post really, really, really short stories.

Today we drank the last of
the mead and resumed bailing out
the longboat with our boots
and helms.

Later, Thorfinn decided he was
tired of rowing and stood up on
a thwart and blew mightily into
the tattered sail until he
grew dizzy and fell overboard
and lost his favourite dagger.

We laughed at him as he flailed
about cursing in the cold sea and
tossed dried fish at him pretending
that he was an angry seal.

))){

In the future, war got really complicated. It
became robots fighting other robots who were
blasting other robots. Men just stood back and
kinda watched the sky light up over the horizon
at night: Boooom!

One day, the AI of This is Our Regolith!
[which was a powerful supernation/state]
was viewing a summary of the day’s carnage
and noticed an enemy drone painted to resemble
a.. circus clown? swoop down and drop a fake
smartbomb on a squad of mechs. The bomb gently
exploded and paper and plastic stars fluttered
around before landing on impossibly shiny armor.

The AI grinned a cybernetic and invisible grin
and immediately ordered a million units of plastic
hand grenades filled with marshmallow peeps and
gummi narwhals to be created by the huge military
nanofacturing centers.

After a while, little kids started showing up at
the war for the goodies and the killing mechs would
throw water balloons at them if it was hot out and
if it was cold the vast parabolic orbital lasers
would bathe them in gentle 2% capacitor output warmth.

At the end of the day the little kids would be
tired and the mechs would pick them up carefully
in their killing arms, with their downpowered
gauss cannons and chainguns that hunched on their
shoulders like disgruntled vultures, and would
carry them gently to their homes and grateful
parents and then roll off into the dark to recharge
somewhere for another day of practical jokes at
the war.

))){

Jez Bërgsnotz-Upicke decided to
go to the opera. None of his friends
wanted to go with him though.

He selected his favorite jacket which
sported polygons of many colours and
designs based on petroglyphs found in
the Sahara on sun blasted rocks: snakes;
storks; hippo; anthropomorphic figures
with penis gourd sheathes and so forth.

After some deliberation, he chose a pair
of lime-green nylon socks, red Converse
high-tops, a bright vermilion 1000 thread
count cotton dress shirt with French
cuffs, gold scarab beetle cuff links, a pair of
x-ray glasses, cerulean blue parachute
pants, and a dead salmon necktie (eyes xed out).

After admiring himself in the mirror Jez walked
outside to the curb to flag a taxi and caused
three car crashes, one UFO sighting, and one
request from a little kid who wanted to know
where the circus was.

))){

And so there was Giles
deflated on the doorstep
like an empty balloon.

I was pissed – I went in
and got the spear I bought
from an Irian hillman for
5000rp when I was traveling
through Indonesia. Good for
pig hunting, he assured me.

I walked outside and looked
around and there was the vampire
sitting on a branch which
grew out over the road and
was brushing her long red hair.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Did you fuck
with my cat?” The vampire smiled
and her canines flashed. “I’ll
eat you too,” she hissed.

“Eat this,” I muttered and threw
the spear at her which flew
beautifully and didn’t mind that
she wasn’t a wild pig. The vampire
hit the road and stood up chuckling
at me and started to pull the spear
out of her chest, stopped, cocked her
head and got flattened by a steamroller
that was out of control and headed
towards freedom – if freedom was in
the general direction that it was
currently headed.

))){

I saw the wind
draw your hair
(in motion) on the
water.

And – just like
good prestidigitation
you were gone from
the shimmering.

I think the wind has
stolen your shape and
carried it across the
sea.

_{For LL}

))){

I saw ten snakes today

And the last one stood
upright (if they can actually
do that with their unbifurcated
lower leglessness or whatever)

It ran like hell without
legs like brown quicksilver
over the green corrugated
steelness of the grass that
I’m about to sever with eight
brake horse power and considerable
torque foot pounds and ferrous metal
sharpened to a non-food-prep edge..
(rants more etc..)

_{It only took three cheap beers
to compose this and one tight
and sexy pair of Levis which are
compressing the hell out of my
balls. There were no women or
apples involved in this story.}

))){

I’m the ambassador to Neptune.
It’s a cold planet. It’s a big planet.

It’s also a threatened planet – a petition
from POOP (People Opposed to Outer Planets)
is being considered by the FARTS (Federal
Astrobodies Reassignment Task Specialists) in
Washington D.C.

I’m in the picture because I made the SHIT
(Super-High Intelligence Team) list and I’m
in training for prolonged spaceflight and
dealing with the frozen nitrogen eaters on Neptune.

Crap. Or perhaps I should mention here that CRAP
(Command Rationality Artificial Personage)
is the AI that’s in charge of life support.

I hope it keeps the air filters swapped out
regularly or we’re all gonna stink like a
Louisiana bayou by the time we get to Neptune.

))){

You could see him thinking.

There was a beautiful intensity
about his thinking – like everything
was new and wonder-filled.

Where did he come from, anyway?

Lost bird from another land now
in this cage with the rest of us
but not really here with the rest
of us.

His soul is from somewhere else.

And I – I intend to end up there.

))){

Nevis lost his girl; she ran off
with an expatriate Parisian waiter
who personified superlative arrogance.

..oh, well. But she took his hat when
she left – knew it was his favorite thing
and probably threw it away.

Nevis had been training that hat for
years. He didn’t like it when he bought
it – too stiff. He dropped an anvil on it.
He ran it over with his truck several times.

He sat on it when he went to the pub.

The loss of some things that shape who
we are leave a reminder in all the things
we do.

So Nevis would reach up for an imaginary
hat to place on his bar stool and pause
at a loss and people would think he had
forgotten his wallet or something.

))){

The last human, a little
girl with big green eyes
who couldn’t resist a final
glance at the yellowing fields
beyond the spaceport, passed
through the hatch and the
rocket clicked, hissed, and
then with an impressive eructation
threw itself into the air.

After the trail of steam
and smoke dissipated there
was a quiet such as never
known before in the empty city.

As the sun went down a ray
of light penetrated the
window of a bakery and fell
softly on a plain donut that
someone forgot to bring along.

))){