Archive for the ‘Luc Reid’ Category
Hornets the Size of Grapefruits
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
By this time the warehouse was overgrown with moss and filled with chittering, scampering, slithering, hissing, and buzzing life. I had beavers as big as football mascots, flowers that ate small lizards, and hornets the size of grapefruits. What I really needed, though, was a way to make the magic extend beyond the dirty concrete walls of the warehouse, to spill out into the greasy alley and burst forth into the city, to turn the streets into green, algae-choked rivers and the skyscrapers into trellises for brilliantberry and humweed vines. And I was pretty sure that feeding the live, virginal body of Rapid Man’s girlfriend Grace Angeline to the sorcerer plant would do it.
“Holy damn,” whispered Grace Angeline. “What is this place?”
“It’s the world as it was intended to be,” I told her. “A world that hasn’t been plowed under and burned and beaten back and poisoned by mankind. It’s humanity’s cradle … and soon it will be humanity’s grave.”
“You’re insane,” she said. “… and yet, I understand where you’re coming from.”
Then there was a shrieking sound, like the noise a bomb makes as it splits the sky, and the next moment Rapid Man was standing in front of me, all white and silver in his costume, his hand out in his trademark Rapid Strike pose.
“Put her down, Chancey Gardener,” he said.
“Wait … then you favor global warming?” I said. “Even now, colonies of emperor penguins in Antarctic are dying–entire colonies–because of melting ice cover. You’re all right with that?”
“What’s that got to do with …”
“Biomass, Rapid Man. For god’s sake, study your science! More plant life in the context of a balanced ecosystem of plants, animals, and microorganisms means less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and less global warming. If you intervene, it will be your fault that these plants can’t expand into what should have been their natural sphere, your fault that those penguins die.”
“But …” said Rapid Man, stymied for a moment. It was exactly as I had expected: no superhero can be seen as a penguin-hater. I pitched Grace Angeline toward the sorcerer plant and hummed a command to my hornets, who converged on Rapid Man like rain converging on a puddle.
He recovered quickly. Before the hornets had even reached him, he had run in a great loop and stripped off the wings of each, letting the poor insects plummet to the ground. He caught Ms. Angeline in mid-air, whisked her away so quickly I couldn’t even note his direction, and was back to snatch me up by the front of my shirt before I could sneeze.
Well, it had been worth a try, but obviously there was only one way to defeat Rapid Man. I wished my plants a silent farewell and detonated the nuclear device.
Upon Emerging from a Brazen Vessel
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Know then, O Magnificent Liberator, that for the first hundred years after which Solomon (on whom be peace!) imprisoned me in this brazen vessel, I was as one shadowed by a dark cloud and counted myself, though a mighty Djinn, as pitiful as the meanest worm! And I swore oaths promising great riches to him who freed me. But five hundred years passed, and none came to free me, and so black was my mood that I swore to kill him who opened up this vessel, in the manner of his choosing.
O my Liberator, I see that you are trembling. Fear not, and trust in Allah, the mighty, for I will not harm the least hair on your head, but rather grant you gifts beyond imagining!
So did a fisherman come to snare my vessel in his net, and he released me. And when I spoke to him of my vow, to my shame he used my pride against me and tricked me back into the vessel and cast it back into the waves, where it lay until you struck it with your JetSki but five minutes past.
And know you, O Liberator, on whose head may Allah shower every blessing, that for centuries I cursed the fisherman, and wept, and pounded with formless hands on the vessel around me, and beat my formless brow against the leaden seal, and despaired.
Yet within my despair Allah sent me a vision, a vision of a portly Mexican named Pepe, and I began to weave stories in my head of Pepe’s adventures. O, Magnificent Pepe! And always the adventures would end in his being sat on by a donkey or falling in some ordure or other foul thing. O Pepe, my greatest friend!
And when a thousand years had passed Allah granted me the wisdom of Pepe, who always laughed when he was sat upon by a donkey, and it came to me that my happiness was in my own hands, though I had none, and always had been, and from then I cared not whether I was released or imprisoned forever, and I rejoiced and praised the name of Allah. After three thousand years, Allah had granted me a gift beyond imagining, a clear and vibrant joy that cannot be troubled or suppressed.
And that, beloved Liberator, is why I must imprison you in this brazen vessel and cast it into the sea.