Wed - April 22, 2009MagdalenSocial life among the Ash Fork clones is complex,
because they are a combination of human design and processes, injected with DNA
computers. DNA computing as it exists would be fairly
slow, but this is in a future where they have been integrated into
the tissue of the Ash Fork clones in vitro. The clones are the evolution of
humans into Space. Some of them are eccentrics.
Posted at 07:23 PM Read More Wed - December 17, 2008Audio: Cowboy JesusThis is an audio recording of the first chapter
of Indian Shadow: "Cowboy Jesus," in which the Indian Shadow connects with the
criminal midget, Lou Short.
Posted at 03:30 PM Read More Wed - October 8, 2008(01-29) Waiting for JulesBlue Mesa quickly became obsolete. It was a
string of information beginning to lose the attraction to a center. There was
only one person left alive, there, and he’d gone unnoticed, because he
wasn’t there to serve the new king and he wasn't there to kill him. He
had no role in the unfolding drama. He was holding his knees and rocking back
and forth while chanting nonsense.
Posted at 11:57 AM Read More Tue - September 30, 2008(01-28) Jules EvolvesAn oppressive cold settled onto the high desert
when the sun went down. Blue Mesa became a still life, without wind or even the
humming of a passing pickup truck on the two lane snaking along the desert
floor below the mesa. The silence was so pronounced even the coyotes and the
night birds were just listening. Inside the hogan, the first notes
sounded.
Posted at 07:00 PM Read More Fri - September 26, 2008(01-27) On Blue Mesa“What’s in your pocket?” the
troll asked without a trace of slyness, because trolls are thick as brick and
they are controllers. A troll is just missing the first syllable, con, so
he’s no con man. He’s missing his mercury. He’s missing his
gold, too. A troll is pretty much made out of leaving and dross. One day he
shines and the next day he tarnishes. He lives east of Eden and tills stony
ground. But he never complains more than pointing out you can’t win with
a losing hand. That’s about the size of it.
Posted at 03:52 PM Read More Mon - September 22, 2008(01-26) God in the MaizWhen Dexter bought, “Midget With a Dwarf
Tattoo,” it was because of the picture on the jack jacket. It was a
dramatic black and white photo of Paris sitting at a sidewalk cafe, wearing dark
glasses and a beret. Dexter had at first been sure she was somebody he already
knew, but he couldn’t remember how he knew her. He in fact remembered her
from a dream in which she had a nosebleed and he gave her his handkerchief.
When she gave it back there were only three drops of blood on it.
Posted at 04:49 PM Read More Wed - September 17, 2008(01-25) Abstract WeatherThe rumble of the touring bike was hypnotic; it
lulled Paris into a distracted musing about death. She suspected her relative
indifference to Louis’ death was an indifference to her own death. Her
life was a story, she reasoned, like every life. Birth and death were the book
covers. Without them there would be no container for the story. She had begun
to see herself shrinking down into her last years, her last days, her last
moments. And then what?
Posted at 05:06 PM Read More Tue - September 9, 2008(01-24) DexterParis always imagined people before she met them
but was seldom accurate. However, when she was accurate, it wasn’t
imagination, but memory. There was no other way to explain it to herself. Some
people she remembered before she was supposed to have met them, and when that
happened, she knew her passion was being stirred to life.
Posted at 05:09 PM Read More Wed - September 3, 2008(01-23) Creamed CornAfter the first round was fired Indian Shadow
could have run away, but he did not. He ran back inside to the refrigerator to
rescue the Patriarch. He was reaching for the container when it was hit and the
samples blended together and dripped into a bowl of creamed corn. He grabbed
the bowl and slipped behind the stuffed Grizzly Bear. He didn’t
consciously see that no rounds were hitting the bear but his body knew, and it
went there.
Posted at 06:55 PM Read More Thu - August 28, 2008(01-22) From ChicagoGene Tweaks hadn’t planned on pulling the
trigger; he was just sighting his scope in on the midget. Gene was part of a
Special Security team, an expert in guerilla warfare, with seminar training in
explosives and damage control. The main subject of damage control wasn’t
about having a soft footprint, it was mostly about media relations. Gene was
pulling down over two hundred grand a year because he was the perfect combat
soldier … except for the voices …
Posted at 03:49 PM Read More Wed - August 20, 2008(01-21) Demon SeedParis lit a cigarette. It was a rare decision
for her to light one. Her tobacco was sun cured and mixed with shake. She
inhaled and watched the smoke curl into the damp air. Louis and A-Bomb were at
401 Beach Street by now, with the other little people who found their way to the
hideaway on the Mendocino Coast to be with their own kind. And she was here
alone. But of course she wasn’t really alone. The doorman was waiting
for her to come back inside.
