Even A Lady

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It would never have worked back home, of course; not for long, not for real. Everyone knew the O'Connells back in Dillimore. Charlie O'Connell had lived there his whole life, the only son of a one-time mayor, and when he came home from a stint in the army with a Puerto Rican wife, he'd stirred up probably three years' worth of talk amongst the whitebread community. They'd raised up five kids in that heartland-of-America town, and if any of those kids wasn't one hundred percent normal? Why, that'd make the gossip rounds too. Whispered comments whenever Mama went by; cheap jokes at Dad's expense. Hell, the younger kids would never see the end of it from the playground bullies, and they wouldn't even have any idea why.

So Maria Inez waited until she was good and shut of that town before she started living as Alex.

Thing about Fort Carson was, it wasn't much bigger than Dillimore. But the army base and the highway between San Fierro and Las Venturas meant that a lot of people passed through, for a few hours or days or even weeks; and it was close enough to Greenglass College for the commute to not be too painful. So a short-haired woman with a penchant for wearing men's clothes left Dillimore, and a small, somewhat delicate guy showed up the next day in Fort Carson. Simple enough. And no one in Carson had ever known Maria Inez, so she just... went away. There was only Alex here. He'd let a couple of friends in on the secret over the last three years, but for the most part it was easier to just let Maria die.

Of course, now Maria's mom -- Alex's mom, even if she wasn't aware that her second-born had been a son underneath all those pesky double-X chromosomes -- had run through Alex's entire stock of excuses, and was finally coming up for a long-overdue visit.

"So you're gonna tell her, right?" his friend Richie had asked. Alex had replied in the affirmative then, but now that he could see Mama's car pulling up in the parking lot outside his apartment building, he was wondering how quickly he could work up a disguise. He had to have an old blouse or bra or something at the back of his closet, didn't he? Or maybe he could just escape through the bathroom window or something, there was always that option.

The doorbell rang, and Alex opened the door, and exclamations and hugs were exchanged as Mama stepped inside. The disguise option was out, then, and the bathroom window even moreso. Which left...

"Um. Mama? There's something I should probably tell you..."



Frickin' continuity. I couldn't even come up with something particularly good for this one, but it was pretty much required, given the groundwork I'd already laid.

Fencing

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"...and they say that to this day, you can still hear his footsteps in the night when the moon is full... The Phantom Fence-Stringer!"

For a moment, there was silence.

"That's it?" The fire had died down considerably, casting those gathered on the other side of it more in shadow than in light; Evan's laid-back drawl was recognizable enough, though, especially as strained by abject terror as it currently wasn't. "No. That's just dumb, Bran."

Brandon slouched back and crossed his arms. "Oh, like you could tell one better?" He glared around the circle at everyone he could see. Liz was visible enough on his right, with Ken sitting primly on a square of blanket beside her; Camellia was sitting with her back propped up against a stump on his left. Patty on Ken's other side, and Mara and Evan across the circle, were almost invisible. Everyone else looked bored, though. Except Cam, who mainly looked embarrassed for Brandon.

"Of course I could tell one better," Evan replied. He reached out to throw another log on the fire, and the flames kicked up enough to illuminate his grinning face. "Hell, Patty could probably tell a scarier campfire story than you can, and she can't even tell a knock-knock joke without messing it up."

"I know a good one where it's a rabbit," Patty chimed in helpfully.

"Exactly."

"Look," Brandon replied, glaring across the circle at Evan. "It was my idea to go camping, and my idea to go camping here in what is, like, the spookiest forest in the world. So if none of you have big enough imaginations to be the least bit scared when I tell a totally awesome ghost story? Hey, that's not my problem."

Mara shifted uneasily. "Look, I think maybe we're all getting a little too involved in this whole 'scary story' thing, so why don't we -- "

"I've got one."

Ken had been pretty quiet all day, so when he spoke up now, everyone looked toward him. He was still sitting on his blanket, shoes removed and set carefully by on the grass. He was staring straight ahead, whether into the fire or beyond it, Brandon couldn't tell.

"I've got a story I could tell," Ken went on evenly. "It is a tale of sorrow and vengeance, of horror and loss. It is not -- " His eyes narrowed. " -- for the faint of heart."

"Showoff," Brandon muttered.

"It begins on a night much like this one..." Ken began...


"...and the heads were still there," he finished up some time later. He rose from his seat, calmly slipped on his shoes, and nodded to the rest of the group. "It's pretty late, so I think I'm going to turn in now. Good night, everyone." A flashlight clicked to life in his hand, the circle of light dancing ahead of him as he made his way across the campsite and into his tent.

For a moment, silence.

"So," Evan said finally, in an almost unrecognizable voice. "I'm never sleeping again. How about you guys?"




The opening bit came to me when I first saw this rerun come up yet again; the rest was written after a night spent watching about four episodes of the anime series I'm currently working my way through on Hulu. All the character names and personalities in the story are at least partially based on characters from this particular series, although I had to take some liberties since I'm not *actually* writing about, say, the hilariously neurotic son of the Grim Reaper.

At least I'm not taking the liberty of putting up a rerun without even admitting it's a rerun, though.

Obituaries

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That was Arthur, though -- he didn't wear all black and hang around in graveyards or anything, but he still had a few peculiar hobbies. One of those hobbies was reading the obituaries. Any time he was out somewhere like a restaurant or a coffee house, chances were good that he'd round up all the abandoned newspapers and page through them till he found what he was looking for, sandwiched in right before the classifieds or on its own page at the end of the Lifestyles section (a placement that Jim always found hilarious). Right now he was looking at last Thursday's New York Times. Any set of obits provided the potential for some interesting entries, but major papers also gave Arthur the chance to do some celebrity-spotting as well.

