Category: fiction

Catdow

Catdow (Catfinition): A terrible affliction that causes humans to lose track of time and forget what they were doing while in the presence of felines. The term, coined by Professor Felinus by combing the words, “cat” and “shadow” and dropping the first syllable of the latter, was created to explain what happens to people when cats are around.

“It’s like cats cast a shadow,” Professor Felinus said in a Cat Mystery interview in nineteen ninety-seven. “People caught in a cat shadow, or catdow, forget what they’re doing and focus on what the cat is doing, or what the cat might need. The effect is amplified by the number of cats, or if the cats look directly at the people, and the people see them. Worse, of course, is if the cats are kittens. People have been lost in the catdow for hours when kittens are encountered.”

0

The Coronado

I, Juancho, a mere bureaucrat, but essential to the mission, I assure you, was worried. Even I knew that the frying pan was gone and we were now facing a danger of being incinerated by growing flames.

Commander Alves is a fine person and a good commander. I have great confidence in her, and was pleased to be selected for the Coronado’s first mission on Feymann. (Her second, the snide Lieutenant Commander Cark, is not viewed with the same joy, and I did not look forward to this situation now with him onboard.) However, I doubted Commander Alves’ optimism and reassurances. “That may not be the Beagle that exploded over Feynmann,” she told us. She was being hopeful, I know, but each consumed tequila and coke that I consumed convinced me that the end was closer than we thought.

Let us review. We’re on the Coronado. It’s a fine vessel, new, as well-built as human robots can conceive and execute. We don’t lack for protection or comfort. Fully armored, each of the thirty of us onboard have private quarters. They’re not as large nor luxurious as those we enjoyed upon the Beagle. Of course not. The Beagle quarters were permanent. These quarters are temporary, for the Coronado is an explorer. (I don’t understand why they named the ship after a luxury resort chain, but that’s another debate.)

That is the difficulty with surviving on the Coronado. It is an explorer vessel. Our mission on Feynmann’s surface was to be for twenty-one day’s duration. We have food for a little longer, and fuel, and the life-support systems should not be troubled, if all works well. But, that is the but in my drink. They always tell us that we must be prepared for failure, and then prepare for our preparations to survive failure to fail as well. This situation was the prime example of that maxim.

Should anything fail on the Coronado, we expected backup and support from the Beagle. If one of us became gravely ill or injured, we would be lifted to the Beagle. In the end, our tunnel on the Coronado was twenty-one days long, and the light on the end was the Beagle.

We would not survive, no, I was thinking. The question was more about how agonizing our deaths would be, and whether suicide or murder were better options.

Do I shock you? Those were the choices for each of us, as I viewed it. Suicide didn’t appeal to me but waiting for rescue against small odds was less appealing. Murdering others would extend my food supply. Maybe that would provide a chance for rescue, but I would then need to explain the others’ deaths.

That might be difficult, given our personal recording devices. However, as we’ve all been taught since childhood, for every system, there is a vulnerability, and the means to exploit it.

If I could learn that vulnerability and exploit, I, Juancho, could develop a plan.

 

 

1

Currents

Lindsey, the smiling tech presenting my findings, had a beautiful round face, gorgeous blueberry eyes, and curly dark black hair that highlighted her dark skin. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, nodding. Ready? Fuck, yes.

“Are you excited?”

“I am so excited. You wouldn’t believe it. I’ve been waiting for this day for almost three years.”

True story. I’d heard about the currents on the same day that Melli broke up with me, June thirtieth. I’d seen that coming but had worked hard to convince myself I was wrong. Then she said all those things that burned down my soul. I didn’t know who the hell I was when she was done. Trashing myself with Miller’s finest and getting arrested for public urination was not very helpful. It was, literally, and I mean this in the truest sense, literally the next day after being fired that I saw the ad for currents and began planning to have my currents charted. It gave me a goal, man. It probably saved my life. I started pricing procedures, got a job and started saving my money.

