You're not welcome here. You don't belong here. Be uncomfortable.
xxx-00-2007: x
Jan-09-2008: Raptor attack! I told them. I told them all. Don't tease the raptors. Just because the neighbor calls them pets doesn't make them pets. Plus, I don't trust his fencing. And sure enough, they bust the fence down and now the damn things are loose. And they're all over, attacking and eating people. So, c'mon everybody, we need to get inside now. No, these aren't just like chickens, you idiot, they're-- oh, well, now you know, at least for the last few seconds of your life. C'mon, everybody else. Get inside! No, no, leave the cooler out there. We can always pick it up-- aw, man. Well, the beer was that important to him, I guess. Everybody else -- get in the damn house now! No, they don't know how to turn doorknobs, but I'm not taking any chances, I'm locking it anyway.
Jan-08-2008: I walk through a hall in a darkened house. It's night and everyone else is in bed, in their respective rooms. There is something a little wrong with me being up. Not a lot, just that I ought to be in my room. It's quiet, but my skin starts crawling and I sense something moving toward me from the other end of the long hall. A distortion of air, a "crackling" coming toward me. That's why we should be in our rooms -- there's a Demon about. Not a Western style Demon, but an Asian style Demon, a supernatural creature of some specific nature. This one feels dangerous, potentially very dangerous, but I also know they have certain rules about doors. Desperately, I cast about, looking for a door, but the only one I can reach is a set of double folding doors, like a linen closet. I squeeze in and close the doors behind me, but the doors have no latch. The Demon would be stopped by a latch, but not necessarily by these doors. I brace my feet, legs, and hands against the doors, just as the Demon presses against, pushing inward. It' a huge effort, but I can withstand the force. Then, the Demon senses my mind and tries sliding into me. This Demon is peculiar in that it enters your mind through a feminine channel. If you think of someone female, particularly some you love or are very close to, it slides in on those thoughts like a razor and can take you over. I desperately focus on my memories, my own masculine thoughts. The Demon's sweet voice keeps at me. Isn't there someone I love? It whispers. Someone I wish were here to help? I can't help but think of my wife, and it whispers in my mind that it can be her, to let her in. I push that thought from my head just as I feel the Demon oozing into my mind. It shoves against the doors again and I struggle with that. Don't I love my mother? It tries again, sliding in on my feelings. I push it out again, and keep bracing the door. My strength and one of my touchstones is my love for my wife, and it seems impossible to have to completely reject that and still struggle against this Demon, but I have to. It will not go away until dawn. I have to fight, alone, until dawn.
Even when I wake up, I feel it battering at my mind, pushing at the door. I go back to sleep, and I'm back in that battle.
Until dawn.
Jan-06-2008: It's a park for employees who can't or won't stand on the long lunch lines. People who are a bit misfitty. I walk past a gal who sits morosely and tries to tell me about the lovelife of Ellen Degeneres. I tell her I don't care. She hangs her head and begs "Shame me, then." I search the planter box behind her and pull out three orange stones and rattle them in my hand like dice and cast them on the ground in front of her. "Three orange," I quietly say. "Shame yourself." and I walk on. A moment later, I see a man two-handed carrying a large stone, shouting that he'll take care of that damn dog. This is about fifty or sixty feet away. He reaches a big white dog, and hurls the stone at the dog's head. The dog avoids the stone and lunges at the man, snarling. He dodges and the dog bolts. As the dog runs by me, it snarls and snaps, and continues. A girl runs by after the dog, but hurriedly tells me to watch out -- the dog will probably come back for me. I watch the dog bound out into the parking lot, followed by people. It turns around and heads right toward me, no longer white, but black. I fend it off with my backpack, but it's snapping and snarling. I manage to hook its collar and I'm trying to get someone to call 911, but everyone is just crowding around staring and ignoring my pleas. "C'mon, someone has a cell phone," I say. "I can't use mine, my hands are full!" and the dog snaps at my free hand. I'm starting to lose my one-handed grip on the collar.
Jan-05-2008: I go to class. Sit down. Relax. The test is passed out. No problem, some sort of advanced math. I know this. I reach for my pencil, but I don't have one. What? I look for my bag, but I don't have one. No books, either. I look back at the test -- don't you dare... The test is incomprehensible to me. Shit. And I was so not wanting to disappoint my instructor. I liked her!
Oct-20-2007: We're fighting vampires in a warehouse and the battle is fierce. However, we are losing and it's really honking me off. Finally, I realize that I'm the only one left on my side. No one to worry about hurting, so I start heating up. A few vampires get close and I just flick them away. I'm getting hotter and hotter and rising to the ceiling. Hotter and hotter until I can feel the fires inside, screaming to get out. Then, almost as a form of relief, I release the heat. Everything in the warehouse is incinerated instantly. The warehouse is destroyed. I rise above the city, still heating up. I see small globs of color I recognize as vampires wandering around the city. Almost without thinking, I snuff them. I rise higher, snuffing vampires as I notice the blobs of light, higher and higher until I'm high enough to see the curvature of the earth, the planet rolling below me. All of them. I snuff all of them.
Oct-07-2007: Katrina's written some sort of brilliant technical article. It's so popular that practically everyone reprints it and it seems as if everyone has read it and loves it. Total strangers approach her everywhere, thanking her for writing it, and telling her how it blew them away and changed their lives and so on.
I'm pitching my centralized software idea to a group of investors. They aren't quite getting the idea. They don't think people will pay for software unless they can get a box.
Oct-04-2007: The whirlpool engulfs me. Above is featureless black -- eternal night. No stars, no nothing, just Dark. I am not in water, but instead, a substance-less fluidity, a separation of the Universe. Below is Matter, above is Nothing. In Matter, I feel myself spinning and tilting, dropping into the Abyss, wherein all Matter disappears. I'm only a mote in this silent, emotionless maelstrom, only a mote with a brief flicker of consciousness. I tilt more, spinning, and I fall in, and the vortex dissipates me effortlessly, and with a tiny wonderment that I have no thoughts or feelings on this, I too vanish away, too dissolved to remain an entity. There is nothing afterwards. Nothing at all.
Sep-12-2007: I'm out in a flood area, helping recovery efforts. The place I was originally staying has flooded, so I've been moved to a private residence. They're some strange people with strange habits, but we get on well, I suppose. One day, I'm sorting my laundry and my shirts are covered with lots of little tiny holes, like they were sprayed with a chemical acid before they were washed. "Oh, all our shirts are like that," they tell me.
Sep-08-2007: I've snuck my way to the top of the skyscraper, where she is being kept prisoner. Grateful to see me, she seduces me (no! this is a mistake!) and I'm glad and gratified to discover that this has all been a huge misunderstanding (no it hasn't!).
Afterwards, I review with her the different ways we could escape. There are three, each with some difficulty attached, but each do-able. She enumerates one-by-one the reasons why none of these methods will work for her, but her reasons seem nonsensical, made up on the spot. (yes! this is normal for her! get away! )
I'm torn because I thought she wanted to escape (an easy mistake to make, but don't compound it!), but she's not actually doing so.
Aug-11-2007: I'm reviewing a new set of microphones. One in particular is a small mic, about three inches in diameter, but with a wide diaphram. I am amazed to see that it has a little compartment and in that compartment is a tiny little pop filter and attachment frame.
I'm a student and a flmmaker, in a country where there is a bit of trouble. In particular, there is some sort of major firefight nearby, like something out of a ridiculous action movie. I try to stay crouched down, but the "hero" shoots me. Pissed off about this, I demand a reason. He claims that I looked like, or acted like a combatant. I point out that I was crouched in a corner, just trying to avoid all of this. He seems apologetic and we try it again, but he still shoots me. No matter how I try to hide or seem harmless, I end up getting shot.
Aug-06-2007: A film festival in Europe -- maybe France -- has awarded our first movie their top prize.
Jul-27-2007: He bursts into the cockpit, just as the pilot is reporting a 'firecracker' on board. "This is no fucking firecracker, my friend. This is a big-ass fucking bomb!"
Jul-16-2007: I'm going through trunks of old relatives. Personal effects, memorabilia, etc. Everything that was left behind when they died. I try to understand the significance of each one, but it's not always possible. This makes sense, though -- I'd pity the person who tried making sense of my personal effects. One trunk is particularly interesting in that it has some drug gear, a little pipe, a lighter, and even a small bundle of what I suspect is pot.
Jul-14-2007: I've been turned into a vampire and boy am I pissed off about it! Confused me at first, because I wasn't sure what was happpening, but now that I know, I'm angry. I decide to start killing other vampires. This is not out of some sort of vigilante cleansing of evil -- this is just because I am so mad that I am going to kill them all. Fortunately, killing vampires is surprisingly easy if you're one, too. They let you get close and their heads pop right off.
Jul-04-2007: We stop in at a tavern or something, just to get out of the heat. While we're there, the bartender notices me looking thirsty and pours me a glass of wine. Before I realize it, I've drunk half the glass. It is absolutely delicious! If I had any idea wine could taste THIS good...! Suddenly, I realize what I've done. I tell him I can't have any more (however delicious it is), because I'm riding tonight. He's regretful, but he understands. It was delicious, tasting a little fruity, a little woody.
The system has finally realized that my friend is not the official user. It makes a few disappointing noises and folds up consoles so he can't use the real high powered tech in it -- the nuclear stuff. We fret for a bit until I think of the novel idea of creating a new user. This is surprisingly easy.
Jul-03-2007: Someone has taken about half my quarter collection. This is very silly -- in order to open the tube holding the collection, they had to first go through a big box of other coins, including many quarters that aren't part of the collection. This makes no sense. Why would someone take my special quarters?
Jun-28-2007: I hear her in the other room. She's laughing at me, and not in that fun way. She talks with someone on the phone about how she has me wrapped around her little finger. I think about all the help and patience I've offered and I become angry and hurt. What am I getting out of this? Do I really want someone in my life who could act this way?
Jun-27-2007: I'm trying to get the thing to come out of the mirror. I hover near it, concentrating and at the same time not-concentrating. I can tell the whole thing is getting closer, but just then someone shouts out that I'm hovering and it breaks my train of thought. I can't recapture the moment. The thing recedes further back in the mirror.
Jun-26-2007: I'm trying to explain to a friend that I have recently discovered that David Banner's violent transformations are NOT a result of exposure to gamma radiation, but in fact the result of intensive training by a very clever monk.
A co-worker and I are trying to get to work, but part of the road we normally take is blocked off so flat, ultrafast cars can race. This is a little annoying as this is the only road to work.
I catch a small child (about five years old) as he is about to cut my Achille's tendon with a pair of scissors. He is working with a similarly aged partner. Evidently, they have attacked several people, just for fun. I disarm them both and plan to take them to the police. The longer I have them, though, the smaller they get. Eventually, they become mice, then pennies. I realize that an evil spirit of some sort has been at work here, and eventually planning on becoming human. I bind each penny with a rock, a stick, and a piece of grass to ward off the demon, hoping it will be enough.
Jun-25-2007: I know I've decided to go back to school, back to college. Taking good technical classes, including math classes, rich advanced stuff. But how did I get so far behind? I'm weeks behind! I have no idea how or even if I can catch back up. The amount of work ahead of me is absolutely staggering.
I own a toy shop in the mall. Just moments ago, a flood of kids practically destroyed it. Toys strewn everywhere, things knocked over, a complete shambles. I tried to control them, but their parents seemed completely out to lunch. Soon, the wave of destruction passed and I started forlornly picking up the pieces. Then, a group of teenage boys start picking through things. I apologize for the mess. I tell them that although it's all terribly disorganized, I would be happy to help them find what they're looking to buy. They correct me -- they are not here to buy, but to steal. I, trapped by a mound of toys on the floor and totally exhausted, can only watch helplessly as they take what they want.
