A Word a Day: Bricolage

Grant stacked the ketchup bottle onto the upended saucer bowl, considering. Was this good enough? Should he squirt glue onto porcelain and set the next level of the Bricolage sculpture? He stared at the assemblage for hours, seeing the myriad shapes the work could take.

With reluctant fingers, he cemented the next segment into place. The endless galaxies of possibility narrowed as million constellations of potential died. From the bones of 'could have been' the actual would grow.

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Worldwide Life Expectancy/Income Data Visualization

The most optimistic data visualization I've ever seen.

A Word a Day: Boxes

Melinda sighed.  The boxes lay all around, 'Kitchen Stuff' or 'Bedroom' scribbled on the cardboard facades.  Most though just said 'Miscelaneous.'  And that's what her life had become, 'Miscelaneous.'  A random collection of kipple without any overarching theme.  Or at least, that's what her life felt like since Ryan had left.

A Word a Day: Junk

He was tempted by trinkets in a sundry valley: a heart shaped locket, a breath of gem dust, post cards and bracelets.  All short cuts and short hand to tell, suggest prefab feeling.  But he sat there longing for her skin against his.  Looking around, he wanted to buy her everything there but it would be junk objects to rust and rot and clutter.  So he tried to give her his halting word and brazen love for her to store in her heart and keep safe from faltering, childish time.

A Word a Day: Bureaucrat

The bureaucrat of the afterlife sat, tapping his ink stained fingers across his polished bone desk.  From where he sat, he could stare out the window towards the writhing sea of souls of the recently arrived.  Everything from the prions to whales flopped about each one equally out of their elements.  Every post-life form wailed or ululated; each of them untethered from reality and afraid now.  Trillions of souls all awaiting judgement: reward or punishment and ultimate processing and recombination back into new, emergent bodies back topside.

Frinan gazed over the innumerable despairing spirits casting about in the darkness.  Stopping his incessant writing in the ledger, he turned towards his partner Fryji with a smile on his face.

'Well, you up for an early lunch?'

A World a Day: Mummy

Rak'Thul pulled at the skin below his elbow till a thin sheet of of it came off. .  Lazy flies buzzed about his head, attracted to the smell of rot.  It was time again.

He needed to refresh his skin.

Artist Statement: Translated

Heh

A Word a Day: Tired

Sleep was on its way, Dylan just had to hold out a little while longer.  He'd been up for 74 hours, reality had long since grown soft around the edges.  But he couldn't close his eyes... not yet.  Not until he made sure he wouldn't dream of her again.

A Word a Day: Gun

His father lays the pieces of pistol on the dinged dining room table that once belonged to his grandparents.  His parents inherited furniture, he'll inherit a safe full of weapons.  His dad talks as he cleans the slide, relaxed in a way that's difficult for him.  The old man is talking about the physics of gunfighting, encouraging his son to prepare to kill 'bad guys.'

Gray hair cut short, his father talks about the weapons as though they were bought to counter street crime, but the young man knows they're a hedging bet in case of apocalypse.  The old man secretly long for the simplicity, the muscular egalitarianism of society's end.  The young man takes a revolver home, he is after all his father's child.

A Word a Day: Itch

A little thing.  A trifle.  A whisper of sensation, readily dismissed as a nothing.  That's how it started because that's how it always started.  But Germane didn't know any of that... at least not yet.  All he knew was the itch along his forearm seemed to be getting worse every day.  

On monday he awoke to find he'd scratched himself bloody, dragging bit ragged fingernails across his skin while he slept fitful and tumbling in between his sheets.  On Tuesday, his life would never be the same.  On wednesday, he began to understand.

(Without conscious intention while I writing, this can easily be seen as an attempt at a homage of Scott Sigler's awesome action horror series 'Infected' which I highly recommend to any person who is Literate in English and or who can subscribe to a podcast.)

A Letter to a Character

Dear Joseph;

Fuck you.  

I thought that the whole 'my character did something unexpected' thing was a lie, a fabrication to make the craft of writing into something more than it is.  Some magician's glamour maybe: look over here at the bang of flash paper and pay no attention to the trap door where the effect is actually accomplished.  Just one more thing artists would attempt to add significance to their scramblings in the dark.  Then you had to go  and prove me wrong.

You were supposed to be my creature, shooting monsters in my stead.  You were supposed to follow the script.  Instead you have a voice all your own.  You refuse to follow my stupid civilian plans.  Worse still, you're pulling in resources I didn't see to keep yourself alive and succeeding where I would have you fail.  And every move you make complicates the story.  Now I can't even trust you with the ending I've arranged.  Because you care nothing for the structure I wish to impose.

