By the end of their first week of classes, they shared breakfast at the Union every morning and dinner in the evening.  A few weeks later, he mentioned that his roommate had dropped out, and no one had been assigned to his dorm room.  She moved in, and they remained inseparable.  Without ever really dating, they discussed marriage after graduation.

Although their relationship seemed ideal, one thought tugged at the back of Arlan’s mind soon after Diana’s parents visited.   Her mother was — there was no polite way of saying this — fat.  Grotesquely so.  He recalled hearing that if you want to know what a young woman would be like when she got older, look at her mother. 

Arlan tried ignoring such an obviously shallow concept.  He loved Diana for who she was, not what she might look like in twenty-five years.  Still, he noticed that her rear end was flabbier than he thought when not packed into tight-fitting jeans.

Diana had loved how he absentmindedly caressed her legs as they lay in bed reading, but lately his touch seemed different when he reached the meatier parts of her thighs.  At his urging, they began running mornings and avoiding late-night pizzas.  She understood.   She had seen the look on his face when she introduced him to her mother.  Although they talked about nearly everything, neither dared approach this one topic.

As the term ended, and they planned to move back home for the summer, they shared how difficult it would be to separate.  But down deep, Arlan felt ready for the break.  When his parents arrived to drive him home, Diana noticed how much he resembled his father, except that Arlan’s dad was as bald as a doorknob. 

She, too, felt ready for summer break.

Passion Contents

On the eve of Thanksgiving a woman phoned her sister-in-law to ask what she might contribute to their annual meal together.

“You’re coming then, Amy?” asked the in-law.

“I always come, Molly. We talked about it last week.”

“Okay,” Molly said.

“You don’t remember?”

A pause ensued, then: “You come right along, Amy.  Absolutely.”

“How about if I bring a pie?” Amy asked.

“Bring it, Dear,” Molly said.  “Pies divide more democratically than any other dessert.”

Pleased, Amy added that she’d just put a mincemeat pie in her oven.

“If that’s what it is, Dear, then bake it,” Molly said.

“I bring mincemeat every year, Molly,” Amy reminded her.

“Why even consider spending Thanksgiving alone, Amy?”

“Looking forward to seeing you again,” Amy said.

“We’ll have a nice time.  Did I tell you that Uncle Harold will be here, Dear?” Molly asked. “He’s bringing his companion.”

“Spencer?” Amy gasped.

“Uh-huh.  And they’re bringing that little girl Bo Peep who escapes from the orphanage on holidays.”

Amy groaned. “Does she still bite, Molly, because I’ve still got the scar from last year.”

“Her eyesight’s not good, Amy. Forgive her. You sat too close to the turkey last year, and it’s hard for her eyes to distinguish things,” Molly said. “Don’t be misled by first impressions — give her another chance, Dear.  Bo Peep.”

Amy reminded Molly that she wasn’t on good terms with Uncle Harold, either.

“There’s enough blame to go around, Dear,” Molly said. “It’s not all you.”

“They were both trying to tinker with my husband!” Amy snapped. “What would you do?”

“So many hurt feelings,” Molly replied. “Let’s let bygones be what they are.”

“Why, for goodness sake, didn’t they just stay with their wives?”

“The wives are coming, too, you know…”

A pause.

“Did I hear that right, the wives, too?” Amy asked.

“They’ve paired also, and they’re bringing that little boy who’s always running away,” Molly said. “He runs backward.”

“They’ve paired?! Good God. And the boy’s a fugitive? Molly, please level with me. Are they massing at your house for war, the six of them? Because if they are —”

“No, no. Each couple just tries to show off the hungriest child available. It’s perfectly understandable in their circumstances.”

Amy ignored the non-sequitur. Her voice softened. “How many of us will there be, Molly? Have you tallied?”

Molly rattled off the names of the guests she expected. “Fourteen,” she answered eventually.

“And me and Brad — sixteen.”

“Then you’ve made up your mind? Good,” Molly said. “Now where’ll I put you? Let me see — away from the turkey — is Brad coming, Dear?”

“Yes, he’s planning to,” Amy said.

“Then come along, Dear. We’ll sort things out when you get here.”

Amy wondered that things might get uncomfortably crowded.

“Amy, Dear,” Molly asked, “could you bring a blueberry pie instead?”

“I’ve already started the mincemeat,” Amy replied.

“Okay. Now, you said Brad’s coming, too?”

“Yes. Yes, he is,” Amy said.

“Then come along,” Molly said. “I’ll just pray we can seat everybody. “That’s how my nerves start.”

