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May 10, 2011

From “Spirits of the Somme” by Edith Palkerton

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If you check the medical records, it’s all there in plain black and sepia. From June 1 to July 1, out of the roughly 150,000 troops scheduled to take part in the offensive, nearly 5,000 were treated for hemorrhagic nosebleeds. Add to that voluminous complaints of piercing headaches (10,000 cases) hearing voices (8,000 cases), grand mal seizures (500 cases), and even a reported case of spontaneous combustion.

This despite optimistic predictions and generally high morale.

The fact is, there was a strong sense that something terrible was about to happen. And, of course, it was borne out for nearly 60,000 of those troops by the first of July.

 

May 9, 2011

From “Outbreak at SMU” by Kevin K. Neimayer

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“I’m in the hallway outside,” said Jordan. “I don’t see any more of those things.”

“Wonderful,” squawked Graves through the walkie-talkie. “Don’t you think you could have waited another forty seconds and simply come into the lab?”

“I wanted you to be expecting me.”

“I was already expecting you! Now stop babbling and cover the last fifteen point seven-two meters to your destination!”

Jordan gritted her teeth. “I told you before, Dr. Graves, I’m sick of your attitude.”

“And I told you before, Ms. Avery, that your feelings on the matter are strictly incidental. You should be grateful that I need a tool in accomplishing my ends; otherwise you’d have been left to rot with the rest of them.”

That was it, Jordan decided. When she met Graves, she was going to kick him directly in the stones. She’d had enough of his bossy, disembodied voice.

The lab door had been locked from the inside; it opened as she approached. Inside, she saw a walkie-talkie held in one of the lab’s manipulator arms, positioned next to a mainframe terminal speaker. Dr. Graves lay in a heap on the floor, with deep red marks around his neck.

“Surprise,” the terminal said.

 

May 7, 2011

From “Musings” by John Sullivan

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John looked over at her. The bright, silvery moonlight lit up her face and hair from behind, like a kind of celestial backlight. She was as radiantly beautiful as he had ever seen her. “And there never can be.” he said ruefully. She only nodded, slowly.

“We’ve know each other for a while.” John said at length. “And it occurs to me that we’re not going to see each other much anymore. After tonight, there’s just two weeks of school left, and then summer jobs, and then college. This may well be the last time we can really talk. I’d like to end our friendship on a high note.”

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?” she said.

“Have you ever kissed before?” John asked.

She nodded.

“Well, I haven’t. So, will you do me a favor? For just a moment, pretend that you’ve never kissed anyone before. Pretend that we’re in love, and that we’ll never see each other again.” John gently put his hand on her shoulder, and drew her toward him. She didn’t resist, didn’t cry out. She simply closed her eyes and gave a little half smile

They kissed. Not a short, impersonal peck on the cheek. Not a vulgar, lingering wrestling match between tongues. Not even the passionate culmination of a wedding vow. Just the simple, pure essence of physical contact. They lingered there for what felt like an eternity, locked in a tight, personal embrace–the most perfect, innocent, and pure expression of love that the cosmos had ever seen.
Perhaps because it never really happened at all.

That was the evening John preferred to remember, the one he described to his children years later. He never really talked to that girl again, but he heard second-hand of her happy marriage. John knew that his cherished memory was a fantasy, but he clung to it nonetheless; an inner monument to mistakes made, painful lessons learned, and redemption.

 

May 6, 2011

From “Verisimilitude” by Altos Wexan

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“Betty,” Harry said. “Betty!” She didn’t respond, lost once more in her own world.

He took a deep breath. “Mr. Williams apologized for what he had written,” Harry said. “He had been searching for something that may not exist, and it had blinded him.”

“Betty looked up, listening.”

Harry continued. “Mr. Williams had looked at Betty’s work anew, and found in it much to appreciate. It had taken him to a place he never dreamed.” He held out his hand. “Mr. Williams reached out, asked Betty to take his hand, to leave the place she had created for herself. In return, he promised to work with her, to help her understand her gift, and maybe understand a little more of himself. He said that she might be the very thing he had been searching for, a writer able to make her words real like no others could.”

