Five microfictions, each self-contained, springing from this singularly unpromising starting point: "The first three words of every paragraph are 'Neuro brain machine,' and that these three words aren't used anywhere else in your portion of the story. ... and you've gotta use these things: (*) to divide paragraphs so things will look cooler." (You know, love la Hinewater though I do, I've got to wonder just how damaged by drugs a person would have to be, for hir to think this was a good idea...) As is my wont, I started looking for loopholes immediately...from Far * Outing : yet another writing game
"New roe & brains, Machine," he said, settling his monstrous fleshy bulk in his hover-chair. The whine of the servo-motors mingled with a sibilant bubbling, as sensors in the cushions, detecting the redistribution of weight, activated micropumps in the body of the chair that adjusted the liquid cushioning system. He wriggled, inasmuch as he could, lowering a meaty arm to pick idly at a pressure sore on one vast thigh. The voice-activated food-prep unit cycled with a whirr and a jolt, then served up his steaming platter of fish eggs and headguts—along with a note, typed in monospace font on a small square of cardstock: YOU SHOULD NOT EAT SO MANY ORGAN MEATS, SIR: IT IS BAD FOR YOUR GOUT.
*
Nero-Brahma sheen: the Empire never fell because it was never confined; Augustus never dictated its boundaries. And so through generations of Caesars (Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius) it expanded—until, in the day of Clodius Pilchus, the first garrisons were established in the northern edge of the Indian subcontinent. As was customary, the Emperor proclaimed himself an avatar of the local deity: idols were carved in his image, and the priests were ordered to keep them highly polished.
*
New Rose Bahrain—mission control for the illegal movement of information and materiel throughout North Africa and beyond, and named in homage to the work of William Gibson—was ideally situated for its purposes: the ready petrodollars made for a high standard of living, and the archipelago's central position in the Gulf simplified the logistics of transportation and distribution. Most importantly, though, its proprietors had on their side the simple truth that it is astonishingly easy to move contraband in a society that has fetishized female modesty. A woman in the company of her brother could pass unchallenged in the souks, and the Bahraini cops (even the ones that hadn't been bought off) would never dream of searching such a woman—even if the bewitching dark eyes behind the hijab belonged in reality to a thirteen-year-old Thai ladyboy with microchips sewn into the lining of his burqua, a bellyful of smack-filled condoms, and two saline bags swimming with illegally harvested stem cells stuffed into his brassiére.
*
New robe. Rain. Ma chine soie—my China silk cassock, the last one I owned—had been ruined in a sudden downpour like this one. Too bad, but really: I'd never have gotten the stains out. When I was a boy, my maman took me to a fortune-teller: the gypsy told me I had the hands of a priest. And years later—ah, God has been so good to me. I laugh to myself as I stroll in the rain, from Sacré Coeur (where I left the boy, weeping, in the confessional to do up his trousers in privacy) across town for Evensong at the nunnery: the sisters will be so glad to see me. I laugh, and the rain from Heaven is a baptism, washing boystink from my priest's hands, and I am born again.
*
New row, bran. My jeans stick to my legs, wet with labor sweat. My shoulders ache. I am walking heavily, guiding the plough. There is no horse, there is no ox—only the earth, and the plough, and the seed. The small field for bran oats, thirty rows, and the rest of the property for corn. The seed cost me dear. Reach the fence, lean against it for a moment, then turn. The day is hot. The plough bites the earth, and, step by heavy step, there is another new row.
No comments:
Post a Comment