"Oh, hey, sweet!" he added, around a sip of the double-mocha-whatever that Lindy had foolishly left behind when she got up to use the restroom. "Here's someone famous... Austrian opera singer. 'Peter Johann Martin Franz Kiesl died blah blah, former Lieutenant blah...' oh, a Nazi opera singer, nice, I bet he got all the chicks... 'buried at Zen... Zensomething Cemetary in Vienna.'"

"Zentralfriedhof," Emma provided. She actually did enjoy graveyards, or at least reading about them on Wikipedia. The biggest one locally was Valhalla Gardens, which was one of the modern ones that looked like a golf course when you drove by, and therefore bored Emma to tears.

"Yeah. That thing. In Vienna." Arthur took a swig of coffee... his own, this time. "Well, one less Nazi left in the world, I guess. And a famous musician! I'd say that counts as my dead celebrity for the day."

"Oooh, dead celebrities? Who croaked?" Lindy asked, coming up from behind Arthur and slipping back into her seat next to Jim. "Was it Glenn Beck? Please tell me it was Glenn Beck."

"Nazi opera dude," Emma replied. "Peter Johann Maria Something Something."

Arthur picked the paper up again. ""Martin Franz Kiesl. Died in his bed, aged eighty-six." He paused. "Oh. Didn't have any family, apparently. I guess Nazi opera singers don't get all the chicks after all."

Lindy frowned. "Peter Kiesl? He's not dead."

"He wha?"

She leaned forward. "Arthur, my parents are opera nerds, remember? Kiesl's not dead. Dad was going on about this at dinner the other night... they got mixed up and buried some other guy in his grave, or something. 'A minor industrialist', whatever that means."

Arthur looked disappointed. "Hell. An industrialist? That doesn't count as a celebrity at all."



Yes, that's right. I just wrote a crossover between Pluggers and 9 Chickweed Lane. And I am not one bit sorry about it either.

I think I managed to do it slightly less wall-of-text-fully than McEldowney, too.

Devices

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"But Mr. Phillips?" Stevie held up his own compass, a birthday present from his parents. "I think -- "

"Bob," the scoutmaster replied, still wearing the little smile he'd had on for almost this entire trip. "Call me Bob, sport, remember?"

"Um. Bob." Stevie looked again at his compass. "I think actually camp is south of here."

"What, sport?" the scoutmaster smiled. "Let me see that." He snatched the compass away and glanced at it briefly. "Nope, you're mistaken." The compass disappeared into his pocket.

"Hey -- " Stevie cried.

"Your compass must be broken, sport," Phillips replied cheerily. "Come on, boys! We've got maybe an hour before we get back to camp, so let's keep at it!"

"He said that an hour ago," Jed muttered, and several of the other boys nodded. None of them had any idea where they were, though -- especially now that Stevie's compass was gone -- so they pushed on.

Their usual scoutmaster was Kevin Lee's dad, a wisecracking used-car salesman who they all deeply admired for his ready willingness to use the word "fuck". Mr. Lee had gotten sick right before the camping trip, but rather than calling the whole thing off (thereby crushing the months-long dreams of a dozen ten-year-old boys), somehow a substitute scoutmaster had been procured. Nobody was sure how that had worked -- Kevin said he thought maybe his dad had asked around some of the other troops in the area -- but they did know that when they'd arrived at the state park Saturday morning, a cheerfully smiling stranger had been waiting for them. The smiling stranger had greeted them all, introduced himself as "Bob Phillips -- just call me Bob", chatted with their parents; then he had gathered up the boys and led them all into the woods. They'd quickly set up their tents at the campsite, and then "Bob" had announced that it was time for a hike.

Now it was Saturday night coming on, and they had been walking in what felt like circles for a couple of hours.

"'Just a little farther, boys,'" Matt said from his place near the back of the troop, mocking the scoutmaster's voice and constant smile. "'I got no idea where I am, but I figure you're too stupid to know that, so I'll just keep saying that it's -- '"

"Just a bit more now, boys," the scoutmaster's voice floated back to them. "The place we're going is just... over... this hill."

Kevin and Matt looked at each other. "The place we're going?" Kevin asked. "Weren't we heading back to the campsite?" Matt shrugged uneasily, looking up at the sky. It was nearly dark in the forest by now.

By the time "Bob" led them into a clearing and announced that they had reached their destination, most of the boys were too exhausted to argue. They all set to work putting down their sleeping bags, except for Wally, who had left his in his tent back at the campsite; Wally limped over to the scoutmaster, explaining the problem and trying his tired ten-year-old best not to cry.

The scoutmaster's calm little smile never faltered as he put a heavy arm around the boy's shoulders. "That's all right, sport," he replied cheerfully. "You can bunk with me."

Continuing

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She pours the coffee out again, into the same cracked mug, in the same weathered hand, that has been held out to her a thousand times before. It doesn't matter that Steve doesn't actually come in all that often; that the diner has an army of coffee mugs; that she has only been in this job a couple weeks. The coffee, the mug, the hand are the same, are eternal. The coffee is poured. It's still in the pot in her hand. It's disappeared down the throat of her customer, who's already left his dollar on the counter and gone. She tips another measure into the waiting mug before her.

"Ellie."

She is pretty sure that she's in hell, that this is hell, this endless no-time of Now, of Here, of Pluggerville. She is the waitress at this diner, and has been, forever. The small town has slumbered around her forever, it is always a Saturday in early summer, and the coffee is in her hand. She is pouring, she is brewing, she is opening up the cash register. The tireless bell dings as she puts in the same dollar bill, a hundred, a million, uncounted infinities of times. The mug is out. She pours. It's a gorgeous day outside.

"Ellie."