“We’ll figure things out, Molly. Don’t worry.”

]]> http://www.wildviolet.net/2011/09/13/thanksgiving/feed/ 0 http://www.wildviolet.net/2011/09/13/reading-between-the-lines/ http://www.wildviolet.net/2011/09/13/reading-between-the-lines/#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2011 06:09:47 +0000 Richard Paul Skinner http://www.wildviolet.net/?p=1834

His arrival was preceded by his reputation. Ziggy was a legendary hell-raiser. Not your old style boozer: the open a bottle of Scotch and throw away the top because it won’t be needed again. Ziggy was into everything.

“Every day: four grams of coke, two bottles of tequila and a couple of six packs to wash it down,” he boasted on The Daily Show.

“Why do you do it? Jon Stewart asked. “Is it some sort of crutch?”

“Hell no. It gives me wings. Unnerstand what I’m saying, man?”

“Weren’t you in the Betty Ford last year?”

“Not for drugs, notfordrugs,” Ziggy sniffed. “I was there for sex addiction.”

I had watched in admiration. His publicist had translated a coup de grâce into a coup. Ziggy’s wife had saved face and wouldn’t need to leave him because of his serial infidelities.  Ziggy was not a bad man; he was now a sick man trying to get better. Ziggy was now a stud. His attractiveness to both male and female fans had doubled in gauss.

But, in fact, the insiders knew he had been diagnosed as having an addictive personality. And in order to ever make a film again in the States, he had to be insured. The insurers insisted he had to dry out, clean up, shape up, keep his pants up. In technical terms, “get his shit together.” Starring in our film was his last chance.

When he arrived on location in the Scottish Highlands, his greasy leather Stetson covered his piercing blue eyes, and he completely lacked charisma. And he mumbled. Repetitively. Finally, I made out, “Where are my lines?”

I got the continuity woman to give him another copy of the script. But that still didn’t satisfy him. “Where’s my publicist? I need my publicist.”

“We’ll do publicity after postproduction,” I explained. Then the shock — he wanted points, ten percent of the profits. He was taking advantage of the fact this was my first feature, and I needed it desperately as a calling card for my ambition to work in Hollywood. And he knew — everyone knew — it was Ziggy’s name attached to the film that made the whole thing possible. I explained how everyone was working on a deferred payment basis only and elicited enough sympathy from him that he finally accepted five. Then came the aftershock.

“And that’s five percent of the gross.” He hitched up his fringed leather jacket. “I know how accountants can be great magicians and make net profits disappear.”

Finally, the drizzle stopped, and Ziggy was in place beside the loch and the female romantic interest and ready to start filming. But on the director’s call of “action,” there was none. Ziggy just stood there lethargic and mute. The director looked at Ziggy. Ziggy looked at the director. The director raised his eyebrows in a question, and Ziggy raised his. They continued looking at one another. It was a standoff. So I intervened before the director blinked and lost face and authority. “Is there a problem?” I asked as I, in turn, looked at Ziggy.

“Where are my lines? I have to have my dialogue written on large cards.”

The crew looked on in amazement. “It’s what Brando did when I worked with him,” he continued in a hurt tone.

I surreptitiously shook my head at the director. Don’t react. But he didn’t see, or chose not to see as he said, “But you only have ten words in this scene. And they are simple, short and easy to say.”

“I don’t memorize lines. I just don’t do that. My mind is full of poetry. That’s what I use it for. I won’t pollute it with this shit.”

I wrote out the idiot boards and, after a lot of takes, we had the establishing shots and the two-shots in the can and broke for lunch in the local pub.

Ziggy disappeared for an hour before it was time for the close-ups. He seemed to want to talk to me whenever he wasn’t needed in front of the camera. He still mumbled about lines.     

“How do you think the film will be received in the States?” I asked to change the subject. If it got distributed there, we would be made.

“Don’t ask me, man. I don’t know how it will turn out. You’re very young to be a producer.”

“I mean, just on your reading of the script.” I ignored the dig about my age. “What do you think of it?”

“I don’t read scripts, man. I read my part, and it looks good.”

I couldn’t believe what I’d heard, and it must have shown.

He went on, “I keep it real. My character wouldn’t know what happens in scenes he’s not in. And I sure as hell don’t read other people’s dialogue. How the hell could my character see into their heads or see into the future and know what they are going to say to me?”

“But don’t you need to know the overall tone of the piece, the film genre, the character’s arc? So you know how to play him?”

