Small Stories

In the old days, you lied on your resume. Me? I'd gotten a job as a programmer by simply by being in the wing of the corporation that was still making money.

The boss, a boisterous, red-faced man with a voice like IED, has assumed I was there for the opening he had, and he needed people so badly he personally sat me down in a cubicle with a "spider pie", then left, without so much as asking me a single question. He had more important things to do.

I knew programming was an arcane art, but I didn't realize how arcane. What I had in front of me looked like a pie tin, complete with a small, anemic criss-cross of crust over it -- about one-tenth an actual crust for an actual pie, sloppily placed -- but with the "spiders" crawling around in the bottom, about a half a dozen of them, purple and round and with legs on every available surface. There was also about 60 milliliters of fluid in the bottom as well. Water, I think, but made somewhat milky by the "spiders" playing around in it.

I had a long metal fork-like thing, which I tried to use to herd them. I'd seen some programming manuals on the way in, but I was too afraid to leave the critters to grab one. They didn't seem to take any heed of my actions, tho they never left the tin, instead swarming up the sides and pulling on the crust, and it fell into the water and dissolved... Or the "spiders" ate it, I'm not sure which.

I had some vague sense that I was supposed to produce more crust, not less, from the minimal introduction the boss had given me, so I started to panic. I turned the tin over on the floor, and stood on my chair and the "spiders" flopped around on the floor, swelling from the size of pills to as big as my fist. That large, I could see they more resembled fleas with way too many legs, perhaps crossed with a horseshoe crab, all segments, glistening and turning from purple to gray as I watched.

There seemed to be less of them as they got bigger. Some stopped moving, and stopped growing. I think they were eating each other, but I couldn't catch any of them at it.

A bald-headed berk poked his head in. "Oh, not many hit on that trick the first day. Let me show you what you do next."

He picked one of them up -- one of the moving ones -- and turned the tin back over on my desk. He then squeezed the thing like a tube of toothpaste, and out came what looked like liquid, unbaked crust.

He did that to another one, and by that time the others had stopped moving, or disappeared. But the result was about twice as much crust as before, mass-wise, in a big glop.

He left before I could thank him. Later, I realized he'd saved my job.

3021... 3021... 3021... 3021... 3021... 3021... 3021...

The only thing stopping me from road hypnosis was the uneven, half-faded nature of the yellow lines and the irregular nature of the foliage on the side of the road.

I blinked, and when another tree went past my ear, there was a house on the right. The lights were still on.

I blinked several times, on purpose, and pulled into the dirt driveway, behind a pickup truck.

I reached into the footwell of the front passenger seat, rustling the Pop Tart foils, and pulling the dark grey club up and onto my steering wheel. I pulled it across and it clicked.

The house was small but tall, and white. Two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen, from the looks of it.

I walked up onto the porch, and knocked for a solid five minutes before I sighed and went back to the car. I pulled the axe out of the trunk, and walked back to the porch.

I rattled the doorknob. Locked. So I hefted the axe.

At first I feebly scratched the door, but then I put my back into it, and the axe went in solidly. The wood chips made my eyes water. I kept hitting, as uneven as the darkness, until the hole was big enough to reach through.

Once inside, it didn't take long to look around. All the beds were made. The bathroom looked normal, with a slight ring around the tub, and signs of recent scrubbing around the sink.

There was a turkey in the gas oven, but it had given up at least a couple hours ago, becoming a hard, black mass. I could only tell it was a turkey from the residual smell. There was a phone in the kitchen, white like the outside walls, and when I picked it up, it beep beep beeped the busy signal.

I put the axe on the kitchen counter, and walked upstairs, stopping once I was next to the bed that was least-well made, with wrinkles, and signs of wear on the pillow.

I took a deep breath in through my mouth, and out through my nose. I growled, rough like a country road, and then started to roar, and scream... and scream.

I started punching the headboard, opening up the wounds on my knuckles. I wrestled the mattress, turning it over, knocking over a lamp. The lamp didn't break, so I stomped it, screaming all the while.

Breath came in through my mouth, and out my nose.

I went downstairs, and picked up the axe from the kitchen counter. I unplugged the microwave and took the axe to it, but I barely dented it.

I walked outside, opened the trunk, and put the axe in. I slid into the front seat, breathing in through my mouth, and out through my nose. I unlocked the club, pulled it shorter, twisted and threw it into the footwell.

I pulled out, and back onto the road, pushing on the gas.

3022... 3022... 3022... 3022... 3022... 3022... 3022...

From the diary of Zhu Meihui, the Crazed Magician

It was during the first new moon of my Sun-and-Serpent Fever that the dreams began. I knew when I began working with the more exotic herbs, grinding torn dragonthistle leaves and radish seeds for my research, that certain of the energies from these plants could be absorbed through the skin. Had I only been more careful!

