Two things I'm thinking about that make the post I wrote and deleted last night about my hair look as stupid and avoidant as it was! (This is still stupid and avoidant, but in a way that's much more interesting to the rest of you, possibly.


1.) Pronunciation Book
This is a spiral I dropped into this morning after theemdash linked me to this Daily Dot article about a YouTube channel called Pronunciation Book that had recently gone from merely teaching pronunciations of words to a count down to something that seems jumbled and sinister and is fucking fascinating. It looks, as Em said at lunch, like writing as an extreme sport.

From what I can tell, the rest of the internet is also interested. 4chan's /x/ forum has come up in many of the articles and message board postings I read this morning. (I'm not linking to that, because I feel like 4chan is the LAST place I should go on my work computer, heh.) Many message boards have threads that are pages and pages long dedicated to figuring out what happened, locating the position of broadcast, and decoding strange clicks. Most people seem to have written it off as an ARG or a viral marketing campaign (possibly for Battlestar Galactica?), but I'm less interested in what it's counting down to than I am in the story that's unfolding in bits and pieces of rough translation and transmission. Someone has kindly pulled together some of it into a semblance of story:



Em and I have decided to forego the interest in clicks and triangulating location and such and just focus on the words. We're going to pull apart the sentences that have been leaked in a seemingly pellmell way and see if we can't reorganize them in a more or less linear narrative. (Or non-linear narrative, given that there seem to be two timelines going, but at least we can try and find a Plot A and Plot B.) We're working from a list of transcripts that she found of the videos so far.

So, there's a bit of madness you can step into if you like.


2.) NPR and Capes
I'm still mainlining Smallville. I'm actually almost finished. I have three episodes left in season 9, which I'm sure I'll get through tonight, and then I start season 10, which I'll probably complete by this weekend. My thoughts on Superman through the lens of Smallville will come later, but right now I just wanted to establish I am living firmly in the Mainlining Smallville Headspace, which means I tend to place the template of that fantasy over what happens sometimes. I've also been listening to NPR as I drive lately. Something about the break up made me less inclined to listen to my music all of the time. (Though I don't know why. I finally live in a world where the most important person in my life doesn't give me shit for what I listen to. Maybe it's residual fear or something.) So it shouldn't surprise any of you to know that this morning I was listening to a story about PTSD and wondering how different it would be if it was happening in a world where Superman existed.

Would they, for instance, instead of pulling someone who had served in the army in Iraq for the piece, pull one of the Joker's victims? What would socioeconomic speculation look like in a world where capes were more or less big business? How many fluff pieces can we run about acrobat clinics for kids suffering a loss? Would the rafting race between Cuomo and Bloomberg, meant to draw attention to the Adirondacks as a vacation spot, be instead about Harvey Dent and Commissioner Gordon? How different would Comic Con look in a world where the people we dress up as are real? (Okay, my initial feeling about that one is 'not that different', because yada yada cape comics and the way they speak to their readership and how deeply they can touch us and alter the context through which we view the world. I would strongly argue that the hope brought to people by cape comics isn't any less now than if they were real, it would just be more widely validated. And that's a whole other post, isn't it?)

THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT. And things I might implement as a story telling exercise. I don't know, I haven't decided yet. I'm going to collect my thoughts and make a more substantial post, probably to the Big Girl Blog.


So uh, good afternoon, internet. What stories are you distracting yourself with today?

FINGERS CROSSED LJ DOESN'T EAT THE POST THIS TIME.

For today's thewritinggame prompt we were to pick a primary or secondary color and then write something to evoke it without actually mentioning it. The fun part is where you lot read it and guess what the color was. I think I've made it easy for you. I hope anyway.


TITLE: The Way I Remember Being
AUTHOR: momebie
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: 306
FEEDBACK: On || FEEDBACK TYPE: Any
WARNING: None.
SUMMARY: She'd hold her breath if it would help.
PROMPTS: Guess the Color
A/N: I was talking to theemdash the other day about the reason I like watching Skins. It's because it reminds me of what it felt like, to me, to be a teenager. Where everything was large and all consuming and every feeling was greater than every other feeling and how the world might end if it changed ever so slightly. So here's one of those memories. Sort of. Memories never really filter the way you think they will at the time.


It feels like the end of the world.

It’s not, and she knows it, but that doesn’t stop her chest from feeling like it’s caving in with every exhale. It doesn’t stop the humidity from feeling like it’s weighing her down and pinning her to the sand beneath her.

The sun is setting on the opposite side of the island. In the direction she’s staring the sky has already slipped into gloaming, but the edges where the sun is still managing to reach and stain are slightly lighter, slightly more bruised looking. The clouds are scraps, slowly tearing the sky to shreds as they drift south.