I will finish this in spite of you.

Sincerely;

The Author

PS  Everything is forgiven now that the book is done.  However -since I'm blaming you for everything that went wrong- I wish you'd be more consistent in which tense you use to tell your frigging story...

A Word a Day: Language

So, what trade language are you going to study next year?


Hmm, I think lingua scientifica.  Probably the best career prospects.


I don't even see why they make us learn these languages.  I mean most of us are going service side anyway...


I like scientifica, but I prefer the sound of construction tongue.  Something about the roughness is sexy...


So you want to roll around with a bunch of sweaty contractors?


Who doesn't?

Well, if you want to go into politics -or even if you want to be part of the discourse really- my parents always told me that Court Speak was the only way to go...

They would say that, your blood is especially purple after all.


Hardy har har.


Sometimes I just wish we could use eng common for everything.  Think about all the studying we could avoid.


Well sure, but then think about how confusing trying to talk would be?  Every word shifting meaning, every advertisement trying to distort the talk.


I guess you're right...

A Word a Day: Demure

Melinda knew that there were many rules for a lady to follow, they numbered beyond counting. In all things, a proper woman should be demure. But there was something about Brandon, something that made it very difficult for Melinda to be ladylike. Her cheeks flushed as she let her finger trail around the rim of her martini glass. Between the vodka and his wit she found herself laughing louder and longer than was strictly proper. If she didn't regain her brain, she would end up taking off her gasmask tonight.  And a proper lady never took off her gasmask... at least not on the first date. The thought made her smile behind the filter.

photo via http://www.kittykittybangbangshow.com/

A World a Day: Mall

10 am and the mall is just waking up, shaking the dust out its corners and rolling up the steel security screens.  The minimum wage clerks gab in little knots, cursing and bullshitting because no one pays them any mind.  Patrons and servers: two tribes managing a fluid dance of commerce.

He tries hard not to buy in, to maintain his consumer anorexia... but it's hard.  He doesn't want people to know he's fasting.  Because it's impossible to be a witness but not an actor. 

A Word a Day: Irony

(My apologies if any are offended that I repeated myself with Machine of Death two days in a row, but I had an idea that I very much wanted to do.)  

The consultant had been reviewing printouts for five years now, almost as long as the machines had been around. And he'd never been sorry about his career choice until today.

"Well Mr. Richardson, what do you think?"

The printout was a simple bit of cardstock, like the innumerable ones he had seen before.  Still, in all those thousands of consultations, he had never seen a readout so vicious.

"Well, I don't think it's good."

The card read simply 'Death by Irony.'

A Word a Day: Machine of Death

(One of my favorite anthologies 'Machine of Death' is doing a second edition with all new stories!  While I prepare my real submission due July 15th, I thought it would be fun to do a little flash piece.)

Mary stared at the printout.  She had spent so much time preparing: she talked with Susan about what it would mean if the Machine of Death had told her suicide, or gunfire, or fire fire, or execution.  Whatever the never wrong device predicted, she thought she'd been ready.

But how in the world was she supposed to react to 'Death by Duck'?

A Word a Day: Escapepod

Roland knew the it was over as soon as the impact alarm alerted him that a dense, two killogram orb struck the side of the ship.  He didn't bother activating counter measures; yanked the cables plugged into the base of his skull and biting his lip to manage the pain.  He pushed himself off of his chair, shot towards the aft of the fighter.  Roland caught himself, wasted fifteen seconds staring at the back of Chide's seat calculating survival odds if he warned her and helped her free.  Her screen still flickered with the battle.  He heard the fighter's hull groaning... there was no time.

Pulling himself as quickly as he could, he smacked himself into the corner of the escape pod.  He took another fifteen seconds strapping himself down.  He said, "I'm sorry Chide" as the escapepod blasted away from his fighter and the g force flattened him into the barely armored hull of the life raft.  Within minutes, the nanites had eaten the hull, the weapon systems and Chide: crafting thousands more nanites spores to spread in every direction.

Roland lost consciousness to the hibernation gasses.  He spent the next forty years dreaming of Chide's screams.

A Word a Day: Analytics

"Can we predict individual behavior?  Technically no, but in practice yes.  You get a large enough data set, and sufficiently inventive engineers to craft the algorythms to parse that data set and we can figure out all kinda of interesting tidbits about your customers.  Information your business needs to prosper in this market enviornment, so you can rearrange your limited resources for the most efficacy." said the Consultant, slipping into the patter like it was a well worn shoe.