Lindsey issued a blinding smile. “I can tell.” She turned toward a large screen. On it was my name and photo. My pulse accelerated. Despite the freezing a/c, sweat trickled down my back.

“Well,” Lindsey said, “here’s what everyone wants to know right away, so we’ll tell you right off, that you have sixteen currents affecting you.”

Sixteen. I held my breath, remembering from my reading, most people have nine. “That’s a lot, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. That places you in the top two percentile.”

I was nodding, listening, watching the screen and reading it as the information she shared came up, and thinking. Sixteen currents explained my mood swings. I was lucky to be functional. A schematic of my body emerged. The sixteen currents appeared and were named.

“Four are major currents,” she said.

My respect for myself went up when I heard four. They were highlighted in bright red on my schematic. One was for Odin. Fat and red, his current flowed between my heard and brain. Wow, shot through me, wow. Almost as fat, but longer, Ra connected my heart and my feet, explaining why I loved the sun, and walking. Paired with Ra and flowing in parallel was a thin green line that represented Amun.

The minor currents, in blue, included America, Jesus Christ, and Rock. They circulated as a trio through my solar plexus, clear explanation for my indifference about those three realms. Money and Greed were both small currents in my chest. Neither touched my heart. That made me smile. Not being ambitious was one of the things that Melli speared me with as though it was a terrible attribute. My currents and their placing demonstrated exactly why I didn’t care about getting ahead as she wanted me to do. “With your brains and talents,” she’d shouted, “you can be so fucking rich, if you only cared.” Christ, I hear and see her shouting that at me almost every fucking night.

The screen was changing. Lindsey had been speaking, but stopped. I felt her watching me. “Sorry,” I said. “I stopped listening.”

“That’s all right, that’s okay. Most people do. This is about your soul and existence. It’s natural for you to get distracted by what you see. Take your time.” She brought the last screen back up, with all my currents. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” That’s all I could say.

“When I saw your currents, I was blown away,” Lindsey said. “You have the most currents of anyone I’ve ever done.”

“How many currents do you have?”

“Oh, mine is boring.” She sighed. “Just two major currents, God and Sports, nine currents, total. I am so average, but it explained why I was always so good at every sport I ever tried.”

Nodding, I’d quit listening again. I wanted to start looking more in-depth at all of my currents. These were the key to understanding myself. I had Sports lowing in me as a moderate current. Odin, Odin lowed through me. Ra.

Those were two of the majors. I hunted the information for the other two red currents. My heart almost dropped out of my body when I saw the first.

“Hitler?” I asked, weak and sick. I wanted to throw up “Hitler is one of my major currents?”

Looking sorrowful, Lindsey replied, “I’m afraid so. It’s a current we’re seeing more of, more frequently.” She sounded so apologetic.

Odin, Ra and Hitler. The Hitler current started in my right hand and went up my arm to my heart. “You’re right-handed, aren’t you?” Lindsey asked.

I nodded.

“So, even though it’s not a large major current, Hitler’s current will dominate many of your actions because of where he’s located.”

Yes, I’d been reading about the Hitler current. I’d been startled that Hitler had been able to generate enough energy to create a lasting current through history.

What was the fourth current, then? Fat and red, it was the longest, going from my brain to my solar plexus. It apparently flowed through my heart, as well. “What’s my fourth major current?”

Looking happy, Lindsey said, “That’s the most interesting one. You want to see?” She laughed, already moving the mouse as I said, “Hell, yeah.”

“I thought you would,” she replied. “Your fourth major current is one that includes the nine muses. They’re not all equal, but they’re all apparently there, but flowing together as one major current.”

“What’s that mean?”

Laughing, Lindsey said, “It means you love art, literature, music and knowledge, and you’re probably impressively good at any of them, when you try.”

I’d never read about a current like that. Usually people had a few of the muses running as one current or another.

