July 17, 2012

From “The Orc in Accounts Payable” by Denny C. Franke

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“Come in, come in.” The manager was an orc; that much was clear even without looking at him. He had a UV light near his desk to help nourish the chloroplasts that gave his skin its deep emerald hue, and had a small but functional shield—more a targe, really—painted with his clade’s distinctive glyph was hung prominently on the wall.

As he rose to greet Sheniqua she could see a small, dull axe—about tomahawk size— dangling from his belt. That and the targe represented him following the letter of the Hamurabash if not its spirit: an orcish male or unmarried female was always to carry their axe and have their shield close by.

“Now, Ms. Washington, what can I do for you?” This particular orc, a Mr. Shamash to judge from his name plate, had apparently gone to greater lengths than most to function comfortably within a polyspecies world. He’d either filed down or removed the large canine teeth, so necessary for proper Hamuraorg speech, that made many orcs appear to slobber or growl when they tried to speak other languages. Shamash had given himself a speech impediment among his own people to communicate better with outsiders.

He also had close-cropped, well-groomed (if receding) hair. While there was nothing in the Hamurabash about one’s hair, cultural traditions led most orcs to take an all-or-nothing approach, either letting their hair grow unchecked and dreadlocked or keeping it shaven billiard-smooth. With a little foundation makeup and a bit of nose putty, he could have passed for human or perhaps half-dwarf.

Sheniqua couldn’t help but wonder if she would be willing to live under the strictures of the Hamurabash or use a dental prosthesis to give out bank loans in the orc homeland.

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July 16, 2012

From “Last Survivor of Kellett Island in the High Arctic” by Val Briles

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Irene Keruk Qikiqtagruk was seated in a rocking chair, wrapped in a shawl and threadbare quilts. She smiled at the guests, bright eyes shining behind thick glasses seeming to belong to a woman much younger than 101.

“I’ll put some tea on,” her granddaughter said. “Give you a moment alone. But like I told you, she doesn’t speak much anymore. And never of the…unpleasantness.”

Adrienne sat down on the couch nearby and gestured for the others to find seats. “That’s a lovely quilt you’ve got there,” she said, gesturing to Irene’s wrappings. “Did you make that?”

“It is kind of you to pretend to care about my old sewing.” Irene’s voice was soft but surprisingly deep, issuing from some great well in her weak frame. “You hope to get me talking and turn things to the unpleasantness. It is the way of all the more considerate people who come to visit.”

The reporter’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose there’s not much I can say to change your mind, is there?”

Irene’s expression turned thoughtful. “When I walked however many miles it was over the ice, after everyone had died, I promised myself that I would never speak of what had happened as long as I lived.” She laughed. “I did not expect it to be so long. It’s been almost ten years since the last person came to ask, and somehow I do not think I will last another ten. Tell me what you know, and I will think about filling in some of the blank spots.”

“You, your parents, and your uncle were recruited by a Canadian man to participate in the Imperial Arctic Expedition of 1914,” Adrienne said carefully. “Your ship was trapped in ice, drifted into Russian waters, and crushed. There was…unpleasantness…among the expedition members, and you and your parents followed a group to Kellett Island while the others made for Tikegen Island. You walked nearly fifty miles to Tikegen, alone, nearly a year later to find the others just before they were rescued by an American icebreaker, and you refused to discuss what had happened.”

Irene laughed. “You are too kind in leaving out the juiciest part,” she said over the whistle of a teakettle in the kitchen. “When they searched Kellett Island, they found what was left of the people who I had departed with. All dead, even though they had shelter and supplies enough to last a whole year.”

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July 15, 2012

From “The Three Vocations of Sid Fleek” by Leonard A. Marks

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“Sid Fleek, Majordomo Used Motors.” Sid’s smile was casual, natural, unlike the forced leer of most used car salesmen. “I bet you’re thinking that it would take a pretty cold day in Hell to get you driving one of these junkers for free, much less paying for one.”

