A couple short stories.
Jamey spoke between drops of water. I had been with him for 2 and half hours. Legs bunched up between his bathtub and a small stool-I was growing increasingly uncomfortable. His words did not help. The subject of his stifled ramblings included, but were not limited to: dystopian futures, suicide, anti-government conspiracies, and for some reason, the average rainfall of some small town in Arizona. His mother told me he’d been in the shower for two weeks straight.
The tacking hum of the water gave me a welcome distraction from my questions. “What happened out there?” The questions mumbled inadequacies at each other while he moved seamlessly on to the engineering feats of ancient Egyptians and how the world would certainly end some fateful day in 2012. The water bill must have been ridiculous.
“Seth?”
“Yeah, Jamey?”
“Don’t get caught in the rain tomorrow. You get sick pretty easy, don’t you?”
I couldn’t hold back the smile as he continued with doomsday calendars.
“All right Jamey, all right. I’ll keep a head up.”
__________________________________________________________
Title: Penumbra
Status: Applicant
Summary: He was just taking his dog out to shit.
Genre: Sorry, don't know. Sci-fi?
Word Count: 1,028
I stood in a frame of shadows.
A pattern of words traded back and forth with silence, wearing on my mind. The words developed from nothing that I could recall. But recalling was always a tough thing for me. The truth was fickle at times, but it was always there, regardless. Finding it is the hard part. I did know, though, where I was and what I was doing. I knew my present. My dog had just run around my house, chasing a rabbit. I sprung up to my feet and took off to where she had gone.
“Sadie!” I yelled out to her in an attempt to halt her mischief. Of course, she had not quite learned her name, and didn’t really know that when I yelled it that I meant business. I increased my speed as I saw her do the same. There was a more distinct and saturated shadow penetrating the penumbra of my house. I stopped as quickly as my feet allowed. The element of its distraction was shaped perfectly into the silhouette of another human. A shot of adrenaline was shot into my body as my brain recognized legs, arms, and shoulders. It lined up with the atmosphere of words I had just about forgotten. Neither of us moved. Only silence pierced the wall of perspective between the figure and myself.
I knew it was looking straight into my eyes, and in my own mind, I could see the words describing his eyes. That was the point where I started to forget. Information leaked out of my brain faster than I could realize it. As they dashed around unbridled, the words would distract me from the draining. I was beginning to forget my birth date; soon enough my name, and my social security number. I was pushing, scrambling through, looking for the truth. I was always aware of his eyes.
I took a cautionary step backward, and as I did, a yelping sound was released from something to my right. The sound echoed off my house and into my ear. I did not know it was my dog. I didn’t know what a dog was. I turned toward that direction, trying to find some sort of balance.
“Your dog is dead,” it stated in an apathetic gesture.
“I know,” I replied with words that haphazardly fell off my tongue. I didn’t really know.
“Well-this is certainly interesting. By the way, I’ve got my eyebrows arched, as though I’m thinking deeply. Pondering, I mean. “
“Why? Why would you tell me that?” I was losing memories and thoughts with every second that went by. “Who are you? What do you want?” I stammered the yard. I tried to match his confidence with my questions, but it wasn’t happening. He knew my DNA was forgetting itself and turning me back into the primate I never was.
“Well, I have the option here of not telling you who I am just yet. That would certainly make this story a bit more interesting-wouldn’t it? Add a little element of mystery. I’m smirking.”
Story? “What the hell are you talking about?” He just sighed.
“Oh, never mind. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
I wanted to tear something apart.
“I don’t have time for this,” I stated as I tried my best to turn around and walk back to my house.
“Sure you do. Your anger has escalated quite suddenly, and I’m thinking you should calm down and breathe,” he stopped, and the words told me he smiled. “You haven’t breathed once in 3 minutes.”
I gathered every ounce of my remaining cognitive ability and tried to assimilate what might have happened. He was, apparently, right. My legs could barely hold me up because they had not had any oxygen.
“Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “It’s just all finally making sense. Congratulations!”
I was trying to balance and calm myself; trying to grasp what was going on around me. I did my best to breath deeply and slow-keeping my arms above my head.
“I think it’s about time we go.”
“3141.” The numbers shout out of my mouth faster that I had realized I’d said them, and about as randomly as anything I’d ever uttered. The silence after that spoke to the level of surprise this thing and I were experiencing.
“What?”
“5926535.”
He offered me a slight chuckle now. “You really are deteriorating quickly, aren’t you? We’re going to have to get you on through.” And then-it moved. His first movement since we had been here together. The space and reality between us decreased rapidly as he walked forward. This did nothing to help my manic and desperate mind. It was suddenly not a person, but a dark and ominous building. A monolith 300 stories high was steadily gaining momentum and falling on top of me.
“897932!” or “Wait, don’t hurt me!” as I tried my hardest to scream while stepping back away from it.
“Calm down! Stop!” he commanded me. “You can’t even speak words anymore.”
“38462!” I ignored his pleas and tried my hardest to turn around and run. What were words? I was throwing my arm out to shield me from its prowess-this building.
“You have to come to me. If you don’t, you’re going to forget how to think, and it’s all instinct after that, my friend.”
I was still shuffling backwards; my feet were following one after the other in a direction I was not used to. Once above, then below. I fell back as my feet gave up the perusal of their course. I laid there on the cold concrete entrance of my house and tried to figure out where I was and how I’d gotten there. This shape structure stopped suddenly standing over me. It rearranged itself and bent down toward me. It grabbed my foot. My hand? I felt myself gladly receiving its negative mass. There was nothing there, and it grabbed my other hand. Me?
It pulled me up to my feet, and gently moved its mouth to my ear.
