The Bird Goes to School
If Kiplough wouldn’t take the Bird out to see the city, then Klaster would have to. The Bird approached his new friend with this aim in mind and was immediately invited to accompany Klaster, with the caveat that the only place Klaster was going was to class.
“That sounds great.” Replied the Bird. “Maybe I’ll learn something.”
“Maybe.” Said Klaster as he shouldered his burden of books.
Professor Gavial greeted the Bird warmly, readily assenting to his sitting in on the class.
“Just keep your beak shut while I’m lecturing and don’t try to participate in the discussions. OK?” Gavial leaned forward and looked the Bird in the eye.
“OK.” Agreed the Bird.
Klaster and the Bird took their seats. The Bird watched as Klaster took out his notebook, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and rolled his pen between his thumb and forefinger. Together they attended to the professor and it is debatable which of them was more interested in what he had to say.
“My grandparents lived across the street from my family when I was growing up. Some of my fondest memories are of crossing the street at might either to visit them or to return home. In fact, these memories have come back to me in the form of dreams. These dreams are to me now more evocative, having had them so long now, than the original memories. Giant walking machines; mechanized trees; the full moon in a purple sky, ringed by clouds; the autumn breeze; the thrill of rambling through other people’s houses, the possessions of strangers. In like token we may consider the early history of our city. We have no direct knowledge of its founding, we know that there are other worlds, we see their culture broadcast to our TVs on the transperipheral channels, yet we cannot broadcast our own programs to them; we know because we see no evidence of our influence on the others coming back to us. The question is: Do these other worlds currently exist or are we only seeing into the past?”
Stodge Goes on a Date with Clementa
She was nearly twenty years older than him. Stodge felt a strange enthusiasm in the light of that fact when he contemplated having sex with her. As of the beginning of the evening under review, he had not yet achieved that physical union with Clementa. They had met at the library, not during the act of browsing the stacks as if in the previous cases we have witnessed, but at a series of gatherings of the Neuron Club, which met in conference room B every other Thursday. Something about Clementa’s looks matched a template in Stodge’s brain. That her conversation matched Stodge’s in subject matter and grasp of reference, with possibly a greater facility for verbal interplay that encouraged Stodge to come out of the shell that all the stupid people in the world had erected around him—only added to the desirability of spending time with her. Her age didn’t bother Stodge; his cultural touchstones were all anachronistic anyway.
All that conversation and intellectual rapport went by the wayside once they initiated their bestial act. Those other things had only served to allow them to get close. They performed the act at her apartment. Stodge felt commanding, something he hardly ever had felt with women his own age. What Clementa felt is not recorded. Certainly she enjoyed the sex; that much is well enough documented. Afterwards, unable to converse in the manner Stodge at least had expected them to, they sat uncomfortably close on the sofa and watched TV, something Stodge usually felt guilty about, considering how mediocre TV is.
“We missed Grimalkin and Goth.” Clementa commented.
“Good.” Stodge said.
“You don’t like it?”
“Well, I’ve never seen it.”
“Then you don’t know.”
“But I’m sure it sucks.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because it’s mainstream TV.”
“What do you watch?”
“I don’t, usually. But if I do, it’s the news.”
Ron Gonn Reveals Something of His Past
A devilish light was seen in Ron Gonn’s eyes. It was at a family reunion held at his brother’s house. Ron, his brother Fedral, and some of the younger men in the family had sequestered themselves from the women, who were laying out the food, and the smaller children, who were interested only in play.
“Hard times coming.” Fedral Gonn had said. This statement, the summation of the group’s talk of distress in the city, restlessness in the sea, and rumbles from the forest, had decided Ron to tell the story of his involvement in previous hard times.
“This isn’t something you need to spread around.” Ron prefaced his story. “I guess most of the older folks in the family know about this, though to what extent I don’t know. The kids don’t need to know; that’s for sure.” When all in the room had bent close in anticipation, Ron continued.
“OK, this happened during the Johnson administration. Most of you weren’t born yet. I was working for the Department of Stovepipe Standards, which was later incorporated into the Hose Hole Affiliate, which is where I work today. You know that. OK; I was running false conduit boxing through the Gravitic Analysis Building, which was being built then. On a Friday afternoon, I was getting ready to go home. I was washing my hands in one of the unfinished bathrooms in the basement when I heard some commotion out in the hall. Why I didn’t go charging out there, I’ll never know, but instead I peeped out real easy, and I saw two men fighting down at the end of the corridor. Only, one of them wasn’t a man.” Ron paused here to allow his audience to gasp and goggle, some of the members of which did. Storm Parker, notably among those gathered, retained the bored expression that masked the deep disgust he felt for his uncouth uncle.
“It was man-like, but it had four legs. I had never seen the other man, the normal man, before in my life. I watched them wrestle around for awhile, then the four-legged thing broke free and ran down into the unfinished sub-basement. The other man chased him. I followed, sneaking down the hall. When I got to where they had been fighting, I found a satchel full of papers, which I turned over to the Ministry of War!”
The Ladies’ Camp Opens its Temple
To get into the proper mood to attend the ceremony that would officially inaugurate the new Ladies’ Camp’s temple, Lolly Fashest, a member of the Building Committee, along with Enduma Schooner, among others, quietly observed herself for nearly a hour. She sat in a firm-backed chair in her parlor and said her name to herself over and over until a strange feeling came over her. She pretended that she was a god-like observer, watching everything she did. This concept, promoted by the Ladies’ Camp, was one of the fundamentals of the organization.
After this process was completed, Lolly had a much smaller breakfast than she normally would have. Her self-control was supreme. She dressed in the conservative, almost retrograde, manner all of her comrades would be dressing in. She pinned her Ladies’ Camp button proudly on her bosom. She exited her small house with plenty of time to get to the reception that was to take place before the ceremony.
Outside the house two men in dirty gray coveralls and long brown coats waited in a nondescript transport.
“That’s her.” One said to the other.
“Let’s do it.” Answered his mate. They followed slowly down the street until the woman was a block from her house and then stopped. From out of a small government-owned bakery burst another two men who grabbed Lolly Fashest and moved her quickly and silently to the open door on the side of the first two men’s vehicle.
“Give her the shot.” Said the man in the seat by the driver.
Lolly’s struggles soon ceased. The hand over her mouth was no longer necessary. They drug, a fast-acting derivative of sewerfish venom, had done its work.
“I hope the other teams are as successful.” Muttered Larry, the driver.
“Just drive.” Said the man beside him.
Mr. Groaf, uninvited to the opening ceremony, made certain that he had a public function of his own to attend at the same time, even if he had to invent one. He received surreptitious reports throughout the cutting of the cake and the exchange of vows.
Radny Grober Confronts a High Official
Radny Grober, broadcast analyst with one of the many broanches of the Bolsis Scientific Culture Division (The Cultural Science Division had far less), finished making his report on The Punctilious Cognoscente just as that film was ending. He stood up and saw that the female custodian was in the room emptying the trash. She caught Grober’s eye.
“What did you think of it?” She asked him. Grober had never learned the woman’s name although he saw her nearly every day.
“Ehhn.” Grobe made a sour face.
“You didn’t like it?” The cleaning woman seemed surprised.
“It’s not my kind of thing.” Grober said instead of starting an explication of his views, which he felt certain this woman would not understand.
“I like films about smart people.” The woman said. “I like to read.”
Grober was delighted at hearing this. It was a relief to hear anyone express such sentiments, but he was dubious concerning the depth of the custodian’s commitment to them; she spoke with a hick accent.
Excusing himself, Grober made his way to his office, which was a room he shared with three other men.
“Where you been?” Said one of them as Grober slung his courier bag into his desk chair.
“Watching The Punctilious Cognoscente.” Grober groaned.
“Warren and I watched it yesterday.” Said the other.
“You did? Then why did they make me watch it today?” Grober’s anger rose.
“I don’t know.”
Just then a shadow passed by the open door. Grober recognized it as the chief of his sector. He dashed out into the hall.
“Where did he go?” He muttered, seeing no one.
“Who you looking for?” Asked the female custodian.
“Ray.”
“He went in the men’s room.”
Grober sighed and put his confrontation off until another incident.
Frank Hurdle Meets Fran Kurdle
On his day off Frank Hurdle put on a pullover that had a large face printed on its front. It was a caricature of Huck Feral, but he didn’t know that, hadn’t ever heard of the actor. The shirt was just a fun purchase, something to wear to an informal party, which is where he was heading.
“Corrupt shirt!” Someone said to him as he helped himself to some punch. “Corrupt” was the replacement word for the threadbare “cool,” which had in turn replaced “neat.” In fact, “Neat, Cool, and Corrupt” was the title of a new linguistic study put out by the Cultural Science Division Press that summer.
“Thank you.” Frank smiled.
“You do know who that is, don’t you?” Another person just behind Frank asked.
Frank turned to see Vance, a friend of his from schooldays. They had kept in contact all this time, despite the best efforts of both to grow up.
“Hey, man!” Frank’s smile widened. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’ve got it all planned out this time.” Vance said mysteriously.
“Where are you working?”
“Where are you working?”
Frank ran his eyes left to right along the bottom limits of their scope.
“Same old place.” He said.
“You do know who that is on your shirt?” Vance asked again after a pause.
“No. Who?”
“That’s an actor from Shedge.” Vance dropped his voice low on the name. “He’s on a TV show there, a popular TV show.”
“Really?” Frank looked down at the shirt. “How do you know?” His eyebrows lowered.
“Frank!” A woman screamed some feet away. “Come here! I want you to meet someone.” Instead of waiting for him to come to her, the woman dragged another woman over to him.
“Frank! Frank Hurdle, meet Fran Kurdle!” The woman introduced. “Isn’t that something?”
Frank smiled politely at the plain redhead, but really had nothing to say.
Mr. Groaf’s Interlude
Mr. Groaf and his bride took their honeymoon in the treetops. The forest that surrounded half of the city contained a few such places. A meager trade existed between the small population of forest-dwellers and the Shedgemen. At a certain point one could step off the top of the wall that enclosed Shedge and onto a platform high in the trees. Groaf and Mavez Abuelia had done so, following their simple ceremony, and from there continued by way of walkways to a small residence rented for the occasion.
Of course, Groaf received regular reports, delivered by members of his staff, on various situations in the city.
“Already talk has begun to come from certain factions with the Ladies’ Mystic Camp that they are willing to concede legal ownership of the temple, if adequate compensation is made.” So spoke one of the young, but devoted staff members to the Director General.
“But as of now those are only the voices of minority members, not the official line of the camp’s hierarchy.” Groaf commented. He and the young man were alone on the balcony of the house. It was mid-morning.
“Yes sir.”
“Well and good. What word on these four-legged things?”
“Nothing more than what we already know.”
“OK, when you go back…” Groaf began, but was interrupted by his new wife coming out onto the balcony.
“Are you busy?” Mavez asked.
“No, no.” Groaf insisted. “That will be all, Simmons.” He dismissed the man. “Just the standard line. Now, my dear, what is your pleasure?” Groaf picked up his coffee cup with one hand and held out the other to the woman.
“Since I can’t report on you and the administration anymore,” She began.
“Yes?”
“I was wondering about writing a piece on the forest and its people.”
“Mm, good idea. What about it?”
“Well, what about taking a trip to the forest floor? I know it’s potentially dangerous, but…
“I think it can be arranged.” Said Groaf smiling.
Excerpt #2 From “Mealy-Mouthed”
For many years Rectanglo’s only interest outside the administration of his dominion, other than following his reading inclinations wherever they led, was the electric guitar. He never played publicly, both because he feared forcing himself on others and possibly thereby gaining false praise, and because he strongly suspected that his idiosyncratic style would be unpleasing and misunderstood by the kind of audience he was likely to attract.
A new interest, however, now appeared. Recently Rectanglo had discovered that the possibility existed of actually exiting the box in which he and his subjects and all their stuff had always been. Returning to the well where apocryphal texts tell us he had met a woman who refused to wait on him like a servant, he looked about for any other person, but saw none. That was good. As much as he would like to see the proud woman again, it was good for his purpose that no one observe him.
Was it something about the taste of that water? Or was it something in the water that affected him so? Whatever it was, it had aroused suspicions within the paranoid mind of Rectanglo. Leaning far in, peering far down, he saw his own reflected silhouette. He smelled something cold and sweet.
“Careful!” A voice called behind him, not too loudly, for the person who had called had enough sense not to surprise Rectanglo.
The lord of this world withdrew his torso and head and spun around. What he saw was an old man dressed in the ridiculous vestments of the dedicated rural denizen.
“You don’t want to fall in.” The old man smiled, revealing the kind of perfect, white teeth that no one from the technologically advanced, civilized centers of power can accept grow naturally in the heads of such ridiculously garbed, dedicatedly rural denizens.
“What do you know about this well?” Rectanglo demanded.
“I know I water my herd of goats at it when I’m in the area.” The old man replied.
“How long has it been here?”
The old man considered.
“My grandfather knew of it as a child, I am certain of that.” He said finally.
Kiplough Explores the Apartment Next Door
When Kiplough returned home from the library he found the Bird gone and machinery from the Bolsis Forward Operations team, a gift from Turk Mundig, installed in two of the bedrooms, one of them the room containing the tunnel. Kiplough tossed the paper sack of free used magazines and paperbacks he had picked up at the library onto his large bed and went to the kitchen for an apple.
Biting into the apple like a horse, that long forgotten creature, he approached the machinery in bedroom #3, the one without a tunnel in it leading down into some place of mysterious doings. Kiplough examined everything before him with an eye to discovering the exact function of this marvelous gift. The machinery appeared to be five or six vending machines pushed together like a like number of figures formed from modeling clay, pressed together after playtime is over. The entire assembly occupied one whole wall of the room, where a framed painting of a cave by the sea had hung. This picture, displaced, now lay on the floor propped against the opposite wall. Kiplough glanced at it briefly before dropping the denuded apple core into a pocket of his oversized coat and moving closer to the room’s new contents.
Obviously that was a handle of some kind before him, meant to allow one access to the interior of the machine. Kiplough pulled on it. A large door opened easily before him. Looking in, Kiplough saw a hallway bathed in greenish light extending away from him like a long passageway down the middle of a ship. Lining this hallway were many doors to the left and right.
“Corrupt bionics!” He swore. “I wonder what the other machine does!”
Being a prudent man, Kiplough got his sack of magazines and books from his room and used it as a prop to keep the machine’s door open while he went inside. He opened the first door on the left and found himself looking into Clementa’s apartment, although he didn’t know that’s whose apartment it was. He walked in and looked around for a moment, found Clementa and Stodge engaged in an act of carnality, and, recoiling, retraced his steps.
The Invasion Described Symbolically
A large, masculine hand, but hairless, tattooed with a crude image of a shining sun inside a picture frame, emerged from a shoebox diorama and reached up to claw at small plastic figures standing on the shelf above. Potted cacti to either side of this activity grew at a phenomenal rate, probably urged onwards by their proximity to such desperate expenditures of energies both physical and psychic.
“I don’t understand what’s going on.” One of the children observing the scene said to his neighbor, a small girl currently experiencing strange pains in her left fingertips.
“It’s funny.” She replied, though her tone was other than that of an amused child. She hugged her hand to her chest. A year ago she might have put the aching digits in her mouth, and a year before that she most definitely would have, but she was a big girl now, with a big girl’s disgust.
The third child, a boy like the first, paid no attention to the on-going antics of the hand, which had been joined by large ants that were dragging jagged strips of wood from within the same hole from which the hand had emerged and dropping them off the edge. This third child/second boy was turning the handle of a jack-in-the-box. When the spring-activated clown popped out of the box the boy giggled merrily and then pushed him back in to begin the process over again.
“Are those real ants?” The first boy asked. No one answered, although the other boy did look up for a moment. He screamed in terror only seconds later when the jack-in-the-box, triggered by the end of the song “Surprise, You’re Dead!” by Faith No More (a music box version), released the catch on its door and a hand, the reverse image of the one scrabbling at the plastic soldiers, police, businessmen, and peasants, exploded from its interior.
The other two children joined the boy in screaming, jumping up as the cacti took on new and greater bursts of growth, and began tossing chairs, shelves, and tables out the windows of their classroom in a spontaneous show of insanity.
Brutally Haggard, Part 4
Burl and Duke’s Attempt at Thwartage
I wish I was a hairier man.” Burl examined the backs of his hands as he opened a bottle of beer.
“Lord, I wish I was less hairy.” Duke pulled up the front of his t-shirt exposing the bear-like abdomen that had repelled women for years.
Burl nodded curtly, caught off-guard at the sight. He changed the channel on the TV with what he still referred to as the “clicker.” The TV had been mysteriously left on some aberrant channel that featured shows like “Homes of the Poets” and “Jazz Interlude with Sal Mort.”
“Speaking of which,” mused Duke as he picked up his beer. “I’m going to start growing that beard.”
“You are?” Burl looked at his friend as the latter fingered the already thick growth on his face. He tossed the clicker onto the low table, having established that “Robot Rapists” would be their entertainment for the next twenty minutes.
Duke’s talk of a beard was frustrating for Burl. He had been thinking of growing one also, now that the semester was coming to an end. Despite his complaint about not being hairy, he could at least grow a beard. However, if they both grew one, wouldn’t it look odd?
Still, Burl thought, if he started growing his now it wouldn’t be as bad as if he waited until Duke’s was far along. People would think he was copying Duke.
“I was thinking of growing one, too.” Burl announced with his eyes on the TV screen, where two robots made by teams of college students from other worlds, inaccessible to the people of Shedge, grappled in an arena, each attempting to rape the other with its mechanical penis.
“You?” Duke questioned.
“I can grow one.” Burl stated.
Duke considered.
“I bet your beard won’t be as good as mine.” He said eagerly.
Only a minute later Klaster entered the apartment.
“Hey, Klaster, you want in on our contest? We’re growing beards.” Duke shouted after the third roommate, who was pouring himself one of his infrequent glasses of wine.
Tracy Governor’s Tunnel
For technical reasons, explained to Tracy Governor by a Hurrer engineer in her employ, it would be more effective for the tunnel she wished dug to originate inside an old, established building.
“Whatever you say.” Governor had agreed, eager for digging to begin. She wanted nothing to do with the actual work, and certainly not with the risks of getting caught. She paid out a enormous sum of money to the Hurrer and continued with her usual routine, receiving regular reports as to how matters were proceeding.
Considering it best not to inform Governor of every little detail, the Hurrer engineer, Pheldon Jocklaw, did not tell her that the building he had chosen was the headquarters of Bolsis Broadcasting. Other than keeping Governor ignorant out of security concerns, not telling her served to keep her from objecting to the plan. The broadcasting building was, for the purpose, ideally suited. It was old, had a large unexplored basement, and centrally located, which last reason would enable Jocklaw’s employer to make her transit easily when the time came. Indeed, all she would have to do was come to work as usual.
