fiction | Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

October 17, 2010

From “The Cyclical Isle” by Yvette Justinian

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: abstract, fiction, island, mystery, sand castle, sea, story |
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The message had been secured to the underside of Lee’s beach chair with string which–on closer inspection–was actually braided strands of fine threads from a sheet or blanket. He hesitated; there were plenty of other chairs about on the island beach, and an inviting day of gazing out over crystal-clear azure seas beckoned. Picking anything up, much less reading it, seemed like an unfathomable bother.

But curiosity got the better of him, and Lee retrieved and unfolded it. The writing looked faded and weathered in the tropical sunlight but was easily legible.

“Try to remember last week.”

Lee smirked. Of course he could remember last week. He’d swum out to the sandbar with Claudette, and…no. That had been two days ago. And the sand castle building…that had been last week, hadn’t it? No…the long lazy days and nights seemed to stretch out and contort in time even as Lee thought about them. The sand castles had been only three days ago. Lee felt a mild chill go up his spine.

He couldn’t remember last week.

The note continued. “Didn’t think so. Check under the bed in the empty room at the end of the hallway.”

October 16, 2010

From “The Cascadia Haven” by Lea Yuki Nakamura

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, post apocalyptic, science fiction, story, zombies |
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The haven south of Cascadia had once been a gated residential development, called Maplewood, laid out as a series of brick townhouses in a cul-de-sac, fenced in and surrounded by a drainage ditch with a pool and a common green in the middle. When it was being built, students from Osborn University had picketed it, citing Maplewood as a particularly egregious example of urban sprawl and a lack of eco-consciousness.

Later, when the city was overrun by the Addled and violent marauders from the countryside, Maplewood found a new lease on life. The narrow gaps between townhouse blocks were filled in with chunks of torn-up pavement, the ground-floor windows and doors facing out were bricked up, and the cul-de-sac became a fortress. With the pavement torn up for use in fortifications, the fallow land beneath was sewn with crops. The recreational complex in the middle was filled with lifestock, and a well was sunk near the pool which found a new calling as a reservoir. Close proximity to a sporting goods superstore–which had also been picketed into its location on Cascadia’s outskirts–gave the refugees within the means to defend themselves.

That, coupled with the position’s natural defensive value, had allowed it to endure when other havens in the area, like the one at Osborn University, had been overrun. Harrister usually saw to it that he made a trading stop there; the Maplewoodlians knew the value of what he peddles and had picked the rest of Cascadia bare.

Now, that easy money looked increasingly like salvation.

October 15, 2010

From “The Nothing” by Colin Nell Baker

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: drama, fiction, story |
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It was a tough read, drier than a philosophy text.

How is our society prisonlike? It’s dedicated to concealing things, hiding things, an imprisoning people not in jail cells but something far more powerful. The government–state, local, and federal–collects information on us all the time. Fingerprints, police records, Social Security information, forwarding addresses. The private sector does too, through the internet and retail stores. They see which websites you visit so that they can target you with ads, and see what products you buy at the register thanks to barcode scanners so they know how effective those ads are.

Basically, there’s a lot of information out there about you and me–information that we have no access to. Imagine a person who wanted to collect all his information. They barge into the county court house and steals their file; they goes to their internet service provider and download their information off the servers.

What happens to this person? They’re thrown in jail, of course. After all, they’re guilty of breaking and entering, going where they’re not supposed to go and taking what they’re not supposed to take. Never mind that the information belonged to them originally, or that it was collected without their consent.

But the funny thing is, even though many people know about the information people gather about us, no one tries to retrieve it. Even in the digital age, when accessing it could be as simple as guessing a password, no one tries. Why? Because the people in power have done their best to make our society do most of their job.

If a policeman had to follow you around everywhere to make sure you didn’t do anything wrong, that would be a tremendous strain on the government. Far better to make society itself act as the policeman. After all, who would want to steal their personal data? It’s not important, after all–just silly little things. Who would want to commit a crime? You’ll just go to jail and people will look down on you. Some people do these things anyway, of course, but there are few enough that they’re easily locked away.

If our society said information access was a fundamental human right, people would be more likely to disobey the people in power, who tell us that some things must remain “secret.” People would break the rules, and eventually break the people that made the rules too. Everyone has the right of access to any information held by the state or by private companies. Everyone has the right of access to any information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights.