It’s the waiting that is the real killer. She’d hold her breath, let her lips and cheeks slowly turn from healthy to dim as the oxygen pushed against the base of her throat, trying to escape and get to where it was needed. She’d hold her breath if there was anyone there to notice, but there’s no one.

That’s why she comes to this place. A short trek across faded and splintered wooden boards and she’s suddenly in a whole new world of tossing dune grass and pelting sand and crashing sounds as the battered shore shrugs off the waves. Even when there is someone there who might notice, they don’t. Everyone is looking for an escape.

So she lets herself feel like the world is ending. She notes the different hues as the color slips from the sky, the last shred clinging to the darkness as long as it can. She embraces the dreadful stain of feeling, because one day she’ll be able to use this.

As she unclenches her fist, blood rushes back into her fingertips and paints her unvarnished nails the same color she’d seen in the sky and reminds her that nothing ever ends, not really.

TITLE: Some Men Are Made
AUTHOR: momebie
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 769
FEEDBACK: On || FEEDBACK TYPE: Tactful
WARNING: None
SUMMARY: Something old, same thing new.
PROMPTS: Something that's lost, horologium.
A/N: And this is an odd little thing. It came from several different places and almost no place at all. The first watch is something like this and is late 18th C. in origin.


( I'm sorry, he said. But if this bauble belongs to you I would appreciate it if you would wait until morning. Most unseemly, sneaking into men's bedrooms this late in the evening. )

So there's this blog I should follow and constantly forget about. People link me to posts on it all the time and every time I see one I think 'oh, that's clever and amusing, I should follow him'...and then I don't. Because I'm me. BUT, via a post this morning on getyourwordsout I now know that he does flash fiction prompts every Friday, which is AWESOME. This week's was based on the old 'put your ipod on shuffle and name the story after the song that comes up' bit, so I felt compelled to play along. This is what I came up with. I'm not going to post it back to his blog, but it's part of that one story about the girl who can burst into birds, so I'll put it here with no shame at all.

( If you wanted to hear my voice you’d simply play back any of the hundred voice mails I’m certain you save on your phone when I leave them. I think you wanted to hear your voice. )

And for those of you NOT familiar with Murder By Death, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? this is the song I named the piece after. (No, really, sometimes I want to kiss sweetnovicane on the mouth for introducing me to their music.)

Over on twitter getyourguns was musing about how X-Men: First Class had been labeled as Fantasy at the Scream Awards, because she considered it to be more Science-Fiction instead. matthewbowers responded to her and said that Science-Fiction and Fantasy are rarely crossed together. He contends that each has a set of tropes and themes that you never (or hardly ever) find in another. Insinuating, I think, that if something is mostly fantasy in essence you would be remiss to call it science-fiction regardless of the extra trappings or themes that read that way. And then there was kind of a dog pile of people telling him how wrong he is, which I feel bad about, because I think we're all dealing in semantics.

Art, by its very nature, will be interpreted differently by everyone. What I see as fantasy or sci-fantasy another might call science-fiction and another yet still may just call speculative fiction. I think that there's always going to be a certain amount of subjectivity in any attempt to place a genre on something. What I do not think is possible to ignore though, is the fact that for better or worse science-fantasy has become an actual genre term that people use. In some ways it doesn't matter whether or not I AGREE that something is science-fantasy, just that someone else thinks it is and has named it so. After all, I cannot tell you how many times something vaguely Victorian has been labeled steampunk and I've wanted to throw up my hands and go home.

What I AM interested in, however, is where people draw those lines. For instance, getyourguns thinks space is one of the science-fiction shorthands, while I think that a focus on or use of technology would be a more concrete one. I know that pointing at an apple and saying it's a banana doesn't make it so, but if it came off an apple tree and was long and curved and yellow I'd be inclined to admit that it did share certain characteristics with a banana that made it a new breed. Because no matter how many times we go around about it, if I find a different collection of themes and tropes to be more one than the other, another person and I can argue till our faces turn blue that they actually aren't and no one will budge. So I thought I'd get a hive mind going about it and see where the discussion takes us. There is no right or wrong answer here, and I mean that. (Though, feel free to argue amongst yourselves.) You can tackle all of them, or cherry pick the thing(s) you find most interesting.

* How do you define straight up Science-Fiction (hard or soft)?'
* How do you define straight up Fantasy (urban or dark or high or anything)?
*What themes or tropes do you find common in Science-Fiction that you think never appear in Fantasy?
*What themes or tropes do you find common in Fantasy that you think never appear in Science-Fiction?
*What do you believe a successful blending of the two would be?
*Do you think it's possible to blend them at all?
*Are there any works of art (movies/books/tv shows/cartoons/oil paintings/sculptures/hair collections...) that you feel DO successfully blend the two? [Aka, show your work for extra points.]

