#FridayFlash: The Philosopher’s Stone

This one is based on Icy Sedgwick’s Photo Prompt 20. The prompts that prompt me get me to ask a question: the resulting story answers the question. In this case, the tale is a cautionary one — sometimes, a great discovery doesn’t always work out…

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The Philosopher’s Stone

We accept your invitation for March 14th. Her Grace has business nearby and will personally attend your demonstration. I myself will accompany her…

Giovanni put the letter aside. Marco felt threatened, as well he should. He, Giovanni, had discovered the Philosopher’s Stone! Because of him, gold would become as common as dirt. Three weeks, and yet much work to do.


Marco swept through Giovanni’s door unannounced, giving the front room a disapproving inspection —

“Behold Her Grace!” a herald called from the doorway. Giovanni immediately turned and knelt.

“Arise,” said the queen, bored with ceremony. “You are the one whose demonstration I have come to see?”

“Your Grace,” Marco sneered, “we may be in the wrong place. The Giovanni who wrote us claims to be an alchemist. We seem to have found the apothecary instead.”

“I am the one, Your Grace,” said Giovanni, refusing to be cowed by the likes of Marco. “I am also the apothecary to this village, which provides the income to pursue my true calling.”

“Impressive — to have discovered the Philosopher’s Stone in a part-time pursuit.”

“Your Grace is kind. But I have not labored unaided. My brother is the local monsignor, and I have a letter of commendation from the bishop as I successfully treated his gout.” Let Marco chew on that — any ill he plotted would be returned.

“I see,” said the queen. “And thus you found it. How?”

“Your Grace, you yourself know the Church has preserved a great body of ancient knowledge, to which I was granted access. From Roma, my research led me to a monastery in Persia, where is stored a certain manuscript from faraway Bharat. Clues I found in Roma — and much prayer — allowed me to unlock its secrets.”

“A pretty story,” Marco sneered, “but incredible. A mere village apothecary, no matter how well-traveled, discovering what so many have searched for their entire lives? If you were certain of success, you should have sent your notes.”

And let you steal the credit? “Eminent Marco, it is said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I intend to provide that proof.”

“So you intend to put on your show?”

“Aye.”

“Your fraud will —”

“Marco,” the queen interrupted, “enough. We were invited to be witnesses. Let Giovanni succeed or fail without further harassment.”

Marco sketched a bow and mumbled “Your Grace.”

Giovanni made a more sincere bow. “The queen is kind. All is ready in my laboratory. This way, if you please.” He conducted them into the next room, and lifted heavy lead-lined aprons from the wall. “Some of the manuscript, I was unable to translate satisfactorily. I am unsure whether these are for safety. But with such distinguished guests, I err on the side of caution. I believe the power of the Stone brought to bear on mere flesh can cause harm.”

“The Stone. What is the Stone?”

“That, eminent Marco, is a misnomer that led us all astray. It is not a stone at all, but metal! The manuscript spoke of mines in what are now German and Slavic districts. There I found the ores.

“The refining process is exacting. The manuscript says that a certain amount of refined metal is required, and must not be brought together into a single mass until the proper moment. The base metal is packed around two pieces of Stone, and brought together with a great weight atop. Perhaps you wish to examine the apparatus before we begin?”

Marco nodded and peered into the open furnace. “This brown stuff — that is it?”

“Aye.”

“So unimposing. Perhaps that too has kept it hidden. Well… proceed, then.”

Giovanni turned to the wall, where a sturdy crank was mounted. With a silent prayer, he released the catch and let go the handle; it spun madly as a mass dropped from above and struck the mass below with a flat WHUMP.

Marco smiled. “Nothing. You have failed. As expected.”

(Photo: Icy Sedgwick)

“It grows warm,” the herald said. The furnace hissed and popped, then the stone vessels shattered. Molten yellow poured forth.

“A miracle!” The herald gasped. They stood transfixed in the growing heat, until Marco seized a crucible by its long handle and dipped it in the flow. He pulled it to them and all stared at the contents wide-eyed.

“It glows with an inner light!” the queen breathed. “Marco: speak true. Do you find fraud in this?”

“If fraud there is,” Marco whispered, “I cannot find it.”

“Then acknowledge him,” she commanded.

Marco gave a sour look, but sketched a brief bow. “Maestro.”

“Maestro Giovanni,” Her Grace smiled. “What will you need to bring your apparatus to our court?”

“All can fit in ten wagons. Except, of course, the furnace.”

“Very well. Marco of course will assist you with all his talent. We will withdraw now. Begin preparations immediately.”

“Of course, Your Grace. Please, take the crucible as my personal gift to you.”


The pounding at his door did not wake Giovanni, for exultation precluded sleep. He put down his short sword when he recognized the herald’s voice: “Open, in the name of the queen!”

The herald entered. “Your services as apothecary are required,” he said. “We vomit, and our bowels run like water.”

“Tainted food,” Giovanni said, then started. “I have never known Pietro’s inn to serve bad food!”

“It was ours,” the herald said as Giovanni spooned powder into a packet. “Heads will roll at the court over this!”

“Stir this into warm tea for each of you. Who would do this?”

The herald rubbed his head, then looked at the loose hair in his hand. “Any of them.” He paused. “Marco… beware of him. He is envious.”

“I will, and thank you.” Giovanni himself felt a little queasy, and he’d eaten… nothing. He’d forgotten supper. Forcing himself to eat a bite, he then took a pinch of his own powder.


Two days later, a hearse conducted the remains of the royal entourage back to the palace. The village was in turmoil, and Giovanni departed on the advice of his brother. The villagers were used to his comings and goings, so few noticed.

Another day, another village. In the afternoon, a dead man arrived atop a cart, slumped over the reins. The cart and its contents were looted. A stack of books fed only the fires…

White Pickups, Episode 75

Contents

Monday, February 20, 2012

Miss Sally closed her folder. “This is a good stopping point,” she said, glancing at the figure in the doorway. “Professor Ball is here for science, so I’ll turn things over to him. Don’t forget your homework: pick a story, identify its central conflict, and explain why it’s important.” She stood and motioned for Charles to come in.

The schoolroom was the former workout room. It had tall windows that welcomed the morning sun, and blinds for when it got too bright. The teacher and student desks, pilfered from Ben’s old school, were lined up along the windows so they only needed artificial light on rainy days. Sometimes, Stefan and his boyfriend would come to use the exercise bikes, sweating and puffing as quiet as possible while the kids had class.

“Give me five or ten minutes,” said Charles, as Miss Sally left through the glass door. “I want to organize my thoughts a little, and I’m sure some of you could use a bathroom break.”

Caitlin flipped her notebook shut and stood. “Yeah, I need to pee,” she said in a low voice. Lily giggled, but she and Ashley both got up and followed, flanking her about a half-step behind. The boys brought up the rear, talking between themselves. Caitlin thought about how much things kept changing — just a few weeks ago, it was Ashley up front with Lily and herself following, but now she was in the lead. How — and why — did that happen?

Their bathrooms were the public clubhouse bathrooms, almost directly across the hallway outside — left to the pool, right to the staircase, straight on to the johns, as Sheldon once said. There were no windows, but Caitlin and Ashley turned on their flashlights and hung them on sconces the grownups installed near the mirrors when they put in the composting toilets. This gave the bathroom a dim light, enough to see what needed to be seen.

“Have you guys picked out your story yet?” Lily’s voice reverberated off the tile walls.

“Not really,” said Caitlin. “Right now, I don’t care. I just hope Professor Ball finishes his lesson early. I am so bored!”

“And what’s after science class?” Ashley asked; Lily joined her in a sing-song answer, “Skate class!” They both giggled.

“Yeah, whatever,” Caitlin said, finishing up. “It could be gardening for all I care. I just want to get outside.”

The other girls said nothing, in silent agreement. This was the nicest day they’d had so far this year, after all. No jacket required for once, even inside once the sun had warmed things up. It seemed wrong to be cooped up indoors on a day like this. Just another way things have changed, Caitlin thought — back Before she would have watched TV and snacked, regardless of weather. And skating? skateboarding? Never in a zillion years. True, she had worked hard at it to begin with, just to get Cody’s attention and approval, but now she worked at it because she was good and wanted to get better. Let them think what they wanted.


Cody had a surprise waiting for the kids: a low ramp, made from a sheet of plywood and some scrap lumber. The high side stood maybe two feet off the pavement. It had a brief platform, about a foot wide between the slope and empty air.

“I’m not quite up to building a quarterpipe,” Cody explained. “This’ll do, until we can get over to the skate park. Anyway, a ramp’s a little easier to start out with, and it’ll give you an idea of what to expect.

“We’re gonna start by rolling off with our skateboards. When you’re comfortable with that, we’ll practice doing some turnarounds. That should get us through today, and we’ll try a couple other things with our skates later.” He laid his stick on the narrow flat area on top, letting the front wheels rest on the slope. The rear wheels hung in a little gap between two of the boards. “Just put your back wheels here in this gap, it’ll keep your stick from rolling before you’re ready.” He stepped up and placed a foot over the back wheels. “Look forward, lean forward. When you get to the bottom, put some weight on your back wheels so the front don’t try to plow into the asphalt. Okay? You got your armor on, and you won’t go fast enough to worry about it anyway. Give it a little nudge and you’re off, just like this: ready-fire-aim.”

Cody rolled down the ramp, hit the pavement, made a wide turn in the empty street. He gave a kick and rolled back to rejoin his class. “Just like that. When you come off the ramp, straighten up and you’ll be fine. Who’s first?”

To his surprise, Ashley and both boys joined Caitlin in volunteering, and Caitlin looked nearly as surprised as he felt. “Huh. Well, I guess we’ll go in alphabetical order: Ashley, Ben, Caitlin, Sheldon. Lily, you stand at the bottom and watch what they do. If they don’t wipe out, just do what they do when it’s your turn.” She nodded and moved to stand where Cody pointed.

Ashley shifted on her board and it started rolling. She wobbled a moment, but stayed upright and rode it out. She rolled off the ramp, then took a wide turn like Cody’s but picked up her board and walked back when she’d slowed enough. Ben got fixated on the bottom of the ramp and fell. His pads kept him from getting hurt, and Cody gave him the “eyes up next time” sign. Caitlin rolled down like she’d done it all her life, then stopped with a showy braking maneuver Cody had shown her outside of class. She kicked her board up, caught it, and carried it back, looking a little smug. Sheldon rolled down and away without trouble. He still had trouble slowing and turning, so he rolled until he could stop, then turned around and kicked his way back.

