Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The sun was setting over the tundra, painting the frosted hills a vibrant purple and softening the ugly edges of the huts at their foot. The traveler stared down at the rickety houses made of corrugated steel and plywood, and then looked over at the caribou herd, safe behind their protective fence.

As she watched, the sun caught the snow at just the right angle to erupt in a flare of light. The huts and fence vanished amid the glare, and for a moment it was as if they had never been there at all, as if when God knelt to make the earth, he had left this place completely new, utterly untouched, forever.

“Okay, how about this,” said Travis. “We can outsource our entertainment coverage to a firm in Liverpool. It’ll save us the time and expense of writing the news up ourselves, and since entertainment is a global industry these days, no one will notice.”

Murmurs of assent were heard around the boardroom table.

“Are you sure about that?” Jason said. “Need I remind you of our disastrous decision to outsource our computer science coverage to Pakistan?”

“That was never proven!” snapped Travis. “Here, take a look at my next slide. It’s a real-time mockup of how the site would look, complete with actual breaking news!”

The page loaded, displaying the following banner headline: Sir Nigel Westlake’s Departure Throws Spanner Into Works of New BBC Programme ‘Orchestral Colours’.

“Oh yes,” Jason said. “No one will notice that’s Liverpudlian, certainly not.”

Dr. Barrett could always be relied on to block anything the faculty senate tried to vote on, whether by ceaseless questioning, filibustering, or endless motions for amendment. Sam often remarked, and I was inclined to agree, that the old bag treated the meetings as her own private airing of grievances. She wasn’t so much participating as holding court.

That attitude had earned her the moniker of “Princess Senatus,” among the other senators which in the grand old tradition of academic puns wasn’t understandable to anyone without a PhD in something or other. Sam thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and was always trying to explain it to his undergraduates:

“See, it’s a pun. Augustus was the “Princeps Senatus,” the First Man of the Senate, and the word senator actually comes from the word for old man, so we’re really calling her the old man princess!”

In response, the students would try to text from behind their schoolbooks, and I can’t say I blamed them.

Kaprov sighed, his face lit by the fires of his dying city.

“So this is the paradise they promised me,” he said. “Freedom from poverty, freedom from death. The Bolsheviks said that if we could shake off the shackles of class, we’d be able to…trancend all this.”

“In a way, you have,” Semyonik murmured. His head was in his hands. “We have seen the end of our city. We have seen the beginning of something completely different. We have transcended something all right, but we’re still dying a minute at a time.”

The book was extremely worn: its binding had cracked and frayed, numerous pages were dog-eared or torn, and wrinkled or water damaged leaves had swelled the volume to double its original thickness. The word “Journal” was printed in block letters on the front cover, the word run through with voyeuristic thrills.

Virginia eased it open and read the stumbling, awkward handwriting that made up the first entry:

“June 17th 1853. thot i’d start writin down things so i can recolect em when things get all gray up ther. met with rangers agin today, had to tel walter of for 2nd time. bastird wont be happy til we got a ide war party in prosperity squar. maryanne is feelin beter today an she let me feel th babee kickin.”

Pride, lust, greed, envy, anger. If ever these traits had manifested themselves in a single person it was Bernard Orleans. Mick vividly remembered the first time they’d met: he’d been hurrying to his office on the first day of work when he rounded a sharp corner and ran headlong into someone going the other way.

“Oh! Oh, I’m so s-”

The man he’d run into—short, wild-haired, broad-shouldered—cut Mick off, pushing him to the wall and holding him there with an arm on each shoulder.

“Explain yourself! I’m not used to being attacked, least of all in my own office!”

“I…sorry…was…accident…” the shock of the impact and assault had left Mick scrambling for words.

“Hah! In my experience there’s no such thing as accidents—only deliberate injuries and incompetence! So which were you guilty of, eh boy?”

“Daddy,” Tia said. “Daddy, can you hear me?”

Juan stirred. “Tia,” he said in a flat voice. “Hello, angelita.”

“Dr. Crowe tells me that you haven’t been eating very much, Daddy. He says that you hit an orderly when they tried to feed you.”

“I’m waiting for your mother, Tia. Laura promised me that she would return if I did as she asked, and now I’m waiting for her. Won’t you stay with me until she comes? Laura misses you so, Tia.”

His daughter shook her head, eyes wet. “She’s not coming, Daddy. She’s dead. She died while you were away, years ago. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course, angelita,” Juan said, “But she promised to come back once I set things right. I did just as she asked, and now I’m going to wait here. She never lied.”

Rich looked up, his mouth full of pizza and grease dribbling down his chin.

“Whouf vherr?” he said. There was no answer, just another knock on the apartment door.

Swallowing and wiping his mouth, Rich ran to the peephole and peeked through. He saw a shock of disheveled black hair, a flash of pale skin, and a hand coming up to knock again.

Throwing open the door, Rich was startled when the knocker tumbled into his apartment, out of breath and visibly distressed. It was Marie Cullen, the girl from STAT 321. Rich had never said more then “hello” to her in the six weeks that the class had been in session, though he’d often found himself tuning out of the lecture to admire the shapely curves of her legs.

“You’ve got to help me,” she gasped, practically falling into Rich’s arms.

Rich’s mouth had already formed the words before he could think: “But I don’t even know you.”

“Y-you can’t bribe me!” Taylor cried. “You’re trading illegal items, stolen items, and something has to be done!

“And you think that you are being a big man, by refusing my money? Let me tell you something, Mr. Taylor. You are a very small man. You run a small facility far away from anywhere important, and your superiors do not give a shit what happens here, as long as they get their money and the customers are satisfied.”

Taylor simmered, arms stiff at his sides.

“Do you wish to do something about this? Then take my money, Mr. Taylor. Look the other way. Use it to buy yourself something to down your sorrows in, or perhaps use it to escape from this place. It is of no consequence to me. Do not, however, presume to interfere with me. I will not hesitate to defend my business, Mr. Taylor, and that is something you most assuredly do not want.”