Lindsey was saying almost the same thing. “I was so jealous when I saw that. I have Terpsichore flowing in me as a strong minor current, so I’m a pretty good dancer, but so do most black women in America.”

“Yes, but I have that Hitler current.” Saying those words sickened me anew. Of all the currents to have….

Lindsey leaned forward in her chair. “You know, though, we’ve noticed that the Hitler current seems localized by regions.”

I grew still with the implications of her words.

“If you move away from its zones, it’ll diminish.”

“Really? That can happen?”

She nodded.

“But how do I know where to move?”

Smiling, Lindsey slipped a piece a brochure toward me. “We have another program that tells where the currents are strongest and weakest, and how where you live can affect your currents.”

I scanned the page, looking for a price. I didn’t see one. “How much is it?”

Lindsey’s apologetic expression re-appeared. “It’s very expensive. Six thousand dollars.”

I gasped. “Wow.” Six grand. I’d already spent nine to learn my currents, living almost like a monk to do it.

“Well,” I said. “Well.”

She wrapped up the session by presenting me with a booklet and DVD of me and my currents. “The DVD is tailored for your findings, and it goes into a lot of detail about how the currents interact and affect you. It’s really worth going through.” Then she told me about the website, and how to log onto it. “Your package includes a year of updates about your currents, so you can see how they change.”

I nodded, but I was already out of there in my mind. I could save money and try to find a place where the Hitler current was weaker. Whatever. I had a new goal, to minimize that damn Hitler current.

I’d worry about the details later. I wasn’t worried; the Muses would help.

That was amazing to know.

***

With thanks to Neil Gaiman.

0

Feynmann and Me

I believed that the big fireball over Feynmann announced my end’s beginning.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Never is, is it? No. I didn’t know who Feynmann was, except in a general way. Despite plaques all over the ship, I absorbed that Feynmann was another science guy like Einstein, and had something to do with our mission. Feynmann and Einstein are names like Copernicus and Galileo to me, names shot at me in classes. The only real science name I know is Bill Gates, because he invented Apple. That’s just how I am, right?

This night was supposed to be one to talk about forever. Our excitement was thick as a brownie. Here we were, on another world, not the first, per se, but somewhere high on a special list. Fortune was shining on me just to put me there. I was of the opinion that Ricardo and I were on the edge of becoming a twin star, if I understood that metaphor right. We’d been as immediately absorbed with one another as PB and J. His looks to me had gone from being, “Hi, nice to see you, mate,” to, “Want to fuck?” I was trying to make my looks answer, “When and where?”

Yes, this night was one to talk about, still, but in a shitty way. We were all in Coronado’s break room, looking up at the sky and marveling as expected, when the fireball appeared, stopping all of the chin wagging and truncating lusty suggestions and happy imbibing.

“What was that?” someone asked.

“Looks like an explosion,” someone said.

“Yeah, a big fucking explosion,” said another.

Amazing that these people were supposed to be geniuses. Should that be genii or something? Does it really take doctorates to see a big fireball and guess that something exploded?

These were all voices beside and behind me. Didn’t know those folks well, and didn’t look to see who spoke. I was staring at the huge glazed marble lighting the sky. Gold, white, purple, red and black, it would have been pretty, if it wasn’t scary.

“Was that the Beagle?” someone dared.

Nobody else dared an answer until Ricardo said, “There is another ship up there. There can be other explanations.”

I almost laughed at his foolish hope. I already knew this was the end’s beginning. I mean, we’re all dying from the time we’re born, Da always said, but we’re hopeful that death will let us slip past if we don’t know the ways and means, right?

Like a software program that had done its thing and started us on another loop, everyone was released into action and speaking at once.

There was nothing I could do, I, Juancho, a simple bureaucrat. Cattle, unkinder pissants labeled crew like me, to which I gave a big, hairy,  “Fuck you,” back. They’d warned us, this was dangerous and one-way. Yeah, but, they had to say that, legally, to keep our estates from suing, right? Nobody expected us to be shat on and flushed away this fast. Still, those were the facts. If our mother ship blew and left us stranded, naught for me to do but carry on as per. I finished my drink, and ordered another while greater minds began panicking.