Jocklaw hired two Hurrer ex-troopers, down on their luck since their dismissal from the service, and somewhat disillusioned with the reign of the “Great One,” Paraftylloben.
“I mean, what is he anyway: a big, wooden box.” Complained Matt, one of the two hirelings, as he shoveled out more dirt.
“He could be half the size he is if he’s replace his parts with metal ones.” Added Vance, waiting his turn at the hole.
“Wonder why he doesn’t do that?” Grunted Matt.
“I’ll tell you why. They say he’s sentimental; thinks he’ll be less ‘alive’ if he loses touch with the organic wood.”
“Loses touch? But he is wood.” Matt dumped his shovel into the wheelbarrow.
“How are you two coming along?” Jocklaw appeared behind the two.
“Lord, you scared me!” Matt rested on his shovel.
“Hey, you’ve gotten a lot done!” Declared Jocklaw approvingly. “What are you doing with the dirt you take out?”
Mrs. Cross and John Discuss Events
“They say Groaf is dating Mavez Abuelia.” Mrs. Cross said to John. The two friends sat on her sofa and drank hot tea.
“‘Dating!’ Mm, now there’s a euphemism for you!” John, disoriented by some medication he was taking, was a trifle more conservative than usual, a smidgen more emphatic.
“Well, seeing each other, then.” Mrs. Cross reiterated.
“I bet.” Said John, taking a lemon cookie off the platter. “I bet they’re seeing a lot of each other.”
“Do you disapprove of Mr. Groaf being romantically involved with Mavez Abuelia, John?”
“John crunched his cookie.
“No.” He said. “I don’t care what they do. I don’t know either of those people. It’s just that I hate… well two things: I hate these euphemisms. ‘Dating’ for having sexual encounters. And the second thing: I hate the media interest in celebrity sexual encounters. Now, he’s the Director General, and that’s a little different. We need to know about his carryings on, but… oh, I just don’t care!” John exhaled deeply. Why was he getting so worked up? He realized he needed to calm down.
“When do you think it was,” Mrs. Cross shifted the talk somewhat. “That a date came to mean something that necessarily entailed a sexual encounter?”
“When chaperons went out of style.” John said. “I don’t know.” He said after he had thought for a moment. He then shifted the talk altogether. “You know what I realized: you haven’t been to my apartment but once. And that was all too brief. Why don’t we go over to my place.”
“Right now?” Mrs. Cross had a cookie in her mouth.
“Yeah. Sure, why not?”
“Do we bring the tea?”
“Nah. Tell you what:” John blanked out, forgot what he was going to suggest.
“What?
“Nothing.” He sighed. “If you don’t want to…”
“No, I’d love to walk to your apartment. Let me just knock on Schutser’s door, and tell him we’re going out.”
Schutser Makes a Friend
“I’m going out too.” Schutser met Mrs. Cross at the door to his room. John had a quick spasm, fearing that Daisy (Mrs. Cross) would invite the strange young man to come along, but Schutser made it clear that he was going to go to the store to buy pens and paper and other supplies and then come straight back. The three of them left the apartment together, but Mrs. Cross and John turned left, while Schutser turned right.
Above ground, in the light of the sun, Schutser involuntarily felt the thrill of independence and movement. He felt like a ghost observing the world about him, as if he had no connection to it. At the end of the sidewalk, where he should cross the street if he was headed for the store, he instead turned left, suddenly intent upon visiting the library.
Inside the library he roamed around, interested in everything, but not really interested in checking anything out. He wandered into the periodicals section where a woman about his age was sitting reading some highbrow magazine like Brain Analysis Review or Domestic Policy Week. Schutser could not be sure after the fact. The magazine’s specific title wasn’t important; it was the fact that the woman wasn’t stupid. What compelled him to say “Hi” is easy enough to puzzle out. She wasn’t ugly and she wasn’t stupid. But what enabled him to break through his normal reserve and say “Hi” is well night incomprehensible to those who have never smoked marijuana, which experience was akin to the way he felt walking through the library, seeing the young woman, and saying “Hi.”
“Hi.” Said Schutser, as I believe we have already documented.
And “Hi” she said back, smiling along with the return of greeting. Encouraged, Schutser actually began a conversation with this stranger during which he did not once mention that he was writing a book. Schutser felt so proud of himself for his work as a writer that to mention it, he felt, would be bragging. It did not occur to him that some people (like this woman, whose name was Rita) would not think so, or that some people would not find what he bragged of to be all that important (unlike Rita). Schutser obtained the young woman’s address before moving off to complete his day’s errand.
Excerpt #1 From “Mealy Mouthed”
Egg salad sandwiches were served at the reception, piled high on a platter with a tankard of hot coffee close by. Rectanglo, mingling freely with the participants, took up two of the sandwiches and allowed some brown-noser to pour him a cup of coffee.
“Thank you.” Rectanglo said, taking the cup.
“You’re welcome, Excellency.” The brown-noser replied, smiling with a painfully wide mouth. It is to be supposed that this man hoped to make further comments to Rectanglo, almost certainly flattering him as he did, but Rectanglo immediately moved away, introducing himself into a tight group that included a couple of bright women.
“Your Excellency,” one of the men in the group noted Rectanglo.
“Carry on,” Said the leader of beasts and men and mechanized trees. He sipped his coffee and bit his sandwich.
“Well,” chuckled the man, “We were talking about organisms.”
“Mmm!” Rectanglo vocalized forcefully. He was merely acknowledging his understanding of the topic, not groaning in pleasure over what he was chewing.
“And I was saying,” interjected one of the bright women, “How I feel that the whole world is one great organism.”
“A living one.” Rectanglo stated.
“Yes.” Said the woman.
“But is it sentient: that’s what I’m debating.” Said the first man, whose name, it would soon be revealed, was Harold.
“You’re not debating it, Harold; you’re disputing it.” Replied the woman, whose name, although never give in the official chronicles of this reception, was Candy.
“If it was sentient, then it could direct, at least partially, its actions.” Harold smiled. He didn’t care one way or another.
“Not necessarily.” Said Rectanglo. “It could be like a head in a box, alienated and in great pain, conscious, really, only of that alienation and that pain.” No one said anything in response and Rectanglo, gazing vacantly downward, wandered away to another group.
Hangurin Confronts Goosen
“Not like a grocer putting out stock;” directed Phillipe Goosen. “Put them down quickly, but deliberately, and at random, as your hand finds them.” He was talking to Eileen Quarry, an actress on the stage before him. As he finished speaking, Goosen looked down at an open notebook held out to him by a curly-haired man in glasses beside him. He gave some inaudible instructions to this man and turned back to the stage. What met his eyes was the sight of Bunt Hangurin emerging through a gap in the curtains at the rear of the stage. Before he could say anything of an admonitory nature, Hangurin had stormed forward and stepped like a giant walking machine off the front of the stage. He marched directly before Goosen, looming over him like a boom.
“Did you poison me, you charlatan?” Hangurin growled.
“Charlatan!” The curly-haired man repeated in outrage.
“Stay out of this.” Hangurin said evenly, spacing out his words. He took a sideways step towards the man and pushed him away with all the irresistibility of a hydraulic press.
The actress on stage, stopped in the middle of the act of setting out small bronze statuettes, each one meant to represent one of the major characters in the play, on a mantelpiece, stared at the confrontation out in the auditorium.
“What’s going on?” Whispered someone backstage.
“I don’t know.” Said the actress.
“I don’t know anything about your being poisoned. I don’t even know you.” Goosen protested.
“Oh yes you do. You’re in direct competition with me for the municipal contract to build the new school of drama theater.” Hangurin laid it out as an accusation.
“Well, of course, I know who you are. But I don’t know you. There’s a distinction.”
“There’s a distinction, alright.”
“You must no interrupt me in the middle of my work.” Said Goosen, who, as he considered his life and work all one thing, meant he should never be interrupted.
Hangurin Confronts Dubotic
“What’s that?” Enduma Schooner asked as the old fashioned doorbell sounded.
“It’s the doorbell.” Dud Dubotic said puzzled as he rose from his chair.
“It didn’t sound like any doorbell I ever heard.” Enduma cocked her head, hoping to hear it again.
“I’m not expecting anybody.” Dubotic said with a touch of concern in his voice as he approached the window that looked into the front yard. He knew quite well from past experience that he almost never could see a caller from this window, but he tried again any way.
“It sounded more like the bell on an ice cream truck. I bet you remember the days of the ice cream truck.” She said the Dubotic, who now stood at the door.
“Mmm.” Dubotic smiled briefly. His hand was on the door as the caller summoned him again by way of the manually operated bell.
“There it is again!” Enduma cried.
Dubotic opened the door on Bunt Hangurin.
“Hangurin.” Dubotic said.
“Dud.” The big man answered. “I hear you’ve got Enduma Schooner in there. I heard her voice through the door.”
“What’s that to you?” Dubotic asked aggressively.
“Now I know who poisoned me.” Hangurin said.
“What do you want, Hangurin?”
“Just to let you know I’m going to get you, for poisoning me and FOR STEALING MY TRADE!” He called out this last bit so Enduma would be certain to hear.
“Is that Bunt Hangurin?” Enduma asked.
Dubotic sighed.
“Yes. He said.
“I bet he’s drunk.” Said Enduma. “He usually is.”
“Your friend here tried to kill me!” Hangurin shouted.
“Get out of here, Hangurin, before I call the police.” Dubotic threatened.
“You’ve been warned, Dud.” Hangurin jabbed the air with his forefinger.
An Interview with Lady Revich
“They say you can look into the void of unknown time and space.” Bedlans Primo initiated the meeting with this time honored statement. He and his wife Nances sat across from the Margravine Revich in the ground level reception room where the lady met such people. Primo had pulled several strings he was not in the habit of touching to get this meeting arranged. Only the large amount of abuse he had suffered from his wife had persuaded him to do so; for himself, he did not care to consult the Hurrer seer. He was not concerned with the answers to the questions that burned in Nances’ mind.
Normally Lady Revich would answer vaguely to this introductory salvo, but today she agreed immediately. She wanted these grubby commoners gone as soon as possible.
“Do we pay you now?” Nances asked, much to both Primo and Lady Revich’s chagrin. Primo displayed his embarrassment openly, however, whereas the Margravine merely closed her eyes and began the ceremony of hieromancy.
Primo silently admonished his wife with blazing eyes and a quivering clenched fist. She fidgeted, wanting the payment issue made clear up front, but ultimately acceded to her husband’s will.
Lady Revich arranged the bronze lumps on the table beside her. Red and black lines were inlaid on its surface forming a strange asymmetrical pattern,
“What is your question?” She asked, her eyes still closed. She was rushing the whole thing. The price agreed upon was more than her usual fee; that was the only reason she was going through with it.
“There is a man named Turk Mundig…” Primo began. Nances interrupted him so desperate was she to know.
“We want to know what makes him so special.” She said, casting the question in such a way as to not give away too much. If the Margravine was for real, all extraneous details would not be necessary.
Opening her eyes, Lady Revich looked at the table and immediately rattled off the entire story of Mundig and his involvement with the forward operations of the invasion. Stunned, Primo handed over the money.
“We need a receipt.” Said Nances.
A Third Tunnel by Geoffrey Porter
Buitt, a human in coveralls brandishing an electric torch, was on his hands and knees, his bottom protruding from a crawlspace at the back of Geoffrey Porter’s spacious and clothes-filled closet.
“Yeah, it can be done.” Buitt called out.
“What’s that, man?” Porter asked.
Buitt backed out of the hole and got to his feet, saying,
“I said it can be done.”
“Good.” Said Porter. “Now, how soon can you get started?”
Buitt flipped through the pages of a small notebook.
“I can have a man here, tomorrow. Tomorrow morning bright and…”
“Oh, no.” Porter interrupted. “I thought you personally were going to do the work.”
“I don’t do this kind of thing anymore.” Said Buitt. “I’m too old to be schlepping tons of dirt out and digging all day.”
“But you see I wasn’t this project kept as secret as possible. The more people that know, the worse for me.”
“Mr. Porter, rest easy. The man I’ll send over has worked for me for five years. If I tell him not to say anything about it, he won’t. I promise.”
Geoffrey Porter reluctantly agreed to the arrangement. He signed a work order Buitt filled out and began to wait impatiently for the next day.
Buitt returned to his vehicle and drove back to his place of business. When he got there he found his grown daughter Vickie waiting for him in the yellow chair outside his office.
“Vickie. What are you doing here?” He asked.
“Dad, I’ve got to talk to you.” The young woman stood up.
“Come one in.” Buitt opened the door for her. He turned to this receptionist before following Vickie into the office. “Tonya, call Nils Sterel and tell him to come in. I’ve got a job for him starting tomorrow morning.”
Vickie was staring at the abstract expressionist painting on the wall behind her father’s desk. It was by an unknown painter. It was signed “Todd” in the lower right-hand corner, but no one seemed to know who that had been.
Kiplough Meets Hangurin
Kiplough met Hangurin at the library. He had been surreptitiously watching Schutser talk to Rita. He had seen Schutser once or twice in the hallway: two furtive creatures in the jungle, avoiding each other. Ultimately bored by the scene, Kiplough had moved an aisle over and reached for the same book Hangurin was reaching for.
“Go ahead.” Offered Hangurin.
Kiplough hesitated. He pulled out the book.
“Thanks.” He said.
“Sure. You interested in Neutra?” Hangurin nodded at the book.
“He’s my favorite architect.” Kiplough answered.
“Really? Most people who like Neutra would say their favorite architect was Lloyd Wright or Chester Pollux or… Bunt Hangurin.”
“Ha! You can’t trap me. You’re Bunt Hangurin!” Kiplough pointed at the other man.
Hangurin smiled.
“Yeah.” He acknowledged.
“Did you want the book?” Kiplough offered it back.
“No, I was just bored and thought I’d stop in and thumb through some of my old favorites.”
“Aren’t you designing the Ladies’ Mystic Camp temple?” Kiplough asked, only to find he had touched a sore point.
“No. The project has been taken away from me.” Hangurin’s face darkened.
“I’m sorry. I saw a profile on you in Nose of Nose’s End. I had always admired the Pump Annex, but I never knew who designed it until I read that article.”
“I didn’t like the illustration.” Said Hangurin. “They used an old photo of me.”
Kiplough said nothing. There was nothing really that he could say.
They parted after exchanging of few more words, Kiplough offering his name and an edited summation of his place in the scheme of things. He carried the book away with him, but once out of sight of Hangurin, shoved it at random onto another shelf.
I wish I was a hairier man.” Burl examined the backs of his hands as he opened a bottle of beer.
“Lord, I wish I was less hairy.” Duke pulled up the front of his t-shirt exposing the bear-like abdomen that had repelled women for years.
Burl nodded curtly, caught off-guard at the sight. He changed the channel on the TV with what he still referred to as the “clicker.” The TV had been mysteriously left on some aberrant channel that featured shows like “Homes of the Poets” and “Jazz Interlude with Sal Mort.”
“Speaking of which,” mused Duke as he picked up his beer. “I’m going to start growing that beard.”
“You are?” Burl looked at his friend as the latter fingered the already thick growth on his face. He tossed the clicker onto the low table, having established that “Robot Rapists” would be their entertainment for the next twenty minutes.
Duke’s talk of a beard was frustrating for Burl. He had been thinking of growing one also, now that the semester was coming to an end. Despite his complaint about not being hairy, he could at least grow a beard. However, if they both grew one, wouldn’t it look odd?
Still, Burl thought, if he started growing his now it wouldn’t be as bad as if he waited until Duke’s was far along. People would think he was copying Duke.
“I was thinking of growing one, too.” Burl announced with his eyes on the TV screen, where two robots made by teams of college students from other worlds, inaccessible to the people of Shedge, grappled in an arena, each attempting to rape the other with its mechanical penis.
“You?” Duke questioned.
“I can grow one.” Burl stated.
Duke considered.
“I bet your beard won’t be as good as mine.” He said eagerly.
Only a minute later Klaster entered the apartment.
“Hey, Klaster, you want in on our contest? We’re growing beards.” Duke shouted after the third roommate, who was pouring himself one of his infrequent glasses of wine.
Tracy Governor’s Tunnel
For technical reasons, explained to Tracy Governor by a Hurrer engineer in her employ, it would be more effective for the tunnel she wished dug to originate inside an old, established building.
“Whatever you say.” Governor had agreed, eager for digging to begin. She wanted nothing to do with the actual work, and certainly not with the risks of getting caught. She paid out a enormous sum of money to the Hurrer and continued with her usual routine, receiving regular reports as to how matters were proceeding.
Considering it best not to inform Governor of every little detail, the Hurrer engineer, Pheldon Jocklaw, did not tell her that the building he had chosen was the headquarters of Bolsis Broadcasting. Other than keeping Governor ignorant out of security concerns, not telling her served to keep her from objecting to the plan. The broadcasting building was, for the purpose, ideally suited. It was old, had a large unexplored basement, and centrally located, which last reason would enable Jocklaw’s employer to make her transit easily when the time came. Indeed, all she would have to do was come to work as usual.
Jocklaw hired two Hurrer ex-troopers, down on their luck since their dismissal from the service, and somewhat disillusioned with the reign of the “Great One,” Paraftylloben.
“I mean, what is he anyway: a big, wooden box.” Complained Matt, one of the two hirelings, as he shoveled out more dirt.
“He could be half the size he is if he’s replace his parts with metal ones.” Added Vance, waiting his turn at the hole.
“Wonder why he doesn’t do that?” Grunted Matt.
“I’ll tell you why. They say he’s sentimental; thinks he’ll be less ‘alive’ if he loses touch with the organic wood.”
“Loses touch? But he is wood.” Matt dumped his shovel into the wheelbarrow.
“How are you two coming along?” Jocklaw appeared behind the two.
“Lord, you scared me!” Matt rested on his shovel.
“Hey, you’ve gotten a lot done!” Declared Jocklaw approvingly. “What are you doing with the dirt you take out?”
Mrs. Cross and John Discuss Events
“They say Groaf is dating Mavez Abuelia.” Mrs. Cross said to John. The two friends sat on her sofa and drank hot tea.
“‘Dating!’ Mm, now there’s a euphemism for you!” John, disoriented by some medication he was taking, was a trifle more conservative than usual, a smidgen more emphatic.
“Well, seeing each other, then.” Mrs. Cross reiterated.
“I bet.” Said John, taking a lemon cookie off the platter. “I bet they’re seeing a lot of each other.”
“Do you disapprove of Mr. Groaf being romantically involved with Mavez Abuelia, John?”
“John crunched his cookie.
“No.” He said. “I don’t care what they do. I don’t know either of those people. It’s just that I hate… well two things: I hate these euphemisms. ‘Dating’ for having sexual encounters. And the second thing: I hate the media interest in celebrity sexual encounters. Now, he’s the Director General, and that’s a little different. We need to know about his carryings on, but… oh, I just don’t care!” John exhaled deeply. Why was he getting so worked up? He realized he needed to calm down.