Posted at 07:54 PM Read More Wed - July 30, 2008(01-20) 401 Beach StreetTo the men who encountered Paris, she seemed
easy. To their admiration she admitted worthiness. When told that she was
unique, she agreed. The Inspector thus found himself, as had many before him,
on a sandy path between two tidal waves that peered down at him like doting but
overwhelming parents. He smiled a silly smile and said, “I’m not
sure I know what you said.” So she repeated: “Your love is like a
red red rose that lifts its head to spring.”
Posted at 02:41 PM Read More Thu - July 24, 2008(01-19) Mind ReadingAs they disappeared into the fog bank Louis and
Troll, from a distance, looked like one person. Louis was on his
cousin’s shoulders, a yellow slicker covering them, with Troll peering
through the opening he'd left himself. "How can somebody who's invisible just
make things go the way he wants them to go?" Louis wondered aloud. "We must
have every lawman in existence after us and here we go sailing right out under
the Golden Gate.
Posted at 02:17 PM Read More Sun - July 20, 2008(01-18) Sailing in FogIn the Dark Ages reason wasn’t gone, it
just wasn’t separated from magic, and at the intersection priests set
themselves adrift in rudderless ships to cast their fate to an invisible hand.
Faith was all the rage. The sailors on the little yacht prowling along the Marin
coast in the heavy fog were without experience, but they had the invisible hand
in spades.
Posted at 03:50 PM Read More Fri - July 18, 2008(01-17) Dancing the DragonThe Patriarchs had been sold to the American
public as "hope for the little man." It was described as a collection of
progeny existing somewhere in the future, somewhere in space. It was sold as
hope for the survival of an evolutionary dream. That it was, in fact, not a
collection of equal contributions, but one large, all powerful entity was
withheld from the public because the public relations experts concluded this
information might be "antithetical to the democratic impulse."
Posted at 01:14 PM Read More Mon - July 14, 2008(01-16) Blue Midget 03It was when A Bomb watched Troll lifting the rack
cases into the bus' cargo hold that he began to suspect Paris' writing was full
of lies. If Troll was as naturally strong as she described him as being he
had certainly lost it by the time he climbed, sweaty and out of breath, into the
bus after the exertion. He tried to broach the subject but Troll thought he was
being insulting when he asked, "Can you tear a telephone book in
half?"
Posted at 05:17 PM Read More Wed - May 21, 2008(01-15) Conspiracy“What is it to conspire with someone else?
In the most literal sense it is to breathe together,” The Patriarch said.
“Join me in unitary
breathing.”
“I wish he’d shut up,” Troll said. “He’s creeping me out.” “Yea.” Fireplug was more cheerful. “We’re not Tele-Tubbies. Where does this organic computer get off, talking like Vincent Price inside our heads?” Posted at 03:47 PM Read More Sat - May 10, 2008(01-14) Public Relations"The American Futures Corporation believes this
is more than a theft of semen. This was something far more sinister and evil,
because it was the theft of a baby, born of this planet, a spawn composed at the
edge of our adaptive resources, and this was not my baby or your baby, this was
our baby. Who among you would give safe haven to the terrorists who would steal
the future, and subject it to possibly fatal temperature variations? Yet even
as I speak, the semen of the Patriarchs is in a midget's refrigerator. And this
is no cute, benign midget. This is a midget gone terribly wrong."
Posted at 03:24 PM Read More Thu - April 24, 2008(01-13) Conversion of a SinnerThere was a public stage in front of American
Futures, where on a typical day a man or woman with a guitar would be set up,
singing songs to a mostly disinterested scattering of employees on lunch or
coffee break. But today was different. Today there was a freak show, and
everybody stopped to watch, including the security guards monitoring the video
boards. All eyes were on the band of trolls as they blew open the gates to
darkness and threw a party for the devil.
Posted at 02:00 PM Read More Sat - April 19, 2008(01-12) Midget SwitchingThe American Futures counselors always went out
to lunch at Mr. Ping’s on Tuesdays, when Mr. Ping’s Root Beer was
free with the buffet. The root beer was an aphrodisiac, as well as having a
mixture of herbs that caused mild hallucinations. The counselors would
typically be about ten minutes late, and mildly perceptually altered, every
Tuesday. This would give Louis enough time to remove the vent and disappear
into the ductwork.
Posted at 07:15 PM Read More |
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