“It should all be in my dialogue and the scene direction below the slug line. If not, it’s a bad script.”

He was right in theory, although most actors seemed to ignore scriptwriters’ helpful directions. Then he delivered the knockout blow. “Anyhow. I still don’t have the third act. How am I supposed to know the film’s genre if the screenplay isn’t even written? How DOES it end?”

“It’s a mystery.”

]]> http://www.wildviolet.net/2011/09/13/reading-between-the-lines/feed/ 0 http://www.wildviolet.net/2011/09/13/get-my-serenity-on/ http://www.wildviolet.net/2011/09/13/get-my-serenity-on/#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:56:28 +0000 Christopher Frugé http://www.wildviolet.net/?p=1830

(a prose apostrophe)

It’s Friday night, dude. You know what that means. Meditation! Nothing better after a long week at work than centering your spirit through some wicked peaceful meditation techniques and then banging a chick’s aura.

Don’t worry, man. I got it covered. I invited the ladies over to party tonight. I’ll play some sweet tuneage and set the thermostat to one-oh-five. It’s gonna get hot and steamy. Bikram Yoga, bitches! We’re going to do some deep stretching.

You’re totally right. We have to pregame with some blazing. Let’s light this vanilla-lavender incense up. Oh yeah, that’s some legit aromatic herbs. I’m so focusing my seven spiritual points right now. Babes totally dig aligned chakras, am I right?

Whatever. You’re just jealous because you can only find six.

All right, calm down. I’m just yanking you. Anyway, man, I’m like seriously going to chug fifteen cups of Assam tea. My body will be so freaking hydrated. You know I brew like a BAMF. I break infusers wherever I go. Hey-oh!

Dude, dude, dude, I just thought of a pick-up line. “Girl, you look so good, I’d like to stick you in a mug and pour boiling water on you.”

Okay, you’re right. It needs work. But you know, you don’t need pick-up lines for Allie. She always asks for green tea, but if you slip her some black she goes crazy.

Hell no, I didn’t spend the night with her Friday. After we were done sipping, she wanted to cuddle and chat about the implications of our sharing of the tea in the wa-kei-sei-jaku principles. I just wanted to sleep, so I booked it while she was trancing out and left a bag of Irish Breakfast on the pillow. It’s my calling card.

Okay dude, I know it wasn’t a bro-dhisattva thing to do. I don’t need you lecturing on the Middle Way. You brewed Lipton, dude. That’s some messed up shit. But I’m really proud of how you’ve stayed clean. Six long months, man. I’m not going to cry. I am not going to cry.

No, no, dude. Stay away from that Cozy Chamomile. Remember when Jimmy infused a half pound? He was so relaxed he went into a mild coma. We had to get his stomach pumped.

Fine. I didn’t technically help him and I might have technically force fed him more after he passed out and technically written “If you try to aim for it, you are turning away from it” on his ass cheeks. But I was trying to impress a cougar.

Yeah, that redheaded one. Tina, I think. The one with the cleft lip. I was all game that night, man. Like picture “Taming of the Wild Ox” by Zen master Shien. I was the boy seeking enlightenment, and she was the ox.

Bro, be mature. I know that doesn’t sound right, but she was a hot ox, and I totally found enlightenment. Multiple times. Except it was for real and not a drawing.

Yeah, she was a complete freak. After she put her kids to bed, she pulled this box of her closet. I’d never seen so many kinds of Red Oolong tea before. I was a little intimidated. So we steeped once, right? And before I could even ask if she wanted to re-steep, she was already heating up the kettle again. Boom! We infused four times that night. She wanted to go five, but my leaves were worn out. She gave me a few pointers on preheating and told me, “Better luck next time.”

Tonight? I’m going for Cindy. I hear she’s into some kinky Far Eastern chants.

Right. I know. But as Master Lao Tzu says, “We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.” My clay pot’s emptiness holds Orange Pekoe grade tea or higher. My loin’s emptiness holds babes.

Passion Contents

The blue light rotated hypnotically and alternate shades of dark and light skittered across Jim’s face.  I squirmed deeper into the leather passenger seat of his yellow Camaro, then briskly rubbed my thin face with both hands.  I glanced into the passenger side-view mirror, but all I saw reflected there was the velvety night and superimposed white lettering that read, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”

Fingers nervously drumming on my door’s instrument panel, I accidentally depressed a square, raised button. Somewhere deep inside the door, a mechanism groaned and my window descended three inches.  The sounds of rubber on wet pavement invaded the interior of the car — along with something else — a sickly sweet smell that caused the lining of my stomach to ripple.  Nearby, hidden in the darkness that surrounded Archer Road, the Argo Starch factory churned out its wares.  My finger again found the raised button, shutting out the sounds of the night, but locking in the syrupy stench.