Jan-09-2007: She tells me she wants to talk -- just talk -- and can she pick me up. For someone who wants to "just talk", she's sure dressed for action. Her skirt is really short, and the whole dress is black and curve-hugging. She's a knockout, no doubt about it. I remind myself that our affair has been over for a long time and that it turned very unhealthy for her. I have to remind myself of this a few times, because she's very intoxicating in that small car. She drives me around the waterfront area, talking in strange circles. I can't quit figure out where she's going with this, I can't quite track the thread of conversation. The heat is relaxing me, and her skirt keeps hiking up higher and higher. She's looking at me in a particular way that I recognize, too. Maybe she thought she only wanted to talk, but every other sign indicates something else. She reaches over me for something and I notice, with less surprise than I expected, that there's nothing underneath that little black skirt but her. The whole afternoon floods back into my memory, the feels the smells, the tastes. I reach for her and she backs away, just a little, just out of my reach again. She gives me a strange stern look, as if I ought not to have done that. The car rides over more difficult bumps and we focus on the ride. She teases me some more, less overtly, but I'm not keen on it as much anymore. We spent five years avoiding scruplulously each other, despite our attraction, and when we finally came together, she flew away as abruptly as she entered my life. I don't want to do that big old orbit action again. But she's right there, she's teasing me, and she's obviously interested. I suddenly realize that I just want out of the car. As nice a ride as it is, I'd rather walk.
Dec-24-2006: I've been told I'm the winner of a writing award and at the announcement dinner, a few photographers and reporters are following me around. In the auditorium is a bit of a floor show -- a man is telling fortunes. Specifically, he tells your future by touching and cradling your head, and then whispering it to you. Everyone's joking about it, but as each one walks away, they seem kind of haunted. Eventually, there's just he and I in there. Now, I've just won an award, so I feel pretty good, and I'm moderately successful as a writer, so god news won't make me feel much better, but bad news would fuck me up. He tells me it's not scary -- he won't tell me anything I don't want to know. He starts, and then we have to shoo away the photographers, because they're touching me and that interferes with the reading. After they leave, he tries again, then smiles and stops. "It won't work if someone is touching you," he tells me. "But," I tell him, "no one is here but you and I." He laughs gently and says "Not here -- in the other world."
Dec-18-2006: It's not Godzilla like in the movies, but everyone's calling it Godzilla. It came out of the sea in a fury and attacked and ate many people, and destroyed many buildings, but would go back into the water for protection. It was a giant lizard, with a fast and furious hunger. My friends and I were stunned that it seemed to be "following" us, attacking places where we hung out, except one old warehouse. We looked around and found its eggs. It had been attacking places where it had smelled people who had been near its eggs! So, I decided to give it a reason to stay out of the water long enough to really get nailed. I instructed my friends to get out of there and I smshed all the eggs. My scent was EVERYWHERE. Then I ran. I ran through complicated neighborhoods and through mazes of warehouses. I just ran. Eventually, I ended up at a local college, and talked a student into driving me out east. But while we were waiting to go, news reports came in that the creature had inexplicably gone inland and seemed to be very agitated and was approaching the school. I insisted we leave immediately and he, freaked out and trying to save the school, handed me his keys. I drove through town, and managed to cross my older path. My hope was that this would cause it to skip the school and track the newer scent. This worked, but I was driving like crazy and this big bastard was only a half mile behind, and making good time. I knew once I made it to the freeway, I could outrun him, but people kept blocking the entrances. I wondered what I would do when I ran low on gas...
Dec-11-2006: I have been diagnosed with cancer, that has oddly enough spread from my knees. I have about a week or two left to live. There are many people I want to visit, but I can't get to them all. I have to decide who I want to see, knowing that all my choices bear consequences.
Dec-05-2006: Zombies are taking over, and the infestation grows. We lived in the suburbs, in a house that we were expanding, when the whole zombie thing started. We explored the house already, and found anything and everything that could possibly be a weapon. One of the things we realize is that with all these doors, we'd better make sure everything's well-locked. We find a few doors unlocked, and while we're locking up, we hear a voice hailing us from outside. A man and his wife stumble over. We're wary because they are obviously turning into zombies, but they manage to croak out a greeting. Turns out they knew the people who lived here before and they try to advise us about various safety features, as well as other things. But they're too far gone and as they're talking, they start lurching towards us and towards Katrina in particular.
Dec-01-2006: My friend is in the car as it rolls over. The gal driving it, however has a chimpanzee in the back. I'm not very strong, but I know that chimp is, so I thump on the back door and he pushes his way out. I struggle to remember my chimp sign language and I get clouted on the head a few times, but eventually, he flips the car back over and pulls out his mistress. I can now help my friend out the same way.
Dec-01-2006: I and my two brothers all have to pass the same final exam in electronics, using only the items in the box to build an AM Receiver. There are, however, certain items missing and because they got the kit first, I end up shorted. I take a walk to clear my head and when I return, they've finished building their Receivers, but now I can't find the box at all!
Nov-12-2006: Aliens have landed. Actually this is a small group of them, maybe half a dozen. They are being greeted and "sniffed out" by a group of human beings, chosen for their ability to perceive and for their influence. The two groups are staying in a small secluded building, a house of sorts, a social quarantine area. I'm one of the people. As time passes I find myself more able to see into the future, to follow the thick heavy lines of probability, even when they thin out to vanishingly uncertain. In this case, however, there is one strong fat line of probability -- that these aliens are lying to us. The fattest line of probability is that they will enslave and eventually destroy us. No spunky humans, no insurrection, just a quick and methodical extermination. I can see this, and it astonishes me that no one else can. Or maybe they can, but they think that because these aliens are acting so darn nice they couldn't possibly be of evil intent. But they are and I know it.
The sad part is, I also know that killing them won't stop it. Killing them makes the probability line get fatter. I try so many different solutions and each time the line gets fatter, the stakes higher, humanity's death more certain. Except for one action. Every time I contemplate this one action, the probability drops to the tiniest almost invisible thread. Every time I consider that action, I see humanity being constantly coy with these creatures, and thus saving their own bacon. But the catalyst event, the thing that must happen to save humanity, is that one of the humans in this group must die. Tonight. It is her influence that overrides everyone else, it is her kindness the aliens steal to mimic, it is her soul that is robbed so that ours can be sufficiently categorized to annihilate. She must die.
But -- she is one of the kindest, friendliest people I know. I genuinely adore her, as do the rest of us. Hurting her is unthinkable and the idea of shutting off her light for all time is too hard to imagine. I can't. I just can't. And I must.
I creep through the darkened room with the closest thing I have to a weapon -- a wooden club I tore from an office chair. Everyone sleeps. I find her. I stand over her. I can't do this! I must do this! It's wrong -- so very, very wrong. I swing the club, and it bounces off her head. The sound sickens me. She wakes up, in a physical way, but not a mental way. She's confused and the pain hasn't registered as pain yet. I hit her again. Hard. I was hoping the first one would be enough. The second one leaves her alive still, but she thrashes, and moans a guttural polysyllabic. A third time, this time as hard as I possibly can, and she is silent, but now, of course, other people are getting up, lights are flicking to life, there is shouting and screaming.
I throw my mind into the future as I feel hands around me, bodies bearing me to the ground. I see two things, two things that come even close to being worth taking this woman's life. I see humanity always nervous around the aliens, always a little worried that maybe their influence made me some sort of mad killer. I see doubt and hesitancy and a wariness. But I also see another thing. I see the aliens, confused and alarmed by my seemingly unmotivated violence, the fact that this murder occurred with such brutality, deciding that however soft the people of Earth might seem, they are hard and dangerous and unpredictable. The aliens decide for themselves to leave and when they do, humanity breathes a sigh of relief.
Then I see a third thing, a thing I expected to see, but am still shaken by. I see my own death. I understand it must happen, but still, I mourn for myself and I mourn for my friend, who had to also give up her life. I wish I could have explained, could have known that she accepted this, but no, it couldn't have happened that way. This was the only solution.
Nov-09-2006: In our house at the coast, we watch the waves with apprehension. We have been told that a tsunami is expected in. We figure we're safe enough in our house. We watch the waters recede, knowing this is the precursor. Then the first wave comes in. It's a gentle buildup of water, but relentless, rising, rising toward us. It reaches the bottom of the house and keeps rising. Reaches the windowsill, then slows, and starts dropping again. We start to breathe a sigh of relief, but it catches in our throats as we see the second wave coming. We grab hold of major support parts of the house, and I suddenly remember the newscaster telling us that the first wave would be gradual and slow, but that the second would be hard and violent. It hits and the house whips and bucks beneath our feet. Tearing, rending sounds. The back half of the house is torn from the anchored front half, and, floating, we spin inland on the rushing water. Fortunately, this half of the house floats, so even though we are cruising along very quickly, we are relatively safe. We slide down streets. The water is shallower now, but we are moving very quickly. Just as we start to bottom out, we crash directly into a glass-fronted building. Glass shatters and is thrown everywhere, but we realize that if it weren't for the glass cushioning us, we would have experienced serious injuries. We watch the waters as they continue receding.
Oct-18-2006: She has been a prisoner her whole life, in a small cell with hardly a blanket. Her single possession is an old book, worn out. She can't read, but she loves the book and looks at every page all the time. It is powerfully symbolic. She cannot speak -- she has never been taught, plus her tongue has long been removed. One day, for no reason other than their own twists, her captors remove the book while she is asleep or away. Grief hollows her oyt and for a period, she is despopndent beyond ken. Her life has lost meaning and she drifts. Then, some timeless time later, she finds the book, obviously placed back in her blanket. Although there should be joy filling her heart, and there is SOME joy, this is the first time in her entire life she realizes what sort of captive she is. She collapses in grief at realizing her deep loss, her empty mouth opening and an inarticulate choking wail filling her small cell.
Oct-11-2006: Stephanie and I are trying to leave Germany. The wait at the train station is long and we wander the local vendors looking for a bite to eat. I panic momentarily because I don't know where my backpack is, but Stephanie reminds me that it's in a nearby locker. Now why would I put my backpack in a locker?
Oct-11-2006: Some sort of weird contract has been taken out on our life. This doesn't make any sense to me as all we're trying to do is good. It involves a "curse" and some kind of animal, probably a tiger or something. I am warned by a local native that no one survives the curse, but I tell him there is no curse - but that there probably is someone who is pushing the idea of a curse, so they can push their own agenda through fear. While I am talking, I notice someone crouching in the bushes with a blowgun and darts. He's a shitty shot, missing my friend. He gets me, but the stuff is all mixed wrong and it only makes me dizzy for a few minutes.
Oct-11-2006: Katrina and I are driving home, down a desert road. Oddly, someone has installed a railroad crossing guard at the tracks. "But I've never seen a train down here," I say. She says "It's new to me, too." It's a strange type of crossing guard, not very long, but wide-bladed. We get home and she lets the cat out while I take off my shoes. "Since when have we let the cat out?" I asked. "Especially at night in the desert?" She shrugs. "I dunno'" she says. This is all seeming very suspicious to me...
Oct-10-2006: I'm walking by a man who is talking on his cell phone. He becomes unnaturally silent and then, to my surprise, he collapses. I try to shake him a bit, but he's quite out. Katrina comes by and helps, telling me how to check him, how to position him, etc. I start CPR under her direction while she gets on the phone and calls 911. Eventually, we are rewarded by a great shuddering sigh and he starts breathing on his own again.
Sep-26-2006: We arrive for diving lessons, but the line is horrendously long and the pool is full, so the lessons are going to be on the boat and they have to take us out to international waters.
Sep-26-2006: I'm trying to get ahold of Dad. The messages I leave, though, all sound very strange and desperate. So I try to leave additional messages making myself sound less desperate and weird, but it just exacerbates the problem.
Sep-26-2006: New people hired and sitting down right behind me. Strange and very uncomfortable. They can see everything on my screen. I have the sense they were hired to watch me.
Sep-25-2006: She and I are both fighter pilots, peers. I've been attracted to her for a long time, but too busy to do anything about it. In a briefing, we are informed that a new Commander is going to be chosen. Most of us -- myself included -- think it will probably be me. "I won't get to fly with you," she tells me. "I'm going to miss that." My heart skips a beat. "I'm going to miss flying with you, too," I tell her. We look at each other and I realize the affection has been mutual for a long time. "You better do something about that now," she tells me, "before you can't fraternize with the hoi polloi anymore."
Sep-25-2006: I'm far in the past, trying to save history as we know it. I confer with medieval armies and their leaders. I realize that the incoming army is travelling up a valley. This is perfect! We can gas them in this valley and save lots of time. I try to explain my idea, but all I receive is a lank stare. "Gas," I say. "Don't you know about gas?" Evidently, they don't. I try explaining gas to them, how we have gasses that are so deadly a few drops on the floor can kill a roomful of men. They all stop walking and just stare at me. They are disgusted -- what a horrible way to make war! They can't believe how cowardly that is! Is everyone from the future this cowardly?