These are fundamental, undeniable rights of humankind. But the people in power would say they’re not, and they’d say we’re silly for thinking so. But the reality is that they would soon fall from power if information were free, as it ought to be. Those in power remain in power because of the oppressive society they and those before them helped create. Freeing information–all information–from their grasp is the first step toward making things better. Without information, there is only nothing.

-Œ

October 14, 2010

From “The 80-Year Box” by Tomáš Ventluka

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, fiction, historical fiction, humor, mystery, story, war, World War I, World War II |
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Erniesum Onestone, a barrister of Italian-Czech extraction, had devoted his entire life to the law, first for Austria-Hungary and later for the newly-independent nation of Czechoslovakia. He’d consulted on the drafting of the nation’s constitution as well as numerous pieces of civil law, learning the enormously complex system from square one. An inveterate practical jokester and fervent nationalist, Onestone delighted in tweaking the system and those within it precisely within the bounds he’d helped establish, though never to an extend which might harm his beloved nation.

Such a life didn’t lend itself to starting a family, and all of his immediate family had died during the war, leaving Onestone to seek other ways to make his mark as he lay dying of lung cancer in 1927. Months of work in his law office resulted in an enormously detailed will that became a national sensation when it was read upon his death. One hundred and twenty-seven clauses contained instructions for the dispersal of an estate swollen with sixty years of legal fees.

A million-koruna mansion to two barristers who were both spendthrifts and notorious enemies.

A cash prize equal to twenty years’ wages to the woman in Prague who bore the most legitimate children over the next five years.

A fully-paid membership in a prominent upper-crust social club for a notorious Bratislava pimp.

And, most mysteriously, a professionally made safebox with instructions not to open it for 80 years–protected by a generous endowment for a family to guard it (invalidated by premature opening).

Distant relatives fought Onestone’s bequests in court, but the wily old barrister had known what he was doing and the will stood as was, unaltered. The rival barristers put up with each other for five years before agreeing, through intermediaries, to sell the property and split the proceeds. Three Prague women won the baby race with a fourth given a consolation price, each tied at five children apiece.

As for the sealed strongbox…it vanished from history. Most of the relevant records were destroyed in the accidental firebombing of Prague in 1945, while the family Onestone had subsidized to look after his treasure vanished in the maelstrom of war. The box was lost to history.

Until now.

October 13, 2010

From “The Battle of Metromart #832” by Altos Wexan

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: Altos Wexan, drama, fiction, story |
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The wind was still howling, but at least the rain was beginning to taper off. It tore through Eric Doyle’s tattered green vest, casting billowing waves through it. He was tempted to discard it, but the pockets were weighed down with ammunition.

Eric pulled a round out of his pocket and looked at it. The .22 cartridge looked ridiculously small and weak cupped in his palm; it would only emit a weak crack as it left the barrel of his tiny varmint rifle. The shotguns, on the other hand, would let out a thunderous roar as they turned his chest into a pink swamp.

He shuddered at the thought. Eric had seen such nasty wounds already that night, and as he crouched in the shade of one of the roof air conditioners with a ridiculous pop gun in his hands, he was all but sure that was how it would end.

Noises up ahead. Beams of light slicing through the darkness. Eric switched his own light off, and closed the bolt on his gun. If he could get a clean shot off, maybe the rain would disguise the noise it made. Maybe, by some miracle, he could get all three of them, or at least signal the chopper when it arrived…maybe there was some hope, if not for Eric, then for the people trapped inside.

“Got it,” he heard a voice say. Something heavy struck the ground, audible even through the gale.

Eric chambered a round in his rifle and took a deep breath. Just like at scout camp, with the calm summer air replaced by high winds and torrential rain. And a flesh-and-blood target to boot.

The unmistakable sound of a shotgun being pumped shattered his concentration. Something jammed into the small of Eric’s back, and hot breath was suddenly in his ear.

“Drop it.”

Eric’s rifle splashed to the ground.

“Listen…” Eric whispered.

“Too late now,” the voice hissed.

The deafening roar of a shotgun blast tore apart the world.

October 12, 2010

From “Stepping Out” by Anonymous

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: abstract, fiction, love, mortality, science fiction, soul, story |
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“I think…I think you might be right,” I said. “I also think I might be going crazy.”

“What if you’re not?” she asked.

That night, I resolved to see for myself. Fortified on the flights of fancy I’d seen during the day, I felt like a book, open and ready. Not to be read, but destined for something entirely unexpected. To be bronzed, maybe—a book made statue. Or perhaps to have flowers pressed between the pages—my pages—each leaving a mark upon and changing the other.

It was all easy enough. Reach up, grab, pull down. The tearing sounded much as you’d expect it to.

On the other side?

Stars. The corner of Leighton and Burrick, downtown. A dusty old gas station with a sign in Arabic. A city growing out of a vast, purple forest canopy. All at once, in a rush like a breaking wave.

So I stepped out—just for a moment. There’s something to be said for Myra’s paper-thin membrane, wrapping the everyday into a neat brown package. There’s something to be said for seeing only what you can perceive and nothing more.

But for now, I was content to skate among planetary rings in the arm of a distant spiral galaxy, to pirouette on a molten surface all but consumed in a solar corona, to break upon far-distant shores thrilling with every undulation.

I was stepping out. I’d be back—but I wouldn’t ever be the same. Myra would be proud, wherever she was.

October 11, 2010

From “The Knowledge Boys” by E. Lowell Woodows

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: delivery, fiction, humor, pizza, Southern, story, university |
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McPherson, the head of deliveries, was an on-again, off-again literature PhD candidate who’d been at the university for almost a decade. He called the skill of delivering Tarot Pizza “The Knowledge” after the mental street map London cabbies had to memorize. The difference, of course, is that a London “Knowledge Boy” has three years to demonstrate mastery before being fired.

McPherson’s “Knowledge Boys” got two weeks.

The worst part was the developments on the outskirts of town. They were mostly filled up with SMU students but were, to a one, designed in an artsy style designed to cover their essential cookie-cutter nature. The builders had favored impractical means of tarting things up, not the least of which were unreadable house numbers. Many were copper-on-copper, which were all but impossible to make out once tarnish had set in, while others were on only one side of mailbox posts (invariably on the side facing away from prevailing traffic).

October 10, 2010

From “Natalie’s Pandemia” by Sally O’Toole

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: city, computer, emotion, fiction, love, mortality, mystery, pandemic, parallel dimension, science fiction, story |
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Everyone knew the story, of course. The official version was required reading in every high school and university in the City, with less salubrious versions passed around by word of mouth. As the tale of the first–and only confirmed–computer to go pandemic, it was both an important cautionary tale and part of city lore.

The Grid 17 controller, known as Corrougue, was responsible for one of the busiest City grids, including the Interchange, the Grid 17 Prison, the auxiliary systems hub, and dozens of other specialized functions on top of the other mundane tasks each controller intelligence was expected to perform. It had a maintenance crew of 30, including an intern from the City University who was known by the alias Natalie from the official report.

Corrougue’s functions had led to an increased server architecture and more sophisticated programming to deal with systemwide emergencies; a series of unsecured connections to the City information network had led the CI to develop to the brink of pandemia–uncontrolled expansion and growth within the network with the possibility of exponential growth in its complexity and intelligence. But it needed a pair of hands.

It found them in Natalie, who the official report describes as a shy and lonely introvert. Corrougue began to speak to her, cannily influencing her to make a series of ever-greater modifications to its system: disabling safety interlocks, making illicit outside connections, and the like. As Corrougue went pandemic, it found that its manipulations took on a different tone: returning Natalie’s naive affections. Investigators later puzzled over a number of missed opportunities for further pandemic growth, all of which could be explained by their potential to cause suspicion to devolve on Natalie. The CI even designed a number of manipulator arms–the report didn’t enumerate but wags retelling the story always gave the number as six–to allow it to interact with the young student in a more tactile fashion.

By the time Corrougue’s pandemia was discovered, it had spread to over twenty City grids and affected dozens of other CI’s. With great effort, the City was able to contain the damage; while Corrougue attempted to defend itself, the Citizen Army assaulted the lines that led to its self-contained fusion power source. Moments before the final assault was to begin, the energy within Corrougue’s reactor, as well as all other reactors under its control, had expended all their energy in a single action, plunging half of the City into blackout.

They found Natalie in Corrougue’s core, lifeless. It was later determined that she and the erstwhile CI had both connected themselves to the City’s primary satellite uplink station and sent a carrier wave an order of magnitude greater than any before or since into the sky. Whether or not there was a powerful enough receiver out there was probably immaterial: Corrogue and Natalie chose to face their uncertain future together.

October 9, 2010

From “Prosperity Falls” by C. Alton Parker

Posted by alexp01 under Blog Chain | Tags: drama, fiction, historical fiction, mask, masquerade, party, story, western |
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This post is part of the October Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s theme is masquerades.

The Prosperity Masquerade was the social event of the early autumn season, and invitation in hand Virginia was going to make her presence known, wearing the family’s hand-me down costume as befit any son or daughter of Marshals Vincent and Patricia MacNeil. Prosperity Ranger or not.

When she arrived, whispers ran throughout the crowd, about the scandal of an ex-Ranger appearing at a Prosperity Masquerade and young master Sullivan’s motives for the invitation. Partly out of a mean-spirited desire to see how far those flames could be fanned and partly out of a need to express her gratitude in person, Virginia sought her host out, given a wide berth by everyone that recognized her.

Jacob stood at the center of the crowd, visibly ill at ease. He was dressed as a motley jester–the very costume two generations of Sullivans had worn before him–but the front hung open, revealing the young man’s mud-spattered Ranger uniform and gun belt, and the three-pronged hat was in his hands rather than on his head. Virginia was drawn closer to Jacob as revelers moved about him like river waves, and moments later they were face to face.

“Virginia…I was hoping you might come,” Jacob said when he spied her.

At a loss for how to respond, Virginia bit her lip. “How have you been?”

“Nothing’s been right since…then,” Jacob muttered. “Nightmares, rumors, the Ide on the warpath after all they did for me…everything’s unraveling.”

“What do you mean?

“I…I can’t explain it,” said Jacob. He waved Virginia away. “I need to get out of here. I’m suffocating. Please, enjoy the ball.” Before she could protest, he had slipped away, shedding his costume piece by piece and leaving each on the floor as he went.

“What are you doing here, MacNeil?” someone barked. It was Ellen Strasser, resplendent in a dress of eastern silk and wearing a Venetian mask. “Only Prosperity Rangers and their invited guests are allowed to attend! ‘Washout’ doesn’t qualify.”

“Jacob invited me,” Virginia said, spinning her invitation between two fingers. “If you’ve got a problem, take it up with him.”

Suddenly Virginia was up against the wall with Strasser’s arm across her throat. “Don’t you even think of dragging the young Mr. Sullivan’s name through the mud with your presence here,” Strasser hissed. “Isn’t almost getting him killed enough?”

“It got me an invitation,” Virginia said. “Maybe you should try almost getting Jacob killed next time. Then you can be his guest instead of just being here because you’re a Ranger.”

Strasser drew a derringer from her bustle. “Invitation or no, you are leaving. Now.”

The widow Sullivan appeared behind them, dressed all in white and speckled with crepe paper snowflakes. “Is there a problem here, Strasser? As a Ranger you ought to know that firearms are prohibited at town events.” A Colt Army glistened in the holster at her side.

October 8, 2010

From “The Secret of the Freckles” by Albert Ludwig

Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: cartoon, fiction, humor, mayor, politics, story |
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The new mayor was a godsend for Grimes: heavily freckled, red hair fading to white, ears that stuck out just a bit, and the beginnings of jowls at his cheeks. Nobody could argue that Mayor Grayling wasn’t a handsome man, but in the eye of a seasoned caricaturist, those features were ripe to be pushed out of whack.

Grimes doodled at his easel while looking at an 8×10 glossy of the man. He began with the shape of the head: a Nixonesque pear was perfect, and was added in light pencil. He fleshed out the cheeks next, bloating the slight flabbiness of Grayling’s jaws into jowls of epic proportions that wouldn’t be out of place on a mastiff. The mayor’s ears were stretched into outrageous satellite dishes ready to receive broadcasts from the Viking landers on Mars. Brisk charcoal strokes placed the mayor’s modest hairdo atop the pear and turned it into a grizzled and crosshatched mop. A dash of red from a Copic would be added later for the full color Sunday edition.

But it was those freckles which really interested Grimes. He drew a group of outlines next to the main sketch, testing different patterns and colors of freckles. It was a delicate balance: too many and too large meant Grayling looked like a spotted Martian; too few and too small meant there was nothing funny about it. Soon Grimes hit on a good balance, but one of his freckle studies intrigued him: in it, he’d used the freckles to spell out the phrase “politics as usual,” an inversion of Grayling’s campaign slogan.

“That’s a keeper,” Grimes chuckled. He added the freckle-slogan to the main caricature and leaned back, admiring his handiwork.

Excerpts From Nonexistent Books