Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Frantic panic and/or alarm a cat displays when the vacuum cleaner, sweeper, or other loud appliances made an appearance is called catvoom.
In example, “Quinn displayed intense catvoom, alerting to the sound of the door opening where the vacuum is kept and snaking to an exit an instant later.”
He was awake before I was, feeding thoughts of the novel into me.
“Ready?” DeeMichael shuffled the deck.
“No,” I answered.
DeeMichael proferred the cards. “Draw three cards.”
“I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
“Just draw three cards.”
“Why three?”
“Because I have three in mind.” DeeMichael shuffled and then he cut the deck. “Three is a lucky number, always in threes, all that crap.”
“Can’t it wait until after I’ve peed, drank some water and made coffee?”
“Jesus H, you could have been done already. Will you pick three cards? You’re ruining the mood.”
I cursed him a dozen ways that I’d picked up as a senior NCO and selected three from the fanned out offering.
“Let’s see them,” he said, putting his hand out.
Sulking and dispirited, I replied, “You know what they are.”
DeeMichael beamed. “You’re right, I do.”
I didn’t want to ask but felt the tableau wouldn’t end until I did. “What are they?”
“We’ll finished the card started yesterday, and then — ”
“The one called ‘You’?”
“Did we start another one? Fuck, no. So it has to be that one, right?”
“You say so.”
“Then we’ll work on ‘Untrue’.”
I knew he was excited about ‘Untrue’. Bleedover between the writing and real world had informed me about what was going on. “What’s the third one?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s about the Monad, but that’s all I know. Come on, get up, get dressed and take Tucker to the vet so we can start writing like crazy. Hurry, you’re burning energy.”
Sighing, I nodded. “Right. Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.”
Rains stopped sometime in the early hours. Still dark, the winds howled around the house, beating down tree branches with its footprints and scaring the cats into wary, still watchfulness. Dawn brokered a gray, thin cloud sky but the wind remained a torment. Although anxious, he waited until the wind faded and the sun crept out before visiting Antville.
He’d watched his videos of the place several times since making videos yesterday and the day before. Antville had survived the first storm but it had been mild. Last night’s rain loaded heavy howler probably wiped them out.
But, no. He was delighted to see how wrong he was. They’d survived, and had also expanded. There now existed small walls embracing a town of busy streets and alleys. Small fields were sown in several directions around it.
It seemed implausible that they’d planted and cultivated so many fields so quickly. They must be operating on a different speed of time, although he couldn’t understand how. The sun was the sun, shining down on them for the same number of hours that it illuminated and warmed his world. How tiny their seeds must be.
Then, remarkably, a small puff of smoke drew his eye. Boggling him, he realized, it’s a car. Two ants were in it. Other ants spread out to let it pass.
Another antmobile approached from the other direction. Two cars. The two headed toward each other at a fast ant’s pace.
He saw the accident was going to happen.
He hoped it wouldn’t, and wished there was something on his end he could do.
But the two ant vehicles met head on.
It was a slow speed. No ants seemed harmed. Crowds quickly gathered. The two ant driver emerged from their vehicles. After a few seconds of gentle touching, their antennae and legs began wild flailing. Other ants joined in.
It was amazing how quickly the ants were becoming civilized.
It always happened to him. Something occurred. He saw it but couldn’t think of it for several seconds, and then couldn’t act upon it for several seconds more.
It ruined sports and games, or anything that required participation. “Pay attention,” people yelled. “Why are you so slow?”
He didn’t know and couldn’t answer. And when the lights changed from red to green and he couldn’t press on the gas pedal to go, all the honking behind him did nothing to change anything.
Today’s song is another hit from Wayback because I’m thinking about progress. This one, ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair’), was written by John Phillips but released by Scott McKenzie in 1967.
The song attracts me today because I heard it on the radio this morning. Some of the lines include, “All across the nation, such a strange vibration, people in motion. There’s a whole generation, with a new explanation. People in motion.”
Yes, I thought. That’s one of the things about the last Presidential election in the United States. Donald Trump preached a movement back. He appealed to people stuck in time. They weren’t in motion and weren’t moving forward. If they were moving, they were going backward to when men had more rights and white men had the most rights and privilege of anyone, and the wealthy were on pedestals as capable people. While these voters and supporters wouldn’t say they’re against these things, the man they selected is against regulations that protect people, animals, the environment, and the poor, sick and needy. Tearing down the public school system through Betsy DeVos isn’t a move forward, as that billionaire who never attended a public school will try to do. He’s gutting every system save defense while he promises new jobs and to rebuild the infrastructure. Yet, he also is going to cut taxes, reduces revenue, so there will be no money to pay for that infrastructure. He preyed on them with fear and promised he will build a wall to protect them. The Trump Wall will be beautiful, he claims, a big beautiful wall.
Many of those voters are in impoverished areas where industry has disappeared or pay minimum wages. The areas are dominated by elderly people, and the disability rates for these area are higher than the national average and increasing at a faster rate. These are the very people that the social net Trump is tearing about helps the most. Trump said he was draining the swamp and that he would change business as usual. His attack on Syria and his selection of wealthy cronies and family members to staff his White House show very much that it’s still a swamp. He criticized Obama for golfing too much while he golfs almost every weekend.
He is not the path forward. I’m going on without him and his supporters. Yes, the song may be fifty years old, but the sentiment that there are people moving forward and causing change is older yet. Yet, for some, it’s all new, strange and dangerous.
He was weeding when he noticed a little thing, the little thing being a large manifestation of small, black ants. That so many ants were out there, on his gravel path that hooked around the house’s side, amused him. There were but a few weeds here. Other than the weeds, there was the path and some protective, decorative bark used as mulch.
But on a pause to wipe his brow and scratch his nose, he stared down at the next section designated for weeding. The small weeds were not random; they were orderly rows. The ants were not meandering around them, but tending the plants.
His conclusion struck him dumb. He hold onto it and nothing else in his mind for a few seconds before saying, “The ants are cultivating plants.”
This, he thought, was a big thing. He wasn’t very educated but he thought he’d read that settlements becoming agrarian was a major step forward step in human civilization. Breathing the warm air over his find, he thought about what he should do. He wondered if this scene was being repeated around the world. Retrieving his cell phone, he recorded the activity for thirty seconds and marveled about it.
He couldn’t weed there any longer; he became a little sick about what he might have already destroyed. He worried about what might happen to the ants and their farm. A storm was due tonight. Clouds were already gathering. He could imagine what a heavy rain would do to their world.
But it was their world. They’d come this far without him. He would leave them be and let the ants take control of themselves. They seemed to be doing well so far.
Besides, it gave him a good reason to abandon his weeding.
Weeding today reminded me of typos, improper grammar and punctuation and general issues found in manuscripts.
I weed an area and move on. Turning around, I discover…more weeds, where I’d already weeded. The first time was considered, you know, an aberration. Surely the august self had merely overlooked one sector of weeds. But after the second and third times, my suspicions grew. With the fourth time, I concluded, I’m not missing the weeds: they’re growing behind my back.
That had to be the answer.
And while I chortled at my imagination and the secret plotting I now discerned among the weeds — “OMG, he knows,” — I reflected on how much this is like editing. You comb and comb for the mistakes. Satisfied that you found and corrected all the errors, you move on.
But at another time, maybe the same day, maybe a day a week from now or later, you open the doc or pick up the manuscript, and there is another error.
They’re just like weeds. They seem to propagate on their own.
Michael Seidel, writer 