August 20, 2010

From “The Headache Lands” by Travers Joliet

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The next morning, Kevin couldn’t find it in himself to crawl out of bed for so much as a glass of water. His temples pounded mercilessly in what he might have called an ‘uber-headache’ had he been able to so organize his thoughts. Half-hangover, half-migrane, it made the soft lights and sounds of the waking world outside the bedroom all but unbearable. Despite a parched throat and chapped lips, Kevin was too weak to get the bottle of water at his bedside, much less sip from it. And even then the sunshine streaming through the closed blinds and the rustling of the blankets would have been more unbearable than thirst.

People came and went downstairs all day–it was impossible to miss the nuclear detonations that accompanied each footfall, door slam, and idling motor in the driveway. No one could be bothered to check in on poor old Kevin, but in many ways that was a blessing in disguise. A conversation–or, heaven forbid, a hospital visit–would have reaped more in agony than it sowed in goodwill.

 

August 18, 2010

From “The Library Book” by Angus Sustern

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“How long has it been gone?”

Cecelia consulted her computer. “It was scanned on the twelfth. East desk, and just before closing according to the system.”

“Who would be there on Saturday night?”

“Gertrude, I think,” said Cecelia. “I can check the schedule if you’d like.”

“No, no,” Quinn rubbed his temples. “It makes sense. She’s the most junior person the library’s got, so she gets the graveyard shift on the weekend. Low stress, get your feet wet, and all that. At least that’s what they told me when I used to work it.”

“If you want to talk to her about it-”

“No,” Quinn said. “You’d have already done that, at least if you’re half as professional as I’ve come to believe.”

Cecelia flushed a little. “Well, yes. She said that it was an average-looking man with a valid library card, and nothing seemed odd.”

“Not even the fact that it was called ‘On Symbologie’ with fancy letters and fancier spelling? Not even the fact that the book was stamped “do not circulate, do not remove from building?”

“She checked the inside cover, and said there were no stamps, and the edge was gilded; it wouldn’t hold ink.”

“I suppose he could have pasted in a fake page to cover the stamp,” Quinn mused. “Easy enough, I guess; we don’t exactly search people for glue sticks.”

“What makes you think that? That he’d use a fake page?”

“It just seems to fit in with the modus operandi. Fake library card; fake barcode, fake page. If you were determined enough, you could pull a barcode off another book or the desk when no one was looking, and stick it in. Library cards can be stolen.”

“This name, though,” Cecelia gestured at the card. “It’s not in our system. Instead of using someone else’s card, this guy made his own, and not with the sort of name I’d use if I wanted to remain inconspicuous.”

“Pierre Richat,” Quinn read. “Sounds Cajun. Should make tracking him down easy enough.”

 

August 17, 2010

From “Chance Trajectories” by C. G. Iverson

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Things had a funny way of happening in town, and this was as good an example as any you’re likely to find.

“Slim” Whitemore, a local stockyard worker, was out leaning on the local Greyhound bus building. He’d just gotten what was left of his paycheck after alimony and garnishments and was nursing a forty in a plain paper sack as local statutes demanded. Thing is, he was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans he’d bought secondhand–not unlike the outfit favored by one Davis Cunningham, especially when you throw in the John Deere cap and long afternoon shadows.

The brother of Davis’ ex-wife happened to be passing by on the other side of the street, and mistook Slim for his erstwhile brother-in-law. This led to some rather uncomplimentary remarks being exchanged. Slim, never a particularly subtle man even when sober, responded in kind. Then he pulled out the .45 revolver he kept for putting down diseased stock at the yard, and things started getting interesting.

A pistol’s not too accurate at that range in the best of circumstances, and tipsy trigger finger doesn’t do much to improve things. Despite emptying all five loaded cylinders, Slim didn’t come close to hitting his target. And if that had been all there was to tell, it might not have gotten any further than that–a story people told when they saw Slim sauntering into Carrie’s Red Dot, maybe.

But Slim and Davis’ ex-brother-in-law weren’t the only people on the square that day.