The diner is maybe half-full of men talking, drinking coffee, eating eggs and hash and Micah's special biscuits-and-gravy. Soon they will disperse, to mow their lawns, or tinker with their cars (good Detroit rolling iron, every one!), or play ball with their kids. They have always been here, and they have always been in their yards, their garages, in Strawford Park by the creek. It is always a beautiful lazy Saturday in this peaceful little town. The world has always been theirs, been all of theirs, a gorgeous oyster cradling every pearl there ever was.

"Ellie."

The mug is out, she is pouring, not taking her eyes off that large chapped hand, just as she has done, is doing, will always do; but she doesn't remember ever hearing her name spoken in that tone before, not Here, not Now, and she looks up for what she thinks may be the first time.

Steve is looking at her with much the same expression she feels must be on her own face: the look of calm and serenity that everyone else Here has, that seems to come with existence Here, but with an undercurrent of fear, of honest horrified bewilderment that she had thought no one else felt. She had assumed she was the only one out of tune, the only one who hadn't asked for this, wasn't here by choice.

"Ellie." Steve has her attention, has it in full, and as he casts a quick glance around the diner she marvels at how quickly things can change, even in this unending Now. Steve is just another Pluggerville resident, middle-aged, affable, who likes his truck and his dog and the occasional brewski, and she had assumed he was here by choice, just like everyone else but her, but --

"What the hell, Steve," she murmurs through her Pluggerville smile, "what the hell."

"You feel it too?" He runs both hands through his thinning hair. "My god, I thought it was just -- that I was the only one who -- "

Mike Andrews comes in; has always been here; seats himself at the counter and orders the same plate of ham and eggs he has ordered infinite times before, and she is taking, has taken that order, over and over her coffee pot filling the same endless eternal mug held in the hand of the man, all of them, it's always the same hand and the same mug and the same Now; but she has hold of the thread that connects her to Steve, and when the Now turns again to the two of them and the coffee pot and his slightly trembling hand, she is ready.

"It's like hell," she says, and he only nods, not the least bit surprised that she has stated his own belief. "It's like the whole world's gone except this one town and this one day and this one damned -- damned --"

"I think it is," Steve replies simply. "Or the whole world's still there -- still out there, somewhere -- and we've just stolen this place. Here. Now."

She pours coffee, Steve melts into one after another of the various townspeople asking for coffee, sausage, pancakes, toast. It is either a few seconds or a trillion years, or maybe both, until she can answer him. "God, can't they feel it?"

Steve looks at her over the rim of the eternal mug of coffee, and in his eyes understanding, sorrow, and pity do a brief dance. "Don't you think that's the whole point?"

Ellie is about to answer -- something along the lines of how they can't possibly understand what's going on, understand that this Saturday morning and this summer day is stuck, it's stuck and it's not ending -- she is about to say something like this, except there's no one to say it to, because Steve isn't sitting there. It's Bill Evers who has come in and taken a seat at the counter, spending some time with his buddies before he goes back to the game of catch he will always play with his two young sons. He comments again on what a day it is, what a god-damned gorgeous day, and Ellie agrees as she always has, as she always will, because it will never not be a gorgeous summer day Here and Now. She pours the coffee, always, in this place that is peaceful and static and exactly as its handful of inhabitants want it, forever. She is remembering the look of pity in Steve's eyes, the look that was there, will always be there, and for a brief instant she understands; but as the bell over the door jangles and Steve sits down again the coffee pot is in her hand, and she has forgotten again. She is pouring the coffee into the same cracked mug, in the same hand, that will always be held out to her on this endless perfect day.


Apparently when I come back I come back in long, wordy, run-on-sentence-y style.

There is something fascinating about the way the waitress-dog is standing in this comic, coffee pot at the ready, as if she has been there for a million years; it spoke to me, and made me want to spend a thousand words saying "look at me, I've read 'You Know They Got A Hell Of A Band'!"

There is also this thing people do, perhaps especially the "plugger" types but all kinds of people, where we think that if we could just put things back to the way they were at some point in the past, then everything will be awesome. These days people complain about how fast-paced and competitive the world is, and long for the simplicity of the 50s. But I've been going through my box set of the original Twilight Zone, and it seems like back in the day people spent a lot of time complaining about how fast-paced and competitive the world was and longing for the simplicity of, say, 1888. And when you get right down to it, wouldn't everything just be easier if we could just freeze time while the world was on a nice calm peaceful day? Surely that would be a nice thing to experience for all eternity with no variation whatsoever.

I explain things too much.

Collection

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Cora watched the boy hobble into the classroom, feeling an unpleasant suspicion twisting around in her gut. Third time this year that Robbie had broken a bone; and while some children were just unlucky, Cora didn't think it was just bad luck dogging this child. Not unless you counted the luck of the draw when it came to parents.

Robbie's mother had run off with a trucker when the boy was three years old; Robbie's father was rumored to be a prodigious and violent drunkard, although he was apparently smart enough to do most of his drinking out of town. Robbie himself was a small child, with the kind of face that always looked bruised around the eyes. Cora sometimes wondered whether he ever got any sleep at all. A bit of prying had revealed that he and his father lived out by the woods in an old Airstream trailer, but nothing beyond that. She didn't like to get too nosey about her students.

The problem, she found herself thinking as the clock edged towards 7:30, was that Robbie's case was so... unusual. He acted enough like any second-grader, and seemed only a little shy. Loud voices or noises did not cause him any apparent fear. He committed the usual number of classroom transgressions, and responded to discipline just as well as the other children. But there was that look he got, sometimes, when no one was paying him much attention, as though he were sadder than any little boy had a right to be...

And there was the fact that he kept breaking bones, of course. And the oddly-shaped bruise she had once found on his arm, that he had refused to talk about. That was the one time he had seemed... fearful. As though the bruise was part of some guilty secret. Cora wondered now, for the millionth time, whether she should say something to someone, or whether she was just being paranoid.