“When do you think it was,” Mrs. Cross shifted the talk somewhat. “That a date came to mean something that necessarily entailed a sexual encounter?”
“When chaperons went out of style.” John said. “I don’t know.” He said after he had thought for a moment. He then shifted the talk altogether. “You know what I realized: you haven’t been to my apartment but once. And that was all too brief. Why don’t we go over to my place.”
“Right now?” Mrs. Cross had a cookie in her mouth.
“Yeah. Sure, why not?”
“Do we bring the tea?”
“Nah. Tell you what:” John blanked out, forgot what he was going to suggest.
“What?
“Nothing.” He sighed. “If you don’t want to…”
“No, I’d love to walk to your apartment. Let me just knock on Schutser’s door, and tell him we’re going out.”
Schutser Makes a Friend
“I’m going out too.” Schutser met Mrs. Cross at the door to his room. John had a quick spasm, fearing that Daisy (Mrs. Cross) would invite the strange young man to come along, but Schutser made it clear that he was going to go to the store to buy pens and paper and other supplies and then come straight back. The three of them left the apartment together, but Mrs. Cross and John turned left, while Schutser turned right.
Above ground, in the light of the sun, Schutser involuntarily felt the thrill of independence and movement. He felt like a ghost observing the world about him, as if he had no connection to it. At the end of the sidewalk, where he should cross the street if he was headed for the store, he instead turned left, suddenly intent upon visiting the library.
Inside the library he roamed around, interested in everything, but not really interested in checking anything out. He wandered into the periodicals section where a woman about his age was sitting reading some highbrow magazine like Brain Analysis Review or Domestic Policy Week. Schutser could not be sure after the fact. The magazine’s specific title wasn’t important; it was the fact that the woman wasn’t stupid. What compelled him to say “Hi” is easy enough to puzzle out. She wasn’t ugly and she wasn’t stupid. But what enabled him to break through his normal reserve and say “Hi” is well night incomprehensible to those who have never smoked marijuana, which experience was akin to the way he felt walking through the library, seeing the young woman, and saying “Hi.”
“Hi.” Said Schutser, as I believe we have already documented.
And “Hi” she said back, smiling along with the return of greeting. Encouraged, Schutser actually began a conversation with this stranger during which he did not once mention that he was writing a book. Schutser felt so proud of himself for his work as a writer that to mention it, he felt, would be bragging. It did not occur to him that some people (like this woman, whose name was Rita) would not think so, or that some people would not find what he bragged of to be all that important (unlike Rita). Schutser obtained the young woman’s address before moving off to complete his day’s errand.
Excerpt #1 From “Mealy Mouthed”
Egg salad sandwiches were served at the reception, piled high on a platter with a tankard of hot coffee close by. Rectanglo, mingling freely with the participants, took up two of the sandwiches and allowed some brown-noser to pour him a cup of coffee.
“Thank you.” Rectanglo said, taking the cup.
“You’re welcome, Excellency.” The brown-noser replied, smiling with a painfully wide mouth. It is to be supposed that this man hoped to make further comments to Rectanglo, almost certainly flattering him as he did, but Rectanglo immediately moved away, introducing himself into a tight group that included a couple of bright women.
“Your Excellency,” one of the men in the group noted Rectanglo.
“Carry on,” Said the leader of beasts and men and mechanized trees. He sipped his coffee and bit his sandwich.
“Well,” chuckled the man, “We were talking about organisms.”
“Mmm!” Rectanglo vocalized forcefully. He was merely acknowledging his understanding of the topic, not groaning in pleasure over what he was chewing.
“And I was saying,” interjected one of the bright women, “How I feel that the whole world is one great organism.”
“A living one.” Rectanglo stated.
“Yes.” Said the woman.
“But is it sentient: that’s what I’m debating.” Said the first man, whose name, it would soon be revealed, was Harold.
“You’re not debating it, Harold; you’re disputing it.” Replied the woman, whose name, although never give in the official chronicles of this reception, was Candy.
“If it was sentient, then it could direct, at least partially, its actions.” Harold smiled. He didn’t care one way or another.
“Not necessarily.” Said Rectanglo. “It could be like a head in a box, alienated and in great pain, conscious, really, only of that alienation and that pain.” No one said anything in response and Rectanglo, gazing vacantly downward, wandered away to another group.
Hangurin Confronts Goosen
“Not like a grocer putting out stock;” directed Phillipe Goosen. “Put them down quickly, but deliberately, and at random, as your hand finds them.” He was talking to Eileen Quarry, an actress on the stage before him. As he finished speaking, Goosen looked down at an open notebook held out to him by a curly-haired man in glasses beside him. He gave some inaudible instructions to this man and turned back to the stage. What met his eyes was the sight of Bunt Hangurin emerging through a gap in the curtains at the rear of the stage. Before he could say anything of an admonitory nature, Hangurin had stormed forward and stepped like a giant walking machine off the front of the stage. He marched directly before Goosen, looming over him like a boom.
“Did you poison me, you charlatan?” Hangurin growled.
“Charlatan!” The curly-haired man repeated in outrage.
“Stay out of this.” Hangurin said evenly, spacing out his words. He took a sideways step towards the man and pushed him away with all the irresistibility of a hydraulic press.
The actress on stage, stopped in the middle of the act of setting out small bronze statuettes, each one meant to represent one of the major characters in the play, on a mantelpiece, stared at the confrontation out in the auditorium.
“What’s going on?” Whispered someone backstage.
“I don’t know.” Said the actress.
“I don’t know anything about your being poisoned. I don’t even know you.” Goosen protested.
“Oh yes you do. You’re in direct competition with me for the municipal contract to build the new school of drama theater.” Hangurin laid it out as an accusation.
“Well, of course, I know who you are. But I don’t know you. There’s a distinction.”
“There’s a distinction, alright.”
“You must no interrupt me in the middle of my work.” Said Goosen, who, as he considered his life and work all one thing, meant he should never be interrupted.
Hangurin Confronts Dubotic
“What’s that?” Enduma Schooner asked as the old fashioned doorbell sounded.
“It’s the doorbell.” Dud Dubotic said puzzled as he rose from his chair.
“It didn’t sound like any doorbell I ever heard.” Enduma cocked her head, hoping to hear it again.
“I’m not expecting anybody.” Dubotic said with a touch of concern in his voice as he approached the window that looked into the front yard. He knew quite well from past experience that he almost never could see a caller from this window, but he tried again any way.
“It sounded more like the bell on an ice cream truck. I bet you remember the days of the ice cream truck.” She said the Dubotic, who now stood at the door.
“Mmm.” Dubotic smiled briefly. His hand was on the door as the caller summoned him again by way of the manually operated bell.
“There it is again!” Enduma cried.
Dubotic opened the door on Bunt Hangurin.
“Hangurin.” Dubotic said.
“Dud.” The big man answered. “I hear you’ve got Enduma Schooner in there. I heard her voice through the door.”
“What’s that to you?” Dubotic asked aggressively.
“Now I know who poisoned me.” Hangurin said.
“What do you want, Hangurin?”
“Just to let you know I’m going to get you, for poisoning me and FOR STEALING MY TRADE!” He called out this last bit so Enduma would be certain to hear.
“Is that Bunt Hangurin?” Enduma asked.
Dubotic sighed.
“Yes. He said.
“I bet he’s drunk.” Said Enduma. “He usually is.”
“Your friend here tried to kill me!” Hangurin shouted.
“Get out of here, Hangurin, before I call the police.” Dubotic threatened.
“You’ve been warned, Dud.” Hangurin jabbed the air with his forefinger.
An Interview with Lady Revich
“They say you can look into the void of unknown time and space.” Bedlans Primo initiated the meeting with this time honored statement. He and his wife Nances sat across from the Margravine Revich in the ground level reception room where the lady met such people. Primo had pulled several strings he was not in the habit of touching to get this meeting arranged. Only the large amount of abuse he had suffered from his wife had persuaded him to do so; for himself, he did not care to consult the Hurrer seer. He was not concerned with the answers to the questions that burned in Nances’ mind.
Normally Lady Revich would answer vaguely to this introductory salvo, but today she agreed immediately. She wanted these grubby commoners gone as soon as possible.
“Do we pay you now?” Nances asked, much to both Primo and Lady Revich’s chagrin. Primo displayed his embarrassment openly, however, whereas the Margravine merely closed her eyes and began the ceremony of hieromancy.
Primo silently admonished his wife with blazing eyes and a quivering clenched fist. She fidgeted, wanting the payment issue made clear up front, but ultimately acceded to her husband’s will.
Lady Revich arranged the bronze lumps on the table beside her. Red and black lines were inlaid on its surface forming a strange asymmetrical pattern,
“What is your question?” She asked, her eyes still closed. She was rushing the whole thing. The price agreed upon was more than her usual fee; that was the only reason she was going through with it.
“There is a man named Turk Mundig…” Primo began. Nances interrupted him so desperate was she to know.
“We want to know what makes him so special.” She said, casting the question in such a way as to not give away too much. If the Margravine was for real, all extraneous details would not be necessary.
Opening her eyes, Lady Revich looked at the table and immediately rattled off the entire story of Mundig and his involvement with the forward operations of the invasion. Stunned, Primo handed over the money.
“We need a receipt.” Said Nances.
A Third Tunnel by Geoffrey Porter
Buitt, a human in coveralls brandishing an electric torch, was on his hands and knees, his bottom protruding from a crawlspace at the back of Geoffrey Porter’s spacious and clothes-filled closet.
“Yeah, it can be done.” Buitt called out.
“What’s that, man?” Porter asked.
Buitt backed out of the hole and got to his feet, saying,
“I said it can be done.”
“Good.” Said Porter. “Now, how soon can you get started?”
Buitt flipped through the pages of a small notebook.
“I can have a man here, tomorrow. Tomorrow morning bright and…”
“Oh, no.” Porter interrupted. “I thought you personally were going to do the work.”
“I don’t do this kind of thing anymore.” Said Buitt. “I’m too old to be schlepping tons of dirt out and digging all day.”
“But you see I wasn’t this project kept as secret as possible. The more people that know, the worse for me.”
“Mr. Porter, rest easy. The man I’ll send over has worked for me for five years. If I tell him not to say anything about it, he won’t. I promise.”
Geoffrey Porter reluctantly agreed to the arrangement. He signed a work order Buitt filled out and began to wait impatiently for the next day.
Buitt returned to his vehicle and drove back to his place of business. When he got there he found his grown daughter Vickie waiting for him in the yellow chair outside his office.
“Vickie. What are you doing here?” He asked.
“Dad, I’ve got to talk to you.” The young woman stood up.
“Come one in.” Buitt opened the door for her. He turned to this receptionist before following Vickie into the office. “Tonya, call Nils Sterel and tell him to come in. I’ve got a job for him starting tomorrow morning.”
Vickie was staring at the abstract expressionist painting on the wall behind her father’s desk. It was by an unknown painter. It was signed “Todd” in the lower right-hand corner, but no one seemed to know who that had been.
Kiplough Meets Hangurin
Kiplough met Hangurin at the library. He had been surreptitiously watching Schutser talk to Rita. He had seen Schutser once or twice in the hallway: two furtive creatures in the jungle, avoiding each other. Ultimately bored by the scene, Kiplough had moved an aisle over and reached for the same book Hangurin was reaching for.
“Go ahead.” Offered Hangurin.
Kiplough hesitated. He pulled out the book.
“Thanks.” He said.
“Sure. You interested in Neutra?” Hangurin nodded at the book.
“He’s my favorite architect.” Kiplough answered.
“Really? Most people who like Neutra would say their favorite architect was Lloyd Wright or Chester Pollux or… Bunt Hangurin.”
“Ha! You can’t trap me. You’re Bunt Hangurin!” Kiplough pointed at the other man.
Hangurin smiled.
“Yeah.” He acknowledged.
“Did you want the book?” Kiplough offered it back.
“No, I was just bored and thought I’d stop in and thumb through some of my old favorites.”
“Aren’t you designing the Ladies’ Mystic Camp temple?” Kiplough asked, only to find he had touched a sore point.
“No. The project has been taken away from me.” Hangurin’s face darkened.
“I’m sorry. I saw a profile on you in Nose of Nose’s End. I had always admired the Pump Annex, but I never knew who designed it until I read that article.”
“I didn’t like the illustration.” Said Hangurin. “They used an old photo of me.”
Kiplough said nothing. There was nothing really that he could say.
They parted after exchanging of few more words, Kiplough offering his name and an edited summation of his place in the scheme of things. He carried the book away with him, but once out of sight of Hangurin, shoved it at random onto another shelf.
Brutally Haggard, Part 3
The Bird Endures
The Bird, fearing immediate pursuit, did not stop when he reached the apartment. He went to the front door, opened it with the special beak adapter Kiplough had bought for him, and bolted out into the hallway. There the strong aroma of pastrami brought him up short.
Where would he go? Who would he consult? It was no certain that he could communicate with any other human, much less be seen by one other than Kiplough. He looked left and right down the hallway. The ends were so far away they appeared to be tiny dots. As he was debating whether he should knock on Clementa’s door, her being the only other apartment in which he had some knowledge of another human presence in the complex, the door across the hall opened. Klaster, bookbag slung over his shoulder, emerged.
“Hi.” Said the Bird.
Klaster looked down at the Bird, which still had the beak adapter on. His immediate thought was that it was a kid in a costume. He did not wonder whether the kid had gotten the date of Halloween wrong or whether it actually was Halloween and he had forgotten it in his absorption in his studies, because there is no Halloween in Shedge. No Christmas either.
Then Klaster realized, by looking at the wetness of the eyes and the fleshy realism of the skin around them, that this was a real bird and that it had spoken to him.
“Hi.” He answered dubiously. “Is that thing stuck on your beak?” He asked, betraying a nature both solicitous and sensitive, something he was normally forced to downplay among his rowdy roommates.
“Oh, no.” The Bird said, snapping off the adapter. “Uh, how would you like to help me out?’
“Well, I’ve got to get to class.” Klaster shook the shoulder strap on his bag as evidence of this. As the Bird held his eyes he added, “And then I’ve got to go to work.”
“Oh, well, maybe you can give me some advice. I’ve got a problem; well, my roommate Kiplough has a problem.” In saying this he jerked his head at the door behind him.
“You live in that apartment?” Klaster looked at the door eagerly.
Klaster Calls Work
Stodge Merrit answered the phone at Klaster’s place of employment, the Hose Hole Affiliate.
“Stodge, are you supervising today?” Klaster asked.
“Yeah, and Ron Gonn can’t stand it.” Stodge answered, knowing that Klaster thought Gonn as big a fool as he did. “What’s up?”
“I can’t make it in today.” Klaster said, then added, “Or maybe I can. But I might be a little late.” He was relieved that Stodge had answered the phone instead of one of the regular supervisors. Stodge was nearly the same age as he and almost equally indifferent to the job. When he hung up the phone he was more willing to spend time helping the Bird.
He had told the Bird to wait inside the apartment while he phoned work. Now he crossed the hall and knocked. Immediately the Bird opened the door and stood aside while he entered.
“I’ve wanted to see the inside of this apartment for some time.” Klaster put his bookbag down on the lime green shag carpeting.
“You want anything to drink?” The Bird, who was in the kitchen, called.
“No thank. Just tell me what’s wrong.” Klaster was confused by the lack of furniture.
“Well,” Said the Bird reentering the living room with a cup of coffee. “The big guy I live with, Don Kiplough…”
“Yes, I’ve caught glimpses of him in the hall.” Klaster interrupted.
“You ever talk to him?”
“No.”
“Well, he’s been digging this tunnel…” And the Bird went on to give the lanky graduate student all the details that you already know. Afterwards, Klaster wanted to see the tunnel.
“I’ve never seen real dirt before.” Klaster said, examining the odd loam that was the foundation of Shedge.
“This apartment complex is really old.” The Bird said. He finished his coffee. “Who knows? This may be the original inhabitation of Shedge.”
“By primitive man, you mean?” Klaster cleaned his glasses.
“And primitive bird.” The Bird added.
The Spicy Delights of Mother’s Matriculation
Although Bunt Hangurin had outlined his proposal in some detail to the ladies of the camp, there remained many questions, none of which he was in the mood to answer.
“If I may be excused a moment?” Hangurin pinched the bridge of his copious nose and held up his other hand in supplication. Of course, there was no objection, although after he lumbered out the door of the conference room one of the ladies, Enduma Schooner, turned to her closest friends among those gathered and said,
“I think he’s drunk.”
Hangurin, however, was not drunk, but was recovering from a recent poisoning engineered by one of his enemies. Which one he wasn’t sure of yet, but be assured that he was determined to find out and exact a revenge of grim responsibility. Even as he violently vomited into the trashcan just within the men’s room across the hall he was sifting through his mental files. Was it Phellipe Goosen? Could he discount the jealous machinations of Malder Stang? Or was it Dud Dubotic? There were others. As he gave his last heave some nondescript character without much of an identity or purpose in his thin existence other than to get his ass kicked for being a busybody came into the men’s room. Hangurin was snatching a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser when this newcomer objected to his use of the trashcan.
“Couldn’t you make it to the toilet, buddy?” He said angrily.
“No, I couldn’t, buddy.” Hangurin growled through his sloppy mouth and teary eyes.
“It’s just another step or two.” The voice became more strident.
Hangurin threw a heavy fist into the man’s gut, then picked him up by the sleeves of his stupid businessman’s shirt with the body of the shirt colored blue and the collar white, and slammed him down on one of the sinks, smashing the sink from the wall and badly bruising the man. He pulled a couple more paper towels from the dispenser and returned to the conference room.
“Excuse me, ladies. But my mother died two days ago and I’m still shook up.”
Present with the Detractors’ Own Witness
The small lawn was regularly dotted with short, single stalks of white-and-yellow flowers. Enduma Schooner, perceptive as always, looked at the flowers and thought to herself, “it must form a pattern when seen from the air.” She tried to imagine what the pattern or picture was as she walked along the brick path to the front door of Dud Dubotic’s ancient cottage.
Two men in a balloon, Burl and Duke, passing overhead at that moment, could see nothing more than a simple checkerboard pattern on the lawn. It barely registered as a point of interest with either of them. They were drinking soda out of cans and studying the topography of the region.
“That looks like the Codvokan district.” Burl pointed at a mass of structures rising from the lower mass of the interconnected city.
“Yep.” Duke nodded. “We sure are high up.”
“Can’t believe we haven’t seen any naked women yet.” Burl said sourly.
Enduma Schooner took no notice of the balloon, which bore the symbols of the university and its municipology department. She pushed the button by the front door and waited.
“Enduma? Come in!” A white-haired man had opened the door. He wore green pants and a faded old shirt patterned with small unicorns ringed by horseshoes.
