September 6, 2011

From “Easy Money” by Cull Featherton

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Easy money.

An artillery shell slammed into one of the adobe buildings across the compound. The defenders within, who had been returning fire with small arms, went out as a fine mist.

Easy money. That’s what Campbell had said.

The first line of skirmishers arrived, disembarking from a BMP. Most of them were killed or wounded, but there was far less, and far less accurate, fire from the rebel positions than there had been moments ago.

Easy money. A tottering autocratic regime, enthusiastic rebels rising up all over the country. Only a few firefights and then cash and poontang from grateful locals.

A second BMP–or, rather, a Chinese-made copy bought and paid for not three weeks ago–disgorged its squad. Bull raked them with heavy machine gun fire, but these weren’t the militia they’d fought earlier. They were disciplined, organized, took cover, laid suppressing fire. Polymer helmets, gas masks, and Chinese kevlar.

Easy money.

 

September 2, 2011

From “Behold, Corisio!” by D. K. MacDuff

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“Behold, Corisio! Land o’ the fair and strong, city of kings and cradle of emperors! Oh, to gaze upon thee’s to experience the wondrous, rapt’rous joy of an auspicious pigeon’s flight o’er Jove’s thunder’d brow!”

The words were like thick, Bulwer-Lyttonesque dust in Drummond’s mouth. T. Serge Poller may have been a native son; he may have once been considered a luminary of mid 19th century theater; he may even have been on the shortlist for Poet Laureate.

But times change, and Drummon fervently wished as he rehearsed that anyone who ever derided Shakespeare as dry and formal had complimentary tickets to the show.

 

August 9, 2011

From “High Scores on the Road to North Korea” by Anderson James McKnight II

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“What outlet do you hope to find for your skills, especially in this economy?” Tanaka said, folding his hands across his lap. “You know as well as I do that Sandstorm is one of the top computer game development firms in the world. With the way you left…would anyone be willing to hire you, even if the economy improved?”

“I’m listening,” said Dennis. Clay looked like he was about to say something, but was silenced by a wave of his roommate’s hand.

“I have in this briefcase two first-class tickets to Beijing and reservations in a five-star hotel near Tienanmen Square,” said Tanaka. “There is also a twenty thousand dollar down payment, ten thousand for each of you. If you accept, you will have six weeks to put your affairs in order before the plane leaves. Our agents will meet you in China and arrange for you to cross the border into the DPRK.”

“And once we’re there?” Dennis asked.

“You will be provided with a generous stipend, use of a government villa, and all the associated privileges normally granted to high-level government workers, including access to imported materials at no charge. In return, you will use your programming skills in the service of the DPRK for a period of two years after which you will be allowed to emigrate with your accrued earnings and any imported items you wish to take.” Tanaka looked at the programmers over the wire rims of his glasses. “If you attempt to report any details of this arrangement to your government, of course, they will find that Hirosaki Tanaka has been dead since 1978 and the money and tickets are all connected with international heroin smuggling. You have one hour to make your decision.”

 

August 3, 2011

From “Trench Warfare in the Egerton Country Reference Room” by Cullen O’Doul Rogerson

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The red ribbon from the opening ceremony hung in tatters from Grady’s rifle. He’d wrapped it around the barrel and stock as a sort of improvised sling.

“I bought and paid for this building.” Grady said, staring directly at Fellowes through the glass. “And you’re not getting it back until my wrongs are redressed.”

“It’s a Carnegie library,” said Fellowes, never for a moment taking his eyes off the barrel of Grady’s rifle. “You didn’t pay for it any more than I did.”

“I have paid, several times over, even!” Grady shouted. The scars on his face brightened with rising, angry blood. “First as a millworker for U.S. Steel, lining Andy C’s pockets! Then as a tenant, with taxes to help build and equip it! And finally in blood, defending it against Hun machine guns in the Ardennes!”

 

July 23, 2011

From “Fragments of a Dream” by Curtiss Wentworth Deens

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It’s not that I don’t try to remember my dreams. I really do. I even keep a journal.

Most of the time the forgetfulness is too strong, a tidal wave of colorless oblivion eating away at the edges of every image.

Sometimes, though, I wake early and write some notes intended to help me remember and fully transcribe the dream. Often, it’s simply not enough, and I find these ghostly reminders of something I can’t quite recall endlessly fascinating:

to the ends of the earth / magnolias / a sister’s song / skeletons

we were completely wrong / mysterious city / been through this before / i just can’t

tomatoes / candy cigarettes / heist / milkman / 10 degrees

internet / snatches /done it all before / the real fails me

 

July 22, 2011

From “Adventures in Ink” by Mark D. E. McCrae

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Now don’t get me wrong. I’ll ink anyone who comes into my parlor, and I’ll do it with a smile. I’m a professional.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions about some of the shit that people want permanently etched on their bodies. My guiding principle–and I think it’s a good one–is that whatever you get inked should be extremely personal and meaningful. Now there’s a big difference between what people think is personal and meaningful and what actually is.