“What’s going on,” I said, my voice a confessional box whisper.  “We weren’t speeding.”

Jim stretched out a pasty, pudgy hand and adjusted the rear-view mirror.  Tiny black hairs dotted each of his digits and, in the ghostly, alternating light, seemed to wriggle like insects trying to burrow under his skin.

“Well,” he said.  “While we’re waiting for him to run priors on me — and it could take a while — I should probably tell you that my state sticker’s expired and I never bought one from the city.  But, what I‘m really hoping. . .”  he leaned close to me and I could smell his Old Spice aftershave,  “. . . is that once he gets back here, he doesn’t ask me to open the trunk.”

My spine stiffened and ever so slowly I rotated my head in Jim’s direction.  My voice seemed to come from someplace far away.

“What the hell does that mean?”

Jim smiled, and a dimple appeared in his left cheek.  I cringed.  I had seen his dimple many times in college bars around the city.  It appeared whenever he told half truths to squeamish co-eds to convince them he was worth spending a night with.

“Nothing to be worried about, Ricky,” he said, and then he laughed.  “Really, the stuff in the trunk is nowhere near as bad as what’s hidden in the back seat.”

Oh my God — what had I gotten into?  Involuntarily, my head swiveled and my eyes scanned the back of his car.  Newspapers, school books, old clothes, a torn McDonald’s bag, a hub cap – and somewhere buried beneath it all . . .

“Besides,” he continued as if we were having a normal conversation about the weather, “if anything happens tonight, if we get arrested, it’s all your fault.”

“What?” I said, my voice rising until I realized shouting wouldn’t do us any good — not with an officer of the law sitting ten feet behind us in his patrol car.  I lowered my voice until it sounded like shoes scraping on gravel.

“What are you talking about?”

“Sometimes, Ricky, you’re such a whiney little baby.”  His voice raised to a falsetto, he pretended to be me. “Jimmy, it’s your turn to drive.  Jimmy, we’re gonna be late for the party.”

I hissed at him, “Jimmy, we’re gonna be someone’s girlfriends in the lockup.”

He turned his round, pasty white face towards me,   “Listen, smart boy, all that whining and rushing you did earlier didn’t give me any time to do a better job hiding the marijuana in the trunk  — or to get the loaded guns out of the back seat.”

“Marijuana!  Guns! — Jim, what the hell?”

Jim raised an index finger to his lips, and then pointed at the rear-view mirror.

“He’s finally got his fat butt outta his car,” he said.  “And he’s comin’ to the window.  We might still get outta this.  I know how to handle cops.  Watch and learn, Ricky — master at work. ”

]]> http://www.wildviolet.net/2011/09/13/never-again/feed/ 0 http://www.wildviolet.net/2010/09/24/the-last-ant/ http://www.wildviolet.net/2010/09/24/the-last-ant/#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:39:21 +0000 K.A. Laity http://www.wildviolet.net/?p=1076

The Extinction of Cook’s Bi-Articulated Hairy-Legged Carpenter Ant

Edward must have known he was the last of his kind.  As Dr. Peterson, head of the Moore Labs, was fond of saying, “Dying is easy; lifting 32 times your own weight is difficult.”  Nonetheless, no ant has ever been as pampered as this remnant of an obscure subspecies, his handling due entirely to the unusual circumstances of his life and death.

We learned from Peterson that normally males die immediately after fertilizing a queen, and many do not make it to sexual maturity in an endangered colony, as the female workers tend to destroy superfluous males.  Previous to the discovery of Edward and his brothers, the last of the species was believed to be a lone queen, dubbed Medea by Peterson’s team for her propensity to consume her offspring. 

However, the discovery of Edward and his siblings in a clutch in the wainscoting of a colleague’s home in nearby Lyme Regis reinvigorated the team, leading them to pursue extraordinary efforts to hatch the seven eggs.  “We had hoped to find at least one bride among the seven brothers,” Peterson lamented without a trace of irony, but the eggs were unfertilized and produced only males.  While all of the eggs hatched into larvae, only three made it to the pupa stage, with only Edward and David surviving to adulthood. 