The customer nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Like a Florida citrus grove,” Sid continued. “Lemons everywhere, none that would even get you to the grocery store on a Sunday.”

“I dunno, that Volvo doesn’t look as bad as, say, that Chevy,” the customer said, indicating a rustbucket Vega on lot’s edge.

Fifteen minutes later, he was leaving the lot in the driver’s seat of that selfsame Volvo as Sid finished the paperwork with a flourish.

“How do you do it, Sid?” Dean Fleidermann, one of the transport drivers, said. “That Volvo’s got a bad transmission and a cooling system that’s older than Betty White but with fewer active fans.”

“The secret is making them think it’s their idea. Just like with women. And children. And the elderly. And pansexual life partners. And animals.”

Dean shook his head. “That’s skill. So why are you slumming it at Majordomo? You don’t even make enough here to stay afloat; where’s that you’re moonlighting these days?”

“Bernstein Bros. Towing and Repossession Services. We take nice things from deadbeats who don’t like paying for them. I get to sneak around, unarmed, and repo the shit out of everything from diamonds to Mitsubishi Diamantes.”

“That sounds like the worst job in the world, man. You really need to grab the classifieds some day. “Dean wandered off, still shaking his head.

The cell in Sid’s desk rang. Not his personal phone, or his business phone. The other phone.

“We’ve got a client who wants a cherry Chrysler TC, red, with less than 100,000 miles acquired as soon as possible,” a voice said. “Pay is 100k with a 20k bonus for speed if you can get it by the end of the week. No questions asked; customer will generate title and paperwork if necessary.”

“A TC…Maserati body with a Detroit engine. Worst of both worlds.”

“Apparently it’s a gift. Client’s brother always wanted one and turns 50 next week.”

“I’m in. Drop the details at the usual location.” Sid ended the call. Selling used cars and repossessing things may not be glamorous, he mused, but they kept his edge sharp for the real work to be done.

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July 14, 2012

From “The Bouvet Anomaly” by Elenice Dúlia

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The object was first noticed by a US early warning system designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles; it was flagged as an error as the trajectory, speed, and destination were well outside the parameters for a nuclear strike. What possible use would there be in firing a missile at remote Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic, especially if the telemetry that indicated the object came from a lunar orbit was to be believed.

But remembering the Vela Incident of 1979, which may or may not have been a covert nuclear test, the US government duly warned Norway, which administered the remote and glacial rock in question. Bouvet Island was uninhabited but did feature an advanced weather station complete with a satellite link and video feed; the Norwegian government made this data available to the US as the object approached. It recorded impossible atmospheric conditions, a surge of radiation, and what appeared to be infrared or ultraviolet lights in the sky before the transmission was abruptly terminated. The object disappeared from scopes immediately afterward.

Unable to image the site due to heavy cloud cover, the light vessel USS Eldridge was dispatched to investigate with a hastily assembled American-Norwegian survey team aboard. Upon reaching a distance of approximately 6.2832km from Bouvet, contact with the Eldridge was lost after a few badly distorted final transmissions. A few pieces of debris traceable to the ship washed up on the coast of South Africa some months later. A second ship, the frigate HMAS Darwin, sought to investigate at the request of the American and Norwegian governments after the Eldridge vanished. It too vanished on reaching a position 6.2832km from shore.

With over 300 people now missing near Bouvet, any further attempts at investigation were suspended. Instead, several spy satellites equipped with radar and other advanced telemetry were moved to orbits above the island. In each case, the satellites malfunctioned shortly after arriving on station, as if they had been affected by a powerful electromagnetic pulse. Intense analysis of the fragmentary data seemed to indicate some kind of new construction on Bouvet and a series of bizarre trenches in the glaciers there. The designs and patterns of the structures and glacial trenches, such as they could be discerned, matched no known architecture.

Since that time, despite rampant speculation, no satellites, ships, or aircraft have approached Bouvet by order of the International Maritime Organization. Private vessels have attempted landings, often at the behest of fringe groups, but all have disappeared with only the occasional bit of scattered wreckage to attest their fate.