“Did you find your way without too much trouble? Dud Dubotic, the man, whose whiteness of hair extended even to his eyelashes, asked as his guest stepped into the foyer.
“Well, I’ve never been in this neighborhood before, Dud. Such unusual architecture! I’m not sure I like it.” Enduma held her turquoise colored, vinyl purse before her like an offering she was confused about where to offer.
“This area is extremely old.” Dubotic explained. “The temple I have planned for your organization will be modern, nothing like this.”
“I hope not.” Said Enduma. “Still, it is cozy.” She looked around at the furnishings, which were all period pieces.
Stupidity Labors to React
“I love to smell the mopwater.” Mr. Groaf commented sarcastically.
“I don’t mind it.” Mavez Abuelia replied. They had just completed an act of carnality on the sofa in the closet adjacent to Groaf’s office.
“What do you want to do now?” Groaf asked, knowing, that on his part, his first course of business was to reclothe himself, get Ms. Abuelia to leave, and resume his day. He hoped that her plans were in agreement with his.
As they re-entered the office Groaf asked,
“What are you going to do about this interview?”
“What do you mean?” Mavez asked, thinking that the Director General might be asking her to doctor the interview to his own benefit.
“I mean it’s so short. It doesn’t justify the time we actually spent talking. I mean it doesn’t match the time it took.” Groaf glanced at his schedule on the desk.
“Oh, I’ll fill it in with description, what the office looked like, some kind of interpretive biographical material.”
“I don’t expect you to… be overly or unduly positive towards me.” Groaf wanted that made plain.
“I won’t. Even though I’m inclined to be.” She made what Groaf considered to be a sexy face. He smiled.
“When can I see you again?” Mavez Abuelia asked, knowing that she must be going.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to meet here again, and, I want this to be clear: I don’t want to have to hide, to be… ashamed or made to look like I’m ashamed to see you. Or to be seen with you.” Groaf walked Mavez to the door of the office that had remained unlocked during the interview. “Why don’t we get together at my private residence? My family’s ancestral home.”
“I’d like that.” She answered, wondering it she knew exactly where that was. In fact, the house Groaf referred to where his grandparents had once lived, was right next door to Dud Dubotic’s house.
The Peregrinations of One Falconer’s Machismo
The illustration chosen to accompany the first page of the article was a diagram of the new oxygenating bond agent addendum to the city’s energy pump facility, which was, as I think we all can recognize, an aging facility, perhaps even an outdated one. The diagram, rendered in a semi-exploded and cut-away style, was surmounted and partially overlaid by a photograph of Bunt Hangurin, looking determined and wolfishly elegant, despite his big nose and ears, his unfashionable hairstyle, and the button on his lapel bearing a picture of Jean Dubuffet.
“Is that a homemade button?” Photographer Pellis Eaton asked and editor-in-chief Endino Parway later echoed when he saw the resultant picture.
“Yes.” Said Hangurin looking down at the button much as a young woman in a t-shirt does when she catches sight of a man looking at her chest, as if she cannot figure out what the man is looking at.
“You made it yourself?” Eaton continued to snap shots as he talked.
“Yes.” Hangurin’s secretary Milana Ludad stood to one side watching. Of course, she and Hangurin had been in love for years, but any romance was kept in check by their professionalism and the greater thrill of making the business grow. Call it (if you aren’t sick of the phrase “call it…” yet) a mutual appreciation society. Eaton suggested something a snap or two later.
“How about getting some with Miss Ludad and you together. It could...”
“No.” Hangurin squelched the idea abruptly. He said nothing more; the look on his face said anything else that was needed.
“OK.” Eaton, a thin older man with a silk rag about his throat, glanced at Miss Ludad again before changing cameras.
“Mr. Hangurin, could you make that face again? The mean one?” He asked as he looked through the viewfinder.
“No.” Hangurin said, less emphatically than before, but with a growing sense that the novelty of this experience was rapidly dissipating.
“Relax, chief.” Milana Ludad said in a low voice. Hangurin looked sideways at her and growled.
“Oh, that’s a good one.” Eaton declared.
White Paratroopers in Cahoots
One of the stipulations in Huck Feral’s contract was that his manager have his own personalized chair on the set of Grimalkin and Goth, which was to begin the filming of its third season on the day this page occurs. Malder Stang settled himself into this chair and then reached out his hand for the paper cup of expensive coffee that a young flunky standing nearby held in readiness.
Stang took the lid off the cup and examined the contents below.
Grif Oberon, manager of Ben Stupor Little, sat opposite Stang in a chair similar to the latter’s, but the only stenciled name upon it was that of the Chad Ragalag Productions Company.
“Something wrong with your coffee?” Oberon asked.
“It’s too hot to drink.” Stang said in a sad voice. He sniffed close to the surface of the coffee. “And they forgot to add my special ingredient.”
“What’s that?” Oberon asked.
“Here, would you mind helping me?” Stang asked. He handed the cup to Oberon. “Just hold that a minute, please.” Stang reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew an expensive silver flask. He poured a generous measure of dark brown liquor into the coffee.”
“Careful.” Oberon cautioned. The hot coffee was nearly sloshing over the sides.
“Thanks.” Stang stuffed the flask back into his coat. “The flask has a special thermal lining that keeps the brandy cold.” He explained as he took the coffee back. “Mmm.” He sipped.
“Alright, what was it you wanted to talk about?” Oberon rubbed his hands together.
Before Stang could begin discussions about their clients’ respective deals with the production company, Bunt Hangurin appeared out of the darkness behind Stang. As he clapped his massive hand on Stang’s shoulder, he began speaking.
“Watch it!” Stang shouted.
“I’m watching you, Stang.” Hangurin said simultaneously. “I think you’re responsible for poisoning me last week.”
“You’re spilling my coffee!” Stang shouted. Hangurin took the cup from the man’s hand and downed it in on long swallow.
Zeus and Zellner, Forgotten Again
“I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like.” Mundig told Kiplough. He was referring to his two children, whose framed photograph stood on the desk in his office. This office was to the right of the hold Kiplough had made in the corridor. The large room that held the multi-armed device was to the left.
“But when this is all over I’m going to take my family on a long vacation.” He now held the photograph in his hands. He looked at it with a crooked smile on his face. As he replaced it Kiplough averted his eyes for a few seconds, pretending to be studying the rug. He was afraid to embarrass the man.
“So, what do you think of our plans?” Mundig asked him.
Kiplough looked up and ran his tongue over his teeth.
“I don’t mind.” He said.
“That’s usually the attitude towards the Bolsis assuming control of a new world.” Mundig chuckled. “Even among those being annexed.”
“To be honest, Shedge could use a big change.” Kiplough mused.
“That’s generally the attitude.” Mundig stood up. “Let’s go take a look at this tunnel of yours.”
As they reached the midpoint in the corridor they met Klaster and the Bird emerging.
“Kiplough!” The Bird said, stunned.
“So this is the famous bird.” Mundig laughed.
“It’s an honor to meet you, sir.” Klaster extended his hand to Kiplough.
“Who are you?” Kiplough asked.
Explanations were made, even as to the function of the device over the pit and its place in the upcoming invasion. The group trudged back up the tunnel so that Mundig could take a look at Kiplough’s apartment.
“From now on, my friend,” Said the technician. “You may consider this an official extension of the domains of the Bolsis. But that’s not official. At least not yet.” Mundig glanced at his watch as he laughed.
“But who is this Paraftylloben?” Klaster asked. Although Mundig offered to show him, Klaster insisted he had to get to class.
Paraftylloben and His Attendants
“How are things going?” The message, written on a large piece of paper with brush and ink, came down to the master operator on duty clipped to a rope that moved on pulleys around and around through Paraftylloben’s interior.
“Things are going wonderfully, Great One.” The master operator on duty, Drake Rammelson, replied by means of typing out the reply on specially coded buttons in the main attendance room. Through a intricate series of gears and pulleys, ropes and belts, the reply was entered into Paraftylloben’s consciousness.
“How soon do we invade?” Paraftylloben asked, again on a piece of paper which a wooden arm, deep inside his vast structure, had written with ink and brush.
“I am told we are to invade in thirty days, Great One.” Rammelson typed.
“This man in charge of forward operations, Turk Mundig: is he going a good job?”
“Yes, Great One.” Rammelson remained respectful, but in between typing his responses to the monolithic thinking mechanism, he was reading a humorous novel called 1,000 Men Are Above the Ground, by the minor Hurrer author Jerk Languid. It had become obvious to the master operators many years before that, although a sentient being, Paraftylloben wasn’t all that smart. He had the mentality of the average forty-year-old. Well, perhaps slightly more than that. Sometimes he did come up with some brilliant ideas.
What neither Rammelson, nor any of the other master operators and their assistants, juniors and underlings; the executive engineers, and their assistants, juniors, and underlings; in fact, the whole of the Paraftylloben maintenance and interaction ministry knew was that for years Paraftylloben had set aside part of his operations to engage in a secret project. Deep, deep inside the labyrinthine interior of the gigantic wooden computer Paraftylloben had created a separate space where he could draw pictures and dream. The light of the sun made shadows passing through Paraftylloben’s drawings, falling onto heat sensitive receptors which enabled him to “see” them. It was these images that informed his dreams.
The Annulment of Candied Satrapy
And then I wrote “The Annulment of Candied Satrapy.” It was to have been a chilling advisory about unrestricted logging to provide timber for the expansion of the Great One’s brain, but evolved into this beautiful comic fantasy in which Tracy Governor, in the film version, was at last able to prove that an older actress can play a convincing astronaut.
Having read the synopsis of the following plot sent to him in a doubly sealed envelope bearing many official seals, Klaster, with the thoroughness of the veteran student that he was, began questioning the remaining details. I told him no to worry about it, but he insisted, after he had compared depictions of several dreams, on at least one detail being clarified. Carefully inserting this detail between the sheets of an old book, Klaster then combined his heart-wrenching decision with a plutocrat’s ambitions and nailed the resultant combo to a mighty tree, slated for destruction.
“It’s all so easy, a child could understand it.” Klaster whispered, settling back down into his bed, his glasses still on his face, still wearing the dirty t-shirt with the faded image of an outdated cartoon character. This cartoon character, Huckner Felm, had featured in an old TV show from Klaster’s parents’ time, The Bright Ligament Hour. Klaster’s wearing of a shirt with Huckner Felm’s image on it was a sign of Klaster’s disenchantment with the modern world and his embrace of an earlier time, a time he had just missed out on (relatively speaking, considering the apparently vast span of human history).
Of course, Klaster reflected, when he reflected upon these things, he couldn’t do without certain modern things like Rock music and air conditioning. He also suspected that people in those days when women wore dresses and men wore suits with narrow lapels and thin ties were more suspicious or confused by behavior outside the norm. Did Klaster romanticize those days? Did he have an unrealistic vision of what it was like then? He let Sydney Falco answer that question for him:
“The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.”
As he turned over in his bed Klaster smiled with Zen understanding.
The Bird, fearing immediate pursuit, did not stop when he reached the apartment. He went to the front door, opened it with the special beak adapter Kiplough had bought for him, and bolted out into the hallway. There the strong aroma of pastrami brought him up short.
Where would he go? Who would he consult? It was no certain that he could communicate with any other human, much less be seen by one other than Kiplough. He looked left and right down the hallway. The ends were so far away they appeared to be tiny dots. As he was debating whether he should knock on Clementa’s door, her being the only other apartment in which he had some knowledge of another human presence in the complex, the door across the hall opened. Klaster, bookbag slung over his shoulder, emerged.
“Hi.” Said the Bird.
Klaster looked down at the Bird, which still had the beak adapter on. His immediate thought was that it was a kid in a costume. He did not wonder whether the kid had gotten the date of Halloween wrong or whether it actually was Halloween and he had forgotten it in his absorption in his studies, because there is no Halloween in Shedge. No Christmas either.
Then Klaster realized, by looking at the wetness of the eyes and the fleshy realism of the skin around them, that this was a real bird and that it had spoken to him.
“Hi.” He answered dubiously. “Is that thing stuck on your beak?” He asked, betraying a nature both solicitous and sensitive, something he was normally forced to downplay among his rowdy roommates.
“Oh, no.” The Bird said, snapping off the adapter. “Uh, how would you like to help me out?’
“Well, I’ve got to get to class.” Klaster shook the shoulder strap on his bag as evidence of this. As the Bird held his eyes he added, “And then I’ve got to go to work.”
“Oh, well, maybe you can give me some advice. I’ve got a problem; well, my roommate Kiplough has a problem.” In saying this he jerked his head at the door behind him.
“You live in that apartment?” Klaster looked at the door eagerly.
Klaster Calls Work
Stodge Merrit answered the phone at Klaster’s place of employment, the Hose Hole Affiliate.
“Stodge, are you supervising today?” Klaster asked.
“Yeah, and Ron Gonn can’t stand it.” Stodge answered, knowing that Klaster thought Gonn as big a fool as he did. “What’s up?”
“I can’t make it in today.” Klaster said, then added, “Or maybe I can. But I might be a little late.” He was relieved that Stodge had answered the phone instead of one of the regular supervisors. Stodge was nearly the same age as he and almost equally indifferent to the job. When he hung up the phone he was more willing to spend time helping the Bird.
He had told the Bird to wait inside the apartment while he phoned work. Now he crossed the hall and knocked. Immediately the Bird opened the door and stood aside while he entered.
“I’ve wanted to see the inside of this apartment for some time.” Klaster put his bookbag down on the lime green shag carpeting.
“You want anything to drink?” The Bird, who was in the kitchen, called.
“No thank. Just tell me what’s wrong.” Klaster was confused by the lack of furniture.
“Well,” Said the Bird reentering the living room with a cup of coffee. “The big guy I live with, Don Kiplough…”
“Yes, I’ve caught glimpses of him in the hall.” Klaster interrupted.
“You ever talk to him?”
“No.”
“Well, he’s been digging this tunnel…” And the Bird went on to give the lanky graduate student all the details that you already know. Afterwards, Klaster wanted to see the tunnel.
“I’ve never seen real dirt before.” Klaster said, examining the odd loam that was the foundation of Shedge.
“This apartment complex is really old.” The Bird said. He finished his coffee. “Who knows? This may be the original inhabitation of Shedge.”
“By primitive man, you mean?” Klaster cleaned his glasses.
“And primitive bird.” The Bird added.
The Spicy Delights of Mother’s Matriculation
Although Bunt Hangurin had outlined his proposal in some detail to the ladies of the camp, there remained many questions, none of which he was in the mood to answer.
“If I may be excused a moment?” Hangurin pinched the bridge of his copious nose and held up his other hand in supplication. Of course, there was no objection, although after he lumbered out the door of the conference room one of the ladies, Enduma Schooner, turned to her closest friends among those gathered and said,
“I think he’s drunk.”
Hangurin, however, was not drunk, but was recovering from a recent poisoning engineered by one of his enemies. Which one he wasn’t sure of yet, but be assured that he was determined to find out and exact a revenge of grim responsibility. Even as he violently vomited into the trashcan just within the men’s room across the hall he was sifting through his mental files. Was it Phellipe Goosen? Could he discount the jealous machinations of Malder Stang? Or was it Dud Dubotic? There were others. As he gave his last heave some nondescript character without much of an identity or purpose in his thin existence other than to get his ass kicked for being a busybody came into the men’s room. Hangurin was snatching a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser when this newcomer objected to his use of the trashcan.
“Couldn’t you make it to the toilet, buddy?” He said angrily.
“No, I couldn’t, buddy.” Hangurin growled through his sloppy mouth and teary eyes.
“It’s just another step or two.” The voice became more strident.
Hangurin threw a heavy fist into the man’s gut, then picked him up by the sleeves of his stupid businessman’s shirt with the body of the shirt colored blue and the collar white, and slammed him down on one of the sinks, smashing the sink from the wall and badly bruising the man. He pulled a couple more paper towels from the dispenser and returned to the conference room.
“Excuse me, ladies. But my mother died two days ago and I’m still shook up.”
Present with the Detractors’ Own Witness
The small lawn was regularly dotted with short, single stalks of white-and-yellow flowers. Enduma Schooner, perceptive as always, looked at the flowers and thought to herself, “it must form a pattern when seen from the air.” She tried to imagine what the pattern or picture was as she walked along the brick path to the front door of Dud Dubotic’s ancient cottage.
Two men in a balloon, Burl and Duke, passing overhead at that moment, could see nothing more than a simple checkerboard pattern on the lawn. It barely registered as a point of interest with either of them. They were drinking soda out of cans and studying the topography of the region.
“That looks like the Codvokan district.” Burl pointed at a mass of structures rising from the lower mass of the interconnected city.
“Yep.” Duke nodded. “We sure are high up.”
“Can’t believe we haven’t seen any naked women yet.” Burl said sourly.
Enduma Schooner took no notice of the balloon, which bore the symbols of the university and its municipology department. She pushed the button by the front door and waited.
“Enduma? Come in!” A white-haired man had opened the door. He wore green pants and a faded old shirt patterned with small unicorns ringed by horseshoes.
“Did you find your way without too much trouble? Dud Dubotic, the man, whose whiteness of hair extended even to his eyelashes, asked as his guest stepped into the foyer.
“Well, I’ve never been in this neighborhood before, Dud. Such unusual architecture! I’m not sure I like it.” Enduma held her turquoise colored, vinyl purse before her like an offering she was confused about where to offer.
“This area is extremely old.” Dubotic explained. “The temple I have planned for your organization will be modern, nothing like this.”
“I hope not.” Said Enduma. “Still, it is cozy.” She looked around at the furnishings, which were all period pieces.
Stupidity Labors to React
“I love to smell the mopwater.” Mr. Groaf commented sarcastically.
“I don’t mind it.” Mavez Abuelia replied. They had just completed an act of carnality on the sofa in the closet adjacent to Groaf’s office.
“What do you want to do now?” Groaf asked, knowing, that on his part, his first course of business was to reclothe himself, get Ms. Abuelia to leave, and resume his day. He hoped that her plans were in agreement with his.
As they re-entered the office Groaf asked,
“What are you going to do about this interview?”
“What do you mean?” Mavez asked, thinking that the Director General might be asking her to doctor the interview to his own benefit.
“I mean it’s so short. It doesn’t justify the time we actually spent talking. I mean it doesn’t match the time it took.” Groaf glanced at his schedule on the desk.
“Oh, I’ll fill it in with description, what the office looked like, some kind of interpretive biographical material.”
“I don’t expect you to… be overly or unduly positive towards me.” Groaf wanted that made plain.
“I won’t. Even though I’m inclined to be.” She made what Groaf considered to be a sexy face. He smiled.
“When can I see you again?” Mavez Abuelia asked, knowing that she must be going.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to meet here again, and, I want this to be clear: I don’t want to have to hide, to be… ashamed or made to look like I’m ashamed to see you. Or to be seen with you.” Groaf walked Mavez to the door of the office that had remained unlocked during the interview. “Why don’t we get together at my private residence? My family’s ancestral home.”
