Psychic Reader Neon

One day the yellow brick house had a red and blue neon sign glowing in the sun porch window: Psychic Reader.  A triangle with an eye glowed gold in the middle.  The air was blue with dusk making the sign a beacon to all.

Tending Garden

Evie preferred the hands-and-knees method of garden tending rather than letting the automatic systems take over.  The robotic systems never managed to get out all the weeds and always managed to take out some of the veggies.

The dirt smelled rich and natural, and when Evie closed her eyes, she thought of the worms in their tunnel homes, full, fat, and happy, warm and safe in the dark.  She looked around, but no other gardeners had been assigned near her area, so she stretched herself out flat between the rows of spinach plants and laid down right on the path, her nose to the dark brown earth.  Evie felt a nauseating fluttering in her stomach and her hands went flat, as if grabbing the path might hold her safe.  It was nearly always in the garden where she could forget they were on a star ship, until, of course, a change of direction or power fluctuation brought her back to the limits of the world.

Ordinary Day

It's always an ordinary day.  Seasonal weather.  Routine morning.  Breakfast, shower, pack up for work, get in the car, go.  Regular traffic.  A slow pedestrian.  A four-way stop that irritates.  A slow truck.  Cows.  Cup of tea, still hot.  Reviewing the work to come, watching the road, thinking of turning on the radio.  Normal.

A patch of ice.  A car running through a stop sign.  A suddenly stopped truck.  These are the things that can throw in a bit of panic, but they are easily overcome.  Or it's a traffic accident.  Automatic systems kick in and the heart beats faster and steps are taken until it's normal again.

But when it's not really a normal day, that's when there is cognitive dissonance.  Those are the days that separate people into categories they never even knew existed: Survivor, Victim.  Hero, Human.  Searcher, Lost.  Witness, Runner.

Ultrasound

The ultrasound room is dim and has the low, gentle hum of equipment.  The exam table is covered in cloth, not paper, and patients get a pink cloth gown.  The technicians are soft-spoken and reassuring.  They also have no news to give because the images are sent to a doctor to read, somewhere, in an office.  It is warm, comfortable, and quiet.

Inspiration #2

On the morning of her sixth birthday, Bennie flung open her curtains to reveal a grey bank of thunderous clouds.  The eerie light turned the newly opened late spring leaves an unnaturally dark green with shadows that clung beneath.  The grass glowed.  Bennie felt rather than heard a rumble that made her bones vibrate.  The birthday girl smiled, a sparkle in her eyes that matched the grass.  Today was the kind of day where Things Happened.

Inspired by "The Little Magic Shop, by Bruce Sterling.  "The early life of James Abernathy was rife with ominous portent."  This was one of my favorites from Feeling Very Strange.

On the cover of what magazine would you most like to appear?

It was a candid shot, taken out of disbelief.  A girl--possibly a lady--being assaulted on the street.  It was dark and still wet from earlier rain.  I was hurrying back to my apartment from photographing wet pavement on the neon-lit streets three blocks over.  Pretentious and hack.  Maybe worthy of stock photo work.  I had my camera around my neck, like an idiot in this bad neighborhood.  I heard her scream, cut off.  I saw them clearly.  Woman and man.  Man wrapped around woman from behind, her feet losing the ground for a moment.  His hand blocking her air.  I lifted my camera and started snapping.

If you could be any ice cream flavor, which would you be and why?

The ice cream truck in my neighborhood peddles death.  Not even hiding it.  The music is out of tune and changes pitch and rhythm.  It sings, "Here he comes, the ice cream man, he's come to scoop your brains out."  And yet, they run.  The tinny tinkling and the footsteps thunder taking them all one by one.  Not just the children, but the adults who should know better, too.  The darkest days, with lowering clouds, rumbles of thunder, ominous and low, you can feel it in your chest before you realize what you hear.  The streets shadowed in the light grey of dusk, the time of day you're most likely to be hit by a vehicle.  Leaves and dried things scurry and hide, but the customers, the customers always come running.

