It is at night, during those weeks when the moon starves or gorges, that Howard finds himself drawn to read it. The URL is unpronounceable, full of strange and squamous diacritics; but it crawls from his fingers even when his browser refuses to autocomplete.
The story is grotesque beyond the imagination of a Poe or a Bulwer. His attention is captured by a vast description: a page in a book which, the story says, cannot convey in mere words its own unutterable hideousness.
Howard imagines going mad, reading it.
“The window!” he gasps, scrambling to click its corner X. “The window!”
Friday, September 5, 2008
Gheorghe’s been trying to flag a ride for hours and the sun is trembling on the swamp horizon: the dark chases his feet down the dirt of the road. He’s friendless, and the woman he loved is lost to him. His panflute pipes a lonely cockeye’s song.
A cold wind tosses the kerchief bindle over his shoulder, and the few coins in his possession spill onto the ground. He drops to his knees to scrape them up.
Six silver dollars stare at him, all on edge.
Midnight. Gheorghe Zamfir stands at the crossroads, shivering, knowing the devil will be there soon.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Born Breathing are too many, too relentless. See Me swings his sword helplessly, but as he blocks one blow, another bamboo staff cracks his shoulders, his knees, his abdomen. Blood in his eyes: the wound of his missing hand is reopened. He sobs.
“You are beaten,” purrs the Speaker. “It is useless to resist. Don’t let yourself be destroyed as Ratio Tile did.”
“Don’t make me destroy you!” See Me roars.
“You do not yet realize your importance,” sniffs the Speaker. The Wish Power is like a breaking wave, and See Me a twig: he tumbles down into the freezing fountain.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Philemon is in his Riddling Hall; and therefore he is riddling.
“Consider this: may any touch Our Imperial Majesty without permission?” he asks.
The assembled philosophers rumble, no.
“Yet does a man’s shadow not cling to his feet?”
“Not when he skips,” chirps a little girl, as the crowd gapes around her.
“You again!” sniffs Philemon. “Well, consider this: in my Riddling Hall I am lit with a thousand lanterns, my shadow trapped under my feet! Can I not be said to have conquered darkness?”
“Well, if you trap your shadow in a box,” asks Corbin, “what does that make you?”
Monday, September 1, 2008
“Give it!” says Boko, and, grabbing the TransfoJet 5000, he shoves little Lucia down the stairs. She tumbles into a heap at the bottom and wails.
Now Boko has Maser Man and the TransfoJet 5000. He glances slyly toward Jamon, playing with the Glop Fortress.
He stomps and yanks hair. He bites and shoves. He becomes a terror, and the other children flee before him.
At last Boko finds himself alone in the playhouse. He has all the newest, shiniest toys, but nobody else to play with them.
It’s completely awesome and he lives for a hundred years and dies happy.
Miss Havisham waits expectantly.
“We had, um, a midnight feast, is all,” explains Iala. “In the dorm.”
“Which dorm?” Miss Havisham asks quietly.
“2B!” says Iala. “3A!” says Ernestine.
“It was sort of in both,” says Iala. “Or either.”
“Only,” says Ernestine, “there was a fight. With food. A food fight.”
“No one was hurt,” says Radiane. “It was all in fun. Gentle fun.”
“Well, to be perfectly honest,” says Iala piously, “someone did get hit with a sausage.”
Miss Havisham’s eyebrow can climb no higher.
Proserpina sits in the back, grumpy, cheeks red and left eye puffing up quite nicely.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Shit yeah!
You only get one club in street golf, usually a big one. Some people tape an aluminum bat to the side of their clubs, which is called, in street golf jargon, “bat-taping.” It’s technically illegal. It’s also sort of inadvisable to call anyone on it, because they have a bat.
Anyway you basically just hit the ball as fast as you can until you get to the manhole with the little pointy flag in it. Whoever doesn’t get arrested wins.
Street golf!
You’re allowed to use parkour but only if you admit that you look like a douchebag.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The problem with subterranean medical care is, at heart, a cotton shortage.
“Ragachak think it infected,” says Ragachak mournfully, picking at scabs. “Ragachak not know why!”
“Probably because all five of you used the same bandage,” sighs Doctor von Bloöd. “I keep telling you goblins that sharing is not always caring. Nurse, sterilize these?”
The nurse breathes fire on the instrument tray.
“I’ll lance it, but you’ll need to keep it clean,” says von Bloöd. “Can’t you waylay some do-gooders carrying clean water for once?”
“Ragachak try!” chirps Ragachak. “But it hard to tell before we drop the big rock.”