Sep-25-2006: The instructor is showing off the new Holographic Learning Systems. These are sort of virtual floating 3D wikis that hover in the room. Each student's thoughts help form them and they help focus the teacher's lesson in such a way that it helps the brain understand it better. The more people n the room who "get it" the more the images shift to something that better helps the learning process. Brilliant concept, actually, but you do have to train a bit to be able to take advantage of it.
Sep-24-2006: We are remembering the time one of our party was really drunk and tried to drive his own carriage home. The local constabulatory was onto him in a matter of seconds, leaping into the carriage windows like a couple of monkeys. Although he protested he was on the King's business, it was obvious he was just drunk.
Sep-24-2006: I am showing off the new pipe systems for where we live. This is a waste disposal pipe about six feet in diameter. I'm showing how thick the concrete is, talking about how secure the whole system is and how it's so good that I'm joking we'll have to be careful to not get sucked in. I think this is strong enough to protect us in case of an attack. Plus, if worse comes to worse, we can escape through the pipe, which won't be a wonderful crawl, but will protect us as we get away.
Sep-22-2006: It's some kind of school, maybe even high school, but not my own. Most of us there are still adults, or maybe a little younger. That evening, there is some kind of phenomenon going on, astrological or something like that. A friend of mine asks if he can help me with filming it and I tell him sure. He's good. I acquire tickets for him and me. Then Sheri approaches me, upset that I didn't choose her. "I didn't know you were interested," I tell her. She's upset that no one picks her because she's a girl. I try to tell her that this has nothing to do with it, but she won't listen. Back inside, I run across Tracey and I ask her how design work on the logo is going. She looks sheepish and tells me she hasn't had the time to even start. I'm okay with this and she's relieved. I try to hop in the service elevator to go up a level but before I get in, one of the janitors comes by. Momentarily, I think I am in trouble, but he assures me instead that he is sorry to have kept ME waiting. He helps me into the elevator and closes the door.
Sep-20-2006: I'm with a woman who is doting on her sickly boy, who is not really sick at all. She keeps going on about how delicate he is, about how careful she has to be and all I can see is a boy who is gradually being convinced that he is an invalid.
Sep-18-2006: Damn recruiters. Now they're going door-to-door to recruit people. We fall to a bit of an argument, and we're going to resolve it via fisticuffs in the backyard. Before we begin, I remind the soldier that I outrank him.
Sep-17-2006: This isn't my phone. This is someone else's phone. Who are all these people in the contacts list? Someone must have grabbed my phone by mistake.
Aug-22-2006: I remember this sculpture. We found this sculpture on our first adventure together, over a volcano. and through a jungle. I feel sad to have forgotten it.
Aug-16-2006: It's a huge scab and I'm amazed I was able to peel the thing off in one big patch. Kinda scary, when I think about it.
Aug-13-2006: They're using an active volcano as a very fancy water feature. I step close to the edge and watch the orange glowing lava. "Soon," I tell myself. "Soon this will spill over and they'll realize how stupid an idea this was."
Aug-12-2006: I've just flown in. It's night and I'm not sure where she is, but I'll wait. I play with her dog for a while. A large car shows up, a limo. She and three other people get out. They all seem surprised to see me (but I was planning this!) two of them I know from down here -- one a friend and the other my Mom. The other fella I don't know. He seems puzzled by my presense. The vibe I'm getting is that he's her date for the evening. That seems odd -- this was the first evening we have together for months! I try to introduce myself but he dodges conversation and they all duck back into the limo except her. She pulls me aside, takes a breath and tells me she's not seeing me anymore. What!?
She says she could tell from my letters and from our chats and calls that I was no longer in love with her and that she just wanted to formalize that. What?! I tell her no, no, no, this isn't truth at all! I'm crazy about her! I love her! She listens and nods and seems sad, but insists she is doing the right thing. I'm heartbroken. How can this be happening? how can I love someone this much and in this way and have her so completely miss it that she thinks it's the opposite?! Can we talk about this? Are words meaningless here? She says we'll talk about it after she gets back from her date, but I have a feeling it's an aleady-done deal in her mind.
I feel like complete shit and an idiot as I watch the limo pull away. It makes no sense. Nothing does anymore. Why am I bothering? I feel hollowed out again, although there's not much grown back in yet. So, the process -- the hollowing out -- was easy, sadly. I have been disposed of when I became too real.
Aug-10-2006: We're all piling into the truck. It's a huge truck, so everyone's afraid of it. Basically a mobile home kind of thing. Also, it's a manual transmission, so most everybody else can't drive it. Katrina and I can, but she's not feeling brave about it right now. So, as awkward as it is, the job of driving this bastard is mine.
It's a bumpy ride, though. The clutch responds erratically and I jerk it around a few times trying to get it into gear. People are gonna think I'm incompetent at this driving thing, and it's not as if I can convince them it's a dodgy clutch.
Finally, we make it to the freeway, and I think it's going quite well.
I see police lights up ahead in the dark. They are flagging people over to drive on the shoulder. Some kind of wreck ahead. A big one.
I slow down a lot and start driving the route on the shoulder. That's when I notice the first animal body. Then I notice another. Then another and another, some large, some small. I recognize that these are all circus animals.
Then it makes sense -- there's been an accident of some sort with a traveling circus.
It hurts to think of all these dead animals. The bodies are now so thick that it's actually tricky to weave around them. They look magnificent, but also stilled forever. Tears start down my face and as I pas each one, I whisper to it, how sorry I am this happened.
Eventually, the animals are so thick that I have to drive over them. It's horrible.
Aug-08-2006: Soccer? I'm really awful at this, although it's fun to watch. I try my best despite the fact that we're actually playing in a house and there's furniture and stuff all over. I get one good block in and one good shot at a goal. I do okay -- nothing to write home about.
Aug-06-2006: I must choose of of the scenarios whirling around me, each playing out on a flying TV screen. All of them are terrible.
Aug-06-2006: I stood on a cliff overlooking a huge ruined city. Long devastated, but still nothing growing there. I vaguely recognized it as New York. Nearby was a bookshelf. There was one book on the bookshelf, a quickly-assembled collection of B&W photographs. I paged through, seeing New York while it was still up. Then I saw it from the point of view of an airplane. Then the airplane was dropping bombs and flying away. I followed the bombs in pictures as they came closer and closer to earth, and then there were only more pictures of devastation.
Aug-05-2006: I noticed with surprise how many trucks seemed to have driven off the road and into the ocean. We stopped and I realized that the ocean was lapping up against the land in huge swells, but not going away. The land was sinking (or the ocean rising)! Before we could get back up the road, swells overcame our car. Fortunately, we're both good swimmers and were able to get out of the car and float to the top. We rode swells in to land and scrambled to safety, watching from a distance as the water continued to rise. Cars and houses and factories all were swallowed up by the water as it rose, each one marked by streams of bubble beneath the surface. I knew that eventually, all that water would be horribly contaminated.
We kept running inland, heading for some ships. A large cruise ship has been drifting in and we manage to get onboard. I realize we have no clothes, so I'm going to run quickly back to the hotel, throw some clothes in a bag, and come back to the ship.
At the hotel, as I'm throwing clothes into a bag, my sister and her son arrive. She wants to know what to do. I deliberate a few seconds. He is strong, young, sprightly, creative, tough, and open-minded. I tell her he'll come with me and she needs to go south to grab a ship coming in.
He and I head north, toward the ship, while she heads south, where I know the water is rushing in. I am sad about this, and a part of me things I've done a bad thing, but I think it settles something in the Universe a bit.
When we arrive, the ship has cast off. We decide to swim for it. I hear boat horns from everywhere. All boats are blowing their horns, and it is the sound of mourning.
Jul-03-2006: It's a horrible argument and a group of us seem to be really at each other's throats out there in the field. A man approaches, and we know he's some kind of peacekeeper. We keep squabbling until the last minute, though. He has a ball and he kicks it high in the air. We keep squabbling. When the ball hits the ground, it doesn't bounce. Instead, it sends a sort of whomp through the ground. We all stop. Once you feel this whomp you cannot continue fighting. It's part of the law we all agree to.
Sep-06-2005: She calls me. "I have to tell you something," she says. Her voice is different than I've ever heard it. I've heard many different voices from her, but I've never heard her scared. "I have lumps," she says. "Tumors." I feel dizzy. "Maybe," I try, "Maybe they're benign? Maybe they can be removed?" Her sigh across the phone is worse than if it were in real life. "They're not," she tells me. "They're the tip of the iceberg." I suddenly stand in front of an enormous bookshelf, stretching at least fifteen feet high and very, very wide, thirty, forty feet or more. These are all the books I've read, all the learning I've done in my whole life. My eyes flicker over every spine, flash the contents back into my head. I've read all of these books, I've learned all of these things and none of it will help her. "It's... well, it's okay, hon," she tells me. "No one lives forever." I'm still too shocked and desperate to speak out loud, but she knows what I'm thinking. "Don't be that way," she chides me. "Don't. You've grown and you have a life and a family of your own. That is a good thing. All of this is supposed to happen." Nothing in the books helps me.
Sep-06-2005: The floodwaters are waist-high. The town is silent, dead. Debris floats in the dark water, bumping softly away from me as I plow through. I don't want to speak aloud, to call out, because the silence is oppressive. Even the animals are silent. No birds. No crickets. No frogs. Nothing. The sun hangs low and the clouds reflect blood-red against the water. I keep looking. I'm sure she made it. She's resourceful, brilliant. Then I see her. She floats, most of her body underwater, but I recognize her, even from this far away. I stumble and fall and I can't stand. I can't stand as I approach her, floating, her cold eyes upward and blind. I'm at her side. I can't believe it. No, this is so wrong! Her lips don't move, but I hear her voice, as if she was sitting next to me, almost conversational. "It's okay," she says. "I'm okay, baby. Really."
Sep-04-2005: The house is filled with traps and tricks. Some are deadly and people have died. By the end, only three have survived: a man who is not very smart but appears clever, his son who is quite clever but hides it, and a woman who might be his girlfriend. There is a fourth man, a Jester, who judges them as they pass traps, and has set the entire house up the way it is. The Jester takes notes carefully in a little book. The Jester tells them that they must come back when he calls them. They must keep testing the house. If they do not come back, the Jester will choose one at random and kill them.
Sep-04-2005: We climb slowly up the trail to the observation decks for Mount St. Helens. As we ascend, there are places where we would expect to see the mountain, but brick walls and other visual blockers have been hastily erected, so that we never actually see the thing until we reach the top of the observation area. What is all this machinery? It seems as if a group of enterprising engineers has devised a way to harmlessly raise the lava dome by pumping air down it. I'm hesitant about this method, but fascinated at the machinery of it.
Sep-03-2005: The wheel is huge, more like a cylinder. It rotates over an open pit in which glow embers of a fire. A man is tied to the cylinder. He is yelling indignantly, about his treatment, being tied to this thing. It's clear from what he's yelling, though, that he's not of the opinion there's any real danger, just that he's really inconvenienced and uncomfortable. He is yelling a bit to me and a bit to the other man, a Controller who stands near the axle of the cylinder. A great crank is there and this man rocks the crank back and forth, which rocks the drum. I call him a man, but it is as if I am seeing two creatures at the same time. One is a large, muscular man in a black suit. The other I only see glimpses of, but it has a huge head, a ring of horns, a tail and teeth. Impossible teeth in a wide grinning froglike mouth. He turns to me, as if he had been waiting. "It's fun once they realize it's all real," this man tells me. He cranks the drum and the loud, complaining man spins around and then is facing downward into the pit. He's still complaining, only more loudly and shrilly. The Controller pulls a lever and the flames leap up, lightly but completely covering the man tied to the cylinder. There is a sudden silence. Then the shrieks begin. The Controller spins the man back up a bit. His clothes are burned mostly away and he struggles against the bonds, screaming. "After this, it's usually boring and noisy," says the Controller. He jerks hard against the crank and the drum bounces. The man is crunched between the heavy wheel and the ground. A bit of blood and gore remains stuck to the floor. The Controller spins the drum, putting the unconscious man back into the flames. "You get tired of the screaming," it explains. I smell the meat roasting.
Jul-25-2005: I'm with a friend, who has taken me to "Canada's best ever hobby shop," according to him. He's thrilled to be here and we both spend hours wandering around, looking at all the bits and pieces. As I notice the prices, though, I realize that when translated to US dollars, it's all comparable or maybe even a little higher than the prices for the same things in the US. It's a fun place, but I see no reason why I should be buying stuff here instead of in the States, where it's cheaper and I won't have to bring it on the airplane.