Nothing happened for a moment, and then Betty broke the stare that had kept her riveted on her notepad, and looked up at Harry. Something stirred deep within her eyes, and Betty reached up and grasped Harry’s outstretched hand. He pulled her up and out of the crater, which faded and closed as she left it.

“You…you found me,” she said. “Thanks.”

 

May 5, 2011

From “Damn You, Myers-Briggs!” by Crystal S. Feldmann

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Getting past the fact that the Myers-Briggs test is pure hokum founded on Jungian principles that have been discredited since my parents were zygotes, it’s also vastly unfair to the people that it pigeonholes as introverts.

Extroverts are described with roundly positive terms: action-oriented, gregarious, assertive, adventurous, exciting, life of the party. Introverts, by contrast, are made to sound stunted with words that sound straight out of mom and dad’s basement: reserved, private, loners, wallflowers. Hell, even the number of adjectives is skewed one way.

Worse, the dichotomy tends to be presented in terms of what extroverts have but introverts don’t, as if the latter are lacking something fundamentally human. We read all the time about how extroverts live longer, are considered more attractive by the opposite sex, are happier, are less stressed, and so on.

Even the examples people choose reinforce the perception that extroverts are normal and introverts are twisted creatures deserving neither pity nor mercy. John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon. Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs. Joseph Stalin. George Washington vs. George III.

 

May 4, 2011

From “God Has Given Me This Beautiful Thing” by Ian Rhodes-Hewitt

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Turning the grenade over in his hands—it was small enough to be concealed in one palm—Matesi ruminated on his attack. A wealthy farmer’s car, perhaps, or a Rhodesian Army officer on an inspection tour. The privates were like dry sticks; they’d burn with whatever blaze was put to them. Matesi fully expected them to open fire when and if he did, and to follow him into ZANLA service.

When a personal car finally did appear, Matesi was relieved to see that it did in fact carry Rhodesians. He motioned for it to halt and walked up, grenade in hand.

“Where are you going today, sir?” he asked.

The driver stuck his head out; the man was freckled and flaxen-blond. “Bulawayo, eventually,” he said. “Taking the family in to pick up some things at the druggist.”

The word “family” gave Matesi momentary pause. But no, the beaming wife in the passenger seat made no difference. She too was Rhodesian, and as Ndabaningi had drawn no distinctions, neither should he.

“We’re getting some asthma medicine!” a voice said from the back seat. Matesi looked over and saw a young girl there, hair in pigtails. She was clutching a black knit doll with spindly strings for arms and legs, and Matesi had a brief, stabbing thought of his young ones at home.

“That’s a fine doll you have there,” Matesi said. One quick pull, a toss, and then three seconds.

“Thank you,” the girl said. “Her name is Fabunni Zene. Mummy says that means ‘ God has given me this beautiful thing’ in Swahili.”

“But we do not speak Swahili in Rhodesia,” Matesi said. His hand trembled as he regarded Fabunni. So much like his daughter’s…

“Mummy says that more people in Africa speak it than anything else!” the girl said. “That’s why Fabunni chose it, to be a part of Africa.”

 

May 3, 2011

From “Writer’s Razor” by Anonymous

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Imagine a circus procession winding its way through town, set to jolly calliope music.

Hold on a second. What is a calliope? It’s always mentioned in connection with circuses (circusi?), but what exactly is it? It’s named after the muse of epic poetry in Greek mythology, but I can’t see a line of clowns belting out stanzas about Odysseus this and Achilles that, can you? All right, scratch the calliope.

Imagine a circus procession winding its way through town, set to jolly music.

Come to think of it, when’s the last time there was a circus procession in my town, or indeed in any town? Do they even proceed (process?) any more, or do they just drive the trucks to the fairgrounds and set up? I can remember a circus once, a long time ago, but since then, nothing. I think they might be a dying art form—how will people twenty years from now relate to this nonsense about the big top? All right, scratch the circus.

Imagine a procession winding its way through town, set to jolly music.