Yep, nothing for me but get drunk and see what Feynmann would do to me. Turned out that it had nasty plans for all of us, like a horrific science fiction version of “Ten Little Indians,” except, we were starting with thirty, right?

That made it last longer.

****

With apologies to Richard Feynman, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the rest of the scientists, inventors and thinkers maligned by Juancho’s world view.

2

Baseline

I was running late, damn it, squeezing me into a travel-dilemma box.

Walking to my destination was out because I’d already used my baseline oxygen, and was into tier two pricing. Tier two pushed up the O2 price to one hundred twenty-five percent of my baseline use cost. If you think that’s not bad, you must be Free. As worried as tier two pricing makes me, tier three jumps up to two hundred percent. Say, “Ow,” brother, and kiss the budget good-bye. If you think this is more about punishing me for using too much oxygen instead of profit-taking, you’re wrong.

I was going too far to walk, anyway. Realistically, my choices were surface vehicle, hover-car, or teleporting. I’d normally be porting to this function, because I’m going to be drinking. Salud! Embedded in the Pleasure Taxes that just went live, though, is language about being drunk in public. Surface cars and hover cars are included in that, even if you’re not driving them.

Porting, though, was out, because I’d exceeded my baseline on that, too, and was firmly advanced into tier two pricing. This sucks on a major level. Of course, it’s my cats’ fault.

As others have found, cats love teleporters. No one knows why. Premier Teleporting, the company I lease my teleporter from at home, says it’s not possible, but the net is rich with tales of cats porting into places.

I’ve had it happen, so I know it’s not just alternate news. No, it doesn’t make sense. The porters have security and fail-safes. They’re synced to your neck chip, right? Without that chip, the porter is supposed to remain inactive. Yet, cat after cat manages to enter teleporters and pop up elsewhere. My own cats, Hizzhonor and Herheinie, have followed me into bars, stores, restaurants, and work. Each time, I’m charged for their use, but then I need to port them home. It’s happened three times this month alone. It sucks.

Which doesn’t solve this problem, except, remembering the issue, I took the two kitties into the bedroom, refreshed their food and water, and bribed them with catnip and treats before locking them in there.

Then I checked my porting app. I was already close to tier three pricing. Projections based on the distance, my size, and the time of day, indicated my return trip would tip me into tier three pricing. Drinking a beer, I mourned the situation, and decided on impulse, fuck it.

This was no way for someone to live. Announcing, “Fuck it,” to the teleporting unit as a surrogate for the company, I continued with bravado, “Baseline this,” and held up two index fingers at the machine.

And then, checking the time right before stepping into the teleporter, I realized that I’d eaten up most of my baseline leisure time for that night. Going out now would push me into tier two pricing for the evening. I did the maths. Party multipliers would kick in because of the crowd size and congregation tax. Then there was the alcohol surcharge….

Forget about sex. I couldn’t afford sex that night.

The maths didn’t work. As much as I craved society, and relaxing with a drink and friends, it was too pricey for tonight. Releasing the cats from their captivity, I checked my alcohol consumption baseline and confirmed I had some breathing room there. 

Just fourteen days left in the month, and all my baselines would be reset. Until then…I settled in to surf the net and shop online.

At least that remained free.

0

The Laments

Rising late, he moves like he feels old as stone. Boiling water for tea in the kitchen, he coughs out the night’s dust. His hacks echo through the house, debilitating his soul, and leave him wheezing and gasping, his eyes tearing. Sipping tea, he takes his meds and vitamins.

In his living room, he sits in his leather recliner, a gift from his wife before she died, and opens his notebook, recording the day by time, activity and amount. Then he turns on the television to the news, and surfs the net on his laptop, bemoaning the world’s news while shouting, “You fucking piece of shit,” at his computer when pages fail to open and videos don’t run.