Jun-14-2005: She demands her brother's body. I tell her that I have already sent it and she calls me a liar. I tell her he was cremated and I sent his ashes in a simple urn. She is about to call me a liar again, and then her faces freezes. She obviously remembers something, and by the look on her face, it isn't a good thing. "You did receive them, didn't you?" I ask and I know the answer is affirmative. The look of spreading horror on her face tells me more. "You threw them away, didn't you?" I ask. "You didn't even bother to read the letter, did you? You just got the box, saw it was from me, and threw it away. And now your brother is long gone." I feel a tiny bit sorry for her, but only a tiny bit. It was her hatred that did it, and now she has to face that forever.
Jun-14-2005: We are emancipated from the ape overlords. We are overjoyed, exhilarated, and, admittedly, a bit confused. We've spent generations under the yoke and many of us don't know what it's like to be free. We don't know anything else. I've heard stories from my parents and their parents, though, so the first thing I decide to do is get the hell away from the city -- there's no telling when the tide will turn and we'll become property again. The sun is high and the day is hot and even though I travel by foot inland and away from the coast, I believe I will find fresh water and a new life. I am accompanied by a group of people, and we trade stories of how life used to be, based on the stories we heard. We are trying to reconstruct a three-generations-ago lifestyle. "Commerce" is the current topic. Why would someone engage in "commerce" when "trade" seems more reasonable. We speculate on what "money" meant. Much later, we find an ancient library. It's not huge, basically a portable type building, but it contains some books that are still useable. Curious, I look over an atlas. I can read, so now it's time to try and figure out where we are. I eventually decide that we are on the coast of a continent that used to be called Antarctica (near a city that used to be called "Juneau"). According to what I can tell, Antarctica is supposed to be one of the coldest places on the planet. I'm suddenly not sure it's a good idea to keep heading inland, and I wonder what the rest of the planet is like now. The sun is still high in the sky, baking us in that tiny, dust-filled building.
Jun-07-2005: She comes into the room, graceful and comfortable to the point of physical power. I've always been a little intimidated in her presence, but I've never admitted it. She's talking about a project she's working on next and I comment about how it's got to be less nasty than my projects. A bit of self-deprecation. She stops me immediately and tells me "Edward, the scripts you've written are some of the most disturbing and freakish scripts I've ever read -- and the best. So, knock it off." She has me scoot over and sits next to me on the couch. Leaning against each other, we continue watching TV.
Jun-05-2005: They feel sorry for me. I can tell. They have acquired for me an attractive female escort. I realize that this is just such a hokey solution, a cheap-ass patch job for my heart, and they acknowledge it as well. "Just try her!" they tell me. I love them, but I think this is a hare-brained idea. The date goes well and she is pleasant and intelligent. Although there is no passion, she turns out to be skilled and functional in bed and I find myself warming to her without falling goofy, because I know that she has her limits. I wonder if this is what they were trying to teach me.
Apr-24-2005: We've just rescued these people from a building in which they were trapped. I go over the crowd quickly, making sure there aren't any stragglers, that we've completely emptied the building. The flesh-eaters are overrunning the building and they will very soon discover that it is empty. Then they'll be frustrated as well as hungry. This is a large crowd, though, and now we're out in the open, so the scent will draw them from all over. I look back along our path, and I listen carefully. I hear hunting cries and I know that we have to start hauling ass or we're going to be caught out. I start yelling at people to move out, to start running, to follow me, but they just look stupidly at each other, as if getting out of the building was all they were good for. The group of us run through the crowd, yelling "Run, run, goddamit! Follow us!" and it is as if we just aren't seen. Nothing mysterious, they just simply ignore us, trying to find out from each other what's "really" going on. A few start moving along with us, but once they realize that the crowd-in-general isn't moving, they slow back down and rejoin the group. This is suicide! We, of course, keep running, because we're not stupid. The cries are getting louder and we yell at the crowd "Follow us or you'll die!" and we turn and run, not waiting to see if anyone bothers following us. As we leave a section of the woods in which we were hiding, the part of my brain that's always watching for danger tells me this is about the time when the flesh-eaters will discover the crowd. Sure enough, I hear screaming from far back. I risk a glance. No one has followed us. No one at all. I'm a bit sad that they're all going to die, and I'm a bit annoyed that we spent the effort to rescue them to no effect. On the other hand, that's a lot of food and a lot of scent and we'll make a clean getaway in the frenzy. I guess I ought to feel sorry for them, but I don't. I can't. there's just no sympathy in my heart for them at all. I can't even believe they're the same species as me. I keep running.
Apr-23-2005: He is a boy, only ten years old or so. He's easy to please and likes to show off, like all boys his age. His eyes blink and he starts reciting data that's on my cell phone. It's amazing. Then he tells me that he's not supposed to do that, that they think it's too dangerous that he can do that. I ask who he's speaking of and he nods at the wall "The men behind the wall," he says. I realize looking at him that he is, in fact, secured via five points to an angled bed. He can't move, although he doesn't appear to be in immediate discomfort. I leave the room and find out that there actually are men behind the wall. Research scientists monitor him constantly. He is a threat to national security, as well as a major threat to any sort of data security. Normally whenever he does this, they flip a switch and then a machine sends out an electromagnetic pulse that scrambles his thinking for a while, so he can't implant the memories. They show me and the boy -- who I can see through the now-evidently-fake wall -- writhes in pain. It is unfortunate, but the pain is necessary when scrambling up his mind for a while. They just want to make sure he can't read things.
Apr-23-2005: The fellow in the hotel room next to mine calls me over. He’s a bit nervous, and has a problem. Ordinarily, he wouldn't ask anyone for any help, but he knows that I can be matter-of-fact about certain things, so he feels confident asking for my help. We go to his room. It seems he and his girlfriend are doing the tie-'em-up game and she's all tied up in a complicated series of knots and blindfolded as well. This is a good thing because it turns out she is an ex-girlfriend of mine. He explains that he wants to move her to another room, but she can't walk, he can't move her alone, and the knots are too complicated to untie and then retie once she gets there. He keeps explaining things and I keep nodding. I don't want to speak because I know she would recognize my voice. Finally, he asks me why I'm not talking. "Because," I answer him, "I have inadvertently placed myself in a very awkward position." She is startled to hear my voice, but recovers quickly. "If you think it's awkward for you," she says, "At least you're not immobilized." After she assures me she is, in fact, okay, I gently carry her to the other room.
Mar-22-2005: I'm teaching my friends how to snorkel. I seem to have lost my mask and fins and snorkel, and the set I'm borrowing are complete shit. They're just awful. But I'm willing to do my best. The bay in which we're snorkeling is a sort of "recovery bay", where rescued sea creatures are taken to recover. The first fish I see looks peculiar and I try to get closer. Turns out it's not a fish -- it's a turtle. Someone had removed its shell and then removed its back legs. So, it was just this naked turtle with little front flippers. It didn't look happy.
Jul-26-2004: I just feel like playing my music and being left alone. Why is that so difficult for people to understand? I said it plainly and they all think I'm joking or bullshitting or somehow doing that retarded ask-for-the-opposite-of-what-you-want thing that by now they ought to know I detest. So, I take my violin and harp and head for my room. In the hallway, I pass a group of people practicing dance, and their instruments set up a sympathetic vibration in my harp strings, which then screws up their timing. I apologize and try to keep my fingers on the strings as I pass. Finally, in my room, I decide not to play either instrument, but instead play with a curious little tin thing. It looks a lot like an ashtray, but has short, tight strings across it. It comes with an ornate little bow. I draw it carefully, to get a sense of the notes and discover that applying pressure via the grip on the tin cup changes the notes a lot. This little handheld thing is really quite versatile! I play a few pieces, and then improv something cheery. Oh, I like this instrument!
Jul-26-2004: It's Christmas and even though this is a really big house, it looks like basically, there's just going to be a small number of us. That's okay, because the problem with big Christmases is that I feel obligated to get everybody a gift and I really am not very comfortable with gift exchanges (at least as most people symbolize them). Suddenly, the rest of the relatives arrive and the place is flooded with kids, all clearly related. Okay, I definitely don't want to be some kind of grinch not giving gifts to kids, but I can hardly tell them apart, much less come up with -- at the last moment -- a customized gift for each one. Then, I realize I can solve a lot of problems all at once by giving each kid a box of those every-flavor jellybeans, the ones that have such flavors as dirt, booger, and vomit. This way, they would be less inclined to receive gifts from me, but I could fulfill the onerous obligation of gift giving. Now if only I could find an IHOP open on Christmas Eve...
Jul-26-2004: A pair of cobras have moved into a burrow under the mailbox island. Naturally, this is a problem for getting mail. Although it is my intent to kill them, what with them being poisonous and deadly and close to our mailboxes and all, I realize as I approach that I'm not exactly sure how to do that, what with them being poisonous and deadly and all. As I approach, they both pour out of holes and start chasing me. Darn snakes. I run and then turn back to see my progress. Although I can run faster than they can slither, they are still right behind me. Oh damn, no one told me that snakes are tenacious and all. Rats -- I thought that was just bushmasters!
Jul-20-2004: We've got this cool waterbag for our video camera now. Strap the camera in and you can shoot underwater. I'm trying to get some footage out here in the ocean, but people are all over, churning up sand and muck and making the visibility pretty suck. They're all these hugely grotesque fat people, with their legs all dangly beneath their bodies while they paddle around underwater.
Jul-20-2004: I'm trying to upgrade our camera with some sort of 3-Gig upgrade cartridge, but the directions just don't make a lick of sense. They have me trying to flip transistor legs every which way, and bend stuff into the plastic case. What the hell? The woman I'm visiting says she'll get her electronics toolkit out of the garage -- maybe that'll help.
Jul-20-2004: We arrive at Burning Man and my daughter wants to camp with her friends nearer the Esplanade. It's annoying that she just mentions this now, but it's only really a minor inconvenience, so I figure I can leave her bike and she can come get the rest of her gear once we unload the trailer at our camp out in the outer rings. But her bike doesn't seem to be in the trailer. I really hope it's in the other car, but I doubt it, as bikes really ought to have been packed in the trailer.
Well, at least I can get her shoes out of the car. Aw, man, it looks like I forgot to pack our shoes, too. We only have our "driving" shoes, basically loose sandals. This is gonna be awkward.
Jul-18-2004: In the coffee shop, it's a very boring morning. For fun, I set a jar at one end of the room, go to the other end of the room with a handful of pennies and teach myself how to sink pennies into a jar from thirty feet away.
Jul-15-2004: This is so frustrating. We've been flirting with each other for years and now we finally decide it's time to do the serious nasty. We've been heavy petting and pawing all over each other. We're in a state of serious clothing disarray. Sweet scented oil has been used. But we're in her shop in the mall and there's no part of the shop where we can go where we won't be seen from outside in the mall or an adjacent shop. Ack! Finally, we find a tiny little spot, in a corner. Just as we're about to start, the wall moves and there's a ringing sound. We're right next to her own door and some customers have come in. Oh, this isn't gonna work at all!
Jul-01-2004: Okay, we don't own a fancy car or a fancy radio, so why the hell would someone break our window to steal the radio? There's got to be lots of better radios in this lot.
Jun-30-2004: Although the rest of everybody wants me to join them in the upstairs part of this odd little mall, I am fascinated by what appears to be the "garage sale" level. At one table, I find a guitar and a banjo for sale, both in pretty good condition. I play them and they sound nice.
Jun-15-2004: I am on a research vessel doing some mapping work in the deep sea. We are coming into a lagoon to do a special job. Seems this region was a common location for mines during the war. One of our shipmates believes we ought to keep a very watchful eye out for mines. Although we're sure our sonar will pick up any mines, he proves we're wrong by finding a mine that our sonar couldn't see.
Even worse, this is a pyramid of mines, which has been designed to do successive explosions as the mines detonated downward. A really deadly stack! He examines the top one, but while doing so, he drops it. It bounces along the edge of the pyramid, all the way to the bottom, without exploding.
So, we're not sure if all the mines are dead, or if it was just that one.
Jun-04-2004: My sister struggles with the dishwasher. It seems the gasket is all screwed up and cracked and water's spilling out onto the floor, along with suds.
