors vermin, destined to wither and fail before the unstoppable tides of entropy and cool animated skeletons. So, fantasy, I guess.
-Ulgathk the Ever-Living, Elder Lich of the Seven Lands

Q: Why do all the EFNB entries sometimes feel like they were all written by the same person?
A: Well, as Messr. Whitman once said, we are large. We contain multitudes. Each idea is like its own being, with its own life and death, even if it occupies the same skull as a thousand others. Perhaps we are all, ultimately, mere notions in a head so large and a mind so vast that we cannot even conceive of it.”
-Auguste Des Jardins, French filmmaker

Q:Who are you, really?
A:I am a servant of the power behind the Nothing, and an aspiring poet.
-Anonymous

Statistics for Nerds

Most Comments: 56, From “A Muse’s Unvarnished Perspective” by Altos Wexan

Most Popular Year: 2012, 4394 visitors

Total Pageviews (including spambots): 37,028

Total Visitors (including spambots): 17,867

Most popular day: Tuesday (18% of views)

Most popular hour: 10:00 PM (14% of views)

Average Excerpt Length: ~300 (299.8)

Wordiest year: 2013, with 130,377 words written and 357 words/excerpt average

Total comments 2010-2020: 1,061

Average comments per excerpt: .29

Total likes 2010-2020: 6605

Average likes per excerpt: 2

Countries outside the USA with more than 1000 views: Italy (1,724), India (1,721), UK (1,355), Canada (1,145)

Total words written 2010-2020: 1,010,628

Still to Come!

Tune in starting tomorrow for a week of entries that are sequels to the very first pieces of nonexistent fiction every featured on this site!

“We’ve always gone our own ways, pursued our own interests, but…there has been a balance. A balance that is now upset.” The Azure Man exhaled, wreathing his head in blue smoke. “I’ve long had that balance as my interest, my reason. Hues are powerful, as I’m sure you’ve seen, and there is a greater balance at stake in the world which we are a part of.”

“You like to hear yourselves talk, too,” said Harry. “Don’t forget that.”

“Yes, quite.” The Man tapped a pale finger on his cheek. “You’ve let the Lady in Red draw living blood for the first time in decades, set the Green Couple fighting amongst themselves over your soul contract, turned the Yellow Woman’s madness back upon her, and managed to thoroughly, thoroughly piss off the Purple One, whom I count as my dearest enemy. Have I left anything out?”

“The part where I just want to go in peace and leave you Hues alone,” said Harry. “Maybe see Harriet one last time before they give her the chair.”

“That time has passed,” said the Azure Man. “The Hues of this city are in chaos, and they are demanding–or, rather, they will demand–action. I must give them something, even if it is an illusion or a scapegoat. You will do. Or, perhaps, your friend. Perhaps both. Convince me, one way or another, if you think you can.”

Harry fell into a stubborn, sullen, silence.

“Very well then,” the Azure Man said. “Hobson’s choice it is. You choose nothing, so that is what I will give you.”

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“There, there. Try not to move. You’ve been put through the wringer, and I’m not here to hang you out to dry.”

The Purple One set a glass of water next to Harry and walked toward the window, with its expansive view of the city below. They were dressed in a curious mixture of frills and spots, an amalgamation that suggested more than it said, and kept coy about the Hue that wore it.

“Why would you do that?” Harry croaked. “The other Hues have had nothing but trouble for me.”

“Yes, you do seem to have set them aflutter,” said the One. “Perhaps that is what I was curious about. I’m used to their disapproval, you see, and breaking their silly rules. Maybe you’ve got a natural knack for that. Maybe I’d like your help.”

“Just like the others,” Harry said.

“What?” The Purple one was next to him, their violet eyes wide, livid. “I am nothing like them!”

“You say that, and yet here you are, asking how I can help you advance your agenda,” Harry said. “That sounds like every other Hue I’ve dealt with this week.”

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