Lily looked a little nervous. “You see that mailbox way down there?” Cody asked her. She nodded. “Good. Keep your eyes on it until you’re off the ramp. You saw Ben wipe out, right? He was looking at the pavement, and you go where you look. So don’t look down. Just do what you do on a driveway.” She nodded again, mounted the ramp, rolled away.

She stayed upright and yelled “I did it! I did it!” as she continued to roll away. Like Sheldon, she had difficulty braking and turning. She rolled to a stop and walked her board back with a big grin.

“Not bad, guys!” Cody grinned. “Ben, you wanna try again? Just watch the mailbox like Lily did, okay?” He nodded, mounted the ramp, rolled down and this time stayed on the board. He made his turn and came back.

“Cool. You know how I made you guys practice that one-eighty? Now you’ll do something useful with it. Lemme show you.” He rolled up the street a ways, stopped, turned around. “Now I’m gonna come up the ramp. When I stop, or almost stop, I’ll kick around and come back down.” A few strong kicks sent him up the street; he rolled about halfway up the ramp, turned and descended. “You’ll want to know how to do this when you’re on a halfpipe.”

“We’re not as fast as you, Cody,” said Caitlin. “How are we gonna get up enough speed to do anything?”

Caitlin was up to something, but Cody had no idea what. She had a good point, though. “I could pull you on my bike, I guess. You wanna go first?”

“Sure.”

Cody picked up his mountain bike from the grass and rode up the street, Caitlin following on her board. “Okay, just hang on to the rack, then let go when I tell you, got it?” Caitlin nodded and Cody got them going.

“Now!” Caitlin gave a grunt and a hard pull on the rack before letting go, hitting the ramp faster than Cody intended. As she reached the top, she ollie’d and sailed over the narrow platform, drawing shrieks from the other girls. She landed off-balance and fell, hitting the pavement on her side, her skateboard tumbling up and over the curb.

Cody left his bike on the street and ran to her, cursing. “You okay?”

“I think so,” she said, clambering to her feet. “Ow.” She felt her left shoulder. “I think I scraped it up.”

“Road rash!” Cody said.

“Abrasion,” said Ashley. “We need to clean it and get you to Rita.”

“Just clean it,” Caitlin snapped. “I wanna try again.”

“I don’t want you trying to ollie off the ramp again, okay?” Cody looked serious. “You scared the shit out of me. Just up and down this time. Promise?”

“Fine.” Caitlin hissed as Ashley reached under her sleeve, the wet-wipe stinging her scraped skin. “This is how you learn though, right?”

“Yeah, but maybe on colder days when you can wear a jacket. Then you won’t get scraped up so much.”

continued…

Saturday in the Park

No way I’d mistake it for the Fourth of July, but it was an awesome day for February. That’s a little ironic, since the upcoming episode of White Pickups is set right at this time of year and deals with a very similar day (weather-wise).

Everyone else ran off to the chicken houses, after lunch, leaving Mason and me alone at the manor. I’d made plans for this contingency, and so we were shortly off to the park.

We started with a stroll around the perimeter path, just over a mile. Mason enjoyed all the stuff going on, especially the kids playing soccer in the practice fields next to the path. I enjoyed the moms jogging or strolling with their kids. We both enjoyed some fresh air and sunshine.

The playground is just off the path, almost all the way around from where we started, and I found a spot to park the stroller and turned him loose. He has no trouble going up stairs, and I found that with the generous handholds offered on the jungle gym, he also had no problem going down them.

I did get a little nervous when he climbed to the next platform and got out of reach. As I was trying to get him to come down the nearby slide, a little black-haired girl poked her head out of the adjacent tunnel and stared at me. I stared back.

“Moptop? Is that you?” I asked after a second.

“Are you FARf?” she responded. Sure enough, that big guy stalking around the edges of the jungle gym was Moptop’s grandpa. We chatted for a minute, me with one eye on Mason, and Moptop slipped off to hit the swing set. Mason and Moptop saw each other, said hi, then went on with their own pursuits.

After a little running, climbing, sliding, a diaper change (atomic), and watching the other kids, Mason got a little overloaded. He stopped, stood and watched the chaos, occasionally stooping to pick up a handful of wood shavings and toss them. Finally, he walked over to the fence and looked at the path. “That!” he said, several times, until I realized he was ready to get in the stroller and continue our walk.

We disposed of the nuclear waste dump he’d left in his diaper in a nearby bathroom, and I got nervous about where the car was until I realized I hadn’t gone quite all the way around, and we returned and headed on back.

He was asleep a few miles before we got home, and barely stirred when I got him out of the car seat. He only napped for 45 minutes, but he’d had a good morning nap so I wasn’t concerned.

Spring #4 is being very good to us on Planet Georgia, and Winter #5 hasn’t shown up in the extended forecast just yet. But hey, there’s still March to get through.

#FridayFlash: G-5 Goes Fishing

This concludes the G-5 flash trilogy. If you’re just joining the free-range insane asylum, here are links to the first two parts:

Part 1: G-5
Part 2: G-5’s Blast from the Past

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The ice run was profitable, but G-5 added what he called “gravy” by monitoring comms from Orbital Control and finding a cargo of iridium needing a ride. I had to look up “deadheading” — it means traveling without cargo — but I liked the word, and understood G-5’s distaste for the concept. But he had even more distaste for what was waiting for him at home.

“Do you have any idea how much I hate her?” he asked as we broke Mars orbit and burned for home.

“Since you’ve mentioned it at least eight times a day since you got her message, I have a pretty good idea.”

“Eh. No. Strangling her with my bare hands wouldn’t be good enough. I’d —”

“Hey. Remember, just saying things like that in public is a felony these days. You need to be careful.”

“This ain’t public.” G-5 grinned. “Yeah. I’m just blowing off steam before I make the call here.” He stretched, letting the tenth-gee pull his arms back. He looked nervous, even though he and gram and I had worked it all out over the last two weeks.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “If you swerve, we’ll just re-take. You won’t have to go real-time until we hit lunar orbit.”

“Yeah. You know this is a waste of time, right? Back before I — we went popsicle, she said she’d go to the ends of the earth to pay me back after I beat her in court.” He looked at his reflection in the dark monitor. “Whatever. Let’s do this.”

I adjusted the vid and nodded. He looked at the input and smiled. “Carolyn. I have to admit I was surprised you’d follow me, even through time, just to keep your petty little feud going. But I shouldn’t have expected anything less.

“I’ve been in touch with our great-great-great-granddaughter, Marla, who’s the current CEO. Actually, they call it Steering Prime now, same thing. Against my wishes and better judgement, Steering is making you a pretty generous counter-offer. You’ll get a trust fund that will let you live out the rest of your miserable life in comfort, as long as you stay clear of me and other ECF staff. You won’t be content — nothing ever satisfies you — but that’s the absolute best you can do.

“I know you won’t believe me, but that’ll just make it more fun to watch you go down in flames again. I didn’t need connections to beat you last time. And the legal system is entirely computerized now — you can make all the sad faces you want at an AI, and it won’t care.

“So there you have it. Take it or leave it, and I really hope you leave it — I’d love to see you cast loose without a penny. But I’m attaching contact details for Marla anyway.

“Oh… hey, I’m in a generous mood. I’ll be in cryo for six weeks, but I’ll give you one more shot at me when we’re closer to home and we can talk direct. Send me your timezone, so I’ll know when to wake you up.” He turned to me. “Well?”

“Looks good. You covered — oh, you forgot the last part —”

“Nope. I’m gonna spring that one real-time. Let’s go popsicle before she has a chance to respond. With any luck, I won’t dream of that leech.”

“Leeches are extinct.”

“All but one.”



As before, G-5 was out of cryo well before me, waiting with a sippy of warm coffee and a big grin. “The bait has attracted the fish,” he said, leaving me to figure out what that meant. “Lunar O.C. assigned us a slot, and You Know Who will be waking up in about an hour. Plenty of time to chow down.” If you’ve ever been in cryo, you know how hungry you are when you wake up. Something inside knows you haven’t eaten in months or years, and it wants to make up for lost time. Space chow isn’t great, but it’s food. Lots of fiber to keep the recyclers humming, good protein, and enough carbs and fat to give it some flavor. Some. We ate, G-5 with one eye on a chrono set for Standard minus 6 (which he called “Central Time”).

With our wake-up hunger dealt with, we slotted into lunar orbit and set up a relay to Earth. It took a few minutes, but Carolyn’s face glared at us across space. “Well,” she said, “I didn’t believe you, but you wouldn’t tell a lie so easily refuted. I checked it out, of course. It seems that I have no choice but to accept our descendant’s offer. I must say, you haven’t fared much better. Such a strange future we’ve woken up in… we’re not respected much.”

“Tell me about it. You know they call us throwbacks, right?”

The three-second delay stretched on. “Such an ugly word.”

“Yeah. And like you said… here I am. Second fiddle on a space truck.” He didn’t mention gram’s offer of a Steering seat. “At least they cured what ailed us. But you know, they don’t have popsicles now? I was thinking about starting a new business — introduce ’em to some good ol’ twenty-first century junk food.”

Her eyes brightened, a smile came to her face. “Ah. Well, I won’t trouble you further, Warren. This world has done enough to us both. Goodbye.” She cut off the call before he could respond.

G-5 grinned. “Hah! Hook, line, and sinker!” He ignored my puzzlement. “She’ll start the business herself, thinking she’s cutting me out, and I’m rid of her at last!”

That’s exactly how it went. We came home to find she’d already started 21st Century Treats, and was happy to ignore us. G-5 got his Steering seat. He promoted me to Head of Logistics, a fancy title for cultural assistant, but it beat long stretches in a tin can. I got married, had kids, and taught them to call him “G-6.”

He retaliated by teaching them his favorite words.

Off-the-Cuff: Apple vs. Amazon

I didn’t think they’d do it, but I was wrong. Apple is putting the screws to Amazon and other companies, who have used former loopholes to get around Apple’s onerous demand for a 30% commission on “in-app” purchases, for iPad applications. A lot of people have been asking variations on the same question, what does it mean to Amazon and the Kindle app?