 

August 15, 2010

From “Remnants” by Leslie H. Jones

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The desktop was like his room, clean and generally neat. Documents were neatly labeled and sorted; again, mostly school stuff. I was surprised to find a few short and half-finished stories there—as I said, I’d never know him to be a writer. They were pretty rough, though, and in one case I wasn’t able to follow the plot thread or characters. So much for posthumous publication and literary fame, I guess.

Mike had always been the trusting sort, so all of the passwords on his computer and in his browser autocompleted—I had more or less full access to everything he’d done. And that’s where it got interesting.

It seems he’d been quite the net-hound, with memberships in multiple message boards, forums, and other kinds of internet discourse. His mailboxes were jammed with old correspondence from friends he’d probably never met, wondering where he’d gone. He’d kept an online journal of random observations on one forum, helped run some sort of weekly contest at another.

The last posts were just a day before the accident. There was a journal entry about something in one of his freshman classes, a professor’s gaffe. He’d written in a thread about funny things to yell during sex a mere six hours before we’d gotten the call; it may very well have been the last thing Mike ever wrote, the last communication he ever made.

 

August 14, 2010

From “Dammerung” by Georg Schuller

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Matthias Becker had almost made it to the front door when his wife confronted him.

“Who are those flowers for?” she asked. Without allowing space for an answer, she continued. “Matthias, are you seeing someone?”

Her husband laughed. “Anke, I’m seventy years old. I’ve hair where it shouldn’t be and none where it should and I’ve got enough extra skin to make a small child with some left over. I’m not rich enough to be seeing anyone like this.”

“Then who are the flowers for?” Anke pressed.

She was getting to be like this more and more often, always suspicious and full of questions. “They’re for my father.”

“That’s awfully sentimental of you,” Anke said grudgingly. “Stop at the Edeka for some coffee on your way back.”

The handful of tulips from Matthias’ garden looked lovely in front of Uwe Becker’s headstone; his son couldn’t remember the last time he’d come to visit or gone to a service in the chapel in the distance.

“Surprised to see me, eh Father?” Matthias said. “I admit, I haven’t been by much, and I’m sorry. You remember how Anke and the boys and I used to come by after the mass, don’t you? No mass, and the idea just sort of slips our mind.”

The granite didn’t reply, of course, but Matthias envisioned his father seated behind it, semitransparent, silent and thoughtful. Not the husk that lung cancer had claimed in 1977, either, but rather the barrel-chested man that had always swept his only son onto his shoulders, even when the boy had outgrown it.

 

August 12, 2010

From “Of Hospital Assassins” by Rachel P. Crete

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Travis picked at his bandages. “I’m not afraid of dying.” He was squeezing the nurse’s call button, hoping Fiona couldn’t see.

Fiona stepped closer, pressing the muzzle of her pistol to Travis’s chest. “Good. That’ll make this easier.”

“I’m afraid of not knowing why. I’m nobody special, yet you already threw me out a window.”

“Is that all?” Fiona leaned in, whispered in Travis’s ear.

Comprehension dawned on his face. “Thank you,” he grinned. “You can hit her now.”

“Wha-” Fiona was cut off as a fire extinguisher, in the hands of a night shift nurse, clipped her from behind.

 

August 10, 2010

From “Healing Visions” by D. P. Patterson

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The form was colorful and animated, with a steady stream of HV ads running along the bottom. The questions flew by—her old junior college had wanted to know more, and unlike Metromart, there wasn’t a drug test. Standard stuff, really.

Until the last one, of course. “I hereby release Healing Visions LLC from any and all legal liability that may arise during the aforementioned procedure,” she read silently. “This includes physical traumas such as strokes, heart conditions, degenerative neurological conditions, and mental ones such as hallucinations, insomnia, paranoia, manic depression, suicidal tendencies, and/or depression. I, the undersigned, do recognize and accept the risks of this procedure and…”

Aria sighed. “What am I doing here?” she whispered. Her mind turned toward the ladies in the break room the other day, and how much she’d agreed with them.

They’d been watching TV and chatting when an HV commercial had come on, and immediately the gossip had started. “I heard that the can only show you a few seconds because it’ll cause a brain tumor if the go any longer. One slip up and you’ve got a fried egg up there.”