The morning bell rang, and Cora forced herself to smile as she rose from her desk. "Good morning, class," she said, and "Good morning, Miss Sedgwick," they all chorused back at her. Except Robbie, who was looking down at his fresh white cast as if afraid to meet her eyes. By the end of the week, she knew, it would be covered with the names of classmates; more well-wishing signatures for a collection already bigger than any child that age should have.

Polling

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Martha fancied she could feel a sweatdrop roll down her forehead. "Oh, well. They were both... so good," she managed to reply. "I really couldn't say which I liked better." That much was true, anyway. Edna couldn't cook to save her life, and she couldn't throw together pre-cooked ingredients together to save her life, either. That three-bean salad had tasted like death on toast... in part because Martha was pretty sure Edna had actually added lumps of toast to it. Something had been oddly soggy in there, anyway.

"Hmm. Really? No preference?"

"Not a bit," Martha answered with as much cheer as she could muster. Then, to try to allay Edna's suspicions: "In fact, I was thinking of asking you for both of the recipes. You know how my husband is looking for that big promotion? -- well, it also so happens that Susie Mitchell is married to one of his managers, and they're both coming over for dinner Thursday night. I was thinking of making them both dishes!" A harmless enough lie; it would turn out that Mr. Mitchell was allergic to both tuna and... whatever might have been in the bean salad... and thus she would be excused from bringing either food-related abomination into being.

"Why, how lovely!" Edna exclaimed. She sounded pleasantly surprised. "In that case, no need for the recipe -- I'll bring them over to you myself! You'll have enough on your hands with trying to impress Ronnie's manager!"

Oh no. "That's really not necessary at a -- "

"No, no, dear, I insist. You needn't trouble yourself about it at all. And I'm sure my casserole will make a real impression with that Mr. Mitchell!"

Martha rubbed her forehead. "That's what I'm afraid of," she mumbled into her hand.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing, dear." Martha eyed the wall of the room she was in, and wondered vaguely just how hard it would be to torch the place and give herself an excellent reason for not serving Edna's food.



Huh. The dread specter of continuity? Really? How terrifying.

At least, I'm pretty sure the Edna here is the same Edna as this one.

Property

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She signed it just a little larger this time, the words "PROPERTY OF" just a little bit more prominent, in the hopes that maybe this time Harriet would actually return the damn thing.

Somewhere on the other side of the phone, Harriet herself laughed. "Oh, dear, you are too good to me," she said, and Edna privately agreed. "I did so enjoy the book I borrowed from you last year... such a delicious little turn of story, it was."

"Yes, well. It's always been one of my favorite books. Every year or so I pick it up and read it again." Hint, hint, Harriet. Maybe fourteen months and counting is too long to hold on to a book you've "borrowed"...

Harriet laughed again. "Oh, Edna, you are too much."

"Quite," Edna managed to reply, instead of groaning. Dealing with Harriet and her irritating way of speaking and her infuriating way of never returning borrowed things was enough to drive a saint to murder; but since they were both on their church's Events Planning Committee, a certain degree of amicability was required.

Of course, if Edna had been thinking, she never would have volunteered any information about her reading habits in the first place. And if she had to say anything, she could just claim to have taken up Stephen King. Harriet didn't approve of all the curse words in conjunction with all the sex; that was why she preferred clean-talking trashy romance novels. The twit.

"...yesterday," Edna suddenly realized Harriet was saying, "and so I really can't see my way clear to it, you know? -- as much as I would like to. You see my problem, dear, don't you?"

"Uh, yes," Edna replied; and then, since this call had gone on long enough to count as amicable, "Look, Harriet, I should -- "

Harriet fairly crowed. "I'm so glad you'll help, Edna dear," she burbled, and Edna found herself sinkingly wondering just what she had agreed to. "Oh, it is rather a lot of work, but so rewarding, and I am so terribly glad that you can take over for me. They'll expect you there at four AM -- sharp, dear, but you understand, I'm sure!"

"Uh," Edna offered.

"It's been so lovely talking with you, Edna dear! I'll see you in church this Sunday; and you can tell me all about how the good work went!"

"Er."

"Good-bye, dear!" Click.

Edna muttered something foul.

Coffee Mugs

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George set the coffee maker going, then looked up as the doorbell rang. "Little early, ain'tcha?" he muttered under his breath; then, "Come in!", he yelled. He listened to the door open and close, and nodded to Jason as the latter man ambled into the kitchen. "Coffee's not ready yet."

"'m early," Jason agreed. He rubbed his hands together. "Cold out there. Glad I don't hafta walk down to the bus stop an' wait around in this weather."

George nodded curtly. "How's the truck coming along?"

"Might have it fixed this week."

"Good. Good." Sooner the better. Jason was a decent neighbor and coworker, but that didn't mean George wanted to keep giving him a lift out to the plant every day. Especially since the bastard never chipped in for gas.

Jason interrupted his thoughts. "You get a raise this year?"

George frowned. "Ain't your business, I suppose, but no. Didn't get one."

"I gotta friend in HR, says this year's round of reviews finished yesterday. Says nobody got raises, and a lotta guys got laid off besides."

"So?"

Jason shrugged. "It's a hard life, is all I'm sayin'. Blue-collar grunts like us, there ain't much left for us no more."

"Ain't you a cheery guy." George reached up to grab a couple of mugs from the cabinet. "You must be the life of every party."

"No, really," Jason replied, as George handed him a mug. "information tech-naw-lo-gee, that's where it is these days." He sipped at the coffee. "Here I am just hopin' to make it to retirement."

