I never got used to Dad’s face once the treatments began, but in a way I got used to the fact of his face, the idea that every time I saw him, it changed. It felt far more like a personal regression than the advancement of his own transformation – his face growing younger made me feel younger in return, always looking into the eyes of a father that had only existed in memories of decades past.
Monthly Archives January 2010
39 – In the Dark
In the infinite dark of a hollow space deep within a cold dead nickle-iron asteroid long divorced from the sun that had once held it in thrall, lived a Mind. In the darkness it thought about the universe into which it had been born, of the ancient times when it had walked free on the surface of a world teeming with life. It thought of the wars and plagues that had taken away, bit by bit, that embarrassment of riches. It thought of the millenia of struggling desperation, the migrations, the sorrows, the collapse. It did not think itself lucky to have survived.
As long as the universe outside the cold metal shell held some trace of heat, it would remain. As long as it remained, it would remember.
It was the last dying thought of a race long gone, it contained everything they had known, everything they had considered, observed, imagined. All their works recorded, all their thoughts set in eternal motion. In the darkness, it remembered, remembered the very birth of life and its long and painful end. It mourned, and knew mourning in exquisite detail.
It knew as well what had gone wrong. Too late now, but in dying the answers were laid bare. Perhaps in those final moments every creature understands the flaws of its life, or perhaps only the accursed few are given the insight of ending. The Mind knew the mistakes that had been made, knew how it could all have been repaired, what path could have led them all out of the darkness. It was only in the ending, the passage into death, that the circle could be completed. Having taken into itself everything that they were, and having watched them pass, it knew how they they could have been saved.
It was a shock then, to find the darkness penetrated by a brilliant light. The news came to it in words and images and emotions: they lived yet, and hungered for the solutions it had seen in their ashes. Come to us, they said, you have seen our end, now tell us how to live.
In the Dark by Kenneth Lett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
38 – Glitter
“If you can’t get laid, get a laugh.”
She said with a smile that somehow just avoided humiliating me. Had she been trying to? We both looked around, the room was a glimmering star field, dark and somber furniture transformed by the slowly settling cloud of glitter.
“It will clean up,” she concluded.
“No it won’t, it’s glitter. Glitter never goes away, it’s the herpes of craft supplies. Look, I’m sorry -”
“Don’t be, really.”
She smiled again, it was disarming almost to the point of emasculation. She was a big woman. Which is not to say overweight, but she was built on an industrial scale, just a little to large and a little to perfect to seem real. A small curvy woman magnified, as if I was merely standing too close, or looking at her through a lens. She was taller than I, and her hand, when she held it out to me, looked oversized and strong. It enveloped my own in a soft warm implacability, a friendly but immovable grip. Her nails were elegantly shaped, painted subtle red.
“I accept,” she said.
I looked at her eyes, and realized I hadn’t, not really, before now. The smile was reflected in them like the sun in a lake, but there was more there, something intent, nervous.
“You’re sure?”
Her eyes sought something in my face, they peered out from behind the veil of her looming good humor, as if they might like to duck away behind the smile again. I felt kinship to them, they and I would both hide away and look out from the shadows, but were driven to exposure by the sense of possibility that now seemed to pervade the sparkling room.
I felt my fingers dig into her hand and realized they were no longer hanging there dormant in her warm grip, but holding onto her, seeking to draw from her hand something that matched the subtle vulnerability in her eyes.
“Ok,” I said, “lets do this thing.” Like falling, like I had been hanging by my fingertips for so long I didn’t even know it until I let go, I smiled back at her.
Glitter by Kenneth Lett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
37 – The Hero of Mice and his Sword
Once upon a time a mouse found an enchanted sword. It was small and fit his little paws perfectly. He took the sword and used it to defend himself and other mice from their enemies, from cats and owls and dogs and snakes. He slew a great tomcat, and became the most famous mouse of all time. He was the first hero he mice had ever had, but when they spoke of him, they always spoke of the sword as well.
‘Oh, the Hero and his amazing Sword’, they would say, or ‘Thank the great God that the Sword came to our Hero’. The hero himself began to think very ill of this. He grew angry that the credit for his feats was shared with the sword, as if his own bravery and cunning were only a minor part of his own accomplishments.
One day he took the sword and thrust it deep into a cobblestone of flint. “I am done with the sword, for a hero needs nothing but his own bravery and intelligence,” he proclaimed.
He strode away from the crowd of stunned mice and found the largest of the feral dogs that plagued the mouse community, and he slew it with a toothpick. He climbed into the high trees where the owls nested, and he drove them out of the forest one by one. He sought the snakes in their underground tunnels, and tied them into knots.
When he returned from his quest, the other mice seemed enthralled by something going on in the clearing. A handsome young mouse had wrapped his paws around the handle of the enchanted sword and was heaving mightily at it, trying to release it from the heavy stone. As the hero approached, the young mouse pulled the sword free and held it above his head in triumph.
The hero watched as all the mice cheered the new young hero, and then we walked quietly out of the clearing.
The Hero of Mice, and his Sword by Kenneth Lett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Way to start the new year (36?)
I flew home for the Christmas holiday, and returned on the 28th, back to work the 29th, and after working, moved the heavy stuff (anvils included) from the old shop to the even older shop (in the snow). Work again the 30th, then off to Portland, cleaning, cooking, aquarium setup, bank errands. The one thing I don’t seem to have actually done in the last week is write a story. Great start to the new year, eh? So this is it, the story about why I didn’t write a story.
Apologies to all, and a really very nearly decent story next week. Promise.
Oh, and happy new year.