“I’d like that.” She answered, wondering it she knew exactly where that was. In fact, the house Groaf referred to where his grandparents had once lived, was right next door to Dud Dubotic’s house.
The Peregrinations of One Falconer’s Machismo
The illustration chosen to accompany the first page of the article was a diagram of the new oxygenating bond agent addendum to the city’s energy pump facility, which was, as I think we all can recognize, an aging facility, perhaps even an outdated one. The diagram, rendered in a semi-exploded and cut-away style, was surmounted and partially overlaid by a photograph of Bunt Hangurin, looking determined and wolfishly elegant, despite his big nose and ears, his unfashionable hairstyle, and the button on his lapel bearing a picture of Jean Dubuffet.
“Is that a homemade button?” Photographer Pellis Eaton asked and editor-in-chief Endino Parway later echoed when he saw the resultant picture.
“Yes.” Said Hangurin looking down at the button much as a young woman in a t-shirt does when she catches sight of a man looking at her chest, as if she cannot figure out what the man is looking at.
“You made it yourself?” Eaton continued to snap shots as he talked.
“Yes.” Hangurin’s secretary Milana Ludad stood to one side watching. Of course, she and Hangurin had been in love for years, but any romance was kept in check by their professionalism and the greater thrill of making the business grow. Call it (if you aren’t sick of the phrase “call it…” yet) a mutual appreciation society. Eaton suggested something a snap or two later.
“How about getting some with Miss Ludad and you together. It could...”
“No.” Hangurin squelched the idea abruptly. He said nothing more; the look on his face said anything else that was needed.
“OK.” Eaton, a thin older man with a silk rag about his throat, glanced at Miss Ludad again before changing cameras.
“Mr. Hangurin, could you make that face again? The mean one?” He asked as he looked through the viewfinder.
“No.” Hangurin said, less emphatically than before, but with a growing sense that the novelty of this experience was rapidly dissipating.
“Relax, chief.” Milana Ludad said in a low voice. Hangurin looked sideways at her and growled.
“Oh, that’s a good one.” Eaton declared.
White Paratroopers in Cahoots
One of the stipulations in Huck Feral’s contract was that his manager have his own personalized chair on the set of Grimalkin and Goth, which was to begin the filming of its third season on the day this page occurs. Malder Stang settled himself into this chair and then reached out his hand for the paper cup of expensive coffee that a young flunky standing nearby held in readiness.
Stang took the lid off the cup and examined the contents below.
Grif Oberon, manager of Ben Stupor Little, sat opposite Stang in a chair similar to the latter’s, but the only stenciled name upon it was that of the Chad Ragalag Productions Company.
“Something wrong with your coffee?” Oberon asked.
“It’s too hot to drink.” Stang said in a sad voice. He sniffed close to the surface of the coffee. “And they forgot to add my special ingredient.”
“What’s that?” Oberon asked.
“Here, would you mind helping me?” Stang asked. He handed the cup to Oberon. “Just hold that a minute, please.” Stang reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew an expensive silver flask. He poured a generous measure of dark brown liquor into the coffee.”
“Careful.” Oberon cautioned. The hot coffee was nearly sloshing over the sides.
“Thanks.” Stang stuffed the flask back into his coat. “The flask has a special thermal lining that keeps the brandy cold.” He explained as he took the coffee back. “Mmm.” He sipped.
“Alright, what was it you wanted to talk about?” Oberon rubbed his hands together.
Before Stang could begin discussions about their clients’ respective deals with the production company, Bunt Hangurin appeared out of the darkness behind Stang. As he clapped his massive hand on Stang’s shoulder, he began speaking.
“Watch it!” Stang shouted.
“I’m watching you, Stang.” Hangurin said simultaneously. “I think you’re responsible for poisoning me last week.”
“You’re spilling my coffee!” Stang shouted. Hangurin took the cup from the man’s hand and downed it in on long swallow.
Zeus and Zellner, Forgotten Again
“I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like.” Mundig told Kiplough. He was referring to his two children, whose framed photograph stood on the desk in his office. This office was to the right of the hold Kiplough had made in the corridor. The large room that held the multi-armed device was to the left.
“But when this is all over I’m going to take my family on a long vacation.” He now held the photograph in his hands. He looked at it with a crooked smile on his face. As he replaced it Kiplough averted his eyes for a few seconds, pretending to be studying the rug. He was afraid to embarrass the man.
“So, what do you think of our plans?” Mundig asked him.
Kiplough looked up and ran his tongue over his teeth.
“I don’t mind.” He said.
“That’s usually the attitude towards the Bolsis assuming control of a new world.” Mundig chuckled. “Even among those being annexed.”
“To be honest, Shedge could use a big change.” Kiplough mused.
“That’s generally the attitude.” Mundig stood up. “Let’s go take a look at this tunnel of yours.”
As they reached the midpoint in the corridor they met Klaster and the Bird emerging.
“Kiplough!” The Bird said, stunned.
“So this is the famous bird.” Mundig laughed.
“It’s an honor to meet you, sir.” Klaster extended his hand to Kiplough.
“Who are you?” Kiplough asked.
Explanations were made, even as to the function of the device over the pit and its place in the upcoming invasion. The group trudged back up the tunnel so that Mundig could take a look at Kiplough’s apartment.
“From now on, my friend,” Said the technician. “You may consider this an official extension of the domains of the Bolsis. But that’s not official. At least not yet.” Mundig glanced at his watch as he laughed.
“But who is this Paraftylloben?” Klaster asked. Although Mundig offered to show him, Klaster insisted he had to get to class.
Paraftylloben and His Attendants
“How are things going?” The message, written on a large piece of paper with brush and ink, came down to the master operator on duty clipped to a rope that moved on pulleys around and around through Paraftylloben’s interior.
“Things are going wonderfully, Great One.” The master operator on duty, Drake Rammelson, replied by means of typing out the reply on specially coded buttons in the main attendance room. Through a intricate series of gears and pulleys, ropes and belts, the reply was entered into Paraftylloben’s consciousness.
“How soon do we invade?” Paraftylloben asked, again on a piece of paper which a wooden arm, deep inside his vast structure, had written with ink and brush.
“I am told we are to invade in thirty days, Great One.” Rammelson typed.
“This man in charge of forward operations, Turk Mundig: is he going a good job?”
“Yes, Great One.” Rammelson remained respectful, but in between typing his responses to the monolithic thinking mechanism, he was reading a humorous novel called 1,000 Men Are Above the Ground, by the minor Hurrer author Jerk Languid. It had become obvious to the master operators many years before that, although a sentient being, Paraftylloben wasn’t all that smart. He had the mentality of the average forty-year-old. Well, perhaps slightly more than that. Sometimes he did come up with some brilliant ideas.
What neither Rammelson, nor any of the other master operators and their assistants, juniors and underlings; the executive engineers, and their assistants, juniors, and underlings; in fact, the whole of the Paraftylloben maintenance and interaction ministry knew was that for years Paraftylloben had set aside part of his operations to engage in a secret project. Deep, deep inside the labyrinthine interior of the gigantic wooden computer Paraftylloben had created a separate space where he could draw pictures and dream. The light of the sun made shadows passing through Paraftylloben’s drawings, falling onto heat sensitive receptors which enabled him to “see” them. It was these images that informed his dreams.
The Annulment of Candied Satrapy
And then I wrote “The Annulment of Candied Satrapy.” It was to have been a chilling advisory about unrestricted logging to provide timber for the expansion of the Great One’s brain, but evolved into this beautiful comic fantasy in which Tracy Governor, in the film version, was at last able to prove that an older actress can play a convincing astronaut.
Having read the synopsis of the following plot sent to him in a doubly sealed envelope bearing many official seals, Klaster, with the thoroughness of the veteran student that he was, began questioning the remaining details. I told him no to worry about it, but he insisted, after he had compared depictions of several dreams, on at least one detail being clarified. Carefully inserting this detail between the sheets of an old book, Klaster then combined his heart-wrenching decision with a plutocrat’s ambitions and nailed the resultant combo to a mighty tree, slated for destruction.
“It’s all so easy, a child could understand it.” Klaster whispered, settling back down into his bed, his glasses still on his face, still wearing the dirty t-shirt with the faded image of an outdated cartoon character. This cartoon character, Huckner Felm, had featured in an old TV show from Klaster’s parents’ time, The Bright Ligament Hour. Klaster’s wearing of a shirt with Huckner Felm’s image on it was a sign of Klaster’s disenchantment with the modern world and his embrace of an earlier time, a time he had just missed out on (relatively speaking, considering the apparently vast span of human history).
Of course, Klaster reflected, when he reflected upon these things, he couldn’t do without certain modern things like Rock music and air conditioning. He also suspected that people in those days when women wore dresses and men wore suits with narrow lapels and thin ties were more suspicious or confused by behavior outside the norm. Did Klaster romanticize those days? Did he have an unrealistic vision of what it was like then? He let Sydney Falco answer that question for him:
“The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.”
As he turned over in his bed Klaster smiled with Zen understanding.
Brutally Haggard, Part 2
Analgesic Backlog
Kiplough’s hobby, digging a tunnel through the back wall of the spare bedroom, occupied most of his time when at home. The dirt excavated, a black, breadlike substance, he transported in grocery bags to the city’s pump facility and dumped into the recycling pit. He emerged from the tunnel one day with a strange look in his eyes.
“What is it?” The Bird asked.
“I’ve broken through.” Kiplough sat heavily down on the much repaired chair in the room.
“To what?”
“I don’t know. Another tunnel it looks like.”
“You mean someone else has been digging out too? What are the chances…” The Bird stopped talking as Kiplough looked at him with disdain.
“Well, let me look at it.” The Bird begged.
“Let me pee first, then we’ll go together.” Kiplough got up and left the room. While he was gone, the Bird poked his head into the tunnel. It’s opening was large; Kiplough could easily walk into it upright. It narrowed somewhat further in, but remained high enough for Kiplough to stand. This had been necessary during the digging process because Kiplough’s back hurt often enough, even without the hard work. The Bird had avoided the tunnel all this time (it had taken nearly nine months) because of the gloom, but now, from far away came a faint glow.
“Wait for me.” Kiplough ordered, coming back into the room with a battered old kit bag over his shoulder. The Bird had wandered several steps into the opening. He now hopped out and allowed Kiplough to go first.
The trip through took only about twenty minutes. At the end they emerged in a linoleum-floored corridor lit overhead by fluorescent bulbs in commercial fixtures. The walls were sheetrock painted popcorn white. Here and there hung small framed photographs.
“Is this part of the apartment complex?” The Bird asked.
“I doubt it.” Kiplough examined the photographs which were of celebrities he was not familiar with.
Fallen Dog
The city of Shedge consisted of one immense building. It extended on one side into the waters of the sea and on the other into a dense forest. Mr. Groaf, the current Director General of the city, was enjoying an amateur play on the day that Kiplough made his breakthrough.
During the intermission between Acts one and two Mr. Groaf was introduced to Mavez Abuelia.
“Just here in a strictly dramatically appreciative sense, I hope?” Mr. Groaf joked, trying to keep from staring at Ms. Abuelia’s impressive chest.
“Well, a journalist can never completely relax, but I’m trying. It’s a very good play.” The woman’s teeth were on display with every word.
“We’ll see.” Mr. Groaf could afford to be cynical and dismissive. One was not elected Director General and as Director General he had no time or luxury for women, no matter how multidimensionally attractive. “It’s started well.”
“Director, I’d like you to meet Ned Feese, the chairman of the theater company.” Said one of Mr. Groaf’s friends in the crowd. His attention refocused on the newcomer and it wasn’t until he was back in his seat that he thought of Mavez Abuelia again.
The second act moved the scene of the action from a kitchen in the house of a family of bears to a watchtower overlooking the glaciated pass into the forgotten valley. Mark, hoping to find the solitude he needs to finish his book, discovers that he has been duped; the watchtower is a veritable beehive of activity (or so he describes it in an angry speech). During a trip to the nearby trading post Mark runs into Mrs. Cumberson, his creative writing teacher from his freshman year in college. As she revealed to Mark that her encouragement of his talent had been influence by her heavy marijuana use at the time, Mr. Groaf turned to his companion for the evening, Walt, one of the officers in the cultural liaison department, and said.
“I’m leaving after this act. This is bullshit.”
Ms. Abuelia casually looked about for Mr. Groaf during the next intermission, but said nothing. She made some notes in the toilet.
Rain of Milk
The slow shield penetrates the blade. A keening awareness of one’s own limits is laid out on a long scroll of smudgy blue paper. The device, mounted on a tripod framework over a deep pit filled with a greenish-yellow emanation, was black, bulbous, egg-like. Red, domed lights ringed it twice, once near its somewhat pointy top, and again around its squat equator. In between these lights a hundred or more intricately articulated mechanical arms, also black, ringed the device. They passed pieces of paper endlessly among themselves while faint tinny music came out of a grilled, octagonal box on the very summit of the device.
As Kiplough and the Bird stood with their hands up, surrounded by a dozen centaur-like creatures holding short black plastic pipes that bore buttons and switches along their exteriors, more than an hour passed. Kiplough attempted to communicate with these creatures, but they made no response, nor did they make any sound at all. The creatures did not attempt to harm the two from the tunnel, but would not allow them to leave the middle of the circle they formed.
“What are we going to do?” Kiplough asked. “Stand here all day?”
“Why don’t I try to fly out of here?” The Bird suggested.
“Why?” Kiplough said. “Well, to tell the truth, I did think about that, but where would that leave me?”
In speaking thus these two characters that we identify with took the chance that the creatures around them did not understand their words. At this point I would also like to point out that the Bird, far from being a little tiny bird like a robin or something, was over halfway as tall as Kiplough, although he was proportioned like a smaller bird, maybe a bluebird, for that is what his coloring indicated.
“You know I’d come back for you.” The Bird promised.
“After all the times I’ve tried to thrash you?” Kiplough asked.
“I’d forgotten about that.” The Bird said. “Distract them now.” He told Kiplough, who dropped to the ground while his companion jumped up.
I Simply State the Facts
Mundig, a technician employed by the Bolsis to overseer forward operations, was returning home on the miniature train. He was seated next to Radny Grober, a broadcast analyst with the commercialization corps.
“So, how’s it going?” Grober asked.
“Pretty good.” Mundig replied in a subdued voice.
“You got the weekend off?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’ve got permanent weekends off.” Grober was jealous. He would have been somewhat deferential as well, had Mundig anything to do with his department, but the commercialization corps and the frontline boys were totally separate.
“Yeah.” Mundig and Grober knew each other vaguely. They had each attended the same training session once and been teamed as study partners. Mundig had no hard animosity towards the guy, but was happy he didn’t have to work with him on a daily basis.
“What can you tell me about your end?” Grober dropped his voice.
“Nothing that you can’t guess.” Mundig looked up into Grober’s eyes. “You’ve probably got as much, if not more, insight into the overall campaign.”
Grober responded noncommittally, edging into dubiety, and eventually the talk drifted into commonplaces for the remainder of Mundig’s ride. Mundig got off at the entrance to a residential area for executives and other personnel with high security clearances. This area was full of small, mobile housing units. The one Mundig and his family had been assigned was on the second row. As he fitted his key in the door he heard his children’s feet pounding towards him.
“Daddy! Daddy!” They greeted him. He divided his attentions between them and his wife, who stood smiling nearby. When he had a moment for more than mere pleasantries, Mundig told her something he could not tell Grober.
“Phase three is complete.” He said quietly. Even the children must not hear what they might repeat to unauthorized ears.
“How soon can we move out of this trailer?” Were the woman’s first words.
Guess Who Doesn’t Care
“I got that sore in my nose again.” Bedlans Primo called from the table where he was eating his dinner to his wife Nances, who was peering out the window. She had watched carefully for Mundig’s arrival.
“He just got home.” Nances announced.
“It means I can’t pick my nose without pain.”
“His children meet him at the door—how nice.” Her tone was far from appreciative. The Primos’ unit was on the front row of the orderly arrangement of units; Bedlans Primo was a supervisor-in-chief of postal operations and as such deserved to have his housing unit in such a position.
“Why don’t you stop staring at those people?” Bedlans demanded. “And listen to my problems.” Is what he wanted to add, but wouldn’t, because he knew that if he did, Nances would only dish out her own list of problems. A fine dessert that would be.
“It’s not fair that that man and his cutesy little family is right up behind us on the second row, here in the first quadrant.” Nances turned back to face her husband of six years. “He’s just some technician.” She flung one of her long, bony hands up by her face where it quavered like a hovering dragonfly. “I don’t know how he got assigned one of the class 11B units. Did you know they have a Distrainto TV system? He didn’t buy that on his salary. That was requisitioned for them!”
Bedlans Primo glanced at the ceiling and the walls.
“What kind of unit is this?” He asked with his eyebrows together.
“We’ve only got a… oh, the unit? This is an 11A; the B has an extra sink.” Nance’s tone indicated what an outrage it all was.
After dinner the couple settled down in a calmer mood in front of their TV to enjoy Still Life Surprise, a spin-off of the old Tracy Governor Show, which, it was rumored, was generated directly from the dream cycles of Paraftylloben itself, the gargantuan sentient computer whom the Bolsis was organized to serve.
“So they have a Distrainto, eh?” Bedlans mused, looking carefully at the frame that surrounded the TV screen.
Still Life Surprise
Tracy Governor, too old now to play the adventurous Dr. Haggaring, the role she had made famous on The Tracy Governor Show, had taken on the part of the introducer on Still Life Surprise, a program that delved into the mysteries of everyday existence and speculated upon other possible configurations of life. Unbeknownst to anyone in the Bolsis, she had made contact with Mr. Goosen of the city of Shedge far ahead of the scheduled invasion the Bolsis planned of that city. Angered and depressed that she had been shunted aside in favor of younger actresses, she wanted to see if Goosen could give her another shot at stardom. Live theater had long ago died out among the peoples of the Bolsis; everything was films now. Her blood quickened as she thought of Mr. Goosen’s dramatic productions
In order to make contact with Goosen, in face the method by which she learned of the theater aspects of Shedge and the famous playwright’s existence, Tracy Governor had used the services of Margravine Revich, a lady Hurrer (those six-limbed creatures a dozen of whom held Don Kiplough and the Bird prisoner) and teletechnipeptic seer. This old lady Hurrer, older even than Tracy Governor, lived in a modest tower in the Unelelands, a region the Bolsis forces had annexed sixty years before, and which bordered Double Assembly Zone Five, the region where the Bolsis were preparing for the invasion of Shedge. On the day Tracy Governor hoped would be her last episode of Still Life Surprise was broadcast, Margravine Revich was working in her small garden. A servant appeared at the door to the balcony where the garden grew.
“Madam, your nephew is here.” He announced.