"Customers?"

"Oh I'm sorry, force of habit.  I meant enemies.  The rebels.  The alliance for progress... whatever you want to call them.  Same principle though, with the data set we've already assembled from publically available information we can predict future actions within a one or two percent margin of error.  To put it bluntly, we can tell you if this revolution endgame is winnable or if you should be fleeing the country."  The President stroked his chin and the consultant sipped the tea.  He wished the rebels had been able to meet his asking price but business was business.  And -as long as you got the cash up front- despots could pay and teenagers with AKs couldn't.  A pity, that...

Do not Text or Talk in the Movie Theater

A Word a Day: Drunk

He was drunk as a skunk in a bunk with a hunk, or buzzed as a ruzzed with a nuzzed with the fuzz... or something like that.  It didn't quite make sense, but then again it didn't have to quite make sense.  Being drunk was find the intellectual square peg fit into the round slot because (as it turned out) under the influence of alcohol the circle and the square both transmorgrafied into something different and unique and something that split the difference between the two to fit into one another.

He spent the night knocking back pitchers of stella with his probably insane ex coke dealer plumber escort smitten uncle, appreciating the bar culture of his tight laced home town.

A Word a Day: Hands

Mary's hand clutched at the fork.  She ordered them not to tremble, but as usual they paid her no mind.  Moving each clump of speared salad leaves to her mouth was a chore.  The restaurant's lights shone against her nearly translucent skin, casting harsh shadows in the valleys between her jutting knuckles.  Blue veins like ran crisscross around her delicate bones.

She spent fifteen minutes finishing a third of her meal before she gave up deciding she wasn't hungry after all.  Mary clutched at her coffee mug, taking pleasure from its warmth.

A Word a Day: Hometown

The man shifted weight from the heels to the balls of his feet and back again.  His legs were stiff, only marginally broken in.  He needed to get used to them if he were to be ready for his parents, and the party and the numberless acquaintances and friends who'd be stopping by.  

The man pushed through the feeling of vaguely uncomfortable strangeness to flex and twitch, stamp back and forth.  He did everything shy of kicking a can-can to convince his ever suspicious nervous system that yes, these were in fact his legs just like the last four pairs had been.  It's not like he had anything better to do while waiting for his brother to pull up in his weathered, dirt colored truck. 

A Word a Day: 150

Lance sat in the chair at the coffee shop, carefully numbering out one hundred and fifty lines over several sheets of paper.  150, it didn't seem like much: especially when you factored in the celebrities he would care about through pop culture osmosis and family... how many did that actually leave 'him'?  He ran his left hand through his hair, flicked at the polished wood with his pen.

150 human beings to recognize as full human being, 150 for friends for clan for everything.  Nothing he could do about it, 150 was the statistical limit of what his monkey brain could handle.  Everyone outside the circle would be either a tool or an obstacle, he would have no obligations to any of them other than what could be enforced.  He licked at his teeth.  He meant for this to be nothing more than a thought experiment but it kept gaining significance in his mind.  He always saw stories about killer sociopaths on the television... people with no compassion or morality towards other.  He had to become that for the out group.  This wasn't his fault, whether he formalized it or not he wouldn't see out group members as people.  Best to be honest with himself.  

Hesitant at first, he began to write on the paper.  By name fifty, the boundary between 'us' and 'them' became clear.  Filling the rest of the lines was easy and quick.

(This is based on this and this, and someone taking this notion to what mind end up a horrible extreme. http://www.commonsenseadvice.com/human_cortex_dunbar.html http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html)   

A World a Day: Smoke

Leroy coughed into the pipe, shooting the bud out the top of it.  His friends all laughed -perhaps longer than the situation warranted- and he had to laugh too.  They were all cackling, roaring howling when the police knocked down the door and filled the room with the kevlar armored black beetle bodies.

In a haze, in a blur, in an instant Leroy was on his belly with a 250 pound man's knee pressed against his spine.  The SWAT team whooped as they brought out their trophy.  'Aww shit...' thought Leroy 'They found the EZ bake oven.'

The one on top of Leroy whistled.  "A tenner of sugar and confectioner's paraphanelia?  That's intent to distribute... fifteen years minimum."  The still smoldering pipe tumbled to smash against the floor as the pigs bagged and tagged the snacks and munchies as evidence.