That’s the wrong question. The real question is, how many people use an iPad (or iPhone) as their primary eBook reader? As someone who has both a Kindle and an iPad, the only times I have used the iPad to read a book were: 1) When the Kindle screen went Tango Uniform and I was waiting for the replacement; 2) To check the ePub version of my White Pickups draft.

Yes, part of that is because the iPad gets passed around from hand to hand pretty much all day long — if M.A.E.’s not using it to check Facebook or play Angry Birds, it’s Lobster doing the same thing, or it’s Mrs. Fetched playing Mahjongg solitaire. Once in a while, I’ll use it to check Twitter or blogs, or play a round of Angry Birds or solitaire, but I don’t do much reading on it. The Kindle is so much better for that — the screen is easier on the eyes, it’s lighter, and the battery life is better (even though the iPad is no slouch in the battery department itself). In the iPad’s favor, it’s largely format-agnostic, able to read Kindle, Nook, and pretty much everyone else’s eBooks.

I remember all the pronouncements about how the iPad was going to destroy the eBook reader market, but it hasn’t quite turned out that way. Kindle hardware sales are thriving, with B&N’s Nook line running a distant but respectable second, and Sony and Kobo fighting over who will challenge Nook for the #2 spot later on. Apple’s iBookstore is there, but it’s far behind the Kindle Store in sales and probably brings up the rear behind B&N.com and Smashwords. And I don’t think Apple cares all that much. If they did, they’d talk up the eBook reading aspect a lot more in their advertising.

So why is Apple demanding a 30% cut of everything? I can see it for apps — Apple maintains the App Store, paying for the server farms that run it, dealing with payments, and keeping the front end (i.e. the web site) running smoothly. But when we’re talking about buying eBooks through the Kindle and Nook apps, Apple isn’t out of pocket for any of that. There’s something else going on here.

Personally, I think it’s a negotiating position. There’s a popular school of thought that says to ask for the moon in the initial round of negotiations, so you can “compromise” a lot and still get what you really wanted to begin with. Google responded with OnePass, which takes “only” a 10% cut, and I expect that Apple will match it or even undercut it by their self-imposed June 30 deadline for app providers. Credit card companies take 2.5%, so I expect that everyone will head that way sooner or later. Competition or antitrust action, either way things will improve.

White Pickups, Episode 74

Contents

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Kelly insisted on helping with what Tina called “procurement.” “This is going to be a big hassle,” she said, “and if it turns out to be a waste of time, it should be my time wasted too.” And so, on a chilly day that promised rain or snow later, she rode with Tim, Cody, and Johnny to a nearby Green’s Home Center. All of them pulled trailers.

Skirting the truck parked near the main entrance, Johnny led them to the contractors’ entrance. “The stuff we want is closer to this door,” he explained. “We can open the overhead door and ride in, too. No sense in lugging it out if we can just ride it out.”

“Yeah,” said Kelly. “Sooner we’re outta here, the better. These stores creep me out.”

“Hey, all the ghosts are in trucks now,” Cody laughed. “Maybe… ooooOOOOOoooo!” He waggled his fingers on either side of his head.

Kelly snorted and they walked their bikes to the entrance. Johnny and Tim forced the sliding glass doors open, and they wheeled the bikes inside. Birds fussed at the intrusion, flapping between the rafters.

Cody sniffed. “Smells funky in here. Like something died.”

“Didn’t this chain have a fast food counter in each store?” Johnny asked.

“Most of them, but I don’t think this one —” Tim stopped short as a scuffing noise echoed around the shelves. “What was that?” He put a hand on his revolver.

“Possums. Groundhogs. Who knows?” Johnny shrugged. “Let’s get the door open.”

The overhead door rattled and banged on its way up; dust and pieces of a bird’s nest rained down. As the echoes died away, they heard more skittering noises under the chattering birds. The open door let in more daylight; it lacked enthusiasm but did help the grimy skylights a little. Moving away, they turned on flashlights.

“What’s that?” asked Kelly, pointing her beam at something on the floor as Johnny and Tim walked by it.

“Cody squatted down for a look, nudging it with his shoe. “Looks like dog crap,” he said. “Not that old —” he jumped up, drawing his revolver. “Guys! Weapons out!”

A low growling sound, then they heard Tim and Johnny yell. Seconds later, barking, shouts, and Johnny’s carbine filled the store with noise. Birds roosting in the rafters above flew back and forth, cursing and looking for a way out.

“Shit shit shit,” Cody chanted, taking two steps toward the others then stopping. “Kelly! Do you have a gun?” She shook her head, wide-eyed, rooted to the floor. Cody cursed again, darting his light around the shelves. “There!” He pointed at a rack of pipes as they heard more gunfire. “I’ll boost you up on that shelf. Watch down there so we don’t get blindsided!”

They rushed to the shelf. Cody looked down the aisle, then laid the revolver at his feet and linked his hands. Kelly stepped in, jumped up on the shelf, then Cody grabbed up Sondra’s gun and ran to join the others.

“Dogs,” said Johnny, back to back with Tim, “or maybe coyotes. Not good either way.”

“You hit the ones you shot at?”

“Not sure. They ran like hell. Hey! Where’s Kelly?”

“Two aisles down, up in the shelves. I boosted her up. She should be safe up there.”

“Let’s hope,” said Tim. “Okay — with three of us, we can cover all the angles — one look forward, one look back, one down the aisles.”

“Yeah,” said Johnny, “but I need both hands free. Hang on.” He stepped over to the nearest checkout counter, gave a satisfied grunt, and returned with a roll of duct tape. He tore off a strip and bound his flashlight under the barrel, then nodded.

At the next aisle down, a big dog charged headlong, barking. Johnny fired and it fell tumbling and sliding across the concrete floor, stopping a few feet from them. He dropped another in the next aisle, but its fellow dodged behind some merchandise.

“We’ll have to get —” Johnny began —

A scream cut him off. “Cody! Help!”

“Shit! You guys get that one, I’m going back!” He ran back before either could protest, nearly overshooting Kelly’s aisle and skidding to a stop. He played his flashlight down the aisle. “Kelly!”

“Cody! They’re up here!” Cody shone his light along the shelf, and saw two dogs — one black, one white — about fifteen feet from Kelly. She had a short length of plastic pipe, whipping it back and forth to keep them back. They started barking at Cody’s light, making him wince at the racket.

Kelly dropped the pipe and grabbed a large coupling. She thrust it two-handed at the black dog, bouncing it off its snout.

“Good one, Kelly!” he yelled.

“Just a basketball pass!” Kelly grinned in spite of the situation and took up her pipe again. Both dogs stopped barking; the black dog snorted and jumped down to face Cody.

Cody reacted, pumping four quick shots into the black dog without thinking. “No!” he yelled, raising the pistol. Sondra taught me better! “Not this time,” he growled, as the dog twitched its last. The white dog closed the gap with Kelly, snarling just outside the reach of her pipe. “Hang on, Kelly! I got it!” One shot, one kill, Sondra had told him once, that’s what Dad taught me. He nodded to himself, aimed, fired. The white dog jumped as Cody shot — Kelly screamed, but it fell squirming and twitching, just short of her knees. She clubbed it several times with her pipe, then scrambled back.

Shots and shouts rang out farther down as Kelly slid to the edge and jumped down. She wrapped herself around Cody, shaking, her head buried in his shoulder.

“Let’s get down there with the others,” said Cody. “Quick! I gotta reload!”

Kelly squeezed once before letting Cody go. “Five shots — you got one left, right?”

“No. I had the hammer on an empty chamber. Let’s move!” They hustled down to Johnny and Tim.

“We got that one in the shelves,” said Tim, as Cody reloaded.

“Two came after Kelly. That’s five.”

“You need to learn to shoot, Kelly,” Tim told her, “if you want to keep coming on these trips.”

“Yeah. Is that all of them?”

“I don’t know. Do we want to clear this place out, or just get our stuff and go?”

“Clear it,” said Cody, looking grim. “We’ll have to come back for the rest of the blocks, and the pipe and other stuff sooner or later. I don’t wanna go through this again.”


There were four more dogs; they shot two and the survivors bolted through an open gate in the garden section. Tim latched the gate and they boarded the broken glass door going into the main building. Only then did they feel safe wheeling the bikes into the aisles and loading concrete blocks and bags of cement onto the trailers. Johnny added buckets, trowels, two wheelbarrows, and several long broom handles to the load.

“You think we’ll have any extra?” Kelly asked as they pushed their bikes to the door.

“Maybe — after we get two more loads like this one!” Johnny laughed.

“I almost got eaten by a dog, and we gotta do this two more times? I knew this was a crazy idea.”

As Johnny pulled down the overhead door, Kelly hugged Cody again. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“No, really. You did good in there.”

“You did good too. You kept ’em off you until I could get back.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t panic.” She kissed his cheek. “Sondra would be proud.” He gave her a curious look as she jumped on her bike and got her load rolling.

continued…

#FridayFlash: Click

This one is based on Icy Sedgwick’s photo prompt #19.

---

Click.

Easy, easy money, thought Marc, pulling his shirt open and giving the photographer his sexiest smile. Lucky she’d run into him at the lounge; the agency would have charged her two-fifty an hour and paid him seventy-five an hour. He was making eight hundred cash for the afternoon. After figuring for taxes he wouldn’t pay on it, he was pulling two days’ pay for a Saturday afternoon.

And if she wanted a little more than pictures… no problem. She wouldn’t be the first cougar he’d worked for, and she obviously took care of herself.

Click.

“Okay, that’s the clothing,” she said. She had three small jobs come in all at once, and he was modeling for all three.

“What’s next?”

“The shower shoot. Lucky me, I had Phillips install it a month ago, so I don’t have to pay to set up another in the studio.”

“Yeah. You gotta work whatever angles you can these days.”

“You got it!” She smiled like a cat (or maybe a cougar) and led him to a spacious bathroom. “Just put your clothes on the shelf, get wet in the shower, then wrap this towel around yourself. I’ll give you some privacy, let me know when you’re ready.” She left and closed the door.

