Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
C.R.E.A.P.
Monday, April 5th, 2010
A chilly spring morning. I was in the back of an ice cream truck midway through the big dig tunnel under downtown Boston, and we were doing 37 miles per hour–I could see the speedometer and a bit of the driver’s shoulder through the sliding window into the cab. Apparently top speed, because we were being chased by a stolen public works street sweeper, which was gaining on us.
“We’re doing youse a favor,” said Moze, my captor/host. He had an accent like a B-movie Mafioso and tattoos of alchemical symbols spiraling up both arms. “Not everybody gets to be a part of dis kinda thing.”
“Dis kinda thing,” being, in this case, the resurrection of Grover Cleveland, the twice and future president. Whose frozen head lay in one of the coolers, a basketball-sized gold-foil-wrapped mass. I wasn’t sure how much of a favor it was, particularly not if the sweeper caught us.
“Sol invictus!” shouted the driver.
“Sol invictus,” said Moze.
The two of them were members of a group who considered the U.S. presidency the modern equivalent of the ancient concept of sacred kingship. They venerated old Grover, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms, as having risen from the political dead, and had been working to help him come back from the literal version.
And me? I’d Googled a little too aggressively while writing a paper on new age revivals of Mithraism, chatted a little too long on discussion boards I never should have found.
“Time for counter-measures,” said Moze. He meant the milk crates full of half-melted treats we’d emptied from the coolers to make room for the anointed one.
We dumped them out the back. The sweeper was too close to dodge, and skidded on the ice cream sandwiches, sherbet push-ups and SpongeBob SquarePops, sideswiping the tunnel wall.
Clouds of dust boiled out of the sweeper, and a crescendo of horns rose from further back in the tunnel. We pulled away.
“’Victus!” said Moze, and held his fist out for a bump.
“Sorry, man,” I said.
At that moment, I wished I’d researched the Mithras stuff before working on that Watergate paper. But I tasered him, then the driver. We stopped rather abruptly.
When the sweeper crew pulled up and unloaded the cooler with the head, we left a vintage 1972 sticker on the ice cream truck’s bumper: Nixon — Now more then ever.
What Goes Around, Stays Around
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
“Mechaieh … the poet?”
“Of course the poet.”
“But I heard that all of her poems turned into flocks of birds when you read them.”
“That’s only her recent ones. This is one of the old ones.”
“So you’ve read it?”
“Of course not. You think I want it to turn into a flock of birds?”
“I thought you said it was one of the older ones.”
“I lied. I thought maybe you’d lose interest and go away.”
The tall robot shuttered his photoreceptors in surprise and backed away from the short, wheeled robot. “Why do you want me to go away?” the tall robot said.
“I’ve decided not to read it at all. Ever. So that I’ll always have it.”
“You might as well never have it if you never read it. But why do you want me to go away?”
“You know what I’d like to do sometime? I’d like to seal myself in plastic and walk on the bottom of the ocean.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m feeling … orange,” said the short robot. “The stars are tickling me. You know what would go down good now? A …” Then he hiccupped, and abruptly, his brain exploded.
This was a downloadable virus that had been going around, which caused loops that overstressed processors, generating more heat than the robot heads had been designed to handle.
The tall robot backed away, leery of contagion. After a moment, though, he scooted forward and picked up the poem. He sidled off into a dim corner of the factory where they both worked, where he’d be less likely to be noticed, and opened the poem. He wondered if the flock of birds would appear when he began reading or as soon as he had pronounced the last word. He wondered if they would appear at all.
“What’ve you got there?” asked another robot, a bulbous, yellow one.
The tall robot looked up. “Something by Mechaieh.”
“Mechaieh … the poet?”
All at once, the tall robot began to wonder how the virus was spread.