Tiring of this when then noon has come, he laments his life, plans his meals, and decides to dress and go wash his car. There are things to do.

He just doesn’t want to do them.

0

The Vision

He permitted his small train of cars to scrub off speed until it was almost stopped, and then gently pressed the brake pedal, encouraging a full stop.

Because he’s cautious, he opened several surveillance systems. Cameras and ground radar went up, scanning the remnants of I-5. Nothing else is untoward in this wasteland, but he picked up the AK-47 and looked around, watching his rear view mirrors and cameras as the engine idled. Selecting neutral, he set the hand brake and observed.

One of the packages moved again. It’s something that was alive or remained close to alive, or a ploy to invite him to stop and investigate. The wreckage was mostly cleared here. Rust, decaying plastic and rubber, and vegetation cracking through the pavement attested that more than a few months have passed since this crash or battle took place. Something alive is out of place. Manipulating a camera, he focused on the two packages. They appeared human, maybe females, adults.

Debating options and running scenarios through his head, he drummed his fingers on the console. He’d felt like Noah, building this vehicle. Sometimes he thinks of it as the vehicle, but other times, he calls it his train, an engine without a track, towing five cars. The instructions and scheme to build it reached him through nocturnal visions. He rejected referring to them as dreams. They were too cogent for dreams. The project, as he called it, trying to keep it abstract, ended up consuming money, energy and relationships. His marriage had already terminated, Mom and Dad were dead, and the children were forging their own paths of mistakes and successes, so it was pretty easy to burn those ties.

The thing was, though, the visions had never explained why this was being built. It seemed incredibly ridiculous and impractical to him, this “land train,” an absurd expression, since trains ran on land. People kept after him about why he was building it. He couldn’t explain it, not wanting to explain those nocturnal visions, falling back to weakly saying, “It’s just a whim.” He knew they thought he was crazy, an opinion he’d shared most of his waking hours. Then the sierra slathered the spinning fan blades onto a new wreck of a world, and here he was, a man alone with two cats and a dog, traveling destroyed America.

That’s what must have been behind the nocturnal visions, right? Why else have him build this thing? He was impressed that something had reached out to him with such guidance, even though it also scared him shitless about his sanity. Okay, but now, here he was, alive and on the road as the rest of humanity, at least in America, as far as he could discern, completed the cycle, dust to dust.

Yet, two people on the road, apparently needing help, were before him. How did that fit? As he watched, one progressed through the jerking motion of standing, confirming, it seemed to be a woman, small and white. He pulled his binocular to his eyes for a better image. Swaying, she straightened her back and squared her shoulders. Stooping, she pushed and pulled the other one, also a woman, until she stirred and rose to her knees.

The nocturnal visions hadn’t included others. Yet, he’d always wondered why his train was five cars. It was overkill for one person. Cursing cowardice and indecisiveness, he checked the time and watched the two. Holding on to one another, they minced across the road with staggered steps. Only two in the afternoon, it would be hours before night. Hours before his nocturnal visions came, unless he could close his eyes and sleep now. But if he did, they could leave. They could die.

The vision had brought him here. Now he needed to decide who he was. None of the others remained. These were the first living people he’d seen since he left his home after the fall.

Maybe their vision had brought them here, to meet him. If so, shouldn’t they be looking for him? They seemed oblivious to his vigil, even though the engine’s rumble probably carried to them.

He didn’t have a choice. The vision had brought him here.

It was up to him to finish the vision.

0

Raw

That first phase of writing fiction for me is collecting the raw materials. I have a concept and an idea of the story, characters and settings. All the elements enlarge, becoming illuminated, as I write the tale and finish the first draft. The first draft is always so raw. I’m not one of those who thinks the first draft is almost the final draft. It’s just raw material. Now it’s ready for shaping and carving. Sometimes I’ll add stuff, but mostly I add by removing material.