Marc did as asked, thinking maybe this will be just a photo shoot after all. Either way, no problem. He stepped out, his wet sandy hair curling into ringlets. He took the towel, called her in, and she shot him in several poses and positions.

Click. Click. Click.

“Great,” she gushed. He now noticed she’d changed too, into a black robe that tied down the front. Uh-huh. As long as she didn’t want anything kinky… eight hundred only bought so much. “Keep the towel on, I think we’ll use it for the garden shot — it’ll add some kick, don’t you think? Bring your clothes, just in case.”

He shrugged, smiled, tucked the towel in. “You’re the client.”

The afternoon was thankfully warm. She posed him on a picnic blanket, on one knee, holding a glass of wine as if offering it to the camera.

Click.

He lay on his side, gazing into the distance, touching the wine bottle.

Click.

After a while, he sort of lost track. He was a meat puppet, a pliable statue — in his modeling zone.

Click. Click. Click.

“Last thing,” she said, startling him out of his zone and leading him to a tree. “Stand here.”

Barefoot, of course. Among the moss and ferns and who knows what. He’d need a shower afterwards, but he’d done worse. She wove a thin wreath from twigs and placed it on his head.

She positioned the camera to one side, checked the view, came around to stand in front of him. He was on a slight rise.

“Hands behind your back?” He complied as she undid the first two ties on the robe. “Close your eyes for me.” Rustling noises. “Perfect. Don’t move.” Her voice grew sultry. “Are you stiff yet?”

“Hmm?” Eyes closed, his face betrayed slight curiosity —

Click.

She gave the statue a puzzled look. “Yellowish? Why did you —?” She shrugged and picked his wallet out of his clothes, retrieving the money she used for bait, and looked at his driver’s license. “Marcus Sander Graham?” She felt the surface. “Damn… sandstone.” Names had power, of course, enough to send a powerful spell slightly awry. She looked back at the statue that had once been a model and thought — he didn’t match her other statuary, but he’d bring a good price if she took care in shipping. “All is well.” She turned to the camera and took a final picture of him, standing under the tree.

Click.

Snipped!!!

She even looks like an older version of Snippet…

Hooray, I say!

Things started going our way about a week ago, when Snippet finally got her mom’s truck like she said she could. Her dad put her on his insurance, and away she went. And has been at the manor for less than 24 hours since then.

I think The Boy was happy to get a little space at first, but it may have been that Snippet only stayed with him because he has access to a car most of the time. Now that she has her own vehicle, she’s been pretty scarce lately.

Last night though was the first time I really dared to get my hopes up. The Boy met me on the way to choir practice and swapped my car for Mrs. Fetched’s. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I’m going to give Snippet a little chewing out,” he said. “Basically, I’m gonna let her know she can choose either her friends, or me and Mason.” That’s not quite as controlling as it sounds — he’s never had a problem with her going to visit one of her friends for an evening or even an entire weekend — but when she’s gone pretty much constantly, after being up his butt for so long, there’s some questions that need to be asked or at least implied.

He was gone all night (which didn’t please Mrs. Fetched) and came in this morning. “How did it go?” I asked. He just scowled, shook his head, and carried Mason upstairs. M.A.E. and I high-fived.

Our quiet jubilation was dampened somewhat this afternoon, when Snippet called him and The Boy decided he needed to go to Krystal’s to talk to her. “He’s gonna patch things up with her,” I thought. “She’ll come back,” said M.A.E. We clung to hope, because he packed a couple garbage bags full of her clothes and took them with. Mrs. Fetched phoned in after and got the scoop: she “has feelings” for an old school friend and “isn’t sure she loves him anymore,” and “doesn’t want to live at the manor.” Of course not, she doesn’t have to use him for transportation anymore. He then called us on the way to get Lobster from work, and said he’d need help “getting the rest of her $#!+ downstairs.”

Happy dance! M.A.E. and I high-fived again and even hugged.

My continued jubilation is dampened by The Boy’s hurt. Having been slept around on and dumped when I was his age, I have a pretty good idea of what he’s going through right now (minus the having a kid part). The Boy does let his Flaky Emotional Artist side fly a little freer than I do with mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have intense feelings about things. I opined that he’s now free to find someone who truly loves him, although M.A.E. (who has also gone through the love/dump wringer) thinks he should just focus on himself, Mason, and his music for a while. Sound advice.

I’m sure Lobster will be happy to have Snippet out of the picture as well. It’ll give him more space in the bedroom, and he won’t be summarily kicked out when Snippet wants a little nooky. ’Course, he’s getting a car tomorrow, and has a date on Saturday with someone he met on Facebook. Seeing as she’s about 10 years older, maybe he’ll have a different temporary roof over his head pretty soon…

I Got Mail: 1st Grade Drawing

Most of the “funny” email I get isn’t that funny. This was an exception. The Evil Twins’ dad sent it along…


A first grade girl handed in the drawing below for her homework assignment.

The teacher graded it and the child brought it home.

She returned to school the next day with the following note:

Dear Ms. Davis,

I want to be perfectly clear on my child's homework illustration. It is NOT of me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint surrounded by male customers with money.

I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm. This drawing is of me selling a shovel.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Harrington

White Pickups, Episode 73

Contents

A subdued Cody and Kelly entered the Laurel Room, not noticing the curious stares from her parents and Johnny, and took their seats again. Their eyes were puffy, and Cody’s grim look was gone. Charles and Tina looked at each other, then turned to watch them.

“Okay,” said Kelly, “scratch the aqueduct. We still —”

“Nuh-uh.” Cody shook his head.

“What?”

“Don’t scratch the aqueduct. Yet. Maybe it’s a bad idea. But it might be a good one. Or the start of one.”


At the other table, Tina and Charles looked at each other. “Do you think they —” Tina twirled a finger at the teenagers.

Charles shook his head. “They’ve obviously worked something out. But I’d bet a stack of firewood that it didn’t involve sex.”

“Firewood?” Johnny grinned. “Is that gonna be our currency now? I’m gonna need a bigger wallet!”


“How do you figure?” asked Kelly.

“Well, maybe not an aqueduct. That’s like what the Romans had, right?” She nodded. “Yeah. They had lots of slaves to build that kind of shit, but they didn’t have big-box stores full of pipe and other construction junk waiting to be plundered.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cody looked at Kelly, and saw the spark in his eyes, saw the manic grin. “Instead of an aqueduct, make it a pipeline!”

“I don’t know. I still think it’s a dumb idea.”

“Maybe not. We have to find a spring that’s higher up than here, and it has to be close enough where we can find enough pipe to get the water back here. If all that works out, it’s a good idea. If not… nice try, we’ll come up with something else.” Cody stood. “Hey,” he said to Tina, Charles, and Johnny, “I think we’ve got something here. Or Kelly does.”

“Yeah right,” Kelly mock-griped. “Blame it on me when it turns out to be a dumb idea.”


After supper, they reconvened in the Laurel Room. Kelly looked at the whiteboard, full of what her mom labeled Action Items. “Are we gonna be able to get all this stuff done?”

“Sure,” Charles said. “It might take longer than we like, it might be more effort than we expect, but we’ll do it. We have to.”

“If we can find a spring in the right place,” said Cody, poring over the topographical maps he and Tim found at the library. “And it looks like there could be one a little north of here.”

“How far?” asked Tina.

Cody used his fingers as a compass. “Maybe two miles straight there. We’ll have to go around some crap though.” He fiddled some more. “Call it three, maybe three and a half miles of pipe.”

“Three miles!” Kelly shook her head. “Let’s think of something else. There’s no way we’ll find enough pipe!”

“Actually, that ain’t too bad,” said Johnny, peering over Cody’s shoulder. “If we can put up with a small pipe, that stuff comes in five hundred foot rolls. Thirty, thirty-five rolls — we might find that much at one supply house if we’re lucky.”

“Will a small pipe carry enough water for fifty people?” asked Cody.

“I think so. The way I figure, we take all the rain barrels and set ’em up on that little rise behind the clubhouse. We only use the water through the day, and the rain barrels are more than enough for that, so we let ’em refill overnight.”

“We’ll use it,” said Charles. “We’ve all been pretty good about staying within our limits, but if we have more we’ll use more.”

“Okay,” said Kelly, “so let’s pretend the spring is where the map says it is, and it’s big enough to supply enough water. What’s next?”

“Build a catch basin and cover it,” Johnny answered.

“Why?”

“Why which? We need the basin so dirt can settle out before it gets into the pipe, and to even out the flow. We need to cover it so debris and critters mostly won’t get in and clog things up.” Johnny used the last remaining bare spot on the whiteboard to sketch a diagram.

“Mostly?”

“Yeah. Bugs might get in, but they should float right back out the overflow pipe unless the flow drops off. We’ll still have to filter down at this end, but not as much as we would otherwise.”

“Okay… but I still don’t see how we’re gonna carry three miles of pipe.”

“A little at a time.”

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Following the map, they found the spring branch and followed it back to the source. “This is Valentine’s Day,” said Max. “Let’s call it Valentine Spring.”

“Is that enough water?” asked Kelly, watching the water burble out of the hillside. Tim, Johnny, Cody, and Max were also there to check out their potential new water source.

“Should be,” said Johnny. “Looks like at least two or three gallons a minute. Not huge, but that would fill one rain barrel in forty minutes. If we don’t get more barrels, it would fill them all overnight twice, maybe three times over.”

“I guess we can start digging then,” said Tim.

“Let’s wait until we get the blocks and mortar here,” said Johnny. “If we get a heavy rain first, it’ll wash our work away.”

“Swingin’ the axe all winter got us in shape to dig, I guess,” Cody shrugged. “How many blocks will we need?”

“A few hundred. We’ll need three or four trips at least to bring ’em all in.”

Kelly looked dubious. “That’s a lot of work for something we don’t even know is going to pan out.”

Max grinned. “Like we got anything better to do?”

Johnny unscrewed the cap from an empty water bottle, cleared some debris from around the spring, and dipped it in the flow. “Looks pretty clear,” he said, watching the water swirl in the bottle. “I might have picked up a little sediment, but once we get the catch basin built, that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll have to clear the silt out every few years, but that’s no big deal.” He took a sip. “Pretty good!” He passed it around.

continued…

Mason and Planning

Mason is 17 months old today. The kid’s come a long way, and of course he has a long way to go. But he hit a big milestone yesterday — he requested a ride on the potty seat for the first time. He didn’t do anything but sit there, but it’s a big step and kicks off the toilet training phase of life. Mom said she just let me run around with my naughty bits in the breeze one summer, and I wouldn’t let ’er rip unless I was on the pot or wearing a diaper… maybe that embarrassing situation won’t have to be repeated with Mason. (Mom got a picture of this, but I think it got clobbered in Dad’s fire. Oh well, no FARf-nudies this time around.)