Now, “procession” to me means either a funeral or a wedding. In neither case is jolly music particularly appropriate, unless you’re in New Orleans (which we’re not). They call for a dirge or a march as appropriate. But since we’re unclear as to which it is, best to leave off the jollyness (jolility?). In fact, best to just get rid of the music entirely. The nature of the procession will determine it anyway. All right, scratch the jolly music.

Imagine a procession winding its way through town.

Do processions really wind in any of the towns I’m familiar with? No, the streets tend to be rather broad and straight. The whole “winding streets” thing is a European import anyway. And the word “way” is too esoteric anyhow. How does one find, or lose, a way in any real sense of the word? It’s too romantic a notion for today’s edgy youth audience. All right, scratch the way and the winding thereof.

Imagine a procession moving through town.

Back to that procession again. Would a funeral or wedding really go through town in this day and age? Unless it was a particularly small town (which this isn’t), they’d only move through a part of town, not the whole thing. And, really, the town is far more important than the procession of its various motions. The town sells itself, or should at any rate. All right, scratch the procession and the moving.

Imagine a town.

That’s cut down to the bone, right there. It’s all about the town, the locality. Though come to think of it, what exactly is a town in a cohesive sense? It’s just a collection of people, buildings, public utilities, and the like. It doesn’t really say anything other than, maybe, “Hey! I’m a collection of people, buildings, public utilities, and the like!” Nothing unique in that message, or anything interesting for that matter. All right, scratch the town.

Imagine.

Perfect!

 

May 2, 2011

From “On Multitudinous Wings” by Anton D. Lesk

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“Central North America is the only major food-producing area without a native locust,” Laars said. “We’ve never had to deal with that kind of sudden crop damage before, since the Rocky Mountain locust became extinct.”

Smythe gnawed his lip. “So what you’re saying is…”

“If this is allowed to continue, we could see starvation and crop failure on a scale this continent hasn’t known for a century. Even if we sprayed for the locusts, our stock of pesticides isn’t large enough to handle a sudden outbreak, not to mention the damage rampant use would do to the crops themselves.”

Smythe turned over the specimen in his hands. “So with this bug, the Directorate could do more damage than with a biological weapon. And no one would know it wasn’t natural.”

 

May 1, 2011

From “Olympian Memories” by Van Bullock

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“They regularly visited gymnasium physical education classes to pick out promising students, and I was plucked out of my school for tryouts before coming in at the top of their little class of gymnasts. The Soviets weren’t as bad as the East Germans in that we weren’t relentlessly doped up with anabolic steroids, but the training program was still merciless: a medal at the Olympics was a matter of national security. They altered my state records to make me seem two years older than I really was, to keep me competitive longer.”

“But it wasn’t just that–we were suddenly pulled out of obscurity into the elite, something few managed in the ‘egalitarian’ society they had at the time. My family was given an apartment near the IOC complex in Moscow, jobs, and a stipend. My father was so proud; I know because he would sometimes come to practice to watch me. Once he even bought me an ice cream afterwards, which brought the coach to our door, red-faced, the next day–we girls were on a strict diet, you see.”

“We girls had private tutors, and most of the lessons were in English–we were expected to gain mastery of the language with an American accent in hopes of romancing Yankee athletes and pumping them for information–or better yet, bringing them back as defectors. But it never came to that; I was left off the 1988 Olympic team after I sprained my ankle, and by 1992 the country had collapsed–no more apartment, no more stipend, no more team.”

 

April 30, 2011

From “Archivaria” by Thatherton Russell

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Yes, I think the overwhelming impression students got of Witherton was a cackling old man, rubbing his hands together safe in his Archivist’s Spire as he planned on how best to alienate and fail his students.

I took a slightly softer view. The man wasn’t a teacher, wasn’t trained as a teacher, and was clearly more comfortable with ancient manuscripts than people. But the way the university worked required him to teach, but gave no rewards for good teaching or punishments for bad teaching. His research kept him at the head of his field and the tip of the tenure iceberg, but the students…well, it’s safe to say that even with the slack some of the more enlightened of us cut him given the circumstances, it wasn’t easy.

Nothing illustrated that better than what became known as the “Action of April 30.”

 

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