“Pr(x.,s.)=Pp1(xk ½xk-1),”
Oh, sweet glory. Nonsense was replaced by systems and structure.
“….(sk ½xk)”
Light.
The tacking hum of the water gave me a welcome distraction from my questions. “What happened out there?” The questions mumbled inadequacies at each other while he moved seamlessly on to the engineering feats of ancient Egyptians and how the world would certainly end some fateful day in 2012. The water bill must have been ridiculous.
“Seth?”
“Yeah, Jamey?”
“Don’t get caught in the rain tomorrow. You get sick pretty easy, don’t you?”
I couldn’t hold back the smile as he continued with doomsday calendars.
“All right Jamey, all right. I’ll keep a head up.”
__________________________________________________________
Title: Penumbra
Status: Applicant
Summary: He was just taking his dog out to shit.
Genre: Sorry, don't know. Sci-fi?
Word Count: 1,028
I stood in a frame of shadows.
A pattern of words traded back and forth with silence, wearing on my mind. The words developed from nothing that I could recall. But recalling was always a tough thing for me. The truth was fickle at times, but it was always there, regardless. Finding it is the hard part. I did know, though, where I was and what I was doing. I knew my present. My dog had just run around my house, chasing a rabbit. I sprung up to my feet and took off to where she had gone.
“Sadie!” I yelled out to her in an attempt to halt her mischief. Of course, she had not quite learned her name, and didn’t really know that when I yelled it that I meant business. I increased my speed as I saw her do the same. There was a more distinct and saturated shadow penetrating the penumbra of my house. I stopped as quickly as my feet allowed. The element of its distraction was shaped perfectly into the silhouette of another human. A shot of adrenaline was shot into my body as my brain recognized legs, arms, and shoulders. It lined up with the atmosphere of words I had just about forgotten. Neither of us moved. Only silence pierced the wall of perspective between the figure and myself.
I knew it was looking straight into my eyes, and in my own mind, I could see the words describing his eyes. That was the point where I started to forget. Information leaked out of my brain faster than I could realize it. As they dashed around unbridled, the words would distract me from the draining. I was beginning to forget my birth date; soon enough my name, and my social security number. I was pushing, scrambling through, looking for the truth. I was always aware of his eyes.
I took a cautionary step backward, and as I did, a yelping sound was released from something to my right. The sound echoed off my house and into my ear. I did not know it was my dog. I didn’t know what a dog was. I turned toward that direction, trying to find some sort of balance.
“Your dog is dead,” it stated in an apathetic gesture.
“I know,” I replied with words that haphazardly fell off my tongue. I didn’t really know.
“Well-this is certainly interesting. By the way, I’ve got my eyebrows arched, as though I’m thinking deeply. Pondering, I mean. “
“Why? Why would you tell me that?” I was losing memories and thoughts with every second that went by. “Who are you? What do you want?” I stammered the yard. I tried to match his confidence with my questions, but it wasn’t happening. He knew my DNA was forgetting itself and turning me back into the primate I never was.
“Well, I have the option here of not telling you who I am just yet. That would certainly make this story a bit more interesting-wouldn’t it? Add a little element of mystery. I’m smirking.”
Story? “What the hell are you talking about?” He just sighed.
“Oh, never mind. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
I wanted to tear something apart.
“I don’t have time for this,” I stated as I tried my best to turn around and walk back to my house.
“Sure you do. Your anger has escalated quite suddenly, and I’m thinking you should calm down and breathe,” he stopped, and the words told me he smiled. “You haven’t breathed once in 3 minutes.”
I gathered every ounce of my remaining cognitive ability and tried to assimilate what might have happened. He was, apparently, right. My legs could barely hold me up because they had not had any oxygen.
“Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “It’s just all finally making sense. Congratulations!”
I was trying to balance and calm myself; trying to grasp what was going on around me. I did my best to breath deeply and slow-keeping my arms above my head.
“I think it’s about time we go.”
“3141.” The numbers shout out of my mouth faster that I had realized I’d said them, and about as randomly as anything I’d ever uttered. The silence after that spoke to the level of surprise this thing and I were experiencing.
“What?”
“5926535.”
He offered me a slight chuckle now. “You really are deteriorating quickly, aren’t you? We’re going to have to get you on through.” And then-it moved. His first movement since we had been here together. The space and reality between us decreased rapidly as he walked forward. This did nothing to help my manic and desperate mind. It was suddenly not a person, but a dark and ominous building. A monolith 300 stories high was steadily gaining momentum and falling on top of me.
“897932!” or “Wait, don’t hurt me!” as I tried my hardest to scream while stepping back away from it.
“Calm down! Stop!” he commanded me. “You can’t even speak words anymore.”
“38462!” I ignored his pleas and tried my hardest to turn around and run. What were words? I was throwing my arm out to shield me from its prowess-this building.
“You have to come to me. If you don’t, you’re going to forget how to think, and it’s all instinct after that, my friend.”
I was still shuffling backwards; my feet were following one after the other in a direction I was not used to. Once above, then below. I fell back as my feet gave up the perusal of their course. I laid there on the cold concrete entrance of my house and tried to figure out where I was and how I’d gotten there. This shape structure stopped suddenly standing over me. It rearranged itself and bent down toward me. It grabbed my foot. My hand? I felt myself gladly receiving its negative mass. There was nothing there, and it grabbed my other hand. Me?
It pulled me up to my feet, and gently moved its mouth to my ear.
“Pr(x.,s.)=Pp1(xk ½xk-1),”
Oh, sweet glory. Nonsense was replaced by systems and structure.
“….(sk ½xk)”
Light.