George glared at his own mug. LONNIE'S CB MART, it read. Jason's mug read ANTON'S HOUSE OF PORK. "You get to be my age, you'll be more or less used to losin' your job. Eventually you find another one." Not that it was the kind of thing he wanted to be thinking about, but since Jason never knew when the hell to shut up... George sighed, kept talking. "My brother came to me, ten, fifteen years ago now, asked me for help. Said he was starting up a new company. He just needed a couple thousand bucks and an extra pair of hands. Was goin' into computers, just like you're goin' on about now.

Jason gaped in a manner that George found supremely annoying. "An' didja help him?"

"Course not. I thought he was crazy. Flint County didn't need no internet -- we needed manufacturin', we needed the GM plant and men like you and me to work it." He rubbed his forehead. "Last I heard he was worth three million. Guess one of us was crazy, at that."

"Wow," Jason replied helpfully.

George glared at his mug again. "Fuggin' LONNIE'S CB MART," he muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

Young Men

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The restaurant was already crowded when Alex and Richie got there, even though it had only opened twenty minutes earlier. "Frickin' office drones," Richie muttered as they waited by the front counter. "It's almost noon, so naturally they all gotta go out for lunch at once."

Alex held up two fingers to the waiter currently approaching them, meanwhile grinning at Richie. "Hey, that hurts. I'm one of those office drones you apparently hate so much."

"Telecommuters don't count. When's the last time you saw the inside of your office?"

By now they were seated at a table near the door to the kitchen. Behind Richie was a family with two screaming babies and an unruly toddler. Behind Alex were a couple of teenage kids currently sharing a milkshake. Alex hooked a thumb over one shoulder at them. "Is it just me, or does the redhead look like me as a kid?"

Richie snickered. "Been nice knowin' you, buddy. Ancient wisdom has it that seeing your doppelganger means you're about five minutes from death."

"Convenient for you. You always did want my PS3."

Behind Alex, the teenage couple stood up, the boy unsuccessfully trying to rush around and pull out the girl's chair before she could rise. In the process, he smacked into Alex's elbow. The water glass that Alex had just picked up went flying.

"Sorry, mister," the boy said quickly to Alex, before hurrying after his girlfriend.

Richie turned to watch them leave. "Man, you're right," he said. "She looks just like you did in middle school." He turned back to Alex, then blinked at the shocked expression on his friend's face. "Hey. Yo. Anyone home in there, man?"

Alex's face broke into a wide grin. "Oh, wow. Wow."

"Wow?"

"Did you know," Alex went on, leaning in towards the table, "there is nothing awesomer than having someone call me 'mister'?"

"Ahh, of course." Richie raised his water glass in a toast. "Congratulations. You just passed."

Their waiter emerged from the kitchen, pen poised over a pad of paper. He smiled at Alex, who had been born Maria Inez, and said, "Ready to order, sir...?"

Richie stifled a laugh at the goony smile on Alex's face.

What The Hell, Man, Since When Can I Not Form A Somewhat Relevant Title From The Comic Text

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(Seriously, "crude awakening" does not contain anywhere within it the seeds of a title for this'un.)


"Hey, you gotta dollar?" the man asked as Evan got out of his car. "Change for a dollar?"

Evan closed the door to the Suburban, after carefully making sure it was locked. "No, I don't got no money," he answered a bit too loudly. Then he mentally cursed himself as he entered the gas station convenience store. Don't got no? What kind of language was that, anyway? The guy was going to think Evan was trying to talk street to seem tough, except he really hadn't been, it had just been a slip of the grammatical tongue...

He forced himself to smile as he approached the register. "Hi," he said, setting a bottle of Fanta down on the counter. Then he held out his Visa. "And pump three." The clerk grunted and hit a couple of buttons on the register.

Evan took a swig of his Fanta as he walked back out to the pump. "This is gonna hurt," he muttered, grabbing the gas nozzle and starting it pumping black gold into his Suburban. He winced at how fast the "THIS SALE" number was going up.

Suddenly something hard pressed against his right side. "You got that right," a voice said quietly. "Wallet. Keys. Now." Evan opened his mouth, and the pressure against his side increased. "Bullets move faster'n yells. Gimme the money."

"Bu -- but I don't have any money," Evan managed to choke out. His eyes felt about ready to pop out of his head. "I told you. No cash."

"Whaddaya mean, you told me?" Evan risked a glance to his right, and realized his mistake. The man asking for change had been black. The one with a gun jammed into his ribcage was white.

The gas pump clicked off with a loud THUNK noise that drew a terrified whimper from Evan. The man with the gun didn't flinch. "Give me the money or you die," he snarled.

Evan squeezed his eyes shut. Please let this be a nightmare please let this be a nightmare please -- "My bank card is in with the store clerk. Go in, tell him Evan sent you to get his card. My PIN is 8510 and I've got a $200-a-day ATM limit. It also works as a Visa." He drew in a sobbing gasp. "Take it, it's yours."

The gunman made an irritated noise. The pressure against his side miraculously disappeared, and Evan fell thankfully to the ground and listened to the sound of rapidly receding footsteps. Then common sense returned to its post inside his skull, and he fumbled for his keys, unlocked the car and all but threw himself inside, and cranked the engine.

As he squealed out onto the street and fled towards home, he spotted the man who'd asked him for change, waiting to cross the street three blocks south of the gas station. Evan roared past him without so much as a second glance.

Don't Need a Key

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"Back in a sec" Ray grunted, setting down his drill and stepping around a pile of two-by-fours. "Gotta make a visit to the Executive Washroom." The others laughed, as they always did whenever someone used their standard term for the onsite john. Ray wasn't even sure who'd started it, anymore. Might've even been him.

He hummed along to no particular tune as the freight elevator carried him down to the ground floor. The building was really taking shape; he'd be sorry when this job was over. The work was good, the crew got along. Even the onsite boss was an okay guy. One of those "hands-on" guys, the type who started every conversation with a hand on your shoulder and ended it with a slap on your back, but at least he didn't ride your ass all the time. Ray'd had bosses like that.