“Is he?” The Margravine asked, looking around. “Send him up here.” She turned back to the series of heavy buckets that contained the asymmetrical stick plants and randomly selected iron ornaments that formed he garden. A minute later her nephew joined her.
“Aunt Revich!” Geoffrey Porter hailed the margravine from the doorway. The two embraced briefly and then the lady asked,
“Would you like some soup? It’s almost lunchtime.”
Soup is Good Food
“Mmm, corn chowder!” Geoffrey Porter, still boyish-looking despite his forty-six years, tasted his first spoonful of the soup.
“Have you noticed, Geoffrey, that the best foods are the ones that come in many different varieties?” Lady Revich asked. They were sitting at a table on the balcony on the other side of the tower from the balcony holding the garden.
“Do you mean ‘good for you’ in the nutritional sense or ‘good-tasting?’” Porter asked. He was dressed in a gray suit of what is called an Ivy League cut (tailored, of course, for the unique Hurrer body design). On the lapel he wore a button with a picture of Captain Beefheart on it.
“Both.” Answered the Margravine, though she had not. She had ony meant most elemental or most satisfying, but saw on reflection that the ideas Geoffrey brought up were valid as well. “I mean, look at soup, bread, cheese, and… apples.” She had run out of examples sooner than she expected.
“Apples?” Porter snickered. “I know what you mean. Yes. Take pasta, for example.”
“Yes! Pasta! That’s another one.”
“Of course, you couldn’t really say there were a wide variety of lasagnas.” Porter was finishing his bowl of soup by dabbing out the last remainders with a piece of roll.
“‘Were’ a variety?” Lady Revich questioned. “Wouldn’t it be ‘was’ a variety?”
Porter considered.
“Yes, possibly. But the lasagnas are plural and the word ‘variety’ is essentially standing in for them.”
“But ‘variety’ is singular, no matter if it is indicating a plethora of choices or a variety of something, such as a variety of some plant.”
“But that would be a varietal, wouldn’t it?” Porter took up the coffee that had been placed before him by one of the servants and glanced casually over the squalid village of Lambuth below.
Labuthine Laborer
The small town of Lambuth consisted of a host of little buildings crowded together and distributed over four hills that were nearly as close together themselves as the town’s narrow streets. The post office in Lambuth was charged with the task of delivering mail to each of these little buildings, including the margravine’s tower. One of the post office’s employees, a clerk named Brindel, happened to be married to one of Lady Revich’s servants. They lived in on the buildings closest to the tower.
“Willoughby tried to cheat me of one of my breaks.” Brindel announced to his wife, Darnana, as she returned home from the tower.
“Really?” She replied, not that interested. She put down a hamper of fresh parsnips on a chair and announced her own news.
“Well, let me tell you what happened at the tower today.”
“What?” Brindel folded his monthly issue of the Laborer, a union newsmagazine, and threw it into the fireplace.
“Lady Revich’s nephew Geoffrey Porter, the one that lives in Domicilia, visited with her today.”
“Yeah?” Brindel resented being referred to as a “laborer.” He dreamt of being self-employed, making a living selling his wood sculptures. This would never happen, though, because everything he carved was hideously distorted and had nothing to do with the mundane thought life of the average person.
“We overheard them talking and apparently the Bolsis are going to extend the reach of Paraftylloben into the next world they’re invading.” Darnana said this as she took off her shoes and put them on a rack.
“If it weren’t for our boys they wouldn’t be invading.” Brindel groused.
“It’s not our fault.” Darnana protested. “They made us…”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Brindel interrupted. He got to his feet, not out of strong emotion, but to psychologically hurry the dinner preparations along. “I mean that they wouldn’t be able to invade if we weren’t providing the backbone of their army.”
“If that’s true, then it’s the only backbone I’ve ever heard of that faces to the front.” Darnana staggered her husband with her cleverness.
Speaking of Our Boys
As the Bird flew back up the tunnel and the circle of guards tightened around Kiplough, another person entered the large chamber where these events took place. His name was Frank Hurdle, as he almost immediately informed Kiplough. He was Mundig’s assistant.
“And who are you?” He asked the prisoner.
“My name is Don Kiplough. And I’ve got to pee.”
Hurdle addressed the guards. He asked them details of their actions.
“This unauthorized person entered the facility from the office. He was accompanied by a large bird that escaped just as you entered.” One of the guards answered.
“So you can speak!” Kiplough interjected.
“Two of you take this man to the restroom.” Hurdle directed.
In the large, well-appointed, and surprisingly clean restroom Kiplough was diverted from the first stall he chose by one of the guards.
“Those are for Hurrers only.” The guard said. “Use this one.” This guard then prevented Kiplough from closing the door to the stall.
“Can’t I have some privacy?” Kiplough whined.
“I thought you had to pee.” The guard retorted.
“Fine.” Kiplough turned to his back and, though it was hard for him to summon the urine while being the presence of others, not to speak of being watched by them, managed to do so.
“So they make you use separate toilet fixtures, do they?” Kiplough asked as he peed, as much to make himself feel more casual than for any attempt at gathering information.
“We pretty much have to, since we’re built so different from you.”
Kiplough wondered if their penises were larger than the average human male’s. If so, that would probably make them huge compared to his. Perhaps it should be explained that Hurrers are not “animals,” and although centaur-like, do wear clothing. Kiplough finished with tears in his eyes and backed out of the stall.
“Come on, man, flush the toilet.” The guard urged. Kiplough did as he was asked, shrugging his shoulders.
Mundig Receives A Message
In the middle of Red Gallimanfry’s Sleepover, a TV program not popular with the general public, who, for the most part, were too stupid to get the jokes, the doorbell to Mundig’s housing unit sounded.
“Who is that?” Mundig’s wife Ellen asked.
“I’m not psychic, Ellen.” Is what Mundig wanted to answer, as sarcastically as possible. Instead he let a silly-voiced “I don’t know” suffice.
At the door was a uniformed trooper, a human one.
“Message for you, sir.” The man handed over a small piece of blue paper folded in half. After Mundig had begun reading the man asked,
“Will there be any answer, sir?”
Mundig sighed deeply.
“No. Thank you.” He nodded at the soldier and closed the door on him.
“What was it?” Asked Ellen.
“Frank says he’s caught an intruder. He’s holding him at the office.” Mundig resumed his seat on the sofa. He was thankful that the interruption had come during the middle of a commercial break.
“An intruder.” Ellen repeated.
“He says he’s from Shedge.”
“From Shedge?!” Ellen said sharply. Not too sharply, though; the children were asleep. “How does he know? How did he get here?”
The show had come back on. Mundig watched it carefully.
“Turk!” Yes, that was Mundig’s first name. “How does he know?”
“The man told him so.” Mundig replied distractedly, irritated. He wanted to watch the program.
“He has to be lying.”
“No, he tunneled down. He showed Frank the tunnel.”
“He tunneled?”
“Ellen!” Mundig reproached her. “Red Gallimanfry.” He pointed at the TV.
“This is more important than TV. Shouldn’t you do something?”
“Frank wants me to come down there right now.” Mundig confessed.
“Don’t you think you should?”
“I’m off the clock. So, no.”
Kiplough’s hobby, digging a tunnel through the back wall of the spare bedroom, occupied most of his time when at home. The dirt excavated, a black, breadlike substance, he transported in grocery bags to the city’s pump facility and dumped into the recycling pit. He emerged from the tunnel one day with a strange look in his eyes.
“What is it?” The Bird asked.
“I’ve broken through.” Kiplough sat heavily down on the much repaired chair in the room.
“To what?”
“I don’t know. Another tunnel it looks like.”
“You mean someone else has been digging out too? What are the chances…” The Bird stopped talking as Kiplough looked at him with disdain.
“Well, let me look at it.” The Bird begged.
“Let me pee first, then we’ll go together.” Kiplough got up and left the room. While he was gone, the Bird poked his head into the tunnel. It’s opening was large; Kiplough could easily walk into it upright. It narrowed somewhat further in, but remained high enough for Kiplough to stand. This had been necessary during the digging process because Kiplough’s back hurt often enough, even without the hard work. The Bird had avoided the tunnel all this time (it had taken nearly nine months) because of the gloom, but now, from far away came a faint glow.
“Wait for me.” Kiplough ordered, coming back into the room with a battered old kit bag over his shoulder. The Bird had wandered several steps into the opening. He now hopped out and allowed Kiplough to go first.
The trip through took only about twenty minutes. At the end they emerged in a linoleum-floored corridor lit overhead by fluorescent bulbs in commercial fixtures. The walls were sheetrock painted popcorn white. Here and there hung small framed photographs.
“Is this part of the apartment complex?” The Bird asked.
“I doubt it.” Kiplough examined the photographs which were of celebrities he was not familiar with.
Fallen Dog
The city of Shedge consisted of one immense building. It extended on one side into the waters of the sea and on the other into a dense forest. Mr. Groaf, the current Director General of the city, was enjoying an amateur play on the day that Kiplough made his breakthrough.
During the intermission between Acts one and two Mr. Groaf was introduced to Mavez Abuelia.
“Just here in a strictly dramatically appreciative sense, I hope?” Mr. Groaf joked, trying to keep from staring at Ms. Abuelia’s impressive chest.
“Well, a journalist can never completely relax, but I’m trying. It’s a very good play.” The woman’s teeth were on display with every word.
“We’ll see.” Mr. Groaf could afford to be cynical and dismissive. One was not elected Director General and as Director General he had no time or luxury for women, no matter how multidimensionally attractive. “It’s started well.”
“Director, I’d like you to meet Ned Feese, the chairman of the theater company.” Said one of Mr. Groaf’s friends in the crowd. His attention refocused on the newcomer and it wasn’t until he was back in his seat that he thought of Mavez Abuelia again.
The second act moved the scene of the action from a kitchen in the house of a family of bears to a watchtower overlooking the glaciated pass into the forgotten valley. Mark, hoping to find the solitude he needs to finish his book, discovers that he has been duped; the watchtower is a veritable beehive of activity (or so he describes it in an angry speech). During a trip to the nearby trading post Mark runs into Mrs. Cumberson, his creative writing teacher from his freshman year in college. As she revealed to Mark that her encouragement of his talent had been influence by her heavy marijuana use at the time, Mr. Groaf turned to his companion for the evening, Walt, one of the officers in the cultural liaison department, and said.
“I’m leaving after this act. This is bullshit.”
Ms. Abuelia casually looked about for Mr. Groaf during the next intermission, but said nothing. She made some notes in the toilet.
Rain of Milk
The slow shield penetrates the blade. A keening awareness of one’s own limits is laid out on a long scroll of smudgy blue paper. The device, mounted on a tripod framework over a deep pit filled with a greenish-yellow emanation, was black, bulbous, egg-like. Red, domed lights ringed it twice, once near its somewhat pointy top, and again around its squat equator. In between these lights a hundred or more intricately articulated mechanical arms, also black, ringed the device. They passed pieces of paper endlessly among themselves while faint tinny music came out of a grilled, octagonal box on the very summit of the device.
As Kiplough and the Bird stood with their hands up, surrounded by a dozen centaur-like creatures holding short black plastic pipes that bore buttons and switches along their exteriors, more than an hour passed. Kiplough attempted to communicate with these creatures, but they made no response, nor did they make any sound at all. The creatures did not attempt to harm the two from the tunnel, but would not allow them to leave the middle of the circle they formed.
“What are we going to do?” Kiplough asked. “Stand here all day?”
“Why don’t I try to fly out of here?” The Bird suggested.
“Why?” Kiplough said. “Well, to tell the truth, I did think about that, but where would that leave me?”
In speaking thus these two characters that we identify with took the chance that the creatures around them did not understand their words. At this point I would also like to point out that the Bird, far from being a little tiny bird like a robin or something, was over halfway as tall as Kiplough, although he was proportioned like a smaller bird, maybe a bluebird, for that is what his coloring indicated.
“You know I’d come back for you.” The Bird promised.
“After all the times I’ve tried to thrash you?” Kiplough asked.
“I’d forgotten about that.” The Bird said. “Distract them now.” He told Kiplough, who dropped to the ground while his companion jumped up.
I Simply State the Facts
Mundig, a technician employed by the Bolsis to overseer forward operations, was returning home on the miniature train. He was seated next to Radny Grober, a broadcast analyst with the commercialization corps.
“So, how’s it going?” Grober asked.
“Pretty good.” Mundig replied in a subdued voice.
“You got the weekend off?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’ve got permanent weekends off.” Grober was jealous. He would have been somewhat deferential as well, had Mundig anything to do with his department, but the commercialization corps and the frontline boys were totally separate.
“Yeah.” Mundig and Grober knew each other vaguely. They had each attended the same training session once and been teamed as study partners. Mundig had no hard animosity towards the guy, but was happy he didn’t have to work with him on a daily basis.
“What can you tell me about your end?” Grober dropped his voice.
“Nothing that you can’t guess.” Mundig looked up into Grober’s eyes. “You’ve probably got as much, if not more, insight into the overall campaign.”
Grober responded noncommittally, edging into dubiety, and eventually the talk drifted into commonplaces for the remainder of Mundig’s ride. Mundig got off at the entrance to a residential area for executives and other personnel with high security clearances. This area was full of small, mobile housing units. The one Mundig and his family had been assigned was on the second row. As he fitted his key in the door he heard his children’s feet pounding towards him.
“Daddy! Daddy!” They greeted him. He divided his attentions between them and his wife, who stood smiling nearby. When he had a moment for more than mere pleasantries, Mundig told her something he could not tell Grober.
“Phase three is complete.” He said quietly. Even the children must not hear what they might repeat to unauthorized ears.
“How soon can we move out of this trailer?” Were the woman’s first words.
Guess Who Doesn’t Care
“I got that sore in my nose again.” Bedlans Primo called from the table where he was eating his dinner to his wife Nances, who was peering out the window. She had watched carefully for Mundig’s arrival.
“He just got home.” Nances announced.
“It means I can’t pick my nose without pain.”
“His children meet him at the door—how nice.” Her tone was far from appreciative. The Primos’ unit was on the front row of the orderly arrangement of units; Bedlans Primo was a supervisor-in-chief of postal operations and as such deserved to have his housing unit in such a position.
“Why don’t you stop staring at those people?” Bedlans demanded. “And listen to my problems.” Is what he wanted to add, but wouldn’t, because he knew that if he did, Nances would only dish out her own list of problems. A fine dessert that would be.
“It’s not fair that that man and his cutesy little family is right up behind us on the second row, here in the first quadrant.” Nances turned back to face her husband of six years. “He’s just some technician.” She flung one of her long, bony hands up by her face where it quavered like a hovering dragonfly. “I don’t know how he got assigned one of the class 11B units. Did you know they have a Distrainto TV system? He didn’t buy that on his salary. That was requisitioned for them!”
Bedlans Primo glanced at the ceiling and the walls.
“What kind of unit is this?” He asked with his eyebrows together.
“We’ve only got a… oh, the unit? This is an 11A; the B has an extra sink.” Nance’s tone indicated what an outrage it all was.
After dinner the couple settled down in a calmer mood in front of their TV to enjoy Still Life Surprise, a spin-off of the old Tracy Governor Show, which, it was rumored, was generated directly from the dream cycles of Paraftylloben itself, the gargantuan sentient computer whom the Bolsis was organized to serve.
“So they have a Distrainto, eh?” Bedlans mused, looking carefully at the frame that surrounded the TV screen.
Still Life Surprise
Tracy Governor, too old now to play the adventurous Dr. Haggaring, the role she had made famous on The Tracy Governor Show, had taken on the part of the introducer on Still Life Surprise, a program that delved into the mysteries of everyday existence and speculated upon other possible configurations of life. Unbeknownst to anyone in the Bolsis, she had made contact with Mr. Goosen of the city of Shedge far ahead of the scheduled invasion the Bolsis planned of that city. Angered and depressed that she had been shunted aside in favor of younger actresses, she wanted to see if Goosen could give her another shot at stardom. Live theater had long ago died out among the peoples of the Bolsis; everything was films now. Her blood quickened as she thought of Mr. Goosen’s dramatic productions
In order to make contact with Goosen, in face the method by which she learned of the theater aspects of Shedge and the famous playwright’s existence, Tracy Governor had used the services of Margravine Revich, a lady Hurrer (those six-limbed creatures a dozen of whom held Don Kiplough and the Bird prisoner) and teletechnipeptic seer. This old lady Hurrer, older even than Tracy Governor, lived in a modest tower in the Unelelands, a region the Bolsis forces had annexed sixty years before, and which bordered Double Assembly Zone Five, the region where the Bolsis were preparing for the invasion of Shedge. On the day Tracy Governor hoped would be her last episode of Still Life Surprise was broadcast, Margravine Revich was working in her small garden. A servant appeared at the door to the balcony where the garden grew.
“Madam, your nephew is here.” He announced.
“Is he?” The Margravine asked, looking around. “Send him up here.” She turned back to the series of heavy buckets that contained the asymmetrical stick plants and randomly selected iron ornaments that formed he garden. A minute later her nephew joined her.
“Aunt Revich!” Geoffrey Porter hailed the margravine from the doorway. The two embraced briefly and then the lady asked,
“Would you like some soup? It’s almost lunchtime.”
Soup is Good Food
“Mmm, corn chowder!” Geoffrey Porter, still boyish-looking despite his forty-six years, tasted his first spoonful of the soup.
“Have you noticed, Geoffrey, that the best foods are the ones that come in many different varieties?” Lady Revich asked. They were sitting at a table on the balcony on the other side of the tower from the balcony holding the garden.
“Do you mean ‘good for you’ in the nutritional sense or ‘good-tasting?’” Porter asked. He was dressed in a gray suit of what is called an Ivy League cut (tailored, of course, for the unique Hurrer body design). On the lapel he wore a button with a picture of Captain Beefheart on it.
“Both.” Answered the Margravine, though she had not. She had ony meant most elemental or most satisfying, but saw on reflection that the ideas Geoffrey brought up were valid as well. “I mean, look at soup, bread, cheese, and… apples.” She had run out of examples sooner than she expected.
“Apples?” Porter snickered. “I know what you mean. Yes. Take pasta, for example.”
“Yes! Pasta! That’s another one.”
“Of course, you couldn’t really say there were a wide variety of lasagnas.” Porter was finishing his bowl of soup by dabbing out the last remainders with a piece of roll.
“‘Were’ a variety?” Lady Revich questioned. “Wouldn’t it be ‘was’ a variety?”
Porter considered.
“Yes, possibly. But the lasagnas are plural and the word ‘variety’ is essentially standing in for them.”
“But ‘variety’ is singular, no matter if it is indicating a plethora of choices or a variety of something, such as a variety of some plant.”
“But that would be a varietal, wouldn’t it?” Porter took up the coffee that had been placed before him by one of the servants and glanced casually over the squalid village of Lambuth below.
