Plugs

Kat Beyer has just illustrated a new children's book, The Poet's Journey, by Amirthi Mohanraj.

Read Rudi's story "Detail from a Painting by Hieronymus Bosch" at Behind the Wainscot.

"Drowning Atlantis" is a collection of new flash fiction by David Kopaska-Merkel, published by spechouseofpoetry.com.

Sara Genge's "story Godtouched" may be found in Strange Horizons.

Luc Reid's book Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures is in bookstores now and is full of odd insights.

Jeremiah's latest story is "Captain Blood's B00ty" appears in Shimmer Magazine and can be read online here.

Edd Vick's latest, "Reb the First" may be found at Jim Baen's Universe.

Trent Walters has a poetry chapbook, Learning the Ropes, forthcoming from Morpo Press

Alex D M's latest story is "Jumping over the Moon" in Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic

Read Daniel Braum's story siteMystic Tryst at .

Ken Brady's most recent story "Tagging" can be read at Darker Matter.

Jason Fischer has a story appearing in Jack Dann's new anthology Dreaming Again.

Susannah Mandel's columns in Strange Horizons on the fantastic in classic literature can be found here.

Angela’s story ‘The Jacaranda Wife’ is appearing in Dreaming Again, and ‘The Hummingbird Heart’ is in the new Shimmer.

Jason Erik Lundberg's latest book (co-edited with Janet Chui), A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, has just been released, and can be ordered at SurrealBotany.net.

Jonathan is now co-editor of Behind The Wainscot.

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A Morning Slidewalk Scene

by Rudi Dornemann

This guy comes up the block in a silver jumpsuit, and he's thinking, I could move to one of those LaGrange orbitals. Plenty of jobs up there, and all kinds of relocation bonuses...

Another guy, older, coming the other way in a plaid jacket that totally clashes with the tattoo on his face, is remembering the cliffhanger ending from last night's episode of /Urges/, playing it over and over in his mind. He seems to be more interested in the cutting remark that Lola just made to Charles, and less in the way the elevator is falling out of control.

A woman on the expresswalk is going over what she needs to do to clinch the Callazon deal -- if she drops the renewal price by 3% and moves the upgrade window from five months to four... Biv in sales owes her a favor anyway. And if she lands this one, Robertson will have to promote her. He'll have to, no matter what he thinks about clones -- the bigot.

There's silver jumpsuit guy again, going the other way, thinking: ...or one of the undersea domes, lots of jobs there, too. And they have great schools -- now that I'm pregnant, I can't just think about myself. I'm sure I'll get used to the damp eventually. They say it doesn't feel as claustrophobic as it really is...

A woman passes by, wondering if she should stop off at this coffee shop or wait and just grab a cup from the machine in the lobby at the office, which tastes as good, but the foam's always a little flat. She doesn't stop.

A man with one of those biofeedback jackets glides by, mellow and smug. He's thinking, yeah, it was expensive, but it looks just like my own hair, and with the foil lining, I don't have to worry about those damn headhoppers anymore. My thoughts are my own!

Latte nearly comes out of my nose at that one. Like anyone cares what he gets up to when he goes virtual, even if he is stealing company linktime to do it. And I hope his real hair didn't look like that.

You're right, we should move on; we've been here like forty-five minutes. Even though nobody's noticed, they might.

Wait -- here comes that guy in the jumpsuit again.

Posted: Comments (4) Categories: Rudi Dornemann  

Comments

If latte and almost comes out of your nose does that mean it congeals in the pipe between the back of your nose and the back of your throat? Eww!

Posted by: Lawrence Harding | April 24, 2007 1:27 PM

Rudi, is this story close to what you envision the future being like, or is it more an exploration for the story's sake alone?

Posted by: Luc Reid | April 24, 2007 4:56 PM

True -- it doesn't sound pleasant.

There's always the possibility that this is some kind of future-latte, and might act a bit differently, but that would be a story for another day...

Posted by: Rudi | April 25, 2007 1:47 AM

Luc -- Mostly an exploration for story's sake. I've noticed people complaining about multiple POV stories, and sometimes even using the term "headhopping." So I tried to come up with a Science Fictional reason to get into the thoughts of several different characters.

And I couldn't resist a bit of an homage to one of Trent's stories while I was at it :)

Posted by: Rudi | April 25, 2007 1:55 AM

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