Dirt puffed up from his footsteps as he made his way across the lot, toward the "executive washroom". A couple months back, someone had taken a marker to the side of it, changing the Os in the "COOPER" logo into the breasts of a naked, grinning woman. Ray had his suspicions as to the culprit's identity -- it was a pretty good drawing, and there was only one guy on the crew who'd been a commercial artist -- but so far there'd been no noise about it from up top. She'd acquired a nickname of "Goldie", for some reason.

"Heya, sweetheart," Ray greeted Goldie now, as he eased open the door to the john. "You may not have a lotta fashion sense, but boy do I like your style."

"I'm glad to hear it, Ray."

Ray froze, one hand still on the door, not quite processing what his eyes were telling him yet. When it clicked, he became aware that he was staring at the boss, seated on the portable john, and in a definite state of less than total dress.

"Uh," Ray began uncertainly, feeling the pink slip coming. "I, uh, sorry, boss -- I didn't realize -- the door wasn't locked--"

The boss smiled. "Oh, I know. I left it that way on purpose." He shifted on the seat, then crooked a finger at Ray. "Care to join me? There's room enough for two, if we get cozy."

Ray stared, blankly, feeling his brain try and fail to make sense of this situation. "Uh. No thanks? I." He pointed spastically back toward the building. "I gotta get back to work."

"Oh, all right," the boss answered with a mock-sigh, and Ray carefully shut the door and went back up to where he'd left his drill.

"Everything come out all right?" someone quipped.

Ray shuddered.

Red

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Marty peeked over the fence again, then ducked down before Old Man Seeger saw him. "Nah, it's just watermelon juice," he reported. "I'm pretty sure."

"Nuh uh," Greg said from his position atop the slide. "It's blood 'cause he killed a guy. And then he cut the body up an' threw the parts in the creek. I saw 'im."

"You didn't see nothin', Greg Morrison," Terry replied scornfully. "You saw someone walkin' around by the creek, an' then you found somethin' that mighta been a guy's leg all rotted up but was prolly a dead raccoon."

"It was a leg," Greg said for about the tenth time. "I could see the little toe-bones."

"Because there for sure aren't any little bones in a raccoon," Terry concluded triumphantly. She was a year older than the rest of th em, and tolerated despite her know-it-all nature (and her status as Marty's big sister) primarily because she was the only one of them who could always think of something fun to do. It had been her idea to start using the old Catholic school playground, even though nobody else really did anymore. Brookhurst Elementary's playground was better, really, but since St. Clare's had closed two years back, its swings and slides went basically unused. Unless Old Man Seeger came over from next door and used them, that was.

Greg launched himself down the slide, then climbed back up its curving surface. "Nobody uses a knife that big just to eat watermelon," he argued. "So even if the stuff on his knife is just juice, Seeger's still a crazy killer. A completely crazy killer who stabs guys in their sleep." He sounded rather chipper about the matter.

Throughout all this Pat had been listening silently, idly tracking one sneakered foot through the dirt as he twisted back and forth on a swing. He laughed now, and the sound cut across the quiet spring evening. "Bet you ten dollars you can't go up to Ol' Man Seeg's and knock on the door," he said to Marty.

"No way!" Marty scrambled away from the fence separating the playground from Seeger's yard as if the old man himself might come leaping over at any second. "I don't think he's a murderer, but he's still all creepy."

Pat grinned. "Anyone?" He rooted around in his pocket for a few seconds, at last extracting a grimy ten-dollar bill. "Just go up to his door an' knock, an' if he answers, say somethin' to him." He wiggled the bill at them.

"I'll do it," Greg answered. He came down the slide again, walked over to Pat, and held out his hand. "I'll ask 'im if he's seen my dog."

Terry looked doubtful. "I don't think that's a good idea, Greg. I mean, he is creepy. And it's getting late."

"Yeah, Greg, it's almost dark," Pat added mockingly. "Ain't you scared?"

"No way!" Greg shouted, and snatched the money out of Pat's hand. "You wait right here, an' I'll prove it!"

None of them moved much as he stalked off the playground, headed for the house next door. When eventually Marty thought to peek over the fence to try to see what was going on, the house was still. Neither Greg nor Old Man Seeger was in evidence. They waited maybe half an hour more, and then Terry's watch beeped. "Eight o'clock," she announced softly. "Time for me an' Marty to go home."

"Yeah, me too," Pat replied. He glanced again toward the Seeger house. "I bet he just took my money an' ran," he added, with little conviction. "Sure. Just took it an' went right home."

"I hope so," Terry said.

Pat went on to his home, and Terry and Marty to theirs. Sometime after midnight, a dark figure dumped something by the creek, but no one was there to see it.

Top of the Food Chain

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"But they're people!" cried the woman, struggling against the grip of several riot cops. "How can you do this, how can you when they're just people!" Her voice grew fainter and was swallowed up by the crowd as she was dragged away.

"Amazing," Clyde murmured, surveying the view from his seat by the window. "There must be hundreds of them."

"Thousands, according to CNN," Maria replied. She swung her laptop around so he could see the screen. "They've got aerial photography from the police helicopters."

"Hm." Clyde turned back to the window. Outside the restaurant, a mass of protesters still seethed against the police barricades, their shouts and chants audible even though the reinforced glass. "You'd think they'd have something better to do."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "Apparently Flavio's is considered quite the violation of basic rights."

Clyde chuckled, then hummed appreciatively as their waiter appeared, a steaming plate in each hand. Both plates were set before them, their wineglasses were refilled, and t hen the waiter disappeared as silently as he had come. Flavio's was renowned for its staff almost as much as for its food.

Clyde bit into his burger, then hummed again. "Superb, as always."