Jun-02-2004: I have a black '66 Cougar and I can't figure out how to park it such that the shower curtain is in front of it. No matter where I park it, hanging the shower curtain seems to be a real pain in the ass.
Jun-01-2004: I'm in Germany and these guys are trying to sell me bad art or a bad passport or drivers license. It's obviously a scam.
Jun-01-2004: I and my crew are infiltrating the Catholic Extermination Camp, where people are killed by the thousands in a methodical fashion. We've managed to hook ourselves a complete diagram and operating plan for the place. My companion throws it to me up on the roof, just before he's killed. I run, but really, there's no place to go -- it's a tall building and the roof is flat and without door. I reach the edge and look over and see a high fence and a pond beyond. A man's in the pond, shouting to me. He shouts that the pond is technically in Norway and if I can just get enough speed, I can run and make it over the fence and into the pond. Catholics are swarming up onto the roof, so I'm out of time. I run as fast as I can, trying to keep my grip on the briefcase of documents. Midair, I realize I'm going to land near the base of the fence. But, I can at least throw the books over the fence. Maybe the Norwegians can stop this craziness by the Catholics!
Jun-01-2004: It's a brand new car and people keep dinging into it. None of this is my fault, but wife eyes me reproachfully.
May-30-2004: My friend is having a birthday party. It's huge, on its own piece of property. Hundreds of people are there. Lots of activities, including races, farm games, running around, and all sorts of foolishness. I try to talk to her, but she maintains a social distance. Very far and aloof. She seems to be laughing at things and having a good time, but it feels very false -- she definitely has a cloud over her head. Another guest comes by and tells her that someone's here and looking for her. A specific someone -- I don't catch the name -- and it sounds as if he's pissed. Her face drops and she rushes out of her protective cloud of people. I follow. It's a guy, someone I've never met before, and he is very clearly a little storm-cloud kinda guy. The sort of fellow who appears pissed off no matter what anyone says or does and is in all likelihood really pissed off. She is apologizing profusely to him, in just extravagant and flowery self-debasing language. As she rips into herself for this guy (who I've already decided is basically a human turd), I can tell that he's lapping it up, and expressing just enough pleasure to reward her without spoiling her. It's a fucked up cycle of apology-capitulation-pleasure. I shake my head. It's too bad she's in that cycle again, but she runs her own life.
May-30-2004: A bunch of us are sitting watching movies and someone mentions a particular horror movie. "Oh sure," says my wife, "I'm pretty sure Edward has a copy of that -- if you can find it in the tapes. They're such a mess!" I want to protest that my tapes are all neatly filed, but I don't.
May-30-2004: We've been hunting for a long time out here in the desert. Finally, we come across an antique cabinet. Behind a false wall, we discover a manuscript that is the diary of the last man who hunted it. The diary tells how he came across a bunch of baby creatures, who were just trying out their hunting skills. His descriptions included watching them almost fade into their backgrounds. The light seems to curl around them, according to him, like waves of air on a hot day. My companion and I look at each other. If these things can be invisible, then we seriously have to reconsider a different way of hunting them.
Later, we are tracking one via helicopter and an infrared scanner. It's huge! The size of a large horse or larger, very agile, and vicious. The hard part is the helicopter pilot explaining what he's seeing to the people on the ground who are acting as bait. They run it into a cage, but the force of its impact and the angle of its entry has pinned me against the cage wall between the wall and the cage door. It can't get at me, but its bulk is squeezing me. I reach out and smack at what seems to be empty air, but I feel my hand slap flesh and slide around a mouth and teeth. I keep pulling my hand back and slapping again, hoping to infuriate it enough so it backs off long enough for me to get out. As I'm doing this, I'm also making a mental map of its face. It's a human face!
May-30-2004: Her birthday party's over and although I find myself with a piece of brightly colored, cheerful birthday cake, I know it's nasty shit on the inside and I dare not eat it.
May-09-2004: I am the swim companion of a woman who is trying for a long distance swimming record in the ocean. It's twilight out, nearly dark, and I'm just a little bit behind her. Over the past several hours, I've been hallucinating, thinking that there's a third person swimming behind me, when of course, I know the water is empty, except for fish. Then I hear an obvious splash. Ah! I turn my head quickly and see a ripple. Hey, perhaps there's a dolphin or something playing along behind us. That would be so cool!
I slow down and inhale to float quietly in place. A few seconds later, I sense the fish go by, but just under the water. Hey, there's still enough light to see by, maybe I can catch a glimpse. I duck my head under water.
It's not a dolphin. Whatever it is, it is long dead and corrupt of the flesh. It kicks and slithers its way through the water, flailing only somewhat effectively. It is obviously trying to follow us, but doing a poor job of it, because its limbs are primarily bone, with only the thinnest tatters of flesh hanging from them in sinewy threads. It flounders past me and from it I receive an emotional wave of fury, pain, fear, and hunger. Above all, hunger, hunger, relentless hunger.
May-09-2004: She wakes me up, angry. "What?" I ask. She's mad that I've been popping bubble wrap all night, and that kept her up. She waves an all-popped-out wrap sheet at me. "Where did you get that? I have no idea what you're talking about!" She glares at me, and then suggests "Okay, maybe you were breaking up chocolate, then. Still..."
May-03-2004: It's a big square house, with many stories and rooms. It probably would have been an ideal place for all of us to live. As it happens, it's now an ideal place where all of us can defend ourselves against the zombies. The brick and rock walls out there generally keep unwelcome visitors from dropping by, and the angle of the hill keeps us invisible to neighboring areas. I'm especially glad because after our last jaunt into town, I was cut off from the rest and had to fight my way past a bunch of zombies to make it back. So, being somewhat zombie-free is a good thing.
While I was in town, I made good use of my new weapon-of-choice against zombies. It's a baseball bat, with a two-foot cord tied to the end of the handle. The other end of the cord is looped around my hand. In tight quarters, I can use the bat, but out in the open, I can swing it pretty deadly.
One night, we're just hanging out, trying to find radio broadcasts, and someone starts banging on the door. What the hell? Turns out there's a group of people who had been living in the city and they fought their way up here once they saw our lights from a high building.
We really don't have enough resources for a whole new group and it's obvious they're crappy planners. Even worse, they made for slow progress and ended up leading a bunch of zombies up the hill. Damn!
We arm quickly and head out, determined to stop the infestation as quickly as possible. Zombie-killing sometimes calls more zombies. We don't know why this is, but often, if you wipe 'em all out quickly, you won't be bothered again for a long while.
Geez, there's a lot of them. I wonder if next time we see remnants of civilization, we won't just shoot 'em ourselves.
Apr-19-2004: I wake up. She's still asleep. I want to wake her up, and I don't want to wake her up. I close my eyes. I should be able to get back to sleep again, right? Right?
Apr-19-2004: I'm washing my hair and I get soapy water in my ears, but I can't get it out. I try shaking my head and it's not coming out. I can't hear anything, except the subsonic drumming of the water against me.
Apr-16-2004: Light sabers seem to have three settings. The first one is just-light. So, it doesn't cut. The second one is solid bars, but not sharp enough to cut. The third one is the one that has light and cuts and feels very, very dangerous. We decide to play with the second setting for a while, 'cause we're really not enemies that much.
Apr-07-2004: It's hot and I've been hiking through this desert for days. The mountains have crawled closer, but only imperceptibly. Day by day, closer.
Today's the day. The cliffs and ravines tower above me. I'm only a dozen yards from the base. This is how close I have to be to see it. I watch the cliff carefully from the corner of my eye as I shift position, turn my head, squint my eyes just so. They were very clever in hiding the entrance. It can't be seen directly unless you already see it, but it can't be accidentally seen, either. You have to be looking for it, but looking sideways.
There it is! I spot the pattern and carefully turn my head so that I can see it clearly. In just this way, the jumbled, tumbled rocks open up and show me a darkened, narrow path. Keeping my eyes on it, I walk in. I know that after traveling five feet, I am as invisible to the outside world as this path.
The walk is cooler, with rocks shading above me all but the direct sun. As the rocks eventually close, I'm in a dark tunnel that opens into a massive room, filled with ancient artifacts of an advanced race long gone. They built this and many other installations, hiding it from casual eyes using a most peculiar technology.
One of the devices is a sort of screen or display, conical shaped, like an old Movieola. I press my eyes to it and it starts automatically. The first images are simple symbols, collections of dots being moved around to help the machine "sync" with my brain. This calibration passes and I start learning more about the builders of this stuff. They were here millions of years ago, before human beings walked the earth, and are long gone. Their stuff maintains itself, so even throughout ice ages and floods, the installations (there are many) continue to hum along. I wonder how many there are, and it tells me, offering me locations all over the globe.
They have changed the planet itself. They have honeycombed the entire sphere, inside and out, with their technology. The planet is honeycombed with a huge network of tunnels and passages and transport routes, all underground, all in unbreakable, pressure- and heat-resistant casings. There are so many, the planet looks more like a sponge than a bal of rock!
I press my face against the viewer, learning as much as I can.
Someone pulls me away and I feel a brief second of tremendous annoyance. My sister is pulling me away. She and some adventurey-looking guy are there, and they've pulled me away from this machine. My head is filled with all the things I've learned, but I suddenly realize I'm ravenously hungry and wobbly on my legs.
She explains that I've been hooked up to this thing for at least a week, based on what she read in my logs. She says I need to do this in small doses or it's simply going to kill me.
Apr-03-2004: Katrina's found a really neat colony of Bull Ants. They wander around, waving their huge mandibles in the air, but are fairly calm at the moment. I want to take some good pictures of them, but whenever I take out the camera, the other people with whom we're traveling jump in front of it. "Ooooh, ooooh, take a picture of me!" they declare. They're not even seeing these ants and squashing 'em all over. This is, of course, making the colony agitated and I'm not particularly fond of being around a colony of agitated Bull Ants.
Apr-02-2004: He's decided to allow his daughter to be in one of our movies. We're happy about this, of course, and she's just crazy bubbling over with joy. She runs out of the room to go tell her friends. He stands, cooking over the stove. The steam in his face doesn't quite obscure the tears coming from his eyes. He believes this is a form of saying goodbye to her. I don't know why he thinks this -- he's going to be around for the shoot and it's not as if she's doing anything untoward.
Apr-01-2004: I've called in sick to work because I need a little bit of time to unwind from something stressful the day before, but also because I want to spend time with my wife. Eventually, she and I head out to the park for some fresh air, but it turns out my employer is having some sort of "work outside day" at the park, and I end up stuck in the tiny hot stinky restroom for the entire day because if I step outside, someone will surely see me and know I was playing hooky.
Mar-29-2004: We have a competition. I set targets in areas that are a challenge to this aircraft and he figures out how to shoot them while flying it. I'm lucky because I discover a "blind spot" in the aircraft's radar, a place where he can't see as he's doing a bomb run. Furthermore, I discover that there's a particular flight path that is especially difficult to fly -- basically impossible. Combining these two can result in a target that appears to be destroyed but is in fact, not. It's like a game of chess. I see it laid out in my head exactly that way.
I set the targets and we fly. He whirls through the various canyons -- he and I both know that although these and the targets within are challenges, there's definitely something up my sleeve -- something I'm waiting to spring on my pilot. He's good and he plugs every target, and then we come around a tight bend and his screen lights up -- a target!
He banks hard -- as preparatory as he was, he still never expected a target to suddenly appear here. The aircraft shudders and he shoves it into a place where it's unaccustomed to being. It eventually obeys and he fires off a missile. He pulls out of the tight spot and grins at me.
"You didn't hit it," I tell him. He, of course, refuses to believe me. We check the rear scans and everything indicates that the target (an RV and some "campers") is destroyed. But I remember the chess board and I tell him "You could not have made the move you think you made. You have not destroyed the target." Our arguing actually approaches bitter as we land and then decide to take a Jeep out to the site, where he insists he'll show me the smoking crater. As were about to mount a Jeep, another comes back. The soldier in there salutes us, but grins. He tells us the rest of the fellas are hoping to have a nice pleasant day in the sun, like that family out by the RV.
My pilot looks at me. "Target's okay, then?" he asks. The other fella nods and mentions that they seem to have started a barbecue pit, but it was a very safe distance from camp, so they shouldn't be in any danger (this, of course, refers to my pilot's missile landing far away from them). My pilot is beside himself and i tell him, "Look, we need to know these things, man. We need to know what we can't do -- what's impossible to do." But he won't hear it.