Whoever or whatever landed on Bouvet has not sought to interfere, but will brook no interference itself.

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July 13, 2012

From “A Lone Red Tree” by Oscar F. Veen

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As sensational a bestseller as Dalva’s book was, its success was quickly sullied by lawsuits. After its 10th straight week on the New York Times bestseller list, a representative of Kyoto Processed Ricepaper Concerns Press filed a suit claiming that A Lone Red Tree had been plagiarized from Jina Himenashi’s novel 偽翻訳 (roughly “red tree standing among dead chrysanthemum blossoms”), which had been published a full six weeks earlier.

Dalva protested that he couldn’t read Japanese, and his lawyer added that while 偽翻訳 had been a Japanese bestseller there were no records of copies being sold or shipped overseas. Himenashi’s legal team presented a compelling argument, displaying translated excerpts of 偽翻訳 and Lone Red Tree side-by-side. With suitable differences to account for the differences in language structure, the descriptions and events were largely identical.

Particularly damning was the central piece of Dalva’s prose, which told of “a single red tree standing in a dead forest ringed by forever stormfronts.” The comparable phrase of Himenasi’s novel, “いない本物の英語日本語への翻訳,” meant essentially the same thing without definite articles and dead cherry trees where Dalva had conifers. The central thrust of each plot, with a protagonist haunted by the image of that tree until they seek it out and are driven mad in the attempt, was also the same, save that Dalva’s title was set in his native Portland and Himenashi’s tale began in Sapporo.

A guilty verdict and a massive recall of Dalva’s book—to say nothing of a black eye for the press and reviewers behind it—seemed inevitable. But then a representative of Spanish author Cristobal Carminha came forward, claiming that the book Un solitario árbol rojo, which had been a modest seller in Galacia, was a dead match for both 偽翻訳 and Lone Red Tree and predated either by almost a year. The trial broke up in disarray not long after as the judge demanded a more thorough investigation.

Agents for the publishers in question soon found that no less than 150 books had been written in the previous two years featuring the haunting, maddening image of a single red tree standing in a dead forest ringed by forever stormfronts. Most had been rejected by publishers, but over 40 had made it into print in everything from vanity editions to professional bound copies.

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July 12, 2012

From “A History of European Privateers and Shogunate-Employed Shinobi-no-Mono” by Daisy “外人” Dejanira

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While there had been a flourishing trade with the outside world at times in the past, the ascension of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 gradually put an end to that. The Tokugawa shoguns recognized the need for trade and technology but were deeply suspicious of foreigners, and viewed Christianity in particular as a threat to the shogun’s authority. As such, outside trade was gradually curtailed until the Sakoku-rei or “closed-country edict” prohibited Westerners from entering, Japanese from leaving, and Catholics from existing.

A single area, Dejima Island in Nagasaki harbor, remained open to Portuguese and later Dutch traders, who were able to realize astounding profits of 50% or more at the cost of being confined to the small island and bound by a draconian set of procedural rules. But, as with the rest of the world, there were many adventurers from other areas—England, France, Scandinavia—who were unwilling to abide by those restrictions. After all, Japan had developed a taste for eyeglasses, firearms, astrolabes, coffee, chocolate, and other items that could only be obtained overseas.

The remaining Christians in Japan—persecuted, occasionally in open rebellion, and often driven underground—were a particularly lucrative source of income, as they had nowhere else to obtain crucifixes and weapons (and many of the illicit traders fancied themselves defending the faith in addition to making a profit). Their seamanship and swordpoints honed by the constant inter-European naval warfare of the period, these privateers were formidable smugglers.

Naturally, the Tokugawa shogunate was not helpless in the face of such unwanted foreign incursion. To maintain the fiction that Japan was inviolate, and to exercise the immediate death sentence the law proscribed for unauthorized foreigners on Japanese soil, the shogunate employed a network of coastwatchers and spies. Lucrative rewards were quietly offered for those who discreetly informed upon Catholics or those trading illicitly with outsiders, and specially-trained shinobi-no-mono retained by the shogun from the Iga and Kōga clans were dispatched to deal with such incursions.