They both jumped as a loud CRACK resounded through the room; it became apparent that one of the protesters outside had thrown a rock at their window. Clyde laughed uproariously as the culprit was first teargassed, then pulled back towards a group of SWAT vans. The glass remained undamaged. "Ha! I love it when they bring a good beating down on themselves." He took an extra-large bite, leaning into the window to make an elaborate show of chewing. Several of the protesters outside gestured rudely, but none appeared ready share the fate of the rock-thrower by doing anything more.

Maria dabbed primly at her mouth with a napkin. "You know, Clyde, one of these days, you'll antagonize them too far."

"And what?" replied Clyde, "-- they'll throw a rock at me? And then the nearest cop will work them over with a baton." He grinned evilly. "Wouldn't be the first time a protester'd accidentally fallen down the stairs seventeen times in a row."

Maria merely smiled. "Never underestimate the power of the little people," she murmured, before going back to her burger.

Outside, another woman had worked her way to the front of the crowd and begun shouting. Clyde had observed more than once that it always seemed the middle-aged old cows who were the loudest. Younger people were more into petty vandalism; the husbands and fathers were too busy actually working to bring in money for their middle-aged old cow wives to spend.

"Flavio's is murder!" this particular middle-aged old cow was screaming now. "Flavio's kills our friends -- our neighbors -- our families!"

On their side of the glass, Clyde erupted into laughter, spraying crumbs of bread and meat. "Hey, you!" He shouted at the window. "Hey! Yeah, that's right, over here!" He bared his teeth at the woman outside. "See this?" he called, pointing to the remains of his burger. "I hope it was your family!"

The woman struggled furiously against the cops. She was screaming something at Clyde, but he was laughing too hard to pay attention. "I hope it was your cousin!" he screamed gleefully. He took a huge bite, and grinned madly at her through it. "An' i' wa' DELISHUSH!"

The woman outside screamed something incoherent, and actually managed to break free of the police line. In an instant she was at the window, clawing at it, pounding with her fists, her horns. It took seven cops to finally pull her back, and she went down fighting, her hate-filled eyes never leaving Clyde.

Maria only raised her eyebrow again as Clyde resumed his meal. "Goddamn cows," he chuckled, shaking his head.



Honestly. It's a world of animal-people. If you're not a vegetarian, then aren't you just eating your fellow sentients?

And yes, the restaurant is named after an Animaniacs character, I have been making use of my Netflix account lately, why do you ask?

Smith-Corona

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Warren sighed as he extracted himself from the truck and carefully shut the door behind him. Damn thing was near rusted to pieces, and here he was driving all over creation for a typewriter ribbon. Of course, he hadn’t expected to have so much trouble actually finding the ribbon; but he’d already tried the Harpersville Office Depot, the Staples and Frederick’s Office Supply in Dillimore, and the Wal*Mart and other Office Depot in Blackwater Point, all with no luck. He was starting to worry he’d have to go up the city to find what he needed. There were over five thousand souls in Palomino Creek, and being surrounded by that many people always made Warren feel claustrophobic.

A puff of hot air hit him in the face as he passed through the sliding doors, and then he was in the air-conditioned cool of yet another store. He made his way toward the back wall, where a huge sign reading “OFFICE SUPPLIES” hung from the ceiling. Rows of computers and fax machines and other technological marvels seemed to glare at him disapprovingly as he sought out the customer service desk.

“Helpya?” muttered the bored-looking employee behind the counter. Warren tried to give him a friendly smile, but was stymied by merit of the man’s apparent unwillingness to look up from the computer in front of him. It looked like some kind of card game on there – poker, maybe, though whatever it was, Warren doubted this fellow was being employed to play it –

“Helpya?” the man repeated, interrupting Warren’s mental rambling. This time he deigned to glance up briefly before returning to the computer.

“Well, I.” Warren cleared his throat. “My Smith-Corona T34 needs a new ribbon, and –”

The employee looked up at him again, and something about the expression on his face made Warren falter. “This a joke, buddy?” he drawled. "We don’t sell beer here, and we don’t sell guns neither.”

Warren sighed, seeing the long drive to Palomino Creek ahead of him. “No, it’s a typewriter.”

“Uh huh. Got a lot of writing to do, buddy?”

“Yes,” Warren answered, brightening somewhat. Maybe he wouldn’t have to brave the big city after all…

“I got a recommendation for you, then,” the employee sneered. He pointed toward the aisle Warren had just walked through. “It’s not the nineteenth century anymore. Buy a goddamn computer.”

Warren sighed again. “Thank you anyway,” he said, and walked back out to his car. People these days, living crammed five thousand to a town, going in for all this strange new technology when they already had ways that worked just as well. He just didn’t know what the world was coming to.


Throughout most of my high school career, I did not have a computer; when it came time to write a paper, which was quite frequently in my honors English classes and not too seldom in any of the others, I had to use an electric typewriter that we’d picked up at Office Depot for a hundred bucks. It was extra-fun when we had to do a rough draft, submit it for peer evaluation, then “edit” it and bring in the final version… because while my classmates got to make their edits, print out their new versions, and go off to have fun, I got to sit down and type the entire thing over again. Good times.

These days I honestly cannot think of a good reason to stick with a typewriter instead of a computer. I guess some people really, really like the idea of having to type an entire document over just to correct a couple of typos.

Mushroom Soup

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The mother ladled what was left of that night's dinner into the container, scraping the pan clean. No sense in wasting food, after all, and the leftovers would make a lovely meal some other day. She set the pan down, fitted the lid over the container of leftovers, and then carefully placed that container on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.

The son pushed it to the back of the shelf ten minutes later, while rooting about looking for the last can of Coke.