He’s learning new words all the time, and amazingly can be reasoned with on occasion. For example, when I come in from work, he wants me to cuddle him up and play with him right away, and gets mad if I head down the hall. But if I explain that I need to use the facilities and get some stuff out of my pockets, he’s okay until I return. Of course, there are many occasions where reason just doesn’t cut the mustard. For example, we’re trying to switch him over from bottles to sippy cups, and have succeeded for everything but bedtime — he wants that bottle for the long sleep. We got him a large-capacity sippy cup today, but he isn’t used to it just yet. He’s back to mostly sleeping all night, after a week or so of nightly wake-up calls. whew


I’ve been seriously considering going indie with my fiction writing, but there’s a ton of work involved. I have a plan mostly roughed out in my head, and have identified a few holes in the plan. It’s the holes that need the most work and give me pause… but the whole “getting published” gauntlet involves a lot of work as well, with no guarantee that my stories would ever see daylight. Worst of all, many of the same holes are present for either route: for example, if I go indie I’ll have to get an editor to go over my stuff; a publisher might have an editor on staff, but given the typos I’ve seen in published works I have to wonder. Cover art is the only aspect where traditional publishing has a clear advantage. Either route forces me to do most (or all) of the marketing and publicity. The traditional route gets me into traditional bookstores, but as an indie I can get into major eBook stores easily enough. The thing is, if I can work out a decent system for indie publishing, I could conceivably make some coin by doing the gruntwork for other authors. Something to think about, anyway.

My other plan, completely separate from the first, is to get a store open on CafePress or something similar. Doing that right also requires some legwork — getting the designs down, then in the right format, and I can visualize something a whole lot easier than I can get it out of my head. Maybe The Boy can help there.

Just a few thoughts…

#FridayFlash: Go Out With a Bang

As has happened several times in the past, I wrote this in a burst after thinking I wasn’t going to write much. This one’s a more traditional zombie story than my last one, and is based on a writing prompt from Apple Ardent Scott: You’ve Been Bitten — Now What? Might as well…

---

Go Out With a Bang

I keep looking at my cellphone. I need to stop it. Focus. Doc White says I’ve got about an hour, maybe a little more, based on my weight and age.

The bite doesn’t feel that bad, but I guess that doesn’t matter. Getting numb is one of the symptoms. Hey, since I won’t be me much longer, I might as well be honest — it was my own damn fault. We got surprised, had to leave the truck when it ran out of gas, got back here just ahead of the zombies. I forgot to bar the outer door, and they just walked right in. We pushed ’em out of the alcove, but one fell and bit my leg. Hurt like hell for about ten seconds. I pulped the sumbitch’s head, too late for me. I’ll be out there with ’em soon enough.

I’ve made my last confession to the priest, the machete’s razor-sharp, and I’ve got Billy-Bob, my trusty two-pound hammer. One more thing to do. I walk over to Heather; she looks her normal pissy self as she finishes my suicide vest.

“Hey.” I move her sweater and purse off the other barstool, to an empty part of the workbench, and pull it up close.

“What?” She has a cellphone already wired into the vest, wisely turned off. Its number is already programmed into my phone. The bomb part is done, she’s just pouring shrapnel into pouches to make the bomb do that much more damage.

“I have a confession to make: in spite of your attitude, I’m still attracted to you. I fantasized a lot about taking you into a corner and banging your brains out.”

She finally looks at me. I could snap a portrait and put it in the dictionary next to “distaste.” “Uh-huh. You think maybe I’ll grant you a last request or something?”

“No time for that. I just hope it makes you more eager to push that call button when the time comes.” I lay my cellphone on the workbench near her hand.

Heather shakes her head. Her look changes… it might have been a tender look, if she knew how to give one. “I don’t hate you, Ras. Don’t even dislike you. I just haven’t thought that way since… since all this zombie shit. If I’d known you before…”

“You’d have slagged me off as a dirty old man.” I grin. “That’s okay. I wouldn’t have come onto you anyway. I’m all talk. Well, mostly.” I pick up my cellphone one last time. “Forty minutes. Time flies. Is that thing ready?”

“Yeah.” Heather helps me slip the vest on, hands me a largish flannel shirt to put on over it, quickly kisses my cheek when nobody’s looking. I barely feel it, but cherish the gesture. “Good luck out there,” she whispers.

“My luck ran out an hour ago. But thanks. I’ll take as many of ’em down as I can. Call me when it’s over, okay?”

“Asshole.” But she’s smiling. Heather has a pretty smile, I just wish I’d seen it more. I turn away and say goodbye to the others — Doc White, Friar Buck, Linda the chain-smoker, JR the male stripper, Walt, Jenny, the others — and get handshakes or hugs as the spirit moves them (and another kiss, from JR). Buck follows me to the inner door and gives me last rites, then I put on my old motorcycle helmet and gloves. Heather and I go through the door, hear it latch behind us. We say nothing — it’s all been said. She turns on the vest phone, and I pace the alcove a couple times, working up my nerve. A stumble tells me it’s time: I’m almost completely numb now. At least I won’t feel much out there.

Hammer and machete thongs looped around each wrist — check. Helmet in place — check. I look through the peephole — the zombies are waiting. Check. I look at Heather and nod, lifting the bar as quiet as possible. Heather’s right behind me; she closes and bars the door as I slip through.

They see me, shamble my way. I rush to meet them, machete in my left hand, hammer in my right. I dodge, almost fall, hack at backs of knees to hamstring them as I try to stay outside their flank, then break away and catch my breath, fogging my face shield a little. They follow. I use Billy-Bob to smash in the head of the first, hamstring the second, dodge around their flank again, bashing heads as I go, then break away again.

Getting slower. Time for the grand finale. I hoped to get ’em all, but that’s not gonna happen. But with any luck, I’ll do enough so the others can finish the job.

I raise my weapons, scream, charge stumbling into their midst, hacking and pounding. I see more than feel their hands reach, grab, pull. The machete falls away, then the hammer. I see them bite, hoping Heath—

White Pickups, Episode 72

Contents

Everyone dispersed to their afternoon pursuits, leaving Charles, Tina, and Johnny at one table to discuss livestock, Cody and Kelly at another.

“I don’t understand why we can’t get water out of that creek up the road,” said Kelly, doodling on a notepad while Cody alternated looking at his hands and out the big window.

“Too much shit dumped in it for too many years,” said Cody, not looking at her. “It might be okay, but we don’t have any way to test it. Besides lettin’ someone drink it for a few months and see if they get sick. You wanna try?”

“Okay, okay.” Kelly wrote the word CREEK on the notepad then scratched through it. “You got any ideas?”

Cody just sighed.

“Fine. Maybe we could dig a well?”

“Depends. We might have to go a few hundred feet down. Diggin’ that by hand would suck. And we’d hit rock instead of water, probably.”

“Whatever. So you’re saying any water we can reach is no good, and we can’t get to the good water?”

Cody’s voice got even flatter as he looked at the table, wrapping his hands around his neck. “A spring would probably be okay. If it’s not next to some toxic factory shit.”

“Okay, hope springs eternal.” Kelly laughed and tore the top page off the notepad, wrote SPRING on a fresh page. “So we need to find a spring. Preferably by spring.” She smirked and looked at Cody.

Cody finally looked at her, and Kelly wished he hadn’t. If looks could kill… “Cut the cute. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Look — I don’t really like this either, but I’m trying to make the best of it. It would help if you came up with some ideas instead of just sitting there and shooting down mine!”

“Yeah, I’m thinking! Fine, you got a spring. How do we get the water back here?”

“I don’t… hey! I know. We could build an aqueduct!”

“Why the hell would you think that’s a good idea?” Cody yelled across the table, standing and kicking his chair back.

“Let’s see you come up with anything better!” Kelly yelled, standing in her turn.

“Hey!” Charles called across from the table he shared with Tina and Johnny. “Keep it to a dull roar, okay?”

“Whose idea was it to put you two on this water project anyway?” Tina barked.

“Yours!” Kelly snapped, turning to glare at her parents. Cody crossed his arms and alternated glaring at Kelly and Tina.

“Jesus,” Tina said, shaking her head, “why don’t you two just get a damn room or something?”

Cody turned his glare back to Kelly, arms folded across his thin chest. “Yeah right,” he said. “Your place or mine?”

“Mine,” Kelly said, returning the glare. “The memories are probably too thick at your place.” She turned and left, not looking back; Cody threw his hands up and followed.

“Hey!” Tina called, they ignored her. “I didn’t mean for you to actually —” she stood; Charles put a hand on her arm. Johnny sat watching goggle-eyed.

“Let them go,” said Charles. “They have to work this out themselves.”

“But —”

“Look. You know as well as I do, Cody is going to be leading this community when it’s time for us to have a leader. I don’t know if they’ll call him king, mayor, or what, but he’s been the one who makes things happen. Don’t you want our daughter to be the queen, or whatever? Besides, they’re not… I think there’s too much animosity for them to be horny teenagers right now. They need to work out their differences first.”

“On your head be it, then. Ever heard of angry sex?”

“I’ll take that responsibility.”


Kelly banged the door open and stormed into #202. Shady hopped down from a sunny window sill to greet her, took a reading of his owner’s current mood, and decided that hiding behind the sofa with Cheddar was the smart move. Cody was about three steps behind her; he slammed the door shut and followed her back to her bedroom.

Cody stood in the doorway as Kelly pulled off her jacket and threw it across the room. “You coming in or what?” she snarled.

“I don’t know. I might just stand right here for a minute, until I figure out what the hell you’re up to. This time.”

Kelly unzipped her fleece; it shortly joined the jacket in the corner. “What I’m up to? What does that mean?”

Cody face grew even more angry — a small part of Kelly thought that was some feat — and began yelling. “What does that mean? Shit! You’ve been doing nothing but pushing my damn buttons for God knows how long! What the fuck did I ever do to you?”