During the great siege of Hara Castle during the Catholic-led Shimabara Rebellion in 1637-38, for example, European privateers supplied the rebels and engaged in gunnery duels with both Japanese ships and their shinobi-no-mono crews and Dutch vessels hired by the shogun. Though few records ever existed due to the illicit and clandestine nature of the struggle, quieter and small-scale actions would be contested between smugglers and shogunate mercenaries and troops for over a hundred years until the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the 19th century.

And that, my friends, is how the long-standing enmity between pirates and ninjas came to be.

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July 11, 2012

From “The Proling” by D. Terra Goldman

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Orwell is the man. Nobody writes against the totalitarian left quite like a disappointed socialist!

One thing that I note, while reading 1984, is that most commentators completely overlook the Proles. That’s incidentally a good way to tell the difference between someone who’s actually read the book and someone who’s just absorbed its broad strokes from Cliff Notes or cultural osmosis. Just ask them about the Proles, or listen to them assume that all the citizens of 1984 Oceania have telescreens (they don’t) or are under constant watch by the Thought Police (they aren’t, at least not to the extent of the Party).

But in many ways, since the destruction of all but a few of the old, monolithic Communist evils, it’s the Proles who represent some of 1984‘s most compelling and timely material circa 2012. After all, the Proles don’t have the overt, draconian surveillance imposed on the Outer Party; instead they’re kept satiated with prolefeed, a constant stream of low-quality, mind-numbing entertainment (and of course “Pornosec”).

I wonder what Orwell would think of a few hours of US/UK “reality TV” or supermarket tabloids in that context? It certainly is mindless stuff, on the whole. But you have to ask yourself if our proles–or us, the proles–are simply heaving down our prolefeed either at the behest of an oppressor or, perhaps more chillingly, the behest of no sinister agency at all. To borrow another dystopian metaphor, could the clamshell earphones of Fahrenheit 451 exist if there were no oppressive, external force driving them–nothing but the free market?

Maybe we are have all made proles of ourselves, and no one will realize it until someone or something steps into the vacuum to become Big Brother.

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July 10, 2012

From “The Least Objectionable Charity Ever” by Amélia Evelise Altamira

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A few years ago, as a fresh young professor straight out of graduate school, I was excited to be arriving at my new job just as we it was hosting a presidential debate. One of my co-workers at my old job had made me promise to get one candidate’s autograph for her if I met him, and I’d made the same promise to my parents for the other.

To my disappointment, though, many of the events were restricted to students, and faculty were not eligible to participate in the raffle for debate tickets. It seemed that my sole memories of the debate would be the traffic snarls, the high-security cordon set up around the performing arts center, and the endless stream of news media personalities talking about the civil rights era as if nothing had happened at the university in the interim.

Then, a stroke of luck: one of my friends, who was a grad student with Health and Nutrition, told me that the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease needed volunteers to work the “Evening with Tom Brokaw” event in late September. The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease might just be the least objectionable, least controversial charity ever—who in their right mind is actually in favor of chronic disease?

Best of all, volunteers would get free tickets to the event if there were any left.

So I donned the provided purple-and-white Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease t-shirt, one size too small, and took up a plastic placard with the Partnership’s URL. I worked the Brokaw line in the muggy dusk, urging anyone who would listen (and many who wouldn’t) to Fight Chronic Disease and flashing the placard for good measure. Most people agreed that there was merit to Fighting Chronic Disease; a few even asked to get involved. All I could do, as a mercenary draftee volunteer, was lamely point them to the URL.