Oct-21-2003: At this primordial shore, there is no sand, but there are huge slabs of black coal. The hard chippy stuff. The water beats gray and sullen against the coal and I know that most people would see this as desolate and without promise.
I reach down and pick up a hand-sized piece of coal. I press it tightly between my hands. I feel the heat of transformation, and the shifting of shape as it becomes smaller. Sparking pieces fall and skitter to the ground, hissing where they hit water. I keep pressing.
When I open my hands, there is a much smaller, glassy lump, about the size of a dime. I pick up more pieces, pushing each one successively into the mass, making a larger and larger diamond.
If I move my hand in such a way, I can carve out slices and slabs of the diamond. I do so, carving and slicing away pieces. Chips fall to the ground and I briefly think "No glass sharper than this".
When I am done, I have sculpted a swan. The swan is just landing and the water splashes up and about it as its wings are open. All in diamond. The entire sculpture stands about two feet tall.
I'm not sure what to do now. If I make a big deal of this, then I know people will hurt each other over it. I want to give it as a gift.
I leave it there and walk away.
Sep-03-2003: It is my job to calm Jack Nicholson down. My tool is a canister of liquid nitrous oxide on my back, attached to a wiggly sprayer. I have to spray it at him, close enough such that the gas makes him goofy, but not so close he doesn't get "burned" by the cold.
I do an okay job, but then he gets one of these setups too, and angrily comes after me.
We end up both very cold and wet from condensation due to the cold nitrous oxide. We're also each annoyed at each other, so the nitrous didn't really do what it was supposed to do.
Jun-23-2003: We arrive at the George Carlin concert and it's more like a tent revival. A crappy, flappy blue tent hangs over a nearly random assemblage of picnic tables. The sun beats on it and we roast under it. He performs, but the sound system sucks mightily and the volume dances up and down like a ferret on amphetamines. His timing is crap and the jokes are awful. No one laughs and I find myself performing the same setups, but with different punchlines, in my head.
I'm thinkin' this was a total rip. It's sad, too, because I have a crapload of respect for this wacky guy.
Jun-23-2003: Crap is it snowing! I'm certainly not going to try biking in this near white-out and I really don't feel like asking Katrina if she'll drive me in it. Besides, there will be thousands of yahoos out there playing bumper car and I'm still enjoying the "new car feel" of our car.
I guess I have to walk to work.
This oughta' be fun...
May-10-2003: I've managed to snag tickets to the sneak preview of the movie adaptation of the comic book "The Hulk". I confess I have doubts about whether or not this will be much better than a video game, based on the few clips I've seen, but the social situation was such that it was probably worth the seven bucks.
The movie is dumb, but I expected that. What I didn't expect was that most of the scenes were just rotoscoped sequences from the Bill Bixby series. I've been seriously cheated!
After the show, people are talking about how it was so cool and how it reminded them of the old series so much and how they now missed it.
I wanted my money back. I wanted my two hours back.
May-07-2003: We're in the house, trapped. Outside, things are snatching us. We cannot see them, do not know where they are, what they are.
A stick. That is my weapon of choice. A sharpened stick. It feels like a broomstick, perhaps, hastily sharpened with kitchen knives. It'll do. I don't truck with fancy weapons.
She opens the door and I step cautiously out. The sky is dark and heavy with clouds. Thunder rumbles in the distance. I feel danger, but can't tell the source -- not yet.
I'm ten feet from the house. My eyes and ears strain for any sign. No animals move around in the thick brush nearby. There is no sound but the thunder in the mountains and the rustle of wind. The air is thick with a growing menace, however, an oppressive heaviness.
I'm twenty feet from the house. They must be watching me now. I instructed them to close and bolt the door behind me and watch from a window. Even if it costs me they must watch and know what's taking us.
I turn to see if they're looking and my knees wobble in shock. The house isn't a house anymore. It is covered in layer upon layer of black patches of emptiness, like moths or bats, but tremendous. It's literally a house-shaped external-nest of them.
My fear is a pulse in the heavy air and I sense it rush against this solid chunk of living nothing and break like a wave against basalt. The nest ripples. One of the pieces slides away and launches itself into the air. I think it flaps like wings, or is it pulsing or is it blinking in and out of existence? I can't tell. But I know it's coming for me, I know that I am its prey, as are we all.
Just a stick? I remember I have my stick, my sharpened broomstick. It's just a stick, just a piece of wood, but it feels differently in my hands. The thing comes closer now, loping lazily through the air. It is nearly indifferent to my presence because it is so completely confident that I am helpless. And I nearly am! My eyes fall into the darkness of it, slide away into this window through the Universe. My eyes are drawn in, hungry for wonder.
I hear it, and can feel its passage in the air. I can hear its heartbeat and mine, syncing up. My eyes are deceiving me! I feel the rough wood in my hands and I remember the stick. I cannot use the stick and my eyes at the same time.
I close my eyes and suddenly I am the stick. The thing is a bloated floating hungry thing before me, confident and exposed. It expects me to cower or run. I dive into it, instead, pushing between its heartbeats.
Apr-11-2003: At one time it was a large shopping mall. Now it's more of a private center, like a casino. There are still shops, but at this time of night, few are open. They're hunting for me. They know I'm in here, and they know that there are only a few exits, so they're waiting for me to leave. I'll have to, of course, but there's no way I want to get caught by these jerks.
Strangely, one of the guards (or perhaps the guards are using her) is a friend of mine. I can hear her coordinating with the black-booted guards.
The only way out of here is to fly -- they'll never look up. Trouble is, flying is difficult for me because it basically involves "swimming" through the air. But I do it anyway -- it feels like it has to be done right. My usual height limit is about fifteen feet, but I get that high and realize I can go higher. And the strokes are easier.
I still hear the voices of the people below, plotting to capture me, but they're not looking up. It's dark and I'm about twenty feet in the air, so it'll probably be easy-peasy to avoid trouble.
And the thing is, as I look skyward and see the stars, the effort required to stay aloft drops even more. There is an effort, a sort of "willing" myself to move, but just that. I feel the air slide by me.
The voices below shift and become just a sort of hum or buzz. The language has changed, or at least my perception of it. I look back up at the stars, all of different colors, the night sky filled with wonderments. The threats below, the people, the voices, the danger are all shifted to a place where they don't matter to me. It would be as if I suddenly realized that I wasn't actually an ant and the politics and environments of the ant colony meant nothing, as I stood on my two feet again.
The night sky is endless and I spiral into it.
Apr-11-2003: We search for a new house. There's half a dozen of us, most of whom are probably in on the sale when it occurs. We look at one house which bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the houses from my childhood. One of the houses we look at is a house that used to belong to us. The current owners have installed an ugly network nest in the otherwise clean kitchen. The house that takes our breath away is on the coast and extends outward into the ocean. The lower floor sports a thick glass wall, through which we can see sea-filtered sunlight at a depth of ten or twenty feet. Dolphins play nearby and further away, we see the dim shadows of whales and hear the pinging of their songs. Katrina really likes this house!
Apr-11-2003: I'm on the phone. Her voice is shrill and insistent and I really want to hang up, but I'm too polite to do so just at the moment, although I think she's already overstayed her welcome in my ear. Katrina and Elizabeth want to rent a movie and are waiting for me to get off the phone so I can join them. I wave at them, trying to convey go-ahead-and-pick-what-you-like, but they don't understand and grow more annoyed. I'm nearing the point where I will interrupt the person on the phone. I loathe being driven to this, but life is slipping by me.
2-18-2003: My in-laws have hidden the nail clippers. How annoying!
2-18-2003: I leave my Aunt's shop. She sells strange knick-knacks and bric-a-brac from an old Victorian. Outside, there is a pad, like a mattress. I sit on it and feel the Universe shift under my feet. I see the sun arc across the sky in a yellow bow. I feel a wind on my face.
I step off and it is ten years later. The place is empty, but still standing. Most everything is the same, but different in a little way.
Many people around there remember me, only they're annoyed that I just disappeared for a decade. My slightly-youthful appearance doesn't seem to surprise them much -- after all, it's only been ten years.
Jan-29-2003: She looks in horror at my lips and points, mutely.
Jan-29-2003: It's very important for me to acquire as many Harry Potter costume accessories as possible. This warehouse is like a Costco for costumes and this entire section is just hats. I'm trying to find one of those peaked wizard hats, but they seem to be all sold out. Then I spy a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap and I really like it. I'm drawn to it. I decide to buy it on the theory that Harry Potter solves mysteries, so it's more symbolic. Besides, Harry Potter doesn't wear a pointed hat anyway.
As I'm about to walk away with my prize, I spot a wizard's hat under a pile of other hats. It's more like a Gandalf hat, all floppy and with a wide brim. It's made entirely out of fur and feels wonderful and soft and warm and just perfect on my head. How come no one's bought this yet? It's $79, though, and that seems rather steep...
Jan-29-2003: There's a black, sooty dirt under my fingernails. I can't seem to get it out. Even when I scrape with other nails, it gets blacker and grimier.
Jan-03-2003: They're burning my feet again. You would think by now they would understand that it doesn't get them what they want, but they do it anyway. I can feel the flesh bubbling and the grating of the propane torch against the bones in my heel where they burned through the flesh. The smell...
I awake in the hospital, the doctor and nurse looking at me. They are not aware that I am awake.
"It's the thing with the foot again," says the doctor. The nurse nods, pursing her lips. "We still don't know what happened to him," he adds. "But the foot thing is consistent."
I am angry at them, their ignorance and blindness and the fact that they treat me like senseless meat. I am quite definitely, angrily alive.
Dec-26-2002: It'll never stop raining, will it? I'm cold.
Dec-22-2002: I had a lot of stuff in her car, including my boombox in the trunk (which contained a tape I wanted to play for her) and Something Important in the glovebox.
But the trunk gasps wide open and the floor and ground are littered with the valueless things that used to associate with the rest of the car's contents. We have been robbed and in broad daylight on a street in downtown Portland.
She holds a hand against her face and repeats "I am so embarrassed."
Dec-19-2002: I'm in superhero school, but the budget's been slashed, so we share a castle with the supervillain school. In the cold stone eating hall, we sit at opposite ends of the room. I can feel the malevolence of the junior supervillains. I wanna' call 'em out right now, head out into the courtyard and just rip into 'em. Yeah, I'm that kinda' superhero!
Oct-22-2002: It's like a science-fiction fantasy convention, except that it's only a dealer's room and they only have one kind of dealer -- people who make "magic pouches". It's magic from all kinds of religions, but I'm drawn to the rawhide medicine bags. I pick one up. I cannot see inside it, but inside, there feels to be something very delicate. I try to be careful.
Oct-22-2002: Driving to work, there's a slight slowdown up head. I watch the ground crack open and a couple of cars just drive in and down.
I wonder if I should call the police or something?
The pit yawns ahead of me and no cars are obviously going to get past, so people just stop. I manage to pull over to the side of the road. Frankly, I want to climb up that hill and get a better view into the crevasse.
I get up there and I see it's pretty deep. Those poor suckers in the cars that went over never had a chance.
Back on the road, I am dismayed to see that water has come. All the cars are very nearly submerged, frantic drivers paddling around the swirling water and clambering on tops of cars.
My car, a little higher up, has only the front end and the engine compartment under water.
"Shit," I tell myself. "And we just got the engine tuned and all those new parts added. Goddamn piece of shit car."
The water continues to rise, coming up from the ground as if we have somehow ended up at the bottom of a vast lake that until just recently forgot it was supposed to be there.
My hill will protect me for only a little while longer before it starts getting really, really wet. I don't look forward to being swept into that big-ass crevasse, either.
Oct-22-2002: It wasn't my movie, but uncannily like it in format. I watch, dismayed, as people file from the theater, shaking their heads. They just didn't get it. It seemed pretty dumb to them.
I know my movie shows next and I'm not looking forward to the response.
Oct-11-2002: I have no idea why, but she seems fascinated by how my alarm clock works. I'm explaining it, but frankly, it's pretty boring.
She, however, is mesmerized.
So, I punch up the explanations with a bit of showy language, such as making up words to describe both states of push buttons (in and out) and how only the best clock radios push their buttons back out after you release them, and so on.
Oct-11-2002: The house in which I live now is filled with people, a tribe numbering more than two dozen souls.