Labuthine Laborer
The small town of Lambuth consisted of a host of little buildings crowded together and distributed over four hills that were nearly as close together themselves as the town’s narrow streets. The post office in Lambuth was charged with the task of delivering mail to each of these little buildings, including the margravine’s tower. One of the post office’s employees, a clerk named Brindel, happened to be married to one of Lady Revich’s servants. They lived in on the buildings closest to the tower.
“Willoughby tried to cheat me of one of my breaks.” Brindel announced to his wife, Darnana, as she returned home from the tower.
“Really?” She replied, not that interested. She put down a hamper of fresh parsnips on a chair and announced her own news.
“Well, let me tell you what happened at the tower today.”
“What?” Brindel folded his monthly issue of the Laborer, a union newsmagazine, and threw it into the fireplace.
“Lady Revich’s nephew Geoffrey Porter, the one that lives in Domicilia, visited with her today.”
“Yeah?” Brindel resented being referred to as a “laborer.” He dreamt of being self-employed, making a living selling his wood sculptures. This would never happen, though, because everything he carved was hideously distorted and had nothing to do with the mundane thought life of the average person.
“We overheard them talking and apparently the Bolsis are going to extend the reach of Paraftylloben into the next world they’re invading.” Darnana said this as she took off her shoes and put them on a rack.
“If it weren’t for our boys they wouldn’t be invading.” Brindel groused.
“It’s not our fault.” Darnana protested. “They made us…”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Brindel interrupted. He got to his feet, not out of strong emotion, but to psychologically hurry the dinner preparations along. “I mean that they wouldn’t be able to invade if we weren’t providing the backbone of their army.”
“If that’s true, then it’s the only backbone I’ve ever heard of that faces to the front.” Darnana staggered her husband with her cleverness.
Speaking of Our Boys
As the Bird flew back up the tunnel and the circle of guards tightened around Kiplough, another person entered the large chamber where these events took place. His name was Frank Hurdle, as he almost immediately informed Kiplough. He was Mundig’s assistant.
“And who are you?” He asked the prisoner.
“My name is Don Kiplough. And I’ve got to pee.”
Hurdle addressed the guards. He asked them details of their actions.
“This unauthorized person entered the facility from the office. He was accompanied by a large bird that escaped just as you entered.” One of the guards answered.
“So you can speak!” Kiplough interjected.
“Two of you take this man to the restroom.” Hurdle directed.
In the large, well-appointed, and surprisingly clean restroom Kiplough was diverted from the first stall he chose by one of the guards.
“Those are for Hurrers only.” The guard said. “Use this one.” This guard then prevented Kiplough from closing the door to the stall.
“Can’t I have some privacy?” Kiplough whined.
“I thought you had to pee.” The guard retorted.
“Fine.” Kiplough turned to his back and, though it was hard for him to summon the urine while being the presence of others, not to speak of being watched by them, managed to do so.
“So they make you use separate toilet fixtures, do they?” Kiplough asked as he peed, as much to make himself feel more casual than for any attempt at gathering information.
“We pretty much have to, since we’re built so different from you.”
Kiplough wondered if their penises were larger than the average human male’s. If so, that would probably make them huge compared to his. Perhaps it should be explained that Hurrers are not “animals,” and although centaur-like, do wear clothing. Kiplough finished with tears in his eyes and backed out of the stall.
“Come on, man, flush the toilet.” The guard urged. Kiplough did as he was asked, shrugging his shoulders.
Mundig Receives A Message
In the middle of Red Gallimanfry’s Sleepover, a TV program not popular with the general public, who, for the most part, were too stupid to get the jokes, the doorbell to Mundig’s housing unit sounded.
“Who is that?” Mundig’s wife Ellen asked.
“I’m not psychic, Ellen.” Is what Mundig wanted to answer, as sarcastically as possible. Instead he let a silly-voiced “I don’t know” suffice.
At the door was a uniformed trooper, a human one.
“Message for you, sir.” The man handed over a small piece of blue paper folded in half. After Mundig had begun reading the man asked,
“Will there be any answer, sir?”
Mundig sighed deeply.
“No. Thank you.” He nodded at the soldier and closed the door on him.
“What was it?” Asked Ellen.
“Frank says he’s caught an intruder. He’s holding him at the office.” Mundig resumed his seat on the sofa. He was thankful that the interruption had come during the middle of a commercial break.
“An intruder.” Ellen repeated.
“He says he’s from Shedge.”
“From Shedge?!” Ellen said sharply. Not too sharply, though; the children were asleep. “How does he know? How did he get here?”
The show had come back on. Mundig watched it carefully.
“Turk!” Yes, that was Mundig’s first name. “How does he know?”
“The man told him so.” Mundig replied distractedly, irritated. He wanted to watch the program.
“He has to be lying.”
“No, he tunneled down. He showed Frank the tunnel.”
“He tunneled?”
“Ellen!” Mundig reproached her. “Red Gallimanfry.” He pointed at the TV.
“This is more important than TV. Shouldn’t you do something?”
“Frank wants me to come down there right now.” Mundig confessed.
“Don’t you think you should?”
“I’m off the clock. So, no.”
"When The Pickles Run Out"
Original cover art for Brutally Haggard, a novel written and self-published in 2006.
Brutally Haggard, Part 1
by TOADSGOAD, Lance Ash
Other Than Another Night of Conformity
The new issue of Crossword Obsessive had arrived in the mail that morning. Clementa had resisted opening it until that evening when a TV program she had somehow gotten into the habit of watching was about to begin. Now she did so, resisting instead the temptation to tune into that week’s installment of Grimalkin and Goth. The program was patently pandering; she had cursed herself each time she succumbed to it.
Clementa had prepared a bowlful of instant grits to eat as she solved the first puzzle. She ate with a small spoon, relishing each bite with the same delight some hulking tub of a man might a box of ice cream. The first clue in puzzle #1 presented itself to her: “Zeus’ obligatory mindset.” She was one for working her way methodically through all the across clues, skipping the ones she didn’t immediately know, before moving on to the down ones. As she penciled in “impartial” in the nine empty boxes, a noise came through the wall of her apartment, just above and to the left of her head.
“Not tonight!” She moaned, listening as noises akin to the first continued, somewhat softer, though not by much, somewhere inside the apartment adjacent to hers. Clementa sat rooted for a moment before declaring in her old woman’s cracked whisper,
“Fuck it.”
She put the magazine down, open-faced, on the sofa seat beside her and heaved herself up. She snapped on the TV.
“Might as well see it through.” She thought. She noted that she had missed the opening credits and the insipid theme song. Was she but a plaything in the hands of the gods of mediocrity? Of course she was! Zeus wouldn’t do this to her, she thought. That was her last substantial thought for the next hour, aside from self-incriminating ones.
Next door the noises either ceased or blended in with the laugh track, incidental music, explosions, pop tunes, and hip exposition of Grimalkin and Goth, episode GB725, “Ruthless Precaution.”
For All You Know It Could Be Yours
Huck Feral, who played the scheming, manipulative Grimalkin on Swag Broadcasting’s Grimalkin and Goth, wasn’t smart enough in real life to be considered scheming, nor mean-spirited enough to be thought manipulative. Still, he recognized his need to have these normally despised qualities at his disposal. This is why he employed Malder Stang as his personal manager. The two men met backstage at a small theater where Feral was rehearsing a play.
“I’m trying to get you a part in Mr. Goosen’s new ensemble picture. Stang spoke in a low tone so that the unknowns lurking behind the cardboard scenery wouldn’t hear.
Huck Feral, costumed as an anthropomorphic tree, nodded stiffly. His bark limited his movements.
“Good.” He whispered back. “I like Goosen.”
“Remember to call him Mr, Goosen when you meet.” Stang’s voice dropped even lower.
“Right. I’ll remember.” Feral nodded again. His face was painted brown and green. He wore over-sized horn-rimmed spectacles. “To make me look wise.” He explained to Stang.
“Can you scratch my nose?” He asked his manager.
“Why are you doing this?” Stang asked as he delicately scratched.
“Because I love the theater.” Feral declared in a louder, conversational tone.
“Then let me try to get you something a little more prestigious.” Stang suggested. “Though it won’t pay much better.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Feral glanced out to the auditorium where the director was talking to a couple of girls. “You won’t see Ben Stupor Little doing legitimate theater.” He snorted.
Ben Stupor Little was Feral’s co-star on Grimalkin and Goth, portraying the latter character, a disaffected college student in mystical league with a malevolent spirit-being named Grimalkin.
“You won’t see him playing a tree either.” Stang thought, but said nothing of the kind. He thought enviously of Little’s burgeoning singing career.
Unflappable Wingman Anxious to Land
In Schutser’s stomach was starting to dissolve. He sat down at his small desk and began work on his big novel.
“He works so hard.” Mrs. Cross told her friend John. From where they sat together on her ragged old sofa they could see down the hall to the door to Schutser’s room. John studied the closed door as he held his cup of coffee just below his chin.
“Has he ever showed you any of his writing?” The stocky old man asked.
“No, and I haven’t asked.” Mrs. Cross kept his voice low.
“Tell him I’d like to read something he’s written.” John had only met Schutser twice before, each time consisting of the briefest of greetings. Then Schutser had quickly retreated to his room. John knew what it was to be shy. His first sea voyage, when he was but a boy of sixteen, he didn’t speak to anyone the length of their trip across the sea and back. That was a story he had already told Mrs. Cross more than a couple of times.
“How old is he?” He asked his friend.
“Thirty-one, I belive.”
“Thirty-one?” John paused in sipping his coffee. “I would have taken him for twenty-one. Odd that a man of his age should be so shy. By the time I was thirty-one I was giving speeches at labor rallies.”
“He’s a writer, John. He’s sensitive.” Mrs. Cross defended her lodger.
At his desk Schutser was beginning to feel the effects of the pill. He couldn’t write without this influence, at least, not up to the standard that he had set for himself. His terror in facing the next page was that he would not be able to match the high points of his writing in the past. The fact that he had no clear idea what it was about these past triumphs that made him like them so much added to his difficulties. He avoided studying his own writing, avoided breaking it down to find the answer for fear that he would spoil the magic.
Enduring the Cabbage
Kiplough stopped trying to hit the bird after nearly ten minutes. He slumped down on the futon bunched against the wall opposite the one he shared with Clementa. Not sleepy, though tired, he fell over on his side and stared blankly at the scuff marks on the wall where he had thrown the bird-punisher against it.
He was dressed in dirty khaki slacks of some stiff material. Each of heavy shoes protruded from the legs of the slacks like a giant crow trying to climb out of an industrial chimney. He wore a duffel coat that engulfed him like butcher paper around a rump roast. The coat was stained like the slacks, scuffed like the wall. Kiplough was a big, thick-set man without much of a neck, over-sized ears, a nose like a rutabaga too big to cook, the last rutabaga in the bin, the one nobody picked, though Kiplough picked it often enough. His hard was shortish and ragged. He cut it himself.
“To save money.” He told the bird. It was mainly the tipping that bothered him.
“So go to a man barber, an old-fashioned one. They don’t require tipping.” The bird suggested.
Kiplough looked at once wistful and bitter.
“Ah, those days are gone.” He moaned. “That kind of barber doesn’t exist anymore.”
Kiplough felt an affinity with a mélange of portions of the past two hundred years. This affinity was tempered with a total bafflement as to how people got along without air conditioning and under the restrictions of rigid codes of behavior. This was in turn offset by a loathing of modern life and the sub-mental humans Kiplough had to share the world with.
He lay on the futon hoping that sleep would take him. The bird, possibly a figment of his imagination, was nowhere to be seen. Through the wall Kiplough could hear Clementa’s TV dishing out its sugary salmagundi of mass amusement.
“Why should I bother buying a TV when I’ve got hers?” Kiplough asked.
Winning Entry Staves off Indigestion
The book Schutser was working on was called Mealy Mouthed. Because he had no exact idea of what he was going to write about and felt constricted by plotting things out, Schutser was constructing the book one page at a time. Each page could stand alone as a little story unto itself, but was linked, perhaps only by the most tenuous of connections, to one or more other pages so that read together they would hopefully forma satisfying book experience.
The main character in the book was a magically empowered being named Rectanglo, lord of a great estate contained, in violation of the laws of physics, inside a room seemingly the size of a racquetball court outside which was the void of no space, no time. Rectanglo is constantly torn between his attempts at improving his realm and his desire to travel beyond the void (in violation, apparently, of the tenets of the book) to other worlds. On the page being written at the time of this page being narrated (Schutser wrote two pages a day; I narrate two a day) Rectanglo had stopped by a small well in one of the barren, sparsely populated corners of his realm, which realm was named Fernboot, by the way. Here he met with a young woman drawing water for her family’s goats.
“Can I get a drink?” Rectanglo asked.
“I don’t know; can you?” The woman asked.
“Evidently she is educated.” Thought Rectanglo. “My reforms are working.”
“You’re right.” He said to the woman. “May I get a drink?”
“Go ahead.” The woman jerked her head at the well, thinking that if this stranger thought she was going to get it for him, he was sadly mistaken.
Rectanglo drew up the smoothly worn bucket and dipped his traveling cup, which he kept in his book bag, into the water.
“She doesn’t know who I am.” He thought as he drank.
Obviously, these are not Schutser’s words. I have given you the gist of the story in my own style, which is much better than Schutser’s.
Picked Up the Clown by the False Nose
On a Tuesday, if contemporaneously written records are correct, Kiplough returned to his place of residence after a trip to the local market. His apartment like those of Clementa, Mrs. Cross, and John, was located on a long, underground hallway. The entirety of this hallway, walls, doors, ceiling, and the shag carpeting that covered the floor, was purple. The numbers on the doors were black, making them relatively easy to read, even in the dim light. Kiplough’s apartment number was 00152.
In contrast to the purple hallway, at least for the short interval the door was open, Kiplough’s apartment was uniformly lime green. He had left the entryway light on and now stood there closing the door and looking across the hall for any neighbors who might be watching. For whatever reasons, he suspected that his apartment was the best one in the complex, perhaps for its green color. He jealously guarded it and the sensations it gave.
The bird, perched on one end of the kitchen table, pecked at the treat Kiplough had brought him; a six pack of cinnamon pastry swirls.
“I like the pecan bits.” The bird commented.
“Good.” Kiplough said. He was thumbing backwards through a magazine he had brought, Nose of Nose’s End. This magazine, which Kiplough bought only intermittently, and always to his regret, was intended for the disaffected auto-didact with more than a modicum of illusion about his potential for personal sex appeal. The reason Kiplough ended up regretting the purchase was that it cost money, and that he was so disaffected and contrary to everyone else that he became embittered at those images of others supposedly like him, but clearly inferior, who were achieving fame and the society of others like themselves.
“Look at the title of this article.” Kiplough held the open magazine up to the bird’s sight. “‘The Most Alienated Man of All’ Ha! They don’t know a damn thing about me!”
“They never will, either, probably.” Said the bird.
“And look at these sculptures he carved out of wood.” Kiplough pointed. “They’re terrible.”
Erectile Anomaly in the Motor Tilter
Certain faces in the book were familiar to Gravely. He studied them closely, trying to form connections between them and his life. As he flipped back and forth through the pages he sipped his can of reduced calorie soda pop through a straw.
“How many of those cans of soda has he had?” Fungral the engineer asked Becky as they watched Gravely through the one-way glass (similar to a two-way mirror).
“Three.” Becky replied. “You say ‘soda?’” She asked.
“Or pop. Why, what do you say?”
“We always said ‘soft drink’ where I come from.” Becky was from the hot, humid, rural region to the south of Shedge.
“That’s the old way.” Fungral dismissed her hick upbringing.
“I see.” Becky, torn between shame and pride in her origins, did not know that “ambivalent” did not mean the same thing as “indifferent.” She laughed in the way she had learned to cover up confusion as to whether she was being insulted.
“Don’t let him have anymore.” Fungral directed. “The carbonation may create anomalies in the associative process. We want the subject’s linkage of the faces to be as natural as possible.”
Gravely decided that four of the men in the book, each one wearing a moustache, were the men he had seen together in a car several years before.
“Four men with moustaches together in a car?” Becky questioned Gravely later. They say in the interview room with the subject attached to the bioanalysis recorder.
“Yes.” Gravely smacked his lips. The room was already hot; confinement in the clutches of the machine made it hotter.
“What were they doing?” Becky asked.
“Just sitting there. Say, could I get another drink? I’m parched.”
Becky wavered. She opened the cooler, got out a can of soda, and studied the label carefully. It said “all natural,” so she handed it over.
“Thanks.” Gravely said through his belch.
What Did You Bring Me From Your Years in Exile?
Filming of the promotional video for Ben Stupor Little’s second single from his album was under way. The song was called “My Love is All I Have to Give.” The name of the album was Ben Stupor Little.
“This is quite different from filming a TV show.” Little told a woman journalist from Nose of Nose’s End. They sat facing each other a half a dozen paces from the elaborate set.
“In what way?” Mavez Abuelia, the journalist, asked the meticulously costumed and made-up star.
“Oh…” Little smiled, looking at the set, which depicted a futuristic diner in an intergalactic spaceport. Extras costumed as monstrous aliens, milled about with puppets and robots.
“Well, it’s all being shot in such a short time. Normally we take two weeks to shoot a single episode of G&G. Here we’ve got basically two days.”
“And plus, here you’re the only star.” Ms. Abuelia pointed out.
“Yeah.” Little laughed with a short exhalation through his nose.
“What do you think your co-star, Huck Feral, thinks of your music career?”
“Huck has been very supportive. He has wished me luck.”
“Do you think he’s jealous?”
“No, certainly not. He has no reason to be jealous. He has his serious theater aspirations and I have my musical aspirations. He’s a very talented actor.”
“Any truth to the rumor that he will be appearing as one of the aliens I the video?”
“Well, look around.” Little gestured towards the set. “Do you see anybody dressed as a tree?”
Ms. Abuelia’s laughter was genuine. She laughed so hard she made a very unsexy (and she was a dark, sexy beauty) snort. That was Little’s clue that he should not have made the joke. During the rest of the shoot, as he lip-synched and acted out his role as the lovestruck spaceport short order cook, he worried about public reaction.
Hear Duke Say Dirk
In the apartment directly across the hall fro Kiplough’s lived three guys attending college at Shedge’s premiere university. Klaster, the one least predisposed to join in the antics the other two engaged in; that is to say, he took his studies seriously, had become interested in Kiplough. He had little time to spare for observing and researching his neighbor, much less actually introducing himself (he worked at least twenty hours a week in addition to attending classes), but he found the mystery of Kiplough’s appearance, comings, goings, and doings most diverting. He wondered at his neighbor’s history. As a student of biochemistry, his knowledge of such odd characters as Kiplough was limited.
“I think his entire apartment is lime green.” Klaster mentioned to Burl as he got a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator.
“What makes you think that?” Burl was preparing a tumbler of Bourbon and ginger ale to accompany his watching of the Big Sporting Event on TV.