“It’s the only way I can ever get you to react, you asshole!” Kelly yelled back, wrapping her arms around herself. “You dug yourself a nice hole and pulled the dirt in over you! You might as well be dead, for all anyone can talk to you!”

“Why not? The only good thing I ever had — in my entire! fucking! life! was taken away from me by some asshole who wanted us all dead!” Cody pounded the doorframe for punctuation.

“And that’s what it always comes back to — poor little you! You act like you’re the only one in this entire subdivision who ever lost anyone! Well I got news for you — remember Tim losing his friend? He got over it! I had some great friends at school, not to mention a bunch of relatives — they’re all off driving now, and I got over it! Every single person here has lost people they cared about — people they loved — and you don’t see them doing the walking dead act!”

Cody crossed his arms. “Fuck you. You couldn’t even begin to understand… I’m surprised you didn’t drive off like your preppy friends.”

“I almost did.” Kelly shivered at the memory. “Must be nice, being so self-sufficient, not caring what other people think. Not needing anyone.”

“Yeah, well I found out I did need someone. And now… oh, fuck this shit.” He turned and walked out, picking up the pace as he got out of sight.


Cody ran down the hallway and dodged onto the stairs. He jogged downstairs, looked across the pool to the clubhouse, and shrugged. He turned and walked through the breezeway, out back. A low cairn stood waiting, like that damned truck outside the gate, but this he approached willingly — and if Kelly had looked out her window, she could have watched him.

He sat on the cairn and turned to read the inscription he’d placed just a couple weeks ago, brass letters laid into a pool of wet mortar:

SONDRA
LUCADO-SIFKO
B AUG 9 1993
D JAN 11 2012
DEFENDING
OUR HOME

He ran his fingers over the letters, then turned away and propped his arms on his knees and head on his hands. “Empty. All empty,” he muttered. “Nothing left.” Looking down, he saw something light against the rocks and dirt. He picked it up — their wedding picture, the one he’d laminated and slipped in between two of the stones. The winter winds must have dislodged it.

“Great.” He started to push the picture back into the rocks, but ended up just looking at her image. “Oh God, Sondra… what I would give to see you for real…” the tears began, as they had so often in the last month.

Cody. Stop.

“I want to,” he sobbed. “But every morning, I wake up and I have to go through another day. Without you.”

Remember… throw away the leftovers.

“What? What does that mean? You’re not the leftovers!” Cody’s right arm tingled for a moment. “I can’t just — I love you —”

I love you too. But don’t —

“Don’t what? You never told me!”

Don’t push the world away. Don’t push away people who need you. Who want to love you.

He turned a defiant face to heaven. “Fuck the world! What did it ever give me that —”

Me.

“That’s just it! It gave you to me, then it took you away!”

Don’t push the world away. For my sake.

Cody shook his right arm, not noticing. “I love you, Sondra. I wish you could have been the one… damn.”

Live. Do it for me.

Cody shook his head, stood and looked around. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

Go. And all was quiet again except for don’t push the world away still echoing in his head.

“Is that what I’ve been doing?” He ran a loving finger across Sondra’s photographed face one last time, and tucked the picture back into the rocks. “God, I miss you. But if we’re gonna make it here, I guess I got to work with… people. I won’t forget, though.”


Kelly had her fleece and jacket back on, and was about to walk back to the Laurel Room, when she heard the knock.

“Cody,” she said, opening the door. “You coming in this time?”

“Yeah.” He stepped in, looking down. “Look, Kelly, I’m —”

“Cody, wait.” Kelly raised a hand. “I need to say something. I made a mistake, back at the beginning. I just didn’t… I wasn’t thinking. You… I… I couldn’t get my head around the idea that everything had changed. I thought you and I would — I had to get used to the idea. Then Sondra came, and it was like I’d thrown my chance away. Oh God, Cody, you…” her voice caught, “Oh God, you’re gonna hate me even more now, but sometimes I wished she would die — or had never come — because she took you away. And now… oh God, I feel so bad sometimes, I feel like it’s my fault she got killed — I’m so sorry —” she shuddered then broke into long sobs, right there in front of Cody and not caring anymore.

Cody stood for a moment, uncertain, then reached over and patted her shoulder. She leaned into his chest, still sobbing. “Hey,” he said over her head. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry too… I didn’t believe it, but Sondra thought you… ah, crap.” He held her and let her cry, and found he still had a few tears of his own.

Shady slipped out of his hiding place and approached the two carefully, then stretched up Cody’s leg. “Hey cat,” he said, and Shady climbed his leg. He plucked the cat off his pants and set him on his shoulder. “Yeah… I guess the war’s over.” Shady purred.

continued…

48 Hours in the Dark: Misery or Inconvenience?

Updated September 2017, February 2022, December 2022. Changes are preserved at archive.org.

During one of the many winter storms to hit the US this month (January 2011), one of my online friends (whom I won’t name to protect the innocent) lost power for nearly 48 hours.

Power outages in the summer are mostly inconvenient. Mostly—people with certain health issues would say different. During winter, they can be miserable and even deadly. We’ve had winter storms here on Planet Georgia that knocked our power out for over a week. The first one (The Blizzard of ’93) was horrid, because we had nothing in the way of emergency supplies. The next big one (“Ice2K” in January 2000), we rode out in relative comfort. We’ve been through others since then, the most recent in 2018. It was a hassle, but we had learned our lesson.

Both FAR Future and White Pickups are stories of survival, at their base. Indeed, Johnny Latimer made the basic needs explicit in one episode of White Pickups: food, fuel, water, shelter. For now, let’s assume shelter isn’t an issue — you’re safe in your house or apartment, but the power’s out. It’s probably cold outside. Since you’re at home, you (usually) have food… just make sure you have things you can fix without needing to cook. So now you’re down to needing two essentials, fuel (heat) and water… and hey, maybe the waterworks has backup power? Maybe the pipes aren’t frozen? Maybe not. The thing is, winter storms and tropical storms usually give you some warning, and a day or so to get ready. Don’t waste it.

Unless you live in a rural area like around FAR Manor, chances are the power won’t be out for nine days after a storm. Unless it’s a really big one. But for now, assume two or three days. Your food and shelter are intact; all you need to worry about is fuel (heat, light) and water. With a few inexpensive items, you can turn a miserable two or three days into a mere hassle.

Water is self-explanatory. You need it for drinking, washing, and cooking. Figure on a gallon (or 4 liters) per person per day for drinking, and another for washing and cooking. Either buy enough for two or three days at the grocery store, or wash out a couple of containers and fill ’em up. Change out the water every couple of weeks if you fill your own containers; water your plants with it or drink it then refill. A really good idea I heard is to fill large freezer bags with water and put them in the freezer. You can pull them out to thaw overnight, or they’ll help keep your freezer food cold. Camping stores have collapsable 5-gallon (20 l) water jugs. Fill your bathtub to use for flushing the toilets. One or two packs of wet-wipes are useful for cleaning hands and faces (and other body parts as needed).

Fuel can be a little more difficult. If you have a gas stove, no problem — open the oven and set it on low, that’s a trick the old-timers know about. You can also cook on a gas stove with or without electricity. If you have a pilotless stove, you’ll need matches or a lighter to take the place of the electric igniter. But if you have all-electric appliances, you need to break out a grill or camp stove. The unfortunate thing with those is, you don’t want to use them indoors. Cooking on a gas stove means any wasted heat warms up at least your kitchen.

Speaking of kitchens… canned food can be a godsend during an extended blackout, but only if you can open the cans. I heard a story about the 2021 Texass blackout, where a survivalist had a ton of canned goods and electric can openers. If you can work a hand-cranked can opener, spend the extra money on a good one (I have a KitchenAid, no regrets). I always rinse off my hand-cranked can openers after use, to keep them clean. Even a super-cheap one can last a long time if they stay clean. If you have trouble with hand tools, there are battery-operated openers. Just make sure you have spare batteries on hand, and make sure they’re working before you need them.

Depending on your ability to cope with the situation, you can get by with very little or require a lot. But fuel isn’t just heat, it’s light. “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness,” and that goes double for when the power’s out. The nice thing about candles is that they’re portable and can be decorative as well — meaning you can have them out on display instead of stashing them in a closet. A candle holder with a glass chimney is good because it lets you carry it around without dripping hot wax on your hand. Just keep matches or a lighter handy. Oil lamps or kerosene lanterns are nice to have, especially for reading, since they’re brighter. To get more light in a certain direction, put a mirror or square of aluminum foil behind the candle or lamp. They all provide both light and a little heat.

You can also go with a wind-up flashlight; I bought one for $8 a couple years back and I used it for years. In these modern times, you can get electric lanterns that can charge on a USB port and even provide a USB charger. Some have a hand crank, if you don’t have any other way to charge them.

Mobile electronic gadgets are a lifeline for lots of people these days, and not just in urban or suburban locations. How do you keep your phone going, when the outlets aren’t cooperating?

Besides the USB lantern, you can get portable battery packs to keep your phone going for one more day They aren’t terribly expensive, but you do need to make sure they’re charged up before the storm hits. If you have a car, you can use its battery to charge your devices. If you have a need, drive around some to keep the car battery from wheezing.

Apartment dwellers might not have this option, or would be severely limited, but having a backup generator could be a lifesaver. A 12KW generator can run pretty much anything you need in the aftermath of a winter storm, including the water pump and hot water heater (if you start them one at a time, anyway). A 4KW generator can run a gas furnace, refrigerator, and lights. Even a tiny 1KW “camp” generator can run lights, chargers, and a small space heater.

An inexpensive camp stove can be a big help for warming soup or heating water for coffee (or for washing). It’s amazing how much better you’ll feel with a cup of hot coffee (or tea) and a clean face! Choose a model that uses sealed propane or butane canisters, they're safer and burn cleaner. Put it near a window and open the window a crack while in use, to keep a healthy level of oxygen in your dwelling. The older models that use “white gas” or “Coleman fuel” need to sit outside. If you have a sheltered porch, or (in apartments) an outside hallway, that should be fine.