Tragically, David drowned in the reservoir of the brothers’ artificial environment only a year after emerging form the pupa stage.  Dr. Peterson, a slim woman with a serious demeanour and blue eyes obscured by heavy lenses, sighed upon recalling that day.  “It was, I suppose, part of the Creator’s whim after all.”1

In his seven and a half years of life, Edward received the royal treatment usually reserved for queens, along with the careful scrutiny of the team members.  “His feelers reduced over the last six months by a length of .00134 mm,” Peterson affirmed.  “We hope our careful measurements and analysis will lead to breakthrough discoveries on the aging process for humans, as well.”

Some of her team took a lighter approach to their duties.  Dr. Sarah James, a newly minted Ph.D. from Cardiff, undertook an unauthorized examination of Edward’s television viewing habits.  “He was very fond of Coronation Street, and he really perked up for any kind of crime drama, unless it were written by Lynda LaPlante.  Not sure why, but he took a dislike to her work.  Oh, and strongest man competitions.  He loved those.” 

Her post-graduate research assistant, Niamh Golden, spoke warmly of Edward’s predilection for raw sugar over granulated, and how he would not touch any food served on blue plates.  His tastes were capricious but trenchant.  “He refused to look at tabloids, and he showed absolutely no interest in Sudoku, either,” she added with some considerable disappointment.

While Peterson did not condone such frivolous studies, focusing instead on the hard science of thoracic cavities diameters and mandible elasticity, her fondness for the last ant was undeniable.  “My daughter wanted to make him a little smoking jacket to keep him warm,” she admitted, “but his dimensions were just too tiny for that to be feasible.”

In the final months of his life, the indulging of the camponotus krefftii survivor increased.  His three remaining legs were insufficient to balance his abdomen easily, and an infection of the tibial spur in the third leg rendered its bifurcated joint immobile.  “We had to carry him everywhere,” Dr. James affirmed.  “He missed the mobility, but I think he enjoyed the attention.”

In the end, his death was quiet as befitted the extinguishing of his kind.  “It was a Monday,” Dr. Peterson recalled,  “He had been listless for some days, not even responding to Schubert anymore.  There was a final tentative movement of his antennae, and then all was still.

We shall not see his like again.”

Interested visitors can glimpse the preserved body of Edward on alternate Tuesdays at The Moore Lab between noon and 2 p.m.  “We ask for a small donation.  Ant studies continue in Edward’s memory,” Peterson said,  “People coming down for the regatta or the conger cuddling would do well to stop in to see Edward’s tomb.”

“It’s a short tour,” Dr. James added.

1 Peterson obviously refers here to John Donne’s poem, well-known to many school children,

Note but the ant and see in him
How the Creator gives himself to whim.
His hairy leg
So short and fat
Beckons on the senescent rat.

That ants were an obsession for Donne has been well-demonstrated; however, there seems to be no truth to the suggestion made by disgraced scholar Arkadin Prospero that the original lines of the Holy Sonnet X once read in an earlier draft:

Ant be not proud though some have called you so;
How your hairy leg crooks when Thamesward you go.

Arkadin himself proved an interesting figure: the manuscript provided as evidence proved to be of seventeenth century origin when surrendered to chemical analysis, but of Egyptian provenance—so a fake, but an exquisite and complex one.  Prospero, peculiarly enough, was last spotted in 1953 leaving Milan aboard a small-rigged ship heading east.

Heat Wave Contents

Ten minutes into the first lesson I see one of our cars on the road. I’m not sure who is instructing, but it’s probably Thomas. I abandon my route for the moment and have my student turn each time Thomas does.

Five minutes into this tailing, my driver asks, “Are we following that car?”

“Yup,” I say, “it’s one of ours. You two want to have some fun?”

“Sure,” the driver says.

Her sister in the back keeps quiet. Thomas’s car turns left and we follow, maintaining our distance.

“Now,” I say as we stalk our prey, “you guys know how much you hate getting honked at, right?”

My driver glances over and says, “Definitely.”

“Okay, this is a learning exercise,” I say. “We’re going to practice what not to do by doing it. Should we ever honk at someone just because we’re in a hurry?”

“No,” the girls respond in unison.

Thomas’s car turns right after halting at an intersection. Focused on her slow pursuit, my driver does a California stop, rolling past the stop sign. She does check for cars, so it’s safely illegal and I let it slide. We’ve got bigger fish to fry here.

“What do we do when someone honks at us?” I ask.

The girl in the back doesn’t say anything, but her sister up front says, “Ignore them and only do what’s safe.”

I’m impressed and tell her so. Thomas’s car stops at a four-way intersection and we slink up behind it. I glance at the girl driving.