People come in all the time wanting Chinese or Japanese or even Hindi symbols, which they can’t read, inked on. How something like that can be meaningful is anyone’s guess. Rodney on 5th sometimes has a little fun by giving people the wrong symbols (one bad tipper got “insane” instead of “spontaneous”). And then there are the people who want song lyrics on their backs or cartoon characters on their biceps. I’ll take their point if they say it was the song playing when they met their husband or something, but otherwise I have to wander how something someone else came up with can possibly mean enough to pass muster. I don’t care if you want a flaming skull exploding out of a snake’s mouth wrapped around your arm; it better mean something and not just be your attempt to look like a badass.

I’m always happy to ink the names of peoples’ kids, or their parents. But that’s never been as popular as the lyrics from some shitty 90’s emo band.

 

July 20, 2011

From “The Notorious Frederick Stanton Jacobs” by F. J. Staunton

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Smith reeled backward, blood splurting from a split lip.

“Go on, ask me again,” Jacobs growled. “Ask me again about my wife.”

“I…I don’t wanna…” All the bravado had gone out of Smith’s eyes. They were wide now, scared. Animal eyes.

The bartender was moving, most likely for a weapon. Instinctively, Jacobs lashed out and snatched. He didn’t realize he was holding a 20-gauge pump-action until he saw the barrel in his hands.

“Ask me again!”

“D-did you ever find out…who killed your wife?” Smith sobbed.

“All of it!”

“M-maybe took a…a l-look in the mirror?”

Jacobs viciously slapped Smith with the butt of the bartender’s gun. From the sound it made, Smith might have lost a tooth or had his jaw shattered.

Everyone was staring. Jacobs could feel their hard, judgmental eyes boring through him like searchlights. He pumped the shotgun’s action six times without firing; the loaded shells falling to the ground were the only sound in the bar besides the beating of Jacons’ own heart.

The bartender said something as his gun was returned. Jacobs didn’t need to hear it. He walked out slowly, half hoping that a spare shotshell box under the bar would end it all before he could pass the doorjamb.

 

July 9, 2011

From “The Hinison Institute” by E. G. D. Lloyd

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We offer kindness and care to people with debilitating physical injuries, and often the mental problems that accompany them. What people who have never been deeply injured cannot realize is that, while physical wounds may heal and people may learn to adapt to a missing limb, the mental scars often persevere. It’s incumbent upon us not only as physicians but as human beings to treat the whole patient, not only their missing leg or sulfur mustard burns.

That is the credo that the Hinison Institute is founded upon, put forth by Dr. Samuel Hinison in 1909 and adhered to in the decade and a half since. Many have challenged it, just as many have embraced it. But we hope to offer patients and their families something that other treatments cannot: serenity and peace of mind.

“I can still remember every line in that brochure,” Ashton croaked. “Who’d have thought we’d wind up like this after such a start?”

 

June 5, 2011

From “Across Worlds Book I: Heden’s Psyche” by Altos Wexan

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This post is part of the June 2011 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s challenge is a simple descriptive setting.

It was raining in Heden. This was evident in the way its citizens scuttled to and fro in the few open spaces, avoiding the heavy droplets as best they could.

It always rained in Heden. There was a faint shimmer to the bright, bizarre fabrics worn by the people that indicated waterproofing, and each person shed a wake of droplets that collected near thousands of drainage grates.

It would always rain in Heden. There was no way to be sure of this, but the water-worn and rusted surfaces of the Towers suggested it. Looming up into the ever-dark sky, they seemed resigned to an eternal pelting from the neverending storm.

The original design of Heden had called for six of the great Towers, forming the simple hexagon shape found on many of the great neon billboards and television screens that dotted each Tower much as lichens dotted the occasional real rock. The Towers had grown together, fused into one great shapeless mass by centuries of construction, destruction, rust, and rainwater. The simple glass walkways that had connected them had been long shorn of their panes, and hundreds of homegrown, rickety, winding paths of iron and steel had appeared to supplant them.

A monitor was suspended above one such improvised walkway, placed to ambush passersby with its message. Its bright, flashing image wasn’t an ad. Ad Boards were hard to afford, anymore; people who wanted to advertise just added more crumpled paper or laminate fliers to the mass that coated every surface reachable by human hands. This screen was an Info Board.

Info Boards were there to ‘illuminate possible interpretations of information for the purpose of educating the people’ according to the Boards themselves. This particular Board was playing the ‘History of Heden’, and everyone passing beneath had seen it before.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
juniper
LadyMage
dolores haze
jkellerford
Ralph Pines
TheMindKiller
AuburnAssassin
pezie
WildScribe
Inkstrokes
Irissel
Guardian
Lyra Jean
egoodlett
cwachob

 

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.

 

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