I like to think that peoples’ awareness was piqued, if not about the need to Fight Chronic Disease then at least about what Chronic Disease was (I explained several times the difference between chronic and acute diseases as best a former English major could). And my friends and I were given tickets to see Brokaw, still clad in purple-white and clutching placards. His talk was illuminating, and it was the closest I’d come to seeing someone of importance during the debate. Neither candidate cared to spend more than the minimum time necessary for the debate in town or to waste even one iota of their precious time meeting anyone from the community.

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July 9, 2012

From “City, Village” by Caroline Anete Truman

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This post is part of the July 2012 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “independence and slavery”.

Like a river winding from its headwaters to the sea, you come from whatever little burg gave you your spark and shake off its dust on the threshold of the city. The big city. The biggest city. It’s always been there, open, inviting, but you’ve only just now taken the time to meet it for longer than a visit.

You’re in the city to stay.

It’s like declaring your independence from circumstance and geography. “I don’t care that I was born in a place where nothing substantive has ever happened,” you’re saying. “I don’t care that it’s impossible to earn a living here as a writer or an artist or a singer. I’m moving to a place where things happen and talent can be rewarded.”

And then you go. You take everything that you’ve been given, from your parents, your friends, your school, everything. You take it and you go.

Suddenly you don’t have to worry about finding something to do tonight. The night is lit up, always, forever with a thousand neon signs and peals of hushed laughter. You’ve declared your independence from boredom, from shyness, from envy: if you feel those here, it’s your own fault for not taking deepest advantage, for not inhaling the sweet acrid city vapors to their fullest.

But even in this independence, deep and full, new chains take hold where the old scars have scarce begun to heal.

Even the city runs on money, on gossip, on superficialities concealed behind bright and inviting smiles. You must still make the rent, only it’s harder now with a thousand hands in your pockets. What so and so did with such and such is exchanged as freely and tenderly as the most bitterly mundane comings and goings back in your small town. People smile more here because it’s expected of them more, at least if they want to get noticed and get ahead. But the dagger in the small of the back is just as sharp when it connects.

The subway, the bus, the tree-lined parkways…in many ways they are new chains, shackling you as surely as distance and time and indifference do in cities that are small enough to walk across. The expectations are still there, hemming you in, only they’re different this time. You must still move a certain way, act a certain way, be a certain way if you want what others have to give. Disappointment is perhaps all the keener because there are so very many opportunities.

The city is independence and slavery made one, just as is the village.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
knotanes
meowzbark
Ralph Pines
randi.lee
writingismypassion
pyrosama
bmadsen
dclary (blog)
Poppy
areteus
Sweetwheat
ThorHuman
Tex_Maam

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July 8, 2012

From “Cascadia Company Conundrums” by Shaun C. Goos

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The Cascadia Company had had plenty of accidents over the years, and much as the tried to maintain a high standard for community theater some mishaps were bound to occur.

There was the time that the fire escape set had collapsed during dress rehearsals for West Side Story, largely thanks to Debbie Hannover’s insistence that it be made out of real metal. No one was injured, but the scene wound up being played on a stepladder opening night.

Then there was the Cascadia Festival performance of Twelfth Night where the swordfight between “Cesario” and Sir Andrew Aguecheek ended with Bryan Culbert getting swatted with a blunt prop sword and breaking his nose. To his credit, he delivered his subsequent lines even as fresh blood soaked through his white gloves and even worked references to the injury into his dialogue. The show must go on, after all, even if you must be rushed to the hospital afterwards.

And who could forget the time that the pyrotechnic charges in Godspell (don’t ask) accidentally caught Harry Plover, playing Jesus Christ, on fire. They stopped the performance for that one, even though Harry escaped with only second-degree burns and managed to get off a very funny line about knowing how the burning bush felt.

Those had all entered the lore of the Cascadia Company, passed down as older members retired and new high school seniors or starry-eyed Osborn University undergrads rose up to take their place. No matter how badly someone missed their cue or how sour that last note of Oklahoma! sounded, they said, it could never get any worse.

Of course, that was before Carl Weisschrift died of a myocardian infarction onstage as King Lear.

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