When the sun is shining in your windows, open the curtains and let it in. Hang blankets over windows in shadow to keep more heat in. Wearing layers inside can keep you warm, especially if you’re active (walking around). Kerosene heaters can be used safely, but if you have curious pets or children who can knock it over… not a great idea. The fumes from a heater give the wife a headache, so they may not be for you in any case. The “Buddy” line of camping heaters run on small propane cylinders; many are rated for indoor use. Just make sure you have spare cylinders available for 2 or 3 day outages (mine would use 3 per day, if running 24/7).

If you have a bunch of snow on your balcony or porch, it can help to keep your refrigerated items from spoiling. Pack snow into a pot and put it in the fridge, or pack snow and your necessities into a cooler and let it stay out in (shaded) sub-freezing weather. You can melt snow for washing if needed; if you heat it over a stove, stir it to prevent a scorched smell.

Finally, develop a routine — it will help a lot with the psychological part of things. Adjust the curtains, get snow, read, exercise, fix meals, check on your neighbors, call friends or relatives. It gives you a feeling of control over the situation, instead of waiting for the power trucks to show up.

Additions? Corrections? Leave a comment…

#FridayFlash: G-5’s Blast from the Past

I was surprised to find G-5 already moving, carrying sipper mugs, as I woke out of cryo. He handed me a mug.

“Up and at ’em, sleepyhead,” he grinned. “All systems are go, we’re in our decel burn, Mars O.C. has already assigned us a slot and cargo handlers. Thirsty bunch down there, huh?”

I paused a moment, parsing his archaic gabble — “all systems are go”? really? — while trying to clear my head. The coffee in the sipper mug helped.

“I’m still trying to figure out how you got out of cryo so quick,” I said. “Especially at your age.”

G-5 laughed. “The docs said I would bounce back pretty fast if I ever went popsicle again. I was in for so long, my system got used to it. That’s what they said, anyway.” As always, that’s mostly what he said. I edit out his profanity. No need for it, and it would only make a long story longer. And ruder.

Makes as much sense as anything else. Being cooped up in a tin can with someone for five years, even if it was only one year subjective, can be stressful. Especially if that someone is a throwback. On the other hand, you get to know that someone pretty well. G-5 turned out to be a good hand — well-suited for the work, quick to learn, and he had a chance to catch up on over a century of technical and social changes. He started toning down the profanity… a little. He was adjusting well overall, especially for his experiential age, and I said so.

“Eh. I made up my mind in my first life, I wouldn’t let my mind ossify. Helps you not get Alzheimer’s.”

“Another disease there’s a cure for now. But I’m not complaining.”

G-5 laughed again. “Yeah. So what now?”

I punched up the approach. “Looks like we have a week to kick back and enjoy the ride. Pull up a news capsule and catch up on what happened in the last five years, check messages, that kind of thing. It’ll take most of the week, I figure.”

“Tell me about it. You know how long it took to catch up after 135 years?”

“Yeah. You did a lot of it on this ride — hey, you have a message. Only a month old.”

“Huh. Who’d be pinging me?”

“Your grad student friend?”

“Doubt it. She’s done with me. Teaching, or more likely unemployed and married.” He punched up the message, and gasped.

The vid showed an elderly woman, well-preserved and even a little elegant in spite of her throwback dress and speech. “Hello, Warren,” she said. “Here’s a blast from your past. You didn’t think you could dodge your responsibilities that easily, could you?”

“You are not my responsibility!” G-5 screamed at the video image. He started screaming and ranting — and if I’d thought his language was rude before, he took it up at least an order of magnitude. After he used up every woman-specific insult he knew — I had to look up a few — he kept going. Of the things I feel comfortable transcribing, he called her undead (vampire, ghoul), parasite (leech, tick, maggot), and a greedy gold-digging blowfly. He was nearly incoherent by then, repeating himself and getting red-faced.

After ten minutes or so, long after the message had ended, G-5 quieted down. “Good thing you didn’t take back over, it sounds like,” I suggested.

“That won’t stop her.” He paused. “I think I need to get your gram caught up, if she hasn’t heard already.”

“Good idea. I’ll set up the vid to forward — oh. She protected it.”

“Just like her. Ah well, we used to have a saying: if you can play it, you can rip it.”

“Rip?”

“Copy.”

“Forget it. All the protection’s built into hardware. We can’t break it without breaking the system.”

“So we go low-tech.” G-5 kicked over to his locker and brought out his percomm. “Nice phones you got these days,” he said. “Go ahead and run that message again.”

He held his percomm up to the screen, recording the message. Clever idea — I guess you have to be a throwback to think that way. He kept his mouth clamped shut, but I could tell it took a lot of effort as she continued:

“You can imagine my surprise and utter delight to find out that you were still alive, here in the future. And even more delighted to find you’re not destitute!

“So we can do this the smart way or the stupid way. If you’re smart, you will turn over a third of your company to me. If you want to be greedy, I’ll take it all. You hear me, Warren? You don’t have the political connections here that you had back then, you know. I understand you’re in space right now, so you’ll need to get in touch with me ASAP. Good talking to you again, Warren.” The message ended.

G-5 — Warren — poked his percomm. “Yeah, that took,” he said, and docked it into the console. I helped him open a new message and attach the video he took.

“Marla, it’s Warren,” he said. “I almost feel like I should apologize, but if you haven’t heard from my ex by now, you will soon. I got a message from her already. We’re in decel, slotting into Mars orbit right now, so I guess it’ll be a few months before we get back home.

“Listen. I don’t want her getting one red cent. Don’t let her scare you about the political connections. I didn’t use them, I beat her fair and square. Offer her a job shoveling the docks in Antarctica, at most. She doesn’t deserve anything more. Anyway, let me know if she contacts you.”

It was about a standard day later when gram’s response came in. “Warren, Sal, we indeed seem to have a mutual problem here. Fortunately, our legalware indicates that she has no legal standing to claim any portion of ECF. But at the same time, why not accommodate her?”

“No!” G-5 yelled.

“It would cost very little to set her up with a trust fund, so she could live out her days comfortably and — above all — quietly. Think about it before you respond.

“Oh, by the way, a seat on the board of directors is coming open. If we can put this unpleasant woman behind us, I see no reason not to offer you the seat. If everyone wins, everyone is happy. Let me know when you two are on your way home.”

That was gram. Bribe your enemies and your friends, all at once.

White Pickups, Episode 71

Contents

Sunday, February 12, 2012

“Frankly, I’m a little worried about Cody,” said Tina, standing in Rita’s clinic with Charles, Tim, Sara, Rita, Johnny, and Rev. Patterson. Tim brought his thermos, filled with coffee leftover from breakfast, and several of them held warm mugs.

“There’s something wrong?” Rita asked. “Are you saying we need to restart the suicide watch?”

“No, I don’t think that’s the problem anymore. But I am worried about his mental state. You’ve heard him say the trucks eat the souls of those who get in, right? The Delphinia woman put that idea in his head. She happened to be out at the gate when he went sleepwalking the other night. Good thing, or he might have driven off.”

“Assuming the presence of a soul in the first place,” said Charles, “its absence — or loss — would explain quite a few things about the trucks. For example, the behavior of the drivers. They constantly and consistently obey the rules of the road. If the soul drives the will, removing the soul would remove the will to disobey as well.”

“Not to mention ever stopping or getting out,” Johnny added. “Maybe they’re taking orders from the trucks. We can hear ’em talking to us — why wouldn’t they talk to the drivers? or passengers? Maybe the drive-offs aren’t really doing the driving.”

“Let’s stay focused,” said Tina. “This is about Cody. And Delphinia. That’s why I asked you to join us, Reverend. Can you tell us what you know about Delphinia?”

Patterson rubbed his bald head a moment. “Not that much, really,” he said. “She showed up — I think it was the first day that people started noticing the trucks. She walked into the shelter, mumbling to herself as some homeless folk do. I asked her if she needed a place to stay, and she gave me that smile of hers and said she did.”

“Where was your shelter?” Rita asked.

“The Little Five Points area. I had a storefront church there twenty, thirty years ago. We struggled, as churches that serve the poor often do, but God provided. Then one of our members died and left a large sum of money ‘to continue the ministry.’ The church itself died out, but I used that endowment to keep the shelter open.”

“So she came in, you offered her a place to stay,” said Tina. “Then what?”

“Things happened quickly after that. It may have been Delphinia who first used the term ‘Eater of Souls,’ but the others picked — took it up right away. It was also things Delphinia said in November that got us on the move, and brought us here.”

“All right. Thank you, Reverend. I’m guessing Delphinia is a blind alley here, we can talk about her later if we need to. So let’s go back to Cody,” said Tina. “Charles, you said the soul drives the will — and it’s that word, will, that worries me. Cody seems to have lost the will to be a leader. He helps with anything he’s asked to do, but where’s the idea generator? Where’s the spark?”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “That pretty much nails it. He hasn’t been the same. I don’t know — I never really thought much about getting married until I met Rita here — but if I lost Rita, I guess I’d be devastated too.” Rita gave Johnny a smile and stroked his back for a moment. “Tina, he lost his wife. It’s only been a month, as of yesterday. Give him time to finish grieving, for gosh-sake.”

“As much as I’d like to, we can’t afford to give him much more downtime.” Tina looked grim. “He’s just too important to the survival of us all. You know we have some serious issues —”

“But if we don’t let him heal, he’ll be broken for good — and what good is that going to do him or any of us?” Johnny gave Tina an exasperated look, waving his hands. “Besides — I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t checked — but we’re doing fine with everything but water, now.”

“Really?” Tina looked surprised.

“Yeah. So he has time to heal. Let’s give it to him.”

“Hey,” said Tim, “Remember when the girls had that blow-up? Afterwards, Cody said he needed some kind of project to get his mind off things. Maybe he’s right. Give him something useful to do — on the job healing or something. Let him handle the water situation.”

“Makes sense,” Sara laughed. “Now we just have to set him up.”


“Our basic needs: food, water, fuel, and shelter,” Johnny said, standing with Charles and Tina at the whiteboard in the Laurel Room. The rest of the community looked on. The marker squeaked as he wrote the same four words on the whiteboard. “Working in order from least to most urgent, we have more shelter than we know what to do with —” he put a check mark over the word Shelter while everyone laughed — “and if we don’t mind hauling it a few miles, the ice storm has pretty much solved our fuel situation for the rest of the winter. Until next winter, the solar panels and methane digesters will do, right?” He checked off Fuel.