Pageant Question: How do you feel about women being drafted?

Marianna had to give birth in the trench.  She'd hidden her pregnancy, even from herself I think, right up till the last two months when denial wouldn't work any longer.  It was a muddy, bloody mess even before her water broke.  The enemy chose that night to surge on our position, and we were in the worst battle I'd seen in weeks.  Nobody noticed when Marianna first went down because they were too busy with their own lives.  I had at first assumed she'd been shot, like so many of the others we were pressing into the mud, but when I saw she was scrabbling to get her pants off, I knew; the baby was coming.

Pageant Question: How do you overcome adversity?

"Talia!"  Her mother's tone meant she was not to be ignored and Talia scrambled from the kitchen so fast she knocked over another box of empty bottles and garbage.

"I'll pick it up, Momma," Talia promised even before she was close enough for her mother to hear.  A fist flew out of nowhere and caught Talia on the mouth.

"Don't sass!"  Stars shone in Talia's eyes, but the protest that she hadn't been sassing was locked behind her bleeding lips.  Her mother stood, thin and dark, frayed around the edges, and wound around her addictions.  "Watch your brothers and sister."  Then she was gone.  Talia didn't know it, but it was the last time she'd ever feel her mother's touch or hear her voice.

359

The early morning sun warmed the cement of the back patio and was starting to dry out the nightcrawlers.  Hannah wrestled the sliding glass door open enough to slip through, being careful to close the screen behind her, as her mom would require.  The patio was still cool on her bare feet, but it was warm enough out that her pink pajamas were enough.  Hannah began rescuing the big worms by tossing them out into the still-dewy lawn.  The day smelled fresh and clean with a hint of earth, which Hannah would always think of as the smell of worms.

342

"When you look back on the story of your life," said my mother, blowing her cigarette smoke out the side of her mouth, "what are you going to be able to say?"  She tapped off the ashes into her vintage, turquoise plastic ashtray using the end of her long, red nail.  "I played a lot of video games," she mocked.  "Will that be it?"  Mother leaned forward, the plastic kitchen chair cushion squeaking, "You need to do something with your life, Martin."  The smell of coffee and cigarettes are the smell of my mother.  I don't smoke and I don't drink coffee, and I never will.

341

The sun over the ocean was white-bright.  The waves, even at a distance, made a calming sound, not unlike breathing, as it washed inexorably up and retreated down the sandy beach.  The breathing water was punctuated by an even more distant heavy sigh against the heavy, black rocks.  In, and out, it breathed, a living force contrasting the changeable and unpredictable lives of the humans on the shore.

338

Jane stumbled into his arms at a business party and didn't see him again for five years.  The party was a stereotypical office holiday gathering.  The bosses wore their suits and generally stood together looking important and drinking steadily.  The bosses' wives stood in their own cluster, wondering who their husbands were sleeping with.  The secretaries dragged their awkward boyfriends or husbands, introducing them while hanging hard on to their arms.  A few oddballs hung around the edges, like Jim from the mail room; Dave, Jordan and the other Dave from IT; and Jane, the temp.

333

The grey spring skies swirled with fast-moving clouds and it was the perfect day to test the Mylar balloon tube.  The tube was six feet long and ten inches across and it would inflate with the strong wind, crinkling and filling until it pulled itself free to sail through the suburban backyards.  Kate ran after her balloon to inflate it again.  No one stopped the eight year old from running over their grass, and there were no fences except for two, much further down the block than she would travel.  Kate snatched up the balloon to fill and release it again, but she paused to look around.  Though not exactly the same, the houses were similar and gave Kate a similar feeling of quiet.  The trees had yet to unfurl leaves, but the grass was a brilliant green.  Dark grey and light grey swirled above.  She felt excitement and adventure around the corner.