As I'm setting my alarm clock for the next morning, some people come by. "You're going to turn that down, right?" they ask.
"No," I tell them, laughing. "If I do that, it won't wake me up."
They complain that it's too loud. I turn on the music to show them that it is really very quiet.
But...
Once you leave the room, the music does get louder. In fact, as I move through the house, I hear the music louder and louder, until it's annoying the heck out of me.
Oct-11-2002: An old girlfriend has come to visit. She keeps talking obliquely about how she wants a kid. She becomes more direct, but never quite pinning me to it. She does keep asking me about how I feel about kids and if I think I'd be a good father.
I'm pretty sure I know where she's going, but it seems important for her to say it directly, rather than beating around the bush.
She looks me in the eye then and says "I know, for example, that I'm really, really fertile. Right now!"
Oct-11-2002: My Dad's moved in with us and one of the first things he does is start inviting people over to watch that darn MTV video.
He leans out the window and shouts down at me where I am working on the garden "Hey, have you kids ever been on anything else on TV?"
"No!" I shout back, embarrassed, and angry. "Just the ones you keep going on about!"
Oct-11-2002: The elevator tower of this building is a beautiful thing to watch. The Architect designed it with a rotating shell, so as the elevators go up and down, the skin of the building rotates. The effect is just awesome, because they put all this iridescent and reflective material in the building skin.
Oct-11-2002: This old lady was trying to convince us she was famous because she had been on an old TV show called "Charlie's Angels", but we knew she was lying because there had never been such a show (nor would there ever be one -- it sounded really stupid to us).
Oct-11-2002: Down the street from me, the guy who used to live there moved out, but he left all his stuff in a big neat pile in the living room. Over the front of his house, he hung a sign: "Moved away, but I will be back for my things -- this is not a Thriftymart!"
I'm pretty much the only person left in town -- everyone else has moved out, too, leaving similar signs.
Oct-11-2002: He is only seven years old, but he watches and sees everything with his neverclosing eyes. When his mother leaves the room, he comes over and sits near me.
"Why does Mom hate her father so much?" he asks.
I'm surprised at the question. My first instinct is to deny it, but aside from my personal belief not to lie, I am also faced with this remarkable child. And the fact is, I believe he has correctly assessed the situation.
I look at him carefully and he watches me. I realize that his question was only partly for information, but also a big piece of it is that he's testing me. What will I do? How will I answer? Will I lie to him as others have?
But if I acknowledge what I think is true, what if I'm misinterpreting him? What if he's just testing a theory and my confirmation will make it unnecessarily a reality? Who am I to piss on whatever parade she's constructed for her son?
"I don't know what's in her mind," I tell him. "And she doesn't tell me how she feels. So, I can't tell you how she feels or why she feels that way. I'm sorry, but that's all I can tell you."
He nods thoughtfully.
Seven years old!
Oct-11-2002: I'm at Norwescon, which is my favorite convention, but this year, they're very poorly organized, (in stark contrast to the usual) even more so than the local conventions. In fact, the whole convention is being held in a high school gym. A small high school gym. The tables are falling apart. Vendors are on the worst tables and the best they can do to cover the tables is butcher paper or bedsheets they bring from home. Most everybody's either really drunk, or really stoned.
Oct-11-2002: I'm walking down a road. I'm on my way somewhere, but I stop because on the side of the road are a variety of tiny plants. I look more closely and I see that they are all carnivorous plants. Venus flytraps and honeydews, mostly, but a pitcher plant here and there.
One of my friends comes over, wanting to know why I stopped and I show him the plants. I want to show him how they feed, so I start looking for bugs to drop in it. The bugs I manage to find are actually pretty big. They're giant hairy spiders and such.
Jeez, I hardly wanna pick 'em up, much less try and cram 'em into a tiny Venus flytrap!
But I'm game and sure enough, the flytrap expands to cover the spider, who stops struggling after only a moment.
Holy crap! These are dangerous!
I keep watching, fascinated.
Oct-01-2002: It wasn't exactly an argument, but there had been some words. Afterward, I was a little shaken and went to wash my face. I was surprised to see that dried spittle had encrusted my mouth and beard.
That must have really made an impression!
Oct-01-2002: I'm visiting her. Last year, I was over for dinner and it was cool to see her. I hadn't seen her before for more than a decade. She's since had two more kids and they look great and she does, too.
But there's still this thing between us. This thing that was between us when we were a lot younger. This thing that we didn't know how to address because we were kids.
And now, as I'm visiting, I realize that all the kids are away for the day and we're alone.
She invites me for a swim (everybody has a pool). A fraction of a second after I tell her I have no bathing suit, I realize this was her intent with asking the question.
The water feels nice, but the pool is too small for me. And this is starting to feel wrong. It's moving too quickly for my slow brain to handle.
She suggests we go into the sauna.
This feels more wrong, but more compelling.
Sep-30-2002: As I drive by the dome, I hear the singing. I must pull over and see what it is.
It's beautiful and unearthly.
A former circus manager has captured a merman in the ocean by placing an extraordinarily beautiful sonnet in a huge rock-and-concrete sphere. When he swam in to read the poetry, he was sealed in there. Now, the showman makes people pay money to hear the merman sing.
But something is different.
A mermaid has come and she is beautiful and terrible and not restrained by rock and concrete. Within this trap lies her brother. She hurls herself against the rock wall, her fingers clutching at the obstruction. She hopes to peel it away by force, but all it does is tear her fingers.
It is wrong for her blood to be spilt, it is wrong for us to see such beauty in such pain.
She holds tightly to the rock, her hands and arm and face streaming with cuts and abrasions.
She starts to sing.
If she cannot free her brother, then she will make those who restrain him feel an enormous pain of the soul. From within the rock, he joins her voice and they weave something that is monumental, that is tragedy and tearing and terrible to behold in its loveliness.
Around me, people have fallen to the ground, their hearts shattering in despair. I barely feel the asphalt dig into my knees as I fall. I just seek release from this song, but I know it'll never come even in departure from this world, that this song will never stop, that it's a song to go past the bounds of life and stay forever in our wretched, wretched hearts.
Sep-30-2002: I put the movies down and think about this.
Why is she here? This was just supposed to be us. Because I had explicitly said so at the start, the presence of any guest would have peeved me, but she is particularly unsuited at this time.
"Hey," I say, "She broke up with me. It is not appropriate you invite anyone else over when I said I didn't want any guests, but it is in especially bad taste to invite her."
They shrug and they can't see what the problem is.
"Aren't you guys still friends?"
"Yes," I answer, exasperated, "But that takes time! And time won't be for a little while yet, okay?"
I'm furious about this whole situation, I'm confused by what appears to be a monumental lack of tact, and I'm weak at the knees because I was not ready for such a powerful thing to hit me -- I was planning a very safe evening where I could be a little raw and wounded and have it be okay.
I don't want to do this. I feel like vomiting. There is no ground beneath me.
Sep-30-2002: I'm at the Post Office collecting boxes for a shipping project, but they've all been refolded in a very peculiar way. I don't know if I can use these boxes...
Sep-30-2002: Katrina and I are in a strange gray train, an angular locomotive with no moving parts, pushing a string of similarly unmarked and curiously featureless cars.
We can tell that this alien train is accelerating, and this alarms us because no matter how big your planet, increasing acceleration on the surface is just going to lead to trouble.
We wander up and down the whole train looking for some kind of controls, but find none. Eventually, I locate a spot that looks as if it wants to be "pinched". I happen to spot nearby a tool that resembles a chain cutter, but with softer teeth.
I pinch the spot with the tool and the train separates, the engine behind us.
I see the engine, which has come to a complete halt on the tracks, drift away and I can feel that the cars are coasting to a stop.
We just had to cut this one piece.
Sep-30-2002: Jason finishes installing a hot tub in our hillside condo in San Francisco. The view from it is really spectacular.
It's night and we flick on the internal lights and start it up. At first, it looks good, but then a thick black scrumm starts spouting from one of the vents. He hands me a capped tube and tells me that I have to hold the tube over it to keep the water clean.
Here I am holding this frickin' tube and suddenly, all our neighbors, who normally don't like us, are coming over, acting like they're our friends, just so they can have a soak.
I tie the tube down (I don't care if it comes loose -- it was a shitty tub to require something that dumb) and get out of the water. I just don't care anymore.
Sep-30-2002: It would be nice to use the shower, but it seems as if someone has defecated all over the otherwise transparent shower curtain. Looks like I gotta pull it down, knock off the big chunks, rinse and wash it, and then put it back up before I can even begin.
Oh bother!
Sep-30-2002: On a hot Scottsdale day, we've just delivered furniture to a house that is waaaaay too air-conditioned.
That's just obscene, I think.
We drive off, the road shimmering with heat, the air thick with greasewood smell.
"What's the next direction?" I ask my partner.
He thumbs through the map.
"North," he says.
I nod and continue.
After a minute, he repeats "I said North."
"We are going North!" I say.
He shakes his head. "We are going South."
"We are?"
"Yes."
"Well. Well. Well, fuck." I spin the truck around in a wide 180-degree turn.
Sep-30-2002: The earthquake has knocked out all the power, and I'm trying to get the garbage disposal to run so I can do dishes. Spinning the blade by hand is just not gonna do it.
The recipe books are now stacked in what seems to be a very unstable condition.
Ah, I remember reading that when Carl Sagan lost electricity, he did all his typing on a manual typewriter.
That's it!
Sep-30-2002: In the yard behind the ranch we've occupied for years, we discover that the back fence isn't actually the back of the property, but about ten feet from it. Between the high fence and the back of the line, there is an old dirt trail, overgrown long ago with desert weeds and sagebrush and junk that's blown in.
We explore down it and discover a skeleton. It feels as if it' more than a hundred years old. Even the clothing on it is tattered and all but blown away. There's no metal on it anywhere, no fasteners or anything.
It looks, as we examine the skull carefully, as if this person was bludgeoned to death. Then, sometime between his death and now, his head was removed and set next to his body. It's possible that over time, it just fell off, but we're just slightly creeped out by the suspicion that it was something that happened while he was still pretty much alive.
Sep-25-2002: We're just staying here the night on our way somewhere else.
The house has a big mudbath in the back that's supposed to be healing and all, but it's just ucky, sticky mud.
I manage to get out, but she's kinda' stuck between the mudbath and the fence. Just then, the lights -- which had been nonfunctional (part of the problem) snapped on and she was caught in the beams -- buck naked.
She has a shiny butt. Weird -- I've never seen her butt.
Sep-18-2002: It's been a very unpleasant week, culminating in a tremendously unpleasant day. I feel weary and heavy and unable/unwilling to move.
She's visiting briefly while she travels to another place. I've never met her before, only corresponded via e-mail.
I'm glad she's here. She is a member of another multiple partner group -- one I consider somewhat successful. I want to tell her how glad I am she's here and how glad I am I finally met her, but I'm afraid to tell her why because I get the sense that she thinks of me as being fairly stable and at the moment, I feel about as unstable as I ever have.
"I'm really glad you're here," I tell her, hoping I don't sound as desperate as I feel.
Sep-17-2002: As if she is revealing a heretofore unknown child, she holds the cat out to me. It's young, just past cute-kitten stage, and remarkably ugly. "Brown" is the kindest description for what passes as color on this little beast, and its hair is tufted out in a variety of uncatlike directions. Its eyes are stupid and vacant, lolling about the room as if distracted by only the brightest of colors or motions.
She waggles the cat at me again. The lower half of the cat appears to be independently suspended from the upper half. I expect it to slosh.
"I said," she says with some significance. "It's yours. This is your cat. You're responsible for her."
But I don't want a cat!
Sep-16-2002: She and I are running up the Mukilteo Speedway from downtown Mukilteo. It's not a panic-ridden run, nor are we in an especial hurry to get anywhere. We're just running.
Then I realize that this is the Mukilteo Speedway. We should be driving!
Sep-12-2002: In a mall, I discover that the various people working in the various stores are all people from my past. Some are old girlfriends, some are just people I knew. It's as if instead of Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld", everyone's ended up being in Edward Martin III's "Mallworld".
I wander from one shop to the other, catching up and revisiting people.
But there's something wrong, some kind of buzzing craziness that's increasing in intensity. I know there's something wrong, but I don't know what or how to figure it out.
Everybody thinks I should open up a shop in the mall, too.
