Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
This Is Not a Love Song
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
“Ours is
a love that
swills the black
milk of twist
galaxies,”
the SF Poet Anan Muss had transom-entangled to his lover. Responding to its fifteen seconds of fame, critics responded: “What lovesick, cornball hack hasn’t thought-twittered something to that effect?”
The difference here being that Anan’s object of affection was none other than the lovely Dionysia, recently loosed from a marriage contract to King Ash–he who decimated planetary kingdoms remotely with a tap of his pinky fingernail-chip. As one of Dionysia’s comrade lovers of the arts, Anan once had the displeasure of meeting King Ash–obesely lounging on a mountain of oversized cushions amidst a cacophony of incense. King Ash sneered at Anan as the power-jaded king sneered at all of Dionysia’s thinly disguised “art-loving” friends to mask their night-emission desires.
Despite rumors to the contrary, Anan Muss never intentionally found a loophole in their marriage contract. In fact, being rather outmoded in sex transactions, he sought ways to patch the contract for Dionysia. Nonetheless, when Dionysia uncovered Ash’s harem secreted into a pit beneath the mountain of cushions, his first target was none other than Anan Muss. One tap of his royal pinky: Slitters zipped across the rolling desert on autobikes, arc-blades slapping their mighty thighs.
Trip-lights warned Anan of the intruders, which gave him time to scramble-translate himself to Jac-sun V, a sparsely populated planet full of jutting buttes, tumbleweeds, and sand–a land where few of the sane would choose to stay. Anan wrote Dionysia to come live with him in the wilds–a world where their swelling love could engorge the empty spaces. After sufficient time to show that she and she alone was in control, Dionysia wrote back, “You’ve got to be shitting,” and chose a sycophant, the intrepid Captain Skylark, who gave her extravagant if impoverishing gifts, but who had the physique of one who had valiantly survived a famine and now lived to eat at USA Steak Buffets.
To this day, Anan translates copies of himself back to the home planet–in the vain hope that she might find her way to love him–only to watch his copy get diced by a slitter’s arc-blade on pirated vid-feed.
Anan refuses to write sad SF love sonnets since truth and justice triumphed in the end. No one likes to spoil a happy climax.
Close to the Cure
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Jill tried to peel off the notice, but it seemed to be part of the door itself. She glanced back down the corridor. Te’laksu was not in sight. She thumbed the ID pad and went in.
“What’s wrong!” Shep jumped off the couch and crossed the small room in a moment. His body felt good, really good, but Jill disengaged after a few seconds and held him back by the shoulders.
“I’m so happy to see you?”
“You haven’t been out.” Her lip trembled.
Shep pushed past her. When he came back in he was fighting tears.
“I tried to get it off, too,” she said, sighing.
“I didn’t hear anyone! I wouldn’t have let anyone touch our door.” He paced back and forth, shoulders tense and head down. “They don’t have any right! We’re legal!”
Jill pulled him to her. She shut her eyes and ran her fingers up and down through the short soft fur on his back. “Nothing to do with you, Babe. Nothing at all. I got laid off. The T’lakash don’t need as many human subjects now they’re so close to finding the cause of the Anger Syndrome. They don’t need me.” He bared his teeth.
“Well, I do! We’ll have to move. Where will we go? Your Aunt Kitty doesn’t like me.”
“That’s vac,” she snapped. “We’ll think of something.”
The door slid open to reveal a biped whose arms formed a ring just above the middle of his torso. Each arm bore 6 blunt tentacles. His face looked like the ventral surface of an octopus.
“Te’laksu!” Shep barked.
“Your human has been rendered superfluous,” the government agent hissed.
“I can find another job!” Jill shouted, wrapping her arms around herself. Shep … growled, no other word for it. He stepped in front of her and stood almost nose-to-nose with the Subadministrator.
She couldn’t see Te’laksu well, but he made a sudden movement and Shep lunged. They went down, grappling in the doorway, but soon Shep rose to his feet, magenta fluid dripping from his chin. The T’lakashun sprawled in a growing magenta pool.
“Oh Shep!”
He spat something out and hung his head. She scowled, but couldn’t stay angry.
“Have to call Kitty now,” she said. Shep dragged the body into the room. The door slid shut.
End