“Okay, honk. But do it gently.”

I forget that she’s probably never used a horn before. She punches the center of the steering wheel, and it blares out a sharp, extended honk. The girls erupt in laughter, and I see a face pop into the side mirror. It’s Thomas all right, but I doubt if he knows it’s us. Our car lacks the required student driver marking on the front, so we probably appear to be just another impatient jerk in a run-down car. A few seconds later Thomas’s car turns right, and we turn left. We all agree that his driver handled the situation perfectly.

Later in the day I’m cruising down a commercial strip with three kids when we see a person inside a yellow, foam rubber outfit waving at drivers on behalf of some business. A puffy box surrounds his torso, including his head. His arms and legs, clothed in yellow fabric, jut out from small openings in the foam rubber. The pitchman looks like Spongebob without the face.

“Man, that has got to be hot,” I say as we approach Foam Rubber Person.

The kids agree. We all look closely as we drive past.

“Did that guy have an opening for his head?” one students asks.

No one can seem to remember.

“Okay,” I say, “we’ve got to figure this out. Take the next right.”

We swing around the block, doing four rights and ending up back on the main drag. I tell the driver that, as much as I’d like to let her look, she needs to keep her eyes on the road. I don’t know how I could justify a crash if it happened. She agrees. We stop at the light and everyone leans forward, squinting at Foam Rubber Person. He’s spinning and waving at passing cars, and we can’t answer our question. The light turns green, and we approach our target. At the last second he spins away from us. We all let out a groan.

“Okay,” I say, “let’s try again.”

We circle the block and approach our yellow target one more time. On this pass I have the driver slow way down, and we crawl up to the person. Looking over, we see a small mesh screen at eye level, an opening probably six by six inches. The advertiser looks straight at our car and stands still. Behind the mesh I see two unblinking eyes as we drive past. The car fills with vicious, dark laughter, the kind that comes when you know it might be your turn next.

At 5 p.m. I plod back from Starbucks and find my last student waiting in front of the recreation center. It’s the eighth lesson of the day, and I’m exhausted. I’m wearing bright white tennis sneakers, only worn once, since my regular shoes got soaked during a run last night. The sneakers make me look like I should be working in a hospital. My student gazes at my footwear.

“Man, those things are bright!” he says.

I take a huge swig of coffee and look over at the kid.

“My regular job is as a nurse,” I reply. “I’m just doing Driver’s Ed until the lawsuit is settled.”

My student furrows his brow, but when I smile, he flashes a wide grin and laughs. I love the sound. It’s the main thing that keeps me going.

Portions of this piece appeared in Prick of the Spindle Vol. 3.2.

Heat Wave Contents

Dear Dr. Emmett L. Brown,

We have received the patent application (Appl. No. 04/567,892) for your invention, “the flux capacitor.” Having carefully reviewed all of your documentation, I regret to inform you that we are unable to grant you a patent at this time. While we were fascinated by the claim you make in the application abstract — “The flux capacitor makes time travel possible” — we were sadly disappointed by the contents of your supporting literature and scientific data. In fact, as near as we could tell, the flux capacitor appears to be nothing more than some Christmas lights arranged in a “Y” and mounted in a box.

That is not to say that Christmas lights arranged in a “Y” and mounted in a box cannot be patented. The Patent and Trademark Office issues patents for novel uses of existing devices all the time; for example, recently we issued a patent for a vacuum cleaner used to remove prairie dogs from their holes. However, I emphasize that there must be a novel use of an existing device. We see no evidence in this application that the flux capacitor does anything more than blink faster as the car in which it is situated approaches 88 miles per hour. That is not a novel use. However, you seem to feel that this represents a major scientific achievement, as you state that after reaching 88 miles per hour “the flux capacitor returns to a normal temporal position, having broken the space-time barrier.”

Dr. Brown, how does that happen? There is no explanation in your application’s documentation. In fact, other than a picture of a flux capacitor that appears to have been drawn by a concussion victim, the only substantive materials in your supporting literature are 1) schematics for “time circuits,” which appear to be little more than a calendar display operated by telephone buttons, and 2) a plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor that powers the Christmas lights.

That is perhaps the most audacious part of your application. Not only do you state that Christmas lights make time travel possible, but you then claim to need 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to turn them on. Have you considered purchasing an adapter for your car’s cigarette lighter? I have found that many simple household items that need to be plugged in function perfectly fine in my car with an adapter. Perhaps you have overstated your need for electricity. I highly doubt that Christmas lights require plutonium for power.

However, I wonder where you would have gotten plutonium to fuel test runs of your flux capacitor. Dr. Brown, I feel compelled to warn you of possible consequences for actions you may have taken while developing your invention. Under the Patriot Act, American citizens may not do business with any person or organization that poses a risk of committing or supporting terrorist acts. While I do not claim legal expertise in this field, I think it is highly possible that individuals and organizations that sell plutonium on the black market may pose a risk of committing or supporting terrorism. By purchasing plutonium from them, you could be declared a terrorist yourself and face up to $250,000 in penalties and ten years’ imprisonment. Please keep this in mind as you tinker with your De Lorean.

And as a friendly suggestion, please consider a different car for future time travel experimentation. I realize you believe that the stainless steel body of the De Lorean has a beneficial effect on the “flux dispersal,” but De Loreans are completely absent from the automotive market, making it prohibitively expensive to convert them to time machines. You might as well use a train.

 
Happy inventing,

Bob Gale,
Patent Inspector

Wild Transitions Contents

Could he have possibly heard that right?  Zack held his eyes shut, though he felt he was thoroughly awake.  Well, not totally, but he had definitely not gone into la-la land like he usually did under nitrous oxide.  It could be due to his heightened anxiety or the fact that he felt like a  corpse somebody dug up, then dragged for ten miles behind a garbage truck.  That’s what a savage frat party’ll do to you.

It was one sweet orgy with a bazillion people there.  He was so annihilated he’d passed out in a Dumpster.  Or someone put him in it; who knew?  His  bros were still wasted this morning, so there was nobody he could ask.  Maybe he was still shit-faced, and that’s why he  thought he heard Dr. Cramer say to his assistant, “I often worry about my scales showing if my collar slips too low or my pant leg rides up.”

“He’s asleep, right?” said Marcy, the assistant.

“Oh, definitely,” Dr. Cramer chuckled.  “Zack here goes out like a light even with a low blast of gas.  Got him numbed up good anyway, so there should be no pain and he can doze away.  I usually have to shake him awake.”

Marcy sounded nervous.  “Are you sure?  I mean, we wouldn’t want him to hear…”

Zack’s stomach lurched. He’d already barfed more than once since the Dumpster.  Should he just open his eyes and cut this weird shit in the bud?  Did Cramer suffer from some bad skin affliction?  Psoriasis, eczema? Really, it was too gross to think about.

“And you know how I enjoy walking around naked,” continued the dentist.  “That does present some risks.”

Oh, god, were they going to talk about sex?  Were the two of them, both married as far as Zack knew, having some sordid affair?  Wasn’t Cramer in his late forties, maybe even fifty? And Marcy there was about the same and not too attractive.  Imagining those two naked was not exactly appetizing.  

He went to open his eyes but for some reason couldn’t.  What was going on? It was like the time that girl down at the shore hypnotized him.  Normally, this would have set him into a panic.  He felt numbed, not just in his jaw but somehow overall, like in one of those terrible dreams where something is chasing you, but your feet are stuck in mud.  

“He’s cute,” remarked Marcy.  “Long eyelashes.”

Oh? Zack thought.   This was getting weird.

Dr. Cramer opened Zack’s mouth wider, and he felt him inserting something huge.  Now he couldn’t talk if he tried.

“So, you were saying,” said Marcy.  “The scales.”

“Oh, yeah,” said the dentist.  “What are we expected to do if someone sees them?  They never have an official answer for this at home.”

“They have an answer for it,” said Marcy.  “It’s just that it’s difficult to implement — at least for me, maybe not for some of the others.”

“Oh, that,” said Cramer.  “I don’t know that I could do that more than twice.”

Zack heard, as if from far away, Marcy gasp.  “You mean you’ve done it more than once?”

“I hate to admit it,” said Cramer without losing a beat.  Zack could sense him reaching for something that Marcy must be placing in his hand.  Then he felt the pressure of the drill and couldn’t hear anything for a moment.

When the noise let up, Cramer continued.  “It was an old man with a big mouth, the neighborhood gossip.  He let himself into our house, no knocking, just opened the door and walked in, and there I stood in the buff.  Pat was in the kitchen, and we were heading for the hot tub, you know, in that little side room we have.  It’s private and I should probably have waited to strip down in there, but hey, you don’t expect some neighbor to just walk in your front door unannounced.”

Zack felt digging in his tooth but no pain.   He was anxious to know what happened next.  Marcy asked for him.

“The old human got an eyeful, that’s for sure.  You should have seen the look on his face!  First shock, then terror.  I didn’t think twice, just went for him and that was that.  We had him for supper.  Tough old bird; I don’t usually enjoy human meat, but what else can you do with the body?”

“Were the bones any good?” asked Marcy.

“Too brittle; they splinter between your fangs.  Young is so much better.  But then you know that.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s been a long time.  Once you get involved with a particular arena of study and see the sentient species as individuals, it’s harder to view them as food.”

“Except when they’re a certain stage of plumpness,” snickered Cramer.

Marcy laughed.  “You mean that young female in California?”

“I am not naming any names,” said Cramer.  The drill whined.

]]> http://www.wildviolet.net/2010/04/13/root-canal/feed/ 0 http://www.wildviolet.net/2010/04/13/laundry/ http://www.wildviolet.net/2010/04/13/laundry/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:30:30 +0000 David Breitkopf http://www.wildviolet.net/wordpress/?p=324

I do the laundry in my household and I do it well, I might add. My wife undertook the arduous task of teaching me the finer points of color and fabric separation after I ran a tie-dyed T-shirt all over her favorite silk blouse. Interestingly, I’ve discovered I have Dacron/Rayon blindness.

I have made great strides in laundry since I first took it up seriously in college. The college was co-ed except for the laundromats, which the women on campus demanded be separate. The men’s laundromat had enormous machines, which allowed you to put in an entire semester of dirty laundry. As a sophomore, I cleaned my entire wardrobe twice. The machines were easy to use: They had one setting — Man.

Over the years, I’ve learned a number of valuable lessons in successful laundry management, including how to fold a queen-size bed sheet and not have it touch any surface in the laundromat. It has always remained one of the great mysteries and ironies that laundromats are some of the filthiest places on earth. Only the interiors of the machines are actually clean.

I’ve also learned to never pick up a coin inside a hot dryer. Once I picked up a dime that was so hot the profile of Roosevelt was screaming. The dime bonded with my index finger. I finally pried the thing off by whispering in his ear: Ronald Reagan will be president someday. I’ve never seen a coin go from screaming to laughing so fast.

But by far the most important lesson I’ve learned about laundry is never leave the laundromat while your clothes are in the machine. Sure, most of the time you can run errands, but there will inevitably come that day when all your stuff will be stolen.

This was my lot not too many years ago — all my finery was filched except my soiled underwear. On one of the machines was taped a note — a rather polite note I must say — which read, “Forgive me for stealing your clothes, but I like them better than mine, particularly the paisley Nehru jacket. I’ve been looking in washing machines for years for one, and I finally found it in yours. Thanks. P.S. Please feel free to take any of my clothes in my machine, number 5.”

I looked in his machine to see what the guy had, and I immediately felt guilty because here was a man who had a lot less than I. He had, in effect, pulled off a minor French Revolution in the Quick-O-Mat, I reasoned in my most orthodox Marxist analysis. At the time, I was dabbling in left-wing armchair politics.

About two months later, I was strolling around Greenwich Village wearing this guy’s red and green plaid polyester leisure suit — feeling very left wing, very much in solidarity with the poorer dressers of the world — when I spotted this fellow coming out of a record store wearing my paisley Nehru jacket, looking, I must say, much sharper than I ever looked in it.

Instantly, I lapsed back into my bourgeois ways and started chasing him through the streets, finally tackling him in Washington Square Park near the chess players. I ripped the jacket off his back. He ripped his leisure suit off mine and had the gall to accuse me of stealing it.

I then tore my black leather pants off him, and he tore his Bermuda shorts off me. By the time the cops arrived, a sizable crowd had gathered around to watch two grown men launching wrestling dives at each other in attempts to pull off each other’s underpants.

The cops separated us, which was fine by me because I was leading in points — owing to a spectacular back-flip reversal. They told us to put on our clothes, but we discovered they were all stolen. This time no one left a note. We were handcuffed together, humiliated and poorly dressed.

At the station, this guy was lying through his teeth. He had a large gap in the front, which made it easier. The cops didn’t know who to believe, so they let us both go, but not before booking us. The cops, by the way, couldn’t get over my screaming Roosevelt fingerprint.

The upshot of the story is this: one day I was browsing in a Salvation Army store and I discovered, hanging between a wedding gown with bloodstains and a tuxedo with teeth marks on the arm (a marriage gone bad in a hurry), that same plaid leisure suit. I purchased it for $3 and whenever I’m feeling very left wing, I put it on and hang out with the chess players in Washington Square Park.

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