Sep-09-2002: I work in a factory, the sort of concrete block structure that's three stories high and all one big room. At the vending machines, I run into two people who don't know each other, but who I know from various aspects of my past.
We enjoy getting re-acquainted and they enjoy meeting each other.
Michelle, who was a gymnast, shows off her latest move, which appears to be able to fold herself such that she is entirely covered by her own shin and foot.
Eric says he's been studying an interesting activity -- climbing. He removes his shoes and starts doing this amazing friction-climb up the corner of the building. I expect him to go maybe ten feet up, but he actually wiggles all the way up to the ceiling. Surely someone must be noticing this guy wedged up in the corner of the building! But no one does.
He tries to come down, but slips and ends up dropping pretty much free-fall to the floor. He limps over. Seems that instead of chalk, he actually put cinnamon on his feet, which didn't provide nearly the gripping action he needed. He winces as he walks.
Aug-30-2002: It is a library now, but the building has been many things for the centuries since it has been built. Not all of our group has come back -- one person is missing. I remember seeing him scurry up a ladder into a dark place and then I realize that the rumors and feelings are true. The building is populated by hidden creatures, things that prey on people.
It is rumored that they hide well and carefully in the nooks and crannies that are between floors and in awkward, invisible places of this ancient building. They pick off loners and people staying late or coming in early, and they do so with an uncannily selective instinct.
I drag our group leader over and show her what appear to be bloodstains, but turn out to be ketchup. Disgusted, she leaves and as I turn, I spot a grate under a bench seat. The grate is ancient iron and spotted with a thick red substance that is definitely not ketchup. But they've left and no one will believe me.
I can feel the eyes. Expressionless, hungry eyes are just beneath the light level, watching me from behind that grate. I know that when I turn my back, the blood will be licked clean from the grate and then I will have no evidence whatsoever.
I decide I must hire on at the library, learn all I can of these things, and work to eradicate them myself. I am afraid, however, that there might be thousands in the building by now (it is quite large).
But I have power tools.
Aug-29-2002: I haven't seen her in about sixteen years. Definitely, she looks older, but still pretty much as marvelous as when we last were together. (I don't forget she has a mean temper, though -- darn Leos!)
We talk, but we're nervous. After twenty years, no matter how intimate you were, you're pretty much strangers. We wander awkwardly a bit and then start talking about movies we've seen. We end up catching up comfortably by talking about movies and then, after a while, we're relaxing.
Only in the middle of reciting the umpteenth favorite lines from movies am I comfortable enough to tell her how much she occupies my thoughts.
Aug-28-2002: It's a test.
A bunch of new people are sent out in random directions in the deep woods and it's my job to find 'em all by nightfall. It's really a toughie, but I have some pretty sophisticated equipment to help me out. I don't have to go out there, just make sure that someone is dispatched to nab the person once I locate them, although for the last one, I go out myself. We arrive back at dusk to congratulatory cheers.
A friend of mine who I did not expect there introduces me to the "secret" judge. It turns out that not only did I retrieve all the people and get them all back safely, but that I was the ONLY candidate to do so AND to make personally sure that each one arrived back.
I get the impression she's about to offer me some kind of interesting job...
Aug-16-2002: I see you again. You're silent, as you've been the last few times I've seen you. You're smiling and you seem glad to see me, but you're not moving, not stepping closer, not moving away.
"Still not time?" I ask.
You shrug. Noncommittal.
"It's okay," I tell you. "I plan on a pretty long scale."
You seem relieved.
Aug-16-2002: We arrive home after a trip. The houseboat is still in good condition, but we have a crapload of laundry to do. It's done, but all wet still. Normally, we hang dry everything on the lines, but there's just so much of it!
I've covered every line with laundry, to such a degree that walking the deck is like adventuring in a tent maze. And still, there's more. It's not like it's coming out of nowhere, it's just that there were several wheelbarrows of wet clothes to hang up and there's just a limited amount of line.
Aug-15-2002: As I get into my car, a fellow parked next to me gets my attention. He's waving a copy of Significa, a book I've recently purchased after years of searching.
How the heck can he have found another copy?
"Hey," he says. "You left this on my roof."
Ah, I put it there to dig out my keys and simply forgot.
He hands it to me and I thank him, but he hasn't let go of the book. "So tell me," he asks. "Do you really think all this stuff is true?"
I think about the things I've read so far, about beards and midgets, about Harry Truman being in the KKK to get votes, about how we actually nailed the first casualty in Pearl Harbor by sinking an advance submarine...
Slowly, I nod. "The authors are journalists," I say. "And they seem to be a little sensationalistic at times, but also they've admitted things they didn't know, which is an indicator to me that they're more certain of the things they do know."
He thanks me.
Aug-15-2002: I have been contracted to remodel a house and the surrounding grounds while the owners are away on a long trip. It was my intent to build something with lots of cool swoopy angles -- very futuristic.
This comes to me very quickly because I had completely forgotten my task while living there and was only reminded of it by the owners calling me from the airport, saying they'll be in later that evening.
Naturally, I'm all in a tizzy. I seem to have spent the entire time in one of their smaller rooms, watching videos. My living-trash is all over the room and the room reeks of ozone from all the TV use. I try to find my original plans, but can only locate what seems to be a semi-literate cocktail napkin with a few curves drawn on it.
I can certainly not find my blueprints, or even the better drawings.
The next door neighbor has a really nice house and I hatch a scheme -- I'll get a copy of his blueprints and then try to convince the owners that I've been planning on doing their house to compliment their neighbors.
But the neighbor doesn't have any such documents -- only one aerial photo taken twenty years ago of the property before the house was built. I shrug my head and grab my notebook.
Aug-14-2002: With the sun going nova, our only hope is to send kids away in rocket ships to populate distant planets we hope can support life.
One man tried to get on the ship and I shot him. I had to -- as the last adults these kids ever saw, I had to make sure they believed that we all believed this was the best thing for them. (I'm glad none of the kids saw it, of course)
One little boy, as he's loading up, asks me "What should we do when we get there?" There are tears in my eyes and I tell him "You should love every moment as if it is your last. You should live and love as much as you can." We seal the door.
Aug-14-2002: We are soldiers, Roman-esque. We have taken a castle, but it is an incredibly ancient castle. The desert sands have nearly buried this monument to an ancient civilization. In the courtyard, a huge stature of a sort of winged cat thing towers as high as the buildings.
When our whole troop is in the courtyard, the statue comes to life and starts grabbing and eating soldiers. Its roar is a mighty bellow and blows men around like chaff. The same roar, however, blows sand from the sides of the building, revealing cubby holes in which we can hide. We all dash for various cubbies and jump in.
Mine is a series of stairs. Others appear to be slide tunnels, but I hear screams coming from those after men go down, so I decide the stairs are safer. Deep beneath the surface, the palace is still ancient. Cobwebs hang everywhere and the floor is thick with dust and rock rubble. Then I notice the soldiers.
Mummified, somewhat clumsy soldiers are hunting us through the halls of this ancient castle. We can fight back, of course, but it's not as if they stay dead.
While running, I stumble into a room just as one of my men who jumped down a slide is dropped in the middle. The mummy soldiers there fall upon him immediately, and tear him to pieces. Then, they continue fighting.
I realize now that we are incidental -- these creatures have been fighting and repairing themselves and fighting for centuries here under the desert sand.
Aug-14-2002: My friend Barbara takes me on a boat trip with some other friends of hers. I'm rarely in Florida, so this is something I'll do easily, despite the fact that it takes time. I get the impression that we're going somewhere and because it's a stinky harbor, I prefer staying below decks.
Many of us are down there and during our journey, Barbara or someone else comes down and pulls a person up to do something or see something. I figure if there's something Barbara wants me to see, she'll either come and get me or send for me. Besides, I'll go above decks once we get where we're going.
Eventually, the boat stops, which is good because I think I'm the only guy who wasn't called on deck. When I emerge, I find us back at the same harbor. "Where did we go?!" I asked. "I thought we were going somewhere."
"We did," answers Barbara. "We went out for a ride and now we're back. What's the problem?" I sit down and shake my head. "I guess the problem was that I didn't realize the journey would be more important than the destination."
Aug-14-2002: I examine large caliber bullet holes in a wall, noticing where the sheetrock has been shattered and where the underlying studs have been pulverized. I try to imagine the force necessary to do this and I shudder.
Aug-14-2002: I've just come home from a boat trip and I've left something aboard, a camera, I think. The boat is already pulling away from the wharf, so I race across the wood and dive into the cool blue water after it.
I move with unnatural swiftness in the water.
Aug-14-2002: From a small sandy island, six of us set out, each in his or her own unique little rubber boat. The island is small, only about fifty feet in diameter. I think it's a shame none of us are going in the same direction, because traveling together would be pretty handy.
Aug-14-2002: In this Swedish music shop, I am purchasing a CD of my favorite Swedish band. No one has ever heard of them, but I have it on good authority that this place has lots of their CDs.
I shop through bulletproof glass by asking the proprietor to grab what I want from his stock in the back. I ask for the CD and he reaches behind him to a stack of them and hands me one. My eyes grow wide at the stack. I want to buy many copies to give to my friends back in the US, because this band is really good.
But the fella says I can only buy one or there won't be enough for everybody. "But I can afford to buy more!" I protest, and I show him money. "I want to take copies back home to America and share them with my friends. He politely refuses. I'm frustrated because I've come all the way to Sweden and I can only buy one CD.
Obviously, he feels a little sorry because he gives me back more change than I'm due, with an apologetic "I'm sorry, my friend." I refuse to let him buy my forgiveness (after all, he wouldn't let me buy a CD, which is worth less than forgiveness!) and I insist on sliding the full amount under the glass.
Aug-14-2002: We're making a movie -- a dramatic recreation of a crime for one of those pseudo-reality TV shows. Everything we need, really, is in the evidence room, according to the mother-daughter team that scripted the thing. We set up our gear and do our best to get it all working. Then we discover that there never was a real crime -- this whole thing is a scam by the mother-daughter team to steal police surveillance equipment.
Aug-14-2002: I wake up in a completely strange place. Who am I? Where am I? I don't know and my mind is racing. I have no memory per se, but things are familiar. I can, for example, use a telephone. But I don't have any numbers in my head, nor can I think of anyone to call.
I search the room for a clue to my identity.
Aug-14-2002: I'm buying a fish at a pet store, but to do so, I have to reach my head through a little square hole. The fish is a goldfish, but kinda' large. While I'm pulling the fish out, I knock my head against the edge of the hole and I think I go unconscious.
I can hear everything and I can sorta see through the slits of my eyelids. I hear Katrina ringing up the purchase and she and the cashier talking about how tired I must be.
I'm not tired -- I'm unconscious!
I try to move -- at least I think I do -- and I can't. They keep chatting and I wonder if I'm dead. I hope I wake up soon.
Aug-14-2002: I'm in a talent show. Our first meeting is in a nearby high school, one of the classrooms. The program director, an inoffensive PC kinda' reformed hippie-chick type, welcomes us and smiles and beams at us. Obviously, she's done this a lot and she's got the patter all down. She's just going to ask a few questions and then we'll demonstrate what we'll do for the talent show.
She starts a role call and asks little boring questions "How old are you, where are you from, how did you hear about us, etc.
When she gets to me, she asks if I'm currently on any medication. "Uh, no," I answer. I wasn't expecting this tack. Am I currently using any drugs or chemicals. Again, I answer in the negative. She repeats the question, phrased slightly different. Again, no. Now I'm a little confused. Then she asks if I've ever used illegal drugs before. Again I answer no. "Ever?!" she persists. "Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure? You're going to sit right there and tell me you've never done drugs in your whole entire life, ever?!"
By now, of course, I'm annoyed. "Don't you think if I had that I would tell you, just so you could get on with asking important questions?" She's trying to stare me down, so I decide to screw with her. "Does heroin count?" I meekly ask. Her eyes light up. "Yes!" but as she's about to make a triumphant tick on her paper, I say "Then no." She and I are so flustered by this tangent that I completely forget what the hell my damn talent was supposed to be.
Crap.
Maybe I'll tell her I'm an amateur gymnast and I'll just do a couple of somersaults right here to get her off my back.
Aug-14-2002: A fat man wants to throw his fortune in with us (figuratively -- he's not wealthy). He's very angry because we're not interested.
First, he's offering to pay, which is obnoxious. Second, he's angry about the rejection, which is understandable, but also obnoxious. Finally, he yells that we're discriminating a