316

A police siren undulated in the distance, crescendoed, and faded.  Traffic was quiet because it was Christmas Eve and most people already were where they needed to be.  The weatherman said the wind would pick up as a strong low front marched across the land, and though it was later than predicted, on it came.  The trees swayed and the low thrush of sound became steadier and steadier.  The temperature drop would come soon, but most would be in bed when the full force of the front passed overhead, not leaving red and green-wrapped presents, but rather downed branches and a sheen of ice.

304

Meanwhile, in the Seventh Circle of Hell, Drachmach was rolling grit into his fingernails when he felt the sudden and irresistible urge to stand, which he did, and turn in a circle three times, which he also did.  When he was done, Drachmach was no longer in Hell, the Seventh Circle, Molten Quarter, Drachmach's scrape-hole, but rather he stood in a cavernous room, the stone floor smooth, cold, and covered with chalk scratchings.  Torches flickered on the far away walls, and coals burned dimly in a portable fire nearby.  A man, a human, knelt outside the chalk scratchings, making noises and raising and lowering his hands.  It took Drachmach a few moments to work through his disorientation to realize what had happened: a human sorcerer had abducted him.

290

Working in the cube farm fielding customer service calls made Mark feel like a rat.  Grey, carpeted cube walls looked like a rat maze in some mad laboratory where the experiment was how much boredom the rats could take before killing themselves.  Everyone lived for breaks, official or stolen.  Minutes without a call were precious.  Bathroom breaks were extended as long as was possible without looking suspicious.  Breaks were the call agents' cheese.

Mark shuffled towards his cubicle, inside right, third in, fourth from the end.  There were no decorations allowed and the grey was unrelenting.  The panels were supposed to block sound, but they didn't fully function, quite like the customer service agents.  Mark's work clothes were wrinkled, grey and ill-fitting.  He had ironed them for his first week before realizing the futility of the effort.  Nobody cared, least of all Mark.

If anyone had looked up from their own cubes, they could have seen Mark's head and shoulders bobbing past.  His hair was mostly dark though streaked with grey on the sides.  It was always too long.  Whenever he got it cut, he looked uncomfortable until it grew shaggy again.  The longer it got, the curlier it became and the tips poked his eyes giving him a twitch when he shook it away.  There was only one shirt he owned that wasn't stained, but it was lost in his apartment, and he had forgotten about it.

272

The wind picked up, blowing with it the scent of snow.  Rolling clouds tumbled across the sky, steel blue and gray and suddenly stuck by sun, reminding the world that it still shone, no matter perspective.  Dried leaves rattled in the trees and the weakest tumbled to join their brethren on the ground.  Dark would come fast this day, but not before a fleeting, blazing show of a sunset.

254

Calliope music from the merry-go-round was punctuated by screams from The Twister, a spinning ride that also lifted and rotated on a giant axis.  Funnel cakes floated by on clouds of powdered sugar.  Eaters of the funnel cakes stumped by on bloated legs, eating, ogling, and not paying any attention to anyone who might also be walking.  Chessie dodged another family of tubers, Mrs. Tuber rolling her bulk in a rented mobility device, and Child Tuber being dragged in a wagon by Older Child Tuber.  Mr. Tuber inhaled funnel cake, his third of the day.

229

While you love vacation and hating having to leave, it is a relieved return to your heart when you come home again.  As you get closer and closer to home, you note all the small changes that happened while you were away.  The doughnut shop got their new sign.  There's a new convenience store that opened.  The grass in the fields is so long.  It is late in June, getting on towards evening with the sun still setting, red and orange painting the western sky, the air still warm and the crickets and peepers playing out the day when the thrum of the engine finally cuts once you're safely parked in your garage again.  The hard part is unloading the packed-to-the-gills van after being so tired from the trip, but emptying is faster than packing.  The wood floors creak and pop, not having been stepped on in so long.  It smells warm and dusty and like home.  Finally home.