“I try to peer into his apartment as much as possible whenever he opens the door.” Klaster rinsed the glass out and put it upside down in the dish rack.
“Mmm.” Burl hummed indifferently as he tested the strength of the drink. Then he left his roommate and returned to the den.
Klaster heard Duke enter the apartment and announce that pizza was available. He was not going to join the others. He had work to do before getting to sleep.
Burl and Duke stayed up drinking, eating, and watching TV. During a breaking the action on the screen, Burl mentioned to Duke their roommate’s obsession with the shambling hulk across the hall.
“Well, he hasn’t got much of a life.” Duke excused Klaster.
“It is interesting, though.” Burl said.
“What?”
“That old man.” Burl gestured at the door with the pizza crust in his hand.
“What’s interesting is how he pays the rent.” Duke sourly commented.
“Maybe he’s…” Burl began, but ceased talking when their entertainment recommenced.
Stages of Development in the Cystic Dandelion
Stodge, limiting himself to one trip through the buffet, loaded his plate with cottage cheese, black olives, red onion slices, and one whole boiled egg. On his way back to the table where his mother and her sister were waiting, he was diverted by Ron Gonn, calling to him from a table near the end of the buffet.
“Whatcha doin’, boy?” Gonn’s mouth was still half full of some cornmeal breaded met substance. His face was red, full of the branches of purple capillaries risen to the surface. The other people at Gonn’s table were so evidently of his clan that Stodge did not bother to look at them directly; he did not need to see Gonn’s visage replicated in them to know exactly how unpleasant they must be.
“Nothing much.” Stodge smiled.
“Piggin’ out?” Gonn expectorated a tiny white morsel with the force of his enunciated ‘p.’ His mouth remained open for breathing purposes when not talking or eating.
“Yeah.” Stodge’s smile crooked slightly, indicating, so he feverishly hoped, his desire to make his exit.
“Well, get at it.” Gonn released him, though the elder ladies at his table wanted introductions made.
“Who was that?” Gonn’s wife demanded. She had smiled as friendly as she knew during the encounter, but the young man had refused to make eye contact with her.
“Stodge Merrit. He works with me at the Hose Hold Affiliate.” Ron Gonn made a pile of bones on a napkin. He took up his empty plate and pushed back form the table.
“You’re supposed to get a clean plate each time, Daddy.” Said Gonn’s oldest daughter.
“This plate is clean.” Gonn protested.
“Who was that?” Stodge’s mother asked when he sat down.
“It’s nobody. It’s this redneck I work with.” Stodge shook his head. His aunt took exception to his use of the term ‘redneck’ and informed him that it was so-called rednecks that made this country what it was today.
Other Than Another Night of Conformity
The new issue of Crossword Obsessive had arrived in the mail that morning. Clementa had resisted opening it until that evening when a TV program she had somehow gotten into the habit of watching was about to begin. Now she did so, resisting instead the temptation to tune into that week’s installment of Grimalkin and Goth. The program was patently pandering; she had cursed herself each time she succumbed to it.
Clementa had prepared a bowlful of instant grits to eat as she solved the first puzzle. She ate with a small spoon, relishing each bite with the same delight some hulking tub of a man might a box of ice cream. The first clue in puzzle #1 presented itself to her: “Zeus’ obligatory mindset.” She was one for working her way methodically through all the across clues, skipping the ones she didn’t immediately know, before moving on to the down ones. As she penciled in “impartial” in the nine empty boxes, a noise came through the wall of her apartment, just above and to the left of her head.
“Not tonight!” She moaned, listening as noises akin to the first continued, somewhat softer, though not by much, somewhere inside the apartment adjacent to hers. Clementa sat rooted for a moment before declaring in her old woman’s cracked whisper,
“Fuck it.”
She put the magazine down, open-faced, on the sofa seat beside her and heaved herself up. She snapped on the TV.
“Might as well see it through.” She thought. She noted that she had missed the opening credits and the insipid theme song. Was she but a plaything in the hands of the gods of mediocrity? Of course she was! Zeus wouldn’t do this to her, she thought. That was her last substantial thought for the next hour, aside from self-incriminating ones.
Next door the noises either ceased or blended in with the laugh track, incidental music, explosions, pop tunes, and hip exposition of Grimalkin and Goth, episode GB725, “Ruthless Precaution.”
For All You Know It Could Be Yours
Huck Feral, who played the scheming, manipulative Grimalkin on Swag Broadcasting’s Grimalkin and Goth, wasn’t smart enough in real life to be considered scheming, nor mean-spirited enough to be thought manipulative. Still, he recognized his need to have these normally despised qualities at his disposal. This is why he employed Malder Stang as his personal manager. The two men met backstage at a small theater where Feral was rehearsing a play.
“I’m trying to get you a part in Mr. Goosen’s new ensemble picture. Stang spoke in a low tone so that the unknowns lurking behind the cardboard scenery wouldn’t hear.
Huck Feral, costumed as an anthropomorphic tree, nodded stiffly. His bark limited his movements.
“Good.” He whispered back. “I like Goosen.”
“Remember to call him Mr, Goosen when you meet.” Stang’s voice dropped even lower.
“Right. I’ll remember.” Feral nodded again. His face was painted brown and green. He wore over-sized horn-rimmed spectacles. “To make me look wise.” He explained to Stang.
“Can you scratch my nose?” He asked his manager.
“Why are you doing this?” Stang asked as he delicately scratched.
“Because I love the theater.” Feral declared in a louder, conversational tone.
“Then let me try to get you something a little more prestigious.” Stang suggested. “Though it won’t pay much better.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Feral glanced out to the auditorium where the director was talking to a couple of girls. “You won’t see Ben Stupor Little doing legitimate theater.” He snorted.
Ben Stupor Little was Feral’s co-star on Grimalkin and Goth, portraying the latter character, a disaffected college student in mystical league with a malevolent spirit-being named Grimalkin.
“You won’t see him playing a tree either.” Stang thought, but said nothing of the kind. He thought enviously of Little’s burgeoning singing career.
Unflappable Wingman Anxious to Land
In Schutser’s stomach was starting to dissolve. He sat down at his small desk and began work on his big novel.
“He works so hard.” Mrs. Cross told her friend John. From where they sat together on her ragged old sofa they could see down the hall to the door to Schutser’s room. John studied the closed door as he held his cup of coffee just below his chin.
“Has he ever showed you any of his writing?” The stocky old man asked.
“No, and I haven’t asked.” Mrs. Cross kept his voice low.
“Tell him I’d like to read something he’s written.” John had only met Schutser twice before, each time consisting of the briefest of greetings. Then Schutser had quickly retreated to his room. John knew what it was to be shy. His first sea voyage, when he was but a boy of sixteen, he didn’t speak to anyone the length of their trip across the sea and back. That was a story he had already told Mrs. Cross more than a couple of times.
“How old is he?” He asked his friend.
“Thirty-one, I belive.”
“Thirty-one?” John paused in sipping his coffee. “I would have taken him for twenty-one. Odd that a man of his age should be so shy. By the time I was thirty-one I was giving speeches at labor rallies.”
“He’s a writer, John. He’s sensitive.” Mrs. Cross defended her lodger.
At his desk Schutser was beginning to feel the effects of the pill. He couldn’t write without this influence, at least, not up to the standard that he had set for himself. His terror in facing the next page was that he would not be able to match the high points of his writing in the past. The fact that he had no clear idea what it was about these past triumphs that made him like them so much added to his difficulties. He avoided studying his own writing, avoided breaking it down to find the answer for fear that he would spoil the magic.
Enduring the Cabbage
Kiplough stopped trying to hit the bird after nearly ten minutes. He slumped down on the futon bunched against the wall opposite the one he shared with Clementa. Not sleepy, though tired, he fell over on his side and stared blankly at the scuff marks on the wall where he had thrown the bird-punisher against it.
He was dressed in dirty khaki slacks of some stiff material. Each of heavy shoes protruded from the legs of the slacks like a giant crow trying to climb out of an industrial chimney. He wore a duffel coat that engulfed him like butcher paper around a rump roast. The coat was stained like the slacks, scuffed like the wall. Kiplough was a big, thick-set man without much of a neck, over-sized ears, a nose like a rutabaga too big to cook, the last rutabaga in the bin, the one nobody picked, though Kiplough picked it often enough. His hard was shortish and ragged. He cut it himself.
“To save money.” He told the bird. It was mainly the tipping that bothered him.
“So go to a man barber, an old-fashioned one. They don’t require tipping.” The bird suggested.
Kiplough looked at once wistful and bitter.
“Ah, those days are gone.” He moaned. “That kind of barber doesn’t exist anymore.”
Kiplough felt an affinity with a mélange of portions of the past two hundred years. This affinity was tempered with a total bafflement as to how people got along without air conditioning and under the restrictions of rigid codes of behavior. This was in turn offset by a loathing of modern life and the sub-mental humans Kiplough had to share the world with.
He lay on the futon hoping that sleep would take him. The bird, possibly a figment of his imagination, was nowhere to be seen. Through the wall Kiplough could hear Clementa’s TV dishing out its sugary salmagundi of mass amusement.
“Why should I bother buying a TV when I’ve got hers?” Kiplough asked.
Winning Entry Staves off Indigestion
The book Schutser was working on was called Mealy Mouthed. Because he had no exact idea of what he was going to write about and felt constricted by plotting things out, Schutser was constructing the book one page at a time. Each page could stand alone as a little story unto itself, but was linked, perhaps only by the most tenuous of connections, to one or more other pages so that read together they would hopefully forma satisfying book experience.
The main character in the book was a magically empowered being named Rectanglo, lord of a great estate contained, in violation of the laws of physics, inside a room seemingly the size of a racquetball court outside which was the void of no space, no time. Rectanglo is constantly torn between his attempts at improving his realm and his desire to travel beyond the void (in violation, apparently, of the tenets of the book) to other worlds. On the page being written at the time of this page being narrated (Schutser wrote two pages a day; I narrate two a day) Rectanglo had stopped by a small well in one of the barren, sparsely populated corners of his realm, which realm was named Fernboot, by the way. Here he met with a young woman drawing water for her family’s goats.
“Can I get a drink?” Rectanglo asked.
“I don’t know; can you?” The woman asked.
“Evidently she is educated.” Thought Rectanglo. “My reforms are working.”
“You’re right.” He said to the woman. “May I get a drink?”
“Go ahead.” The woman jerked her head at the well, thinking that if this stranger thought she was going to get it for him, he was sadly mistaken.
Rectanglo drew up the smoothly worn bucket and dipped his traveling cup, which he kept in his book bag, into the water.
“She doesn’t know who I am.” He thought as he drank.
Obviously, these are not Schutser’s words. I have given you the gist of the story in my own style, which is much better than Schutser’s.
Picked Up the Clown by the False Nose
On a Tuesday, if contemporaneously written records are correct, Kiplough returned to his place of residence after a trip to the local market. His apartment like those of Clementa, Mrs. Cross, and John, was located on a long, underground hallway. The entirety of this hallway, walls, doors, ceiling, and the shag carpeting that covered the floor, was purple. The numbers on the doors were black, making them relatively easy to read, even in the dim light. Kiplough’s apartment number was 00152.
In contrast to the purple hallway, at least for the short interval the door was open, Kiplough’s apartment was uniformly lime green. He had left the entryway light on and now stood there closing the door and looking across the hall for any neighbors who might be watching. For whatever reasons, he suspected that his apartment was the best one in the complex, perhaps for its green color. He jealously guarded it and the sensations it gave.
The bird, perched on one end of the kitchen table, pecked at the treat Kiplough had brought him; a six pack of cinnamon pastry swirls.
“I like the pecan bits.” The bird commented.
“Good.” Kiplough said. He was thumbing backwards through a magazine he had brought, Nose of Nose’s End. This magazine, which Kiplough bought only intermittently, and always to his regret, was intended for the disaffected auto-didact with more than a modicum of illusion about his potential for personal sex appeal. The reason Kiplough ended up regretting the purchase was that it cost money, and that he was so disaffected and contrary to everyone else that he became embittered at those images of others supposedly like him, but clearly inferior, who were achieving fame and the society of others like themselves.
“Look at the title of this article.” Kiplough held the open magazine up to the bird’s sight. “‘The Most Alienated Man of All’ Ha! They don’t know a damn thing about me!”
“They never will, either, probably.” Said the bird.
“And look at these sculptures he carved out of wood.” Kiplough pointed. “They’re terrible.”
Erectile Anomaly in the Motor Tilter
Certain faces in the book were familiar to Gravely. He studied them closely, trying to form connections between them and his life. As he flipped back and forth through the pages he sipped his can of reduced calorie soda pop through a straw.
“How many of those cans of soda has he had?” Fungral the engineer asked Becky as they watched Gravely through the one-way glass (similar to a two-way mirror).
“Three.” Becky replied. “You say ‘soda?’” She asked.
“Or pop. Why, what do you say?”
“We always said ‘soft drink’ where I come from.” Becky was from the hot, humid, rural region to the south of Shedge.
“That’s the old way.” Fungral dismissed her hick upbringing.
“I see.” Becky, torn between shame and pride in her origins, did not know that “ambivalent” did not mean the same thing as “indifferent.” She laughed in the way she had learned to cover up confusion as to whether she was being insulted.
“Don’t let him have anymore.” Fungral directed. “The carbonation may create anomalies in the associative process. We want the subject’s linkage of the faces to be as natural as possible.”
Gravely decided that four of the men in the book, each one wearing a moustache, were the men he had seen together in a car several years before.
“Four men with moustaches together in a car?” Becky questioned Gravely later. They say in the interview room with the subject attached to the bioanalysis recorder.
“Yes.” Gravely smacked his lips. The room was already hot; confinement in the clutches of the machine made it hotter.
“What were they doing?” Becky asked.
“Just sitting there. Say, could I get another drink? I’m parched.”
Becky wavered. She opened the cooler, got out a can of soda, and studied the label carefully. It said “all natural,” so she handed it over.
“Thanks.” Gravely said through his belch.
What Did You Bring Me From Your Years in Exile?
Filming of the promotional video for Ben Stupor Little’s second single from his album was under way. The song was called “My Love is All I Have to Give.” The name of the album was Ben Stupor Little.
“This is quite different from filming a TV show.” Little told a woman journalist from Nose of Nose’s End. They sat facing each other a half a dozen paces from the elaborate set.
“In what way?” Mavez Abuelia, the journalist, asked the meticulously costumed and made-up star.
“Oh…” Little smiled, looking at the set, which depicted a futuristic diner in an intergalactic spaceport. Extras costumed as monstrous aliens, milled about with puppets and robots.
“Well, it’s all being shot in such a short time. Normally we take two weeks to shoot a single episode of G&G. Here we’ve got basically two days.”
“And plus, here you’re the only star.” Ms. Abuelia pointed out.
“Yeah.” Little laughed with a short exhalation through his nose.
“What do you think your co-star, Huck Feral, thinks of your music career?”
“Huck has been very supportive. He has wished me luck.”
“Do you think he’s jealous?”
“No, certainly not. He has no reason to be jealous. He has his serious theater aspirations and I have my musical aspirations. He’s a very talented actor.”
“Any truth to the rumor that he will be appearing as one of the aliens I the video?”
“Well, look around.” Little gestured towards the set. “Do you see anybody dressed as a tree?”
Ms. Abuelia’s laughter was genuine. She laughed so hard she made a very unsexy (and she was a dark, sexy beauty) snort. That was Little’s clue that he should not have made the joke. During the rest of the shoot, as he lip-synched and acted out his role as the lovestruck spaceport short order cook, he worried about public reaction.
Hear Duke Say Dirk
In the apartment directly across the hall fro Kiplough’s lived three guys attending college at Shedge’s premiere university. Klaster, the one least predisposed to join in the antics the other two engaged in; that is to say, he took his studies seriously, had become interested in Kiplough. He had little time to spare for observing and researching his neighbor, much less actually introducing himself (he worked at least twenty hours a week in addition to attending classes), but he found the mystery of Kiplough’s appearance, comings, goings, and doings most diverting. He wondered at his neighbor’s history. As a student of biochemistry, his knowledge of such odd characters as Kiplough was limited.
“I think his entire apartment is lime green.” Klaster mentioned to Burl as he got a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator.
“What makes you think that?” Burl was preparing a tumbler of Bourbon and ginger ale to accompany his watching of the Big Sporting Event on TV.
“I try to peer into his apartment as much as possible whenever he opens the door.” Klaster rinsed the glass out and put it upside down in the dish rack.
“Mmm.” Burl hummed indifferently as he tested the strength of the drink. Then he left his roommate and returned to the den.
Klaster heard Duke enter the apartment and announce that pizza was available. He was not going to join the others. He had work to do before getting to sleep.
Burl and Duke stayed up drinking, eating, and watching TV. During a breaking the action on the screen, Burl mentioned to Duke their roommate’s obsession with the shambling hulk across the hall.
“Well, he hasn’t got much of a life.” Duke excused Klaster.
“It is interesting, though.” Burl said.
“What?”
“That old man.” Burl gestured at the door with the pizza crust in his hand.
“What’s interesting is how he pays the rent.” Duke sourly commented.
“Maybe he’s…” Burl began, but ceased talking when their entertainment recommenced.
Stages of Development in the Cystic Dandelion
Stodge, limiting himself to one trip through the buffet, loaded his plate with cottage cheese, black olives, red onion slices, and one whole boiled egg. On his way back to the table where his mother and her sister were waiting, he was diverted by Ron Gonn, calling to him from a table near the end of the buffet.
“Whatcha doin’, boy?” Gonn’s mouth was still half full of some cornmeal breaded met substance. His face was red, full of the branches of purple capillaries risen to the surface. The other people at Gonn’s table were so evidently of his clan that Stodge did not bother to look at them directly; he did not need to see Gonn’s visage replicated in them to know exactly how unpleasant they must be.
“Nothing much.” Stodge smiled.
“Piggin’ out?” Gonn expectorated a tiny white morsel with the force of his enunciated ‘p.’ His mouth remained open for breathing purposes when not talking or eating.
“Yeah.” Stodge’s smile crooked slightly, indicating, so he feverishly hoped, his desire to make his exit.
“Well, get at it.” Gonn released him, though the elder ladies at his table wanted introductions made.
“Who was that?” Gonn’s wife demanded. She had smiled as friendly as she knew during the encounter, but the young man had refused to make eye contact with her.
“Stodge Merrit. He works with me at the Hose Hold Affiliate.” Ron Gonn made a pile of bones on a napkin. He took up his empty plate and pushed back form the table.
“You’re supposed to get a clean plate each time, Daddy.” Said Gonn’s oldest daughter.
“This plate is clean.” Gonn protested.
“Who was that?” Stodge’s mother asked when he sat down.
“It’s nobody. It’s this redneck I work with.” Stodge shook his head. His aunt took exception to his use of the term ‘redneck’ and informed him that it was so-called rednecks that made this country what it was today.
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