Aria had nodded silently as the one-upsmanship began. “Well, I heard that there are these guys—like slum lords or something—in Nigeria that collect money from people so they can go on ‘spirit quests’ to the local HV center,” another lady had said.

“And you know they’re whipping those people up into a frenzy over it,” Maria from jewelry had added. “On 60 Minutes the other day I saw a feature about these people in London that’d had a bad time at HV. They saw bad things, and just quit their jobs, walked away from everything and started hanging out in gangs, doing drugs and crime and suicidally dangerous stuff.”

“Who’d ever want to do that?” Aria had interjected, half-heartedly. “Who’d want to see? I’d rather be surprised.”

 

August 4, 2010

From “The Gemstone in Blue” by Alice F. Torvald

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Dan circled around the periphery of the group that had sprung up about Sandy. They were discussing her outfit for the evening–specifically the large, blue stone danging from a silver chain encircling her neck.

“It’s just so unique!” An onlooker said, ogling the jewel. “Is it a blue diamond?”

“It’s not just about uniqueness, but also value and perception,” Sandy said airily. “The price of diamonds has been kept artificially high for almost a century by the great southern African cartels. That, combined with a PR campaign worthy of any great commodity, has served to make them the Wal-Mart of gemstones: commercialized, callous, overpriced, even ruinous to some.”

The questioner, who sparked with several diamonds of her own, faded into the crowd. Dan tried to line himself up for a good, casual snapshot as Sandy moved under a good light source.

“This is benitoite, one of the rarest gemstones in the world,” Sandy said. “It’s only found in one place, and most of it is used for research. Only a tiny amount is gemstone quality; few are cut, and fewer still sold.”

She was lined up perfectly; what’s more, the stone glowed with an almost unholy light. Its blue overpowered the red tones in Sandy’s skin, giving her an elegant, icy quality through the viewfinder.

“This may just be the only gem-quality benitoite being worn anywhere right now,” Sandy said. “That’s what attracted me.” Dan’s camera snapped as she spoke, fixing the moment in amber. He should have been thinking about his editor, or the freelancer contacts he still had from the old days, and how much the snap could sell for.

Instead, he was entranced by the stone and its wearer, such that he all but joined the crowd of hollow worshippers thronging around her.

 

August 2, 2010

From “The Star Lighthouse” by Kendra Clementine Smith

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Isn’t it wonderful to sit out, late at night, and watch the stars?

Of course, you probably haven’t.

Few have, anymore.

The night sky is one of the things modernity has taken away from us, and the ever-lit nature of our lives is not going away. Let’s face it—darkness is frightening and dangerous. But like many such things, it is also beautiful, a windswept wonder spelled out by celestial candles.

After a fleeting glimpse of what few glowing points make it through the humming fluorescent veil, who hasn’t wished they could lay out in an open field away from everything? What a simple pleasure it could be, watching the night sky spin overhead with no distractions save those found in nature and a soft piano tune in mind?

 

July 31, 2010

From “A Gamer’s Thoughts at 5am” by Anonymous

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A certain young man once bought a video game, despite its glowing reviews and rabid fans on the inter-web. Putting it in, he soon noticed a curious occurrence–the hour and minute hand on his wristwatch seemed to spin somewhat faster than before, and the cosmic ballet above his humble abode proceeded to dance doubletime as night followed day dar quicker than it ought. The young man was as a starving man at a banquet, ever craving more until the last drop was savored and done.

Upon finishing and feeling the solemn pride that comes with victory (as well as the bittersweet taste that comes with the end of many things), the young man went outside and spoke of his experience to friends.

“You have wasted your time!” said they. “While you lolled about in front of a screen, you could have been composing a sonnet, or painting a picture. We have been reading great works, and singing songs, and living, while you have been shackled to your set with the vacant stare of a simpleton?”

The young man thought on this. At length, he replied: “The worlds I have visited are no less unreal than any I could read or create myself. They are all equal in their untruth. And I am as inspired as I have ever been; a dozen new worlds may have their origins in that which I have seen, those for whom I have cared, though they be not real.”

Some were swayed by these words, others not. But the young man soon acted on them, and proved, at least to himself, that he had spoken truly.

 

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