Nobody gave much thought to the leftovers, not even the mother who had so carefully saved them; and as days turned into weeks, it quietly brooded beneath a package of stale flour tortillas. The life stirring within it went unremarked, its original contents long since forgotten.

At last the tortillas were pushed aside, and the daughter's hand closed upon the plastic container. "Oh, here's something," she said over her shoulder. The leftovers were once more brought out into the light.

"What's in it?" the mother asked from her post at the stove. Pots simmered and bubbled, though the saucepan on one burner yet lay empty.

The daughter peeled back the lid and looked into the container. "Looks like mushroom soup," she replied.

The mother smiled, took the leftovers and their new growth from her daughter, and began preparing them to serve to her family.

Side Mirror

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His eyes drifted closed for the thousandth time, and somehow he managed to wrench them open yet again. Couple more miles, now, and then he'd be back home, where he could actually get some goddamn sleep. The very thought was soothing enough to send him drifting off again. He blinked himself back awake, cursing, then laid into the accelerator a bit more.

Just had to concentrate, that was it. Keep his mind on the road for just twenty more minutes. He rolled the window down, hoping the cold air coming in would wake him up a little, but it didn't seem to help much. He reached out to fiddle with the side mirror, peering at it through heavy eyes; eventually he gave up and turned back to the windshield, to find it oddly filled with tree. "Hey, what -- " he began, now fully awake.

Then his car slammed into the tree, and he died.



Just a short one, because DAMN that dog does not look safe to drive.

Double It

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I stared at the clerk for a second before answering. "So... you'll repair or replace it free for... two lifetimes?"

"What? Oh, heavens no."

"But that would be double what this says." I pointed to the requisite paragraph of the paper lying on the counter. "Free repair or replacement, depending on blah blah blah, for the life of the original owner."

He nodded rapidly. "Yes sirree, that warranty lasts for the life of the owner."

"But if you're doubling it, then it would be free for twice the lifetime of, well, me in this case -- "

"Ahh," he interrupted, smiling broadly in a way that did not seem to go far north of his mouth. "I think you're confused with our Ultra Platinum Waranty Program."

"Am I."

"This is only our Premium Platinum Warranty Program, you see."

"Of course."

He pulled out another paper and laid it alongside the first. "You see, with the Ultra Platinum Warranty Program, you get free replacement or repair for the life of the product, regardless of ownership. Assuming of course only regular wear and tear, and so on." He beamed meaninglessly again. "And of course we double that too. We double all warranties."

I rubbed vaguely at my forehead. "Why do you double your own warran... never mind. Look, I just want this thing to get fixed if it breaks down, so -- "

He interrupted again, the smile replaced by an equally meaningless frown. "Oh, no, all warranties are void in the event that the useful life of the product comes to an end." He chuckled smugly. "After all, in that case why would you even need a warranty any more?"

I snorted. "Do you double the lack of a warranty too?"

"Of course!" he promptly replied.



Why does the rhino look so shocked, anyway? Is he still reeling from the difficulty of distinguishing between the Premium Platinum, Ultra Platinum, and Super Double Ultra Platinum warranties? Or is it just that, since his life is naught but a pit of darkness and woe, he is simply unable to deal with the possibility that something relatively nice might be happening to him for a change?

Inquiring capybaras want to know!

X'd Out

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"Wait, what?" Ryan broke in, his voice sharp enough that Cliff stopped to favor him with a raised eyebrow before answering.

"That's what it says, anyway." Cliff refolded the newspaper so that the obits were on top. "'Mr. Burnapple is survived by his sister, Flora Burnapple, 58, currently residing in Omaha, Nebraska. Services were held at -- '"

Ryan let out a loud whoop, again startling Cliff into silence and a hoist of the eyebrow. "Where's the fucker buried?"

"At, uh. Valhalla Gardens." Sudden understanding flooded Cliff's face, followed by a species of surprise tempered by the knowledge that worse would probably be forthcoming. "Please tell me you're not planning what I think you are."

"Oh hell yes," Ryan replied, pulling his wallet from his pocket. Carefully he extracted a much-worn slip of paper, smoothing it out on the table before grabbing Cliff's crossword-working pen. "Principal Burnapple rode both our asses all through high school -- and, if you'll remember, tried three separate times to get a shrink to certify me as crazy so he could have me expelled and locked up. And you know what I've wanted to do ever since."

Cliff groaned. "I'd kind of hoped you'd forgotten by now."

"Never," Ryan answered cheerfully. Carefully he X'd out one of the names listed on the ragged slip of paper. "And now I'm finally gonna get to dance on his grave."



"Burnapple"?

Getting Carded

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"Huh?" Manny replied, not sure if he had heard right.

The girl working the ticket stand rolled her eyes. "Your ID, sir. Can I see it, please?"

"Oh, uh, yes." He fumbled out his wallet and began rooting around in it, meanwhile wondering why he needed an ID just to get into a movie. It'd make sense if he were a kid trying to sneak into a gory picture. Thing was, he was 37 and the movie he wanted to see was rated PG. He found the ID card before he found an answer, and held it aloft, somewhat confusedly.

The ticket girl, for her part, idly thumped a few buttons on the register. "Eight-seventy-five, please," she said in a bored voice. No explanation seemed forthcoming, so Manny forked over the money silently and escaped with his ticket.

He kept an eye on the ticket line as he made his way to the concession stand. The guy who'd been behind him in line didn't get carded, just got charged the better part of nine bucks without incident. Manny looked at the mirror behind the concession workers, wondering if perhaps he'd acquired the face of some famous criminal since this morning; but no, the usual mug stared back at him, slightly tired-looking beneath thinning red hair. Maybe the ticket girl was just bored.

He ordered popcorn and a Coke from a gangly kid with braces, this time managing to complete the transaction without having to show his ID.


...am I the only one with deja vu?