If you think there are any other questions that would add another layer to the discussion let me know and I'll add them to my list. I'm leaving this post unlocked, because I think it would be interesting to get a larger sample. Send your friends over! Anonymous commenting is on until someone starts being a jerk.

Original fiction.
~1500 words.
The Steampunk-verse.
For theemdash.


1.

“Do you think I made the appropriate impression?” William fiddled with the lace at the end of his sleeve and looked about the crowded parlor room, scanning it to find Jon Henley. He’d wanted to please him. It was important to William to become someone important, which he fully believed Jon could do for him.

“I think you made an impression,” Edmund said.

He was rather brazenly wearing a smug grin that William felt was definitely inappropriate for the occasion. Then again, he admittedly didn’t quite know what was appropriate for the occasion, hence the question. Sometimes he hated everyone he knew.

“Smooth,” Nate said. He donned his hat and started patting about the lapels of his jacket, searching for his cigarette case. “Not quite as…worldly as you could have been, though.”

“Worldly?”

“I’ve found, in my dealings about the Opera house, that it is polite to kiss the knuckles of your betters when you greet them.” He found the cigarette case and pulled one out, tapping the tip of it gently on the smooth silver back absentmindedly. “Did you kiss him, Mr. Claxton?”

Edmund choked around a laugh and William felt his ears going red. The silk lining of his jacket suddenly felt as constricting as any male corset. “He’s not my type,” William said.

“It’s hardly about types, my good man,” Nate said. “And I’m off.” William watched him disappear into the crowd.

Edmund crowded in next to him and draped his arm across William’s shoulders. “I’ll buy you a whole bottle of that disgusting Sarmillian plum wine you like so much if you do it.”

“Once a man has tried to kill you with a priceless vase, it’s a little late for first impressions,” William said.

“Don’t you think it’s time we left for the evening?”

William looked at Edmund, who was still carefully composed and smug. “Sod it,” William said. He stalked through the parlor and out into the foyer, leaving Edmund behind. When he finally found Jon Henley the man was surrounded by other people. William stood at the edge of the group for a moment, composing himself. He then did something he had told himself he would never do and let a stereotype get the better of him. He flounced into the center of the circle, letting his cane lead the way.

“Mr. Claxton,” Jon said, eyebrow raised.

“Mr. Henley,” William said. He reached out and grasped at Jon’s naked hand, holding it firmly in his gloved fingers. “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance this evening. I look forward our next meeting.” And there, in front of everyone, William brought Jon’s fingers to his lips and gave them a quick, dry kiss. Then, without looking up into Jon’s face again, he bowed his way out of the circle and shot for the door.

“Dandies,” he heard Jon say behind him, and the crowd laughed: quietly, politely, conspiratorially.

“I’d say you’ve left an impression now,” Edmund said, clapping his hand down on William’s shaking shoulder and wheeling him off the porch and down to where their horses were stabled.

“I think,” William said carefully, “that if I work for him, I’m going to become someone different than who I mean to be.”

2.

It had been a whirlwind six months, working for Jon Henley as one of his Architects. William learned more than he thought there was to know about the way politics worked and how to get people to do the things he wanted. Edmund was still the deadliest blade in their group, but William had become the most graceful, and as such had made himself as useful to Mr. Henley as he imagined he could be.

And he was the most graceful. He prided himself in being carefully put together at all times. He liked the way Jon looked at him when he first entered the room. He felt petted and approved of whenever Jon would give him one of his slight nods. “Thank you,” he assumed it to mean. “You’re perfect.”

The fact that that woman had joined the group did not make things different. Her golden hair and her demure lips and the swell of her hips were nothing when compared to the sword William kept in his cane. Feminine wiles did not a conspirator make. So why did Jon now nod in her direction when she entered the room. As if she’d done more than sleep with Nate Ayre and frustrate that Dawes boy. Not that he couldn’t appreciate anything that frustrated Derek Dawes. But still….

William needed to do something drastic. He needed to get himself noticed again. And since carving her heart out and delivering it to Jon with the evening report seemed a little drastic, he settled on something a little more subtle.

“Mr. Claxton,” Jon said, as William entered the main drawing room on the airship. Jon was already seated, preparing for the unmooring that he had never really gotten used to.

William noted the distinct lack of an appreciative nod and straightened up. “Mr. Henley,” he said, stepping forward. He leaned in and grasped Jon’s forearm, pulling him forward in his chair. Then he swooped down and left a small kiss on Jon’s cheek.

Jon froze. William smiled and leaned back, releasing his grip on Jon’s forearm. There was a cough at the door and William turned, taