October 27, 2010

From “Scuttler’s Pitch” by Dana Schutlyr

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“Here’s the pitches we’ve got in fast-track right now,” Scuttler said. “All high-concept, all drawing on aspects of IP’s which test off the chart and are in the public domain along with proven crowd-pleasing updates fresh off the presses.”

Leighton looked at the sheaf of papers spread across his desk. “So all I need to do is choose one and write a script?”

“That’s right,” Scuttler said. “It might have to go to a doctor, of course, but you get screen credit and a paycheck and we get a nice juicy literary name attached to the script. Like Faulkner and The Big Sleep, though if you come up with a murder mystery it should probably be within the context of an intergalactic war or something.”

Leighton had a momentary and horrifying vision of his name, computer-animated, whooshing by a viewer wearing 3D glasses. “Pitch them, then,” he signed.

“Shakespeare’s Hamlet with biotechnology!” crowed Scuttler. “Biotech is hot and ask Disney, Shakespeare ripoffs never get old.”

“They never get old, they just fade away until a second-grader wonders why old Bill cribbed from the Lion King,” Leighton thought.

“Coleridge Rime of the Ancient Mariner re-imagined in a post-apocalyptic setting with faster-than-light travel instead of ships! We think the albatross around the neck could be some kind of squid alien.”

“There may be a sucker born every minute, but most don’t wind up around your neck,” Leighton said to himself. He nodded as if interested.

“Stevenson’s Treasure Island as a disaster pic!” Scuttler continued. “The treasure is the key to stopping the earth’s tectonic places from sinking.”

 

October 21, 2010

From “The Osborn Five-0” by Matthew Kirk Dougherty

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“What makes you think it’s a pot party?” Ben asked.

“Well, as you can see on the flier, it’s taking place in Gerry Hall, room 420, and begins at 4:20 pm on April 20th. You’ll also note the solicitation for ‘amateur entomologists’ to ‘bring their own roaches’ and ‘budding chiropractors’ to come and get their ‘joints kissed.'”

Ben nodded, eyes grim. “Let’s roll.”

“Uh, Ben, last I checked we were criminal justice minors and members of the Student Patrol,” Dave cried. “We don’t have the authority to bust anybody for anything.”

“Leave that to me,” Ben said, rubbing his hands. “You just leave that right to me.”

 

October 20, 2010

From “Capric Conundrum” by P. Lacy Holdermann

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Political movements in Deerton had a way of being triggered by the oddest occurrences. There was the time Angus McPherson took his S-10 through the Deerton Wash & Wax without removing his rod and tackle from the bed, for example. The gear had been plucked out by the washer arm and tangled in it, so the next three cars through the wash were scratched and pummeled by whirling hooks and sticks. The Wash & Wax’s owner refused to pay damages, and her husband was the mayor; before long the entire administration was swept out of office.

The turmoil of ’05 began when a ram escaped from Casey Winterburn’s goat farm on US 313 and made its way into the Mountaintop and Pinewood apartment complexes. Both were cul-de-sacs surrounded by drainage ditches, leaving the animal with no way out, and were peopled by commuter students from Osborn University. Most of the students were out-of-staters or from one of the big east state cities–not the sort to take meeting a ram in social settings well.

At the time, Tecumseh County Animal Control was run by Mayor Routon’s brother-in-law. They received dozens of calls from Mountaintop and Pinewood, some from panicked big-city folk who’d barricaded themselves inside, but took their sweet time responding. TCAC claimed overwork at the time; scuttlebutt later had it that the truck was being used to move furniture between houses and wasn’t dispatched until that task was done. Even then, the situation was handled in a way guaranteed to provoke the complex residents: rather than using a tranquilizer (which would have cost $10 per shot), the TCAC used a .22 caliber rifle and took three shots to down the ram. Residents emerging afterward found bullet marks in the wood exteriors of their buildings.

The mayor refused to force TCAC to issue an apology, despite the fact that Casey Winterburn had made the rounds the next day doing just that. And the stage was set for confrontation.

 

October 19, 2010

From “The Challenge of Spectrecide!” by Stanley Xenophon

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“Nuclear, biological, chemical?” Negathrust said. “People have seen it all, and worse. You’ll be lucky to make the 9 o’clock news locally with that sort of thing. If you want to get taken seriously, you need to drop these old standbys.”

“And what, exactly, do you suggest replacing those ‘old standbys’ with?” said Spectrecide. The lair’s HVAC cycled, bringing his billowing cape to a standstill. “Causing mayhem and murder on a vast scale if one’s demands aren’t met is quite the feat with neither murder nor mayhem.”

“Old-fashioned is what it is. It’s all about marketing these days, Spectrecide, and your marketing is stuck in the Walter Cronkite era. Sure, back in the day, if you could get the old goon to take off his glasses emotionally you’d shock the world. But things are different now.”

The line’s on the old villain’s face deepened. “You’re just tearing me down now,””Not even offering any useful advice.”

“Marketing! Marketing is the name of the game these days, Spectrecide. Market well enough and you’re untouchable. Market well enough and crazy normals will do your dirty work for you!” Negathrust paced back and forth, accentuating key words with pumps of his omnithrust gloves.

“I don’t understand,” Spectrecide sighed, fiddling idly with his disintegrator pistol.

“Count Skullthorn has been quietly funding a multimedia blitz that’s made Nosferati the 90210 of this century’s 15-20 female demographic. The Deathjester had himself portrayed by an Aussie hunk in a major motion picture and now copycats are springing up all over the country!”

 

October 14, 2010

From “The 80-Year Box” by Tomáš Ventluka

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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 11, 2010

From “The Knowledge Boys” by E. Lowell Woodows

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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 8, 2010

From “The Secret of the Freckles” by Albert Ludwig

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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.

 

October 5, 2010

From “The Potion Pushers of Del Hamaar” by Frank Getterlin

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Ebi never liked cutting through the Alchemy District. For all the talk in the upper echelons of the city about how uncivilized the marketplace could be, for her money the pushiest buskers in the city were peddling potions.

One leered out at her from under an embroidered awning. Can I interest you in something this fine evening, my lady?”

“Not interested,” said Ebi.

“What about a Potion of Merciless Vegetarianism? Smells like meat, tastes like lettuce, and guaranteed to make the taste of red meat so abhorrent that the bile rises just thinking of it! Lasts one month! Very popular with ladies of the court for crash diets!” The seller danced out into the street, blocking Ebi’s path and dangling a vial in front of her.

“I said that I am not interested,” Ebi said, stepping aside.

Not taking ‘no’ for an answer, the merchant deftly stepped in front of her once more, and produced another vial from a fold in his robe. “Is there someone you’d like to get even with, or simply out of the way for a bit without the fuss of hiring an assassin? Try our Potion of Procrastinated Pestilence! Looks, smells, and tastes like drawn butter, but guaranteed to keep the victim sick in bed for two weeks afterward! Two-day incubation period to avoid detection! Bump off your rivals yourself without angering the Assassins’ Guild!”

 

October 4, 2010

From “Nu Sigma Stigma” by Hailey P. Geraldine

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“Now,” Bethany said, toying with the ‘editor-in-chief’ sign on her desk. “With a Greek participation rate approaching 50% on our campus, we have to be very careful about offending our fraternities and sororities. Offense translates into boycotts which translate into lower sales which translate into pink slips and thin resumes and eventual refrigerator boxes under overpasses for the lot of us.”

“Do you really think a school newspaper run by students runs that kind of risk?” asked Tom, the sports editor.

“Try and get a Kenmore box when you land in the gutter,” Bethany retorted. “They’re the most spacious and are double-ply.”

Tom folded his arms and glared as Bethany passed a stack of papers around the office.

“The point is, people, we need to take steps to preserve our circulation from baseless attacks on the Greek community, especially on the opinion pages,” Bethany said. “So I’m beginning a new initiative.”

The paper contained the following list:
Digamma Ϝ
Stigma Ϛ
Heta Ⱶ
San Ϻ
Qoppa Ϙ
Sampi ϡ

“What the hell is this?” demanded Aaron, the opinion editor. “It looks like a rejected script page from a Star Wars prequel.”

“Those are obsolete Greek letters,” Bethany said proudly. “Unused since 500 BCE. They look Greek, they sound Greek, but they ain’t Greek. Not anymore, at least. From now on, you are to substitute these letters for the letters of an actual Greek organization when writing opinion columns, dealing in speculation, and so on.”

“You cannot be serious,” Aaron said.

“So, if you were writing about a rumor of a wild party in your opinion column,” Bethany said, briskly ignoring Aaron, “you could attribute the even not to the very real Sigma Phi Delta, but the fictional Heta Qoppa San.”

A moment of silence followed. “I like it,” Felicity, the weekend insert editor, said. “It opens up all sorts of puns to us. Frat acting up? We can tell people ‘don’t be a Heta.’ Sorority getting a bad rap? We’ll call ’em Stigma Heta Omega or the Stig HO’s for short!”

 

October 3, 2010

From “The Unrealistic Dreams of Nelly Kilkenny” by Sandra Teague

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“I think you might be trying to get blood from a stone, Nelly,” sighed Mary.

“Max isn’t dumb,” Nelly cried. “He might bleed if I squeeze him too hard, but he’s Phi Kappa Phi. Plus G Kappa Q.”

“Well, Max may be an Adonis; he might not be your garden-variety meathead, that doesn’t mean you have much in common,” retorted Mary.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” her friend said.

“He unwinds by watching old NFL games on TiVo; you unwind by leveling up dragon monsters online. He love red meat; you’re a vegetarian. Do I have to go on?”

“Opposites attract, right?” said Nelly. “You see it in the news all the time!”

“Yes, I know, but I don’t think the odds are in your favor. You’ve been in the same class for weeks; is there any spark?”

“We’ve talked a few times,” Nelly said eagerly, “but he usually gets really into talking about the State games with Toby Undine and Kelly Tuomo.”

Mary crossed her arms. “So, in other words, you’re swooning over Max because he’s a gorgeous hunk of man-candy despite the fact that, if you ever went out, you’d run out of things to talk about around the five-minute mark.”

“You make it sound like there’s something wrong with that,” Nelly said.

 

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