The necklace is almost finished. I look to my dusty shelves, my forgotten poultices, and long for the days I spent working with earth and not fire. The fever has nearly consumed me, but the heat from the forge doubles my pain. I work from before the sun rises until long after it sets, and yet, the dreams do not let me rest. How can eternities pass in my slumber when I close my eyes for a mere moment? I see a bird of prey, this necklace in its jaws—blood blooms at its breast and it plummets. The bird’s mouth opens for one final protest. The necklace hits the ground and all becomes white. I cry out to the bird, but it does not answer—I do not know if it lives or dies. The precious artifact falls to the earth, then nothing but the light, the silence.

I do not know why I must finish this precious trinket; in my dreams other shapes and whispers visit, and I know that this fever will take me long before my work has served its purpose. My daughter will wear this around her neck; she shall play with it, as if she were still a child. I have not seen her smile since the first dream seized me and I began to sculpt molten magic from my vision. She will keep this safe. I know she will guard my mystery with her life.

Han Tsiang-Tsu, blessed immortal, fellow scholar, seeker of truth. Keep my work safe, keep my family safe, keep my daughter safe. I long for dreamless sleep.

Craig tried to ignore her as he walked back to his dorm, but failed.

( Read more... )

"So," he said, hefting a leather-bound tome. "How about a reading from The Ant and the Industrious Ape?"

She whirled, her face red, her tiny finger pointing. "We can't read from that. It's not real."

With a faint lemony scent and a sort of whuffling sound, the book disappeared.

He blinked as she took a deep breath, and she said: "And we can't read from The Ferret and the Blinking Rat, or The Diamond-Studded Dog and the Sleeping Pig, or The Giant Worm and the Angry Badger... because they're not real either."

There was a slapping, shuffling sound, as books shifted due to sudden empty spots on the shelves.

He pursed his lips as she shook her little fist at him. She took a step forward, and pulled a hunk of dark material off of one of the bookcases, biting into it savagely.

"And there's no such thing as bookcases made from chocolate!"

The hunk in her hand disappeared, and there was a crash as all the books fell to the floor, with a scent like dusty gingerbread.

Finally he found his voice again. "You've been reading my notes."

She stamped her little foot. "Yes, I've read your notes. The entire west wing isn't real."

There was a vast crashing sound from her left, as snow fell from now-gone rooftops.

She was on top of him now, staring up into his face. Her voice was a whisper. "And you... You aren't real."

He breathed in through his nose, but he didn't disappear. Instead, he said: "You should have read all my notes, my darling. It's the little girl who has been reading things she shouldn't that isn't real."

With the smell of spun sugar and allspice, and with wide eyes, the little girl disappeared.

He wept the rest of the day, while the books slowly decayed.

Every time he put a bullet in someone, he would laugh in this ragged kind of way that I think was supposed to sound unhinged. Then, he would pause, smile with thin lips, and say: "I really feel like I made a difference in that man's life."

The sex was mediocre. He was good with his tongue, and not much else.

But the best part was when he came to me, and pointed at one of the weeping sores, already turning black and making a sort of crackling noise. He had discovered my goblin infection was contagious. A little-known fact, that.

"I really feel like I've made a difference in your life," I said.

- Joan Smithee, For the Love of Entropy

There were more than just her. Some were tall and green, with bushy heads, like bits of sponge. A couple were the same as the others, but white. Others were yellow and knobby, with gigantic arms and legs bulging from their football-shaped bodies. A few others were orange, with green nether regions and a feral grin.

She was in front of them all, in her human form. "As you can see, there are more alien species on Earth than you imagined. 174, to be exact. I have you cornered. I have won the game."

I slumped. She was right.

She laughed. When she saw we were surrendering, she had the rest march away.

While staring at my shoes, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, next to the garage.

I leapt up, and ran after one of the yellow ones. "You! What planet are you from?!"

It grinned at me crookedly. And then, it drawled, "I am from Earth. I likes to grow in de Earth."

I pointed at the empty spot I had spied... Where our picnic baskets had disappeared.

"Those aren't aliens," I said. "They're just vegetables from our stores that you transformed!"

We looked at each other. Discounting her false horde, we outnumbered her.

We put on our own crooked grins and surged toward her.

- Sean Doxen, Autobiographical Webs

I look up from the knife into his grimacing face. He sees the question in my eyes and says a single word. I close my eyes as the burning shard of ice begins to spread out in throbbing waves. He speaks again.

"When she left, I had only one thing left; our friendship."

I open my eyes again, confused. It hurts to form the words but I have to understand.

"But I never..." A ragged breath. The air must have be on fire but I can't see well enough anymore to tell. "I did not take her from you. She..." Focus. Inhale slowly. "She decided on her own."

He frowns deeper. I realize he is crying. For how long?

"I wish you had. Oh, how I prayed that you had seduced her. Then, maybe, I could hate you."

How good of a real estate agent was Jeb Savage? ( Let me tell you a story. )