The work pace shifts into a smoother, more contemplative, and relaxing process. It’s like your dream house is being built. “It’s finally happening,” you keep telling yourself. “I almost stopped believing it would ever happen.” But tangible progress is visible. The foundation has been laid, the walls have been erected. Doors and a roof are in place. It’s less a collection of material and more like the place you dreamed. I feel the same with this novel in progress.

Time to write, edit and revise like crazy, at least one more time. Looking ahead, it appears there will be many more of these subjects to come. I embrace the pleasure of the work.

0

Future Blues

Groaning, shoulders slumping, Heather lowered her head and hit her forehead. She’d forgotten the friggin’ bag. Damn, damn, damn. The day was becoming sub-prime in a slide.

People thronged past. She faced a rack of bags. So, options, text someone to bring a bag. Go back and get it, but time and money, time and money. Five Georges for porting home and back. Steal one. Buy a new one. Get caught stealing a bag was a dime. Who to text to bring one? Everyone else had ported out on holi, but she had to work. Not friggin’ far, not friggin far at all. Welcome to her life.

So buy one. Gawd, two Georges. Were these getting more expensive? Why did she forget the friggin’ bag? Stupid. She slapped her temple. Stupid.

The bag was bought but that just started a whole other chain, syncing it to her head — and another George, gawd — and this bag wasn’t listed, forcing her to walk through the store and compare the items, like, manually, like some factory worker or some girl at a jewelry counter, because there was no list in the bag to tell her to pick something up and put it in. Good thing, sync did bring up her checking and budget so she knew what could be spent. Least the bag was telling her that. Wouldn’t want to exceed the budg and bring on the wrath.

And she had to remember what was on the list. Shit wasn’t easy. Like, did she need milk this week? The frig always told the list what she needed. She didn’t know. So she didn’t know. Probably all kinds of messed up. Who knows if the syncing was right? She hadn’t done one in all kinds of yesterdays. Didn’t even know if the bag was porting it to the right place. She peered into the small purple cloth sack. It was all gone, all right, but where? She could recall it all, go home, she shoulda just gone home and got her bag, suck up the time and Georges, way it was going, she would have only be out one or two Georges that route and a whole lotta less stress and aggravation, which she already was feeling, having won the lottery to work a holi weekend.

Ah, fuck it. Heather lowered her head and succumbed to getting it done, because that’s how the world work, but she couldn’t do it without multiple sighs and a pitying chorus in her head. She hated being eighty. Retirement couldn’t come soon enough.

0

The Keys

Head wobbling, he looked left and right as much as he could without tipping himself out of his chair. Near immobility was one indignity. It was the least.

“Matthew, do you want a drink?” the man asked him.

He was a pleasant enough man, white and ginger-haired. but otherwise anonymous in Matthew’s world view. He’d been introduced. Matthew hadn’t cared to hear, remember and store his name.

The man was offering a straw and glass. Matthew despised straws. Children drank from straws; he was an adult. He was a man. “No, thank you,” he said. His once sonorous voice chirped, slouched and broke through the three words. He wished he could close his ears and not hear himself any longer. “Where are my keys?” That voice sickened him.

“What do you need your keys for, Matthew?”

What fucking business is that of yours, Matthew thought. “Where are they?”

“Don’t worry, they’re right here.” The man brought him his keys, holding them so they dangled in front of Matthew, like he was a cat or a baby, and the man wanted was playing with him. “Do you plan on taking a ride?”

Fuck you. Forcing his will into movement, Matthew reached for his keys. The limb and hand trembled. His shoulder, elbow and wrist issued warning pains. Reaching for the keys took long seconds, something once done easily and without stress. When his fingers closed on them, Matthew wanted to close his eyes and rest. Tears welled up. Others would think it was pain or sadness. Only he knew it was anger.

Chatting, the man wiped Matthew’s eyes. Matthew didn’t care. He closed his fist on his keys and then closed his eyes. He had his keys. Time to die.

His journey could now begin.

0

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