“As for food… I’ll admit, we’re doing better there than I thought we would. We should thank Jason and Ben for that.”

“And the deer hunter!” Max yelled over the scattered applause, bringing more laughs.

“Okay, yeah, this has been my personal best hunting season by far. Good thing Cleve there ain’t a game warden, I’d never get out of jail!” Johnny checked off Food while waiting for the laughter to fade. “But there wasn’t exactly a lot of competition out there, and this used to be a hunter no-go zone. We might not be so lucky next year.

“So we got two major issues we need to tackle. One, get out to the country and see if we can’t round us up some livestock. Buncha chickens, some cows, a horse or two if any’ll let us catch it, maybe even some goats just to keep the kudzu under control.

“Two, we gotta figure out how to get a source of clean water, enough for a growing community.”

“The rain barrels have been good enough,” Ashley said. “Do we need more?”

“It gets pretty dry in the summer. Remember that dry spell last month, just before the ice storm? We almost used up all the water we had then.”

“Wow.” Ashley looked surprised, as did some of the adults.

“Yeah. So we’ll do fine for a while longer. Spring is usually rainy. But we need to have something more reliable.”

“So those are the issues,” said Charles. “I’d like to put Johnny in charge of acquiring farm animals — he has some experience there. Anyone object?”

Nobody spoke up, and Charles continued. “As for the water project, Cody has nearly always had good — even excellent — ideas about our basic survival needs. I’d like to put him in charge of figuring out how to deal with the water issue.”

Cody rolled his eyes at the scattered applause. “I guess. But I’ll need help.”

“This is too important. You should have anything you need to get the job done,” said Tina. “I’d like to start by asking Kelly to help you.”

Cody glared at Kelly; both of them looked at Tina. “I hope that’s alright,” she continued.

Cody looked like he wanted to object, but only shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Good. I guess that’s all for the community-wide portion of this meeting,” said Tina. “Expect to be shanghaied for one project or the other.” People chuckled as they headed for the exits.

to be continued…

Woohoo! I think?

I’m trying not to get my hopes up, they’ve been dashed so many times before, but right now it looks good…

While I was having a mostly peaceful day at work on Friday, the drama at FAR Manor had no cease. You mean if I’m not there, it still happens?

Rewind just a little… we’re getting a Krystal in the retail district. For those of you not familiar with Krystal, Jack in the Box and White Castle are supposed to be similar: tiny little burgers. Anyway, The Boy, Snippet, and M.A.E. all applied for jobs there. The Boy knows the manager at an Alpharetta branch, so he had a kind of “in” for all three of them. With the inside track, all three of them got interviews, and all three of them got hired. But it seems that Snippet, who already works at the Calvin Klein outlet, maneuvered things so she got the last day shift position, leaving M.A.E. being offered only a night shift.

So M.A.E., who has Moptop to take care of, was rather cheesed about the situation. And so was Mrs. Fetched. If Snippet actually did anything close to the bare minimum when it came to taking care of her own baby (Mason), that might have been understandable. But this don’t cut it. Mrs. Fetched, who has put up with Snippet’s behavior for far too long, had enough and told her she had three days to pack up and go. The Boy, silly thing he is, tried to take Snippet’s side and got into one of the characteristic shouting matches that seem to be a staple on that side of the family. Anyway, he decided to follow Snippet out the door, and they both left Friday evening. What’s funny is that he posted something on his Facebook to the effect that we chose M.A.E. over “our own family.” (As if he didn’t choose his girlfriend over his own son? DUHHHH Something about rocks and glass houses should go there.)

Is Snippet finally out? Oh please oh please… but like I said, I’m trying to not get my hopes up here. The Boy going with her is expected, but not desired — he at least takes care of his son sometimes. Mrs. Fetched gives him two weeks before he misses or fails a breathalyzer test and ends up in jail. I sort of doubt it will be that long.


Then M.A.E. and Lobster both went visiting friends, so it was just us and Mason last night. Practically, this meant little change in caring for Mason from before, except I no longer have to waste time or effort trying to get Snippet to do something useful. He’s doing pretty well, eating a lot when he eats and butting heads with Moptop. One evening this week, Moptop was getting seriously exercised because he had her baby doll in one hand and was pushing the doll’s stroller with the other. After several attempts at getting Moptop to play with something else, I told her “Mason’s just getting in touch with his feminine side.” To my amused shock, Moptop said “Oh,” and went to play with something else as if she understood. M.A.E. was there as my witness, and both of us were trying not to laugh and almost hurting ourselves holding it in.

We enjoyed a week of Mason sleeping through the night almost every night. Now he’s back to waking up around 3 a.m. I wish I knew what was goobering his sleep cycles. But he’s proving himself a very clever baby… he even recognizes the Apple logo on the MacBook and iPad as an apple. Last night, he was crying, and pointed down the hall at my bedroom saying “apple, apple.” Mrs. Fetched realized he wanted me to get the iPad and play Angry Birds for a while; once I fired it up he was calm and happy. He loves watching it, and occasionally messing up a shot.

I’ve started poking at the White Pickups sequel some more. If I’d known about the Amazon contest (which opens Monday) a month ago, I’d have had time to prepare the entry. Ah well.

#FridayFlash: Zombie Wrangler

I think I got the idea for this one last summer, from an off-the-cuff silly comment on Twitter.

---

Zombie Wrangler

“Have a good day, Paul.”

Paul Contera hugged his wife. “You too, Laurie. If you can.”

“It’s not so bad, mostly.”

“Yeah. I’ll be home as soon as I can. We have that Dairymen’s Association thing to finish, but maybe we’ll be done early.”

“Okay. Bye.” They ducked into the garage and Paul backed the Acura out, leaving Laurie to the day ahead.

Laurie sighed and looked over her equipment hanging on the back wall of the garage. They wouldn’t be moving much for another half hour, so she had time for her coffee and danish.


8:00. Time to get started. She put on her gear: headset video/audio, jacket, kit bag, cattle prod (which she never had to use, but got a verbal reprimand the one time she left it). She turned on the headset and faced the big QR square pasted up next to the gear hangers.

Robin’s Western accent twanged in her audio. “Laurie Contera, confirmed check-in. How’s the audio?”

“Sounds good, Robin,” she replied. “How about mine?”

“Great. You ready?”

“I guess so. Your other victims on line yet?”

“You’re the second. Swamy’s already in… whup, there’s Mike. Shirley’s always a little slow, and Marilyn called in sick. I’ll pop in to chat a little later, gotta check in Mike. But I’m watching.”

Laurie stepped outside, locking the door behind her. She stepped to the curb and looked down the street. They were already shambling this way, keeping to the yards on either side. A herd of forty, or close to it, calling to each other.

Her zombies.

Bovine Behavior Syndrome victims, said that asshole Franklin inside her head. They are Americans, suffering from a dreadful malady. Our job is to help and protect them until we can cure them.

Funny how she used to worry about Paul’s job security. A year ago, she was in line for the CFO slot at Burger DeLuxe and expected to arrive there about now, while he worked in a struggling ad firm. Then that BBS bug got loose, and nobody was eating beef anymore, no matter how organic or upscale it might be. Meanwhile, Paul’s agency was swamped by dairy and poultry associations who wanted to tout the safety of their products. Working as a zombie wrangler — BBS Victim Scanner — was a huge letdown from upper management, even in a fancy-ass regional burger chain. But it paid well enough, and beat the hell out of trying to find another finance job with a third of the population gone zombie.

The bad part was, she had to be out here with them. Not that there was any danger, unless you were a blade of grass. Or a landscaper’s income, with grass-eating zombies cleaning up lawns for free. She could see them bending over, pulling up handfuls of grass and weeds as they approached. Laurie looked through the binoculars: they were mostly tagged already, and she recognized many of them. The zombies tended to herd together, working their way around a particular territory, occasionally swapping members when two herds met. She walked up the street to meet them.

They looked healthy enough — whatever the BBS virus did to their brains, it let them metabolize plant matter as well — and it was Laurie’s job to make sure they stayed healthy. She gave the herd a quick scan for runny noses and open sores, letting her scanner ID each one as she checked them over. Two of them had minor cuts that she disinfected and bandaged. All of them got vitamin supplements, soft plant matter soaked in nutrients. The zombies, as always, let her do her job as long as she walked with them.

“Mooooooo!” Some idiot leaned out of a red pickup truck and spotted Laurie. “Hey cowgirl! Wanna give me a ride?”

Laurie turned to face the truck, touching her headset to zoom her scanner in to record the driver’s face and license number. The truck took off, but she already had the ID. Franklin would send one of his drones, accompanied by a couple cops, to deliver a lecture (first offense) or take the moron in for mandatory sensitivity training (second offense). At least Franklin’s good for something, she thought, and went back to work. Only idiots bothered BBS scanners these days.

Several zombies had no ID badges, so they needed closer scrutiny. She ran the first woman’s fingerprints, and the database returned a match for a Carolyn DeJong. She pinned a new badge to the woman’s blouse and scanned her again, assigning the badge to her. The second woman was not listed among the BBS victims, and carried no ID on her. She badged, scanned, and fingerprinted the woman; ID’ing her was the department’s problem.

She turned to the un-badged man and caught her breath. “Steve?” If this wasn’t Steve Artinian — an accountant at DeLuxe, and her boy on the side a few years ago, until he’d quit his job and left her — it was his double. She managed to badge and scan him, then fished the wallet out of his back pocket.

“Laurie?” Robin’s voice came over the headset. “Your telemetry is showing stress. Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Laurie sighed. “I just ID’ed an old co-worker is all.”

“Ow. Can you stick with it?”

“Yeah.” Laurie scanned Steve’s driver’s license as positive ID, returned it and his wallet, and turned away. “Just need a couple minutes to get my wits together.”

“Right. You’re taking tomorrow off. I’ll schedule you a counseling session for the morning, but after that you can pamper yourself. Remember, we’re trying to cure them. Don’t give up.”

Laurie sighed again. “I won’t.”

“Good.” Robin clicked out and Laurie was on her own again. With Steve. She cleaned his face with a wet-wipe, then kissed him. He ignored her, chewing his vitamin stick.

“I won’t give up, Steve. I’ll get you back.” She took a few deep breaths and returned to work.