Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Home ranges and habits of mid-Atlantic weresnails
Monday, July 27th, 2009
In this study we identified weresnails in human form on the basis of two criteria: giant slime trails in their dwellings and nascent eye stalks on the days preceding a full moon. We followed human-form weresnails and used a modified tranquilizer gun to implant tracking devices on their shells at the onset of gastrothropy.
*
Gordon hurried home, dodging snow mounded where the plows had left it. He did love Elaine, desperately, but he had sworn never to bring a child into the world. He was afraid that his fear of what his curse would do to any offspring must have looked a lot like rejection. She didn’t know, and how could he explain now, when it was too late?
Elaine had cooked a wonderful meal: clam chowder, a green salad, and a spry young California Merlot with an unexpected kick. Then she told him.
“I felt sick this morning.”
“I’m so sorry!” he replied, wondering at her odd expression. “You certainly shouldn’t have cooked for me when you didn’t feel well. You’re feeling better?”
“For now. I don’t know what will happen in the morning.”
She finally had had to simply tell him. Then he gave her that look, and he ran.
*
The shell of the first subject shattered when struck by the tracking device. The tranquilizer gun had to be further modified before successful implantation was possible. Ultimately, time and location data for three subjects were successfully collected for three lunar cycles (fig. 1). Figure 2 shows movements of all three subjects, superimposed on a high-resolution digital elevation model.
*
Gordon could not sit still. He walked, trying to believe his son or daughter would be normal. After all, the gastrothrope gene was recessive, so unless Rachel had snail blood, their children would look fully human. He pulled out his cell phone.
“Hello!”
“Rachel, listen. I was just so shocked, but I want…” Then Gordon paused, bathed in moonlight.
“Me too, and…. This morning you looked…terrified. You don’t feel that way now, do you? Gordon? Gordon?”
His cell phone shattered on the sidewalk as Gordon underwent a transformation made excruciating by the salty meltwater covering the ground.
*
Unfortunately, aggressive salt distribution by county road crews resulted in destruction of the three remaining experimental subjects. The study will resume, with new subjects, after the last frost date in the spring.
The end
12/28/99
Friday, July 24th, 2009
“So have you decided yet?” Becca asked. “What you’re doing Friday?”
“Oh, God knows. Last-minute house party with the boys, probably.” Selwyn rubbed absently at her temples. “At least if the apocalypse comes there’ll be plenty of gin in the house. You’re invited, of course.”
“Thank you,” said Becca.
“And you? First Night again?”
Becca snorted. “Once was enough, thanks,” she said. “Especially this year, with freezing rain as a bonus!”
“You think it’ll still be coming down on Friday?”
“It’s been two weeks, hasn’t it?” said Becca. She nodded toward the window. “Does it look to you like it’s planning to let up by then?”
Selwyn considered the thick, cottony light filtering through the glass. “Not likely,” she admitted.
Becca watched her rise and walk to the window, watched her face shade into silhouette. Behind it, runnels of rain made bright worms on the pane.
“Do you think,” Becca said, quietly, “that everything’s really going to blow up?”
The shadowed face was silent. “Depends what you mean by that,” it said at last.
“You know what I mean. Everything really stopping working. Lights going out all over the world.”
“A technological apocalypse,” Selwyn said, slowly, “seems to me unlikely.” She paused. “What people do, of course, that’s more unpredictable.”
“There’s all kinds of doomsday predictions going round,” said Becca. “I’ve never felt so medieval.” She hesitated. “I could almost believe, at moments, that it really is going to end.”
“Do you really think that will happen?” Selwyn asked in her low voice.
“I don’t know,” said Becca. “I – you know I wouldn’t, ordinarily. But this is such a strange time. What if something really is coming that will change the world? Again?”
“A singularity,” said Selwyn. “You can’t see it coming, but before and after it, history is different.”
“Yes, like that,” said Becca. She shuddered a little. “You think you’re in the real world, and then something impossible happens. And you say, Oh! The world was like that, all along.”
Selwyn came over to her, touched her gently on the head. “Don’t kill yourself over this. You’ll find out in three days what the end of the story is.”
“I guess we will,” said Becca. Her hand closed and opened upon the desk. “Stay a little longer, please.”
Selwyn leaned one hip on the edge of the desk, and stroked Becca’s hair again. They stayed there together some time, in silence, looking out at the rain.