Literally

“What is going on?” Harris thundered.  He shouted in surprise at the flash of lightning that came concurrently.

“Stop using said-bookisms,” Julie hissed.  She sagged a bit as she began to deflate, and clamped a hand over her nose to stem the flow.  The hissing stopped.

“I just don’t understand,” Harris fumed.  He and Julie both began to cough as smoke filled the small room.  Harris kept fuming until Julie threw her drink on him, after which he merely smoldered.

“The parser is broken,” Julie explained.  “You can’t get too creative with your vocabulary.”

“What!?” Harris exploded.

“Ew,” said Julie.

Meet the Band

Fade in.  Intro plays, fades into voiceover.  

Close-up on the lead singer.  The interview is in progress, the first question inaudible.  Vic shifts on his overstuffed chair, one leg tucked up under him.  Unable, even on camera, not to perch.  “Well, yeah, I mean, originally it was a joke, kind of.  Like the Who, or the Band, you know?  So it’s like, ‘Who?’ and you go, ‘Exactly!’  So we’re the Real Monsters.  You watch King Kong or whatever and they come in all heavy and go, ‘But who are the real monsters?’  And it’s like, we are.  We’re the real monsters.”  

He laughs, teeth glinting in the bright studio lights.  “I mean, I drink blood for a living.  I don’t go out of my way to kill people, but, well, shit happens, you know?”  The interviewer interjects.  “Fuck, do you check to make sure all your beef is free range organic what-the-fuck-ever?  I don’t  try to make it hurt.  And Lonso, under the right circumstances, just goes balls-out and starts killing people.  He can’t help it; no self-control, you know?”  

There is a clip of stock footage from one of the werewolf’s rampages.  Just a flash of fur and a shot of screaming in the distance.  Nothing graphic; this is early evening broadcast, aimed at youth.

“And then C-134N and Frankie – no one does percussion and keyboards like robots and dead people, let me just say right now.  C’s got no hate for anyone, but no love, either, you feel me?  And Frankie has major problems with authority.  They’d both be killing you right now except they know it’d be inconvenient.”

The camera cuts briefly to the corner, where two sets of glinting dead eyes stare out, each with its own brand of bleak and detached amusement.

“So it’s like, people ask and, you know, we have the answer now.  There’s... there’s a moral clarity.  In relation.  Everyone knows where they stand.  The... we’re it.  It’s us.  The answer.”  He laughs again, glances away from the camera.  “We’re the real monsters.  What the fuck are you?”

Sproing

Time is a rubber band, stretched taut.  Or at least, it was.  It was released, obviously, and that’s why it moves.

That means it’s not an illusion: time is moving faster as you get older.  It’s been accelerating from its first unmarked period of frozen tension.  A day used to last what we’d call years, or even longer back at the beginning.  Everything’s relative; your children and grandchildren will think of themselves as living long, full lives, though to you and me they’ll seen to whiz past.

What you need to worry about is Whose eye we’re about to hit...

Magnet Town

It was the end of the day.  I lay down on the carpet and opened my ribcage.  That doesn’t hurt as much as you might think.  I considered the interior with a certain amount of difficulty.  My veins I set as highways.  I built suburbs from intestines and gleaming white skyscrapers from the delicate bones hand and ankle, with radii cranes to tend them.  I set my neurons to guide the traffic.  City Hall stood upon the thick, ropy muscle of my heart.

But no one came, and the city stood empty.

I’ve waited for a long, long time.

The Magic Eraser

“The Magic Pencil is broken!” crowed Garbletongue, rattling his bag of stolen words.  “Now there will be no words but those I permit, no meaning save what I ordain.  The world is mine!”

Bau-Bau wailed into his furry paws.  Jacqueline snapped her gum carelessly.

“You think?” she said.

Garbletongue hesitated, clutching his half of the Pencil.  “How can you fight my Non-Sensories now?”

Jacqueline shrugged, then pursed her lips and blew sharply.  BANG.  Garbletongue staggered back, chest bleeding.

“How?” he gasped.

Jacqueline displayed the chewing gum wrapper.  The last line of the M was gone.  “You only got the sharp end.”

Fashion Report

Men used to put on their hate as a matter of course whenever they went outside.  Everyone wore hates all the time, and no one thought it was odd.

Nowadays, a hate is not fashionable.  If you have a hate, people will probably comment on it and ask you not to bring it inside or to the table.  Though hates are unpopular, a well-made one remains attractive.

People do still wear them in winter, along with scares.  Loves get in the way of our phones, so those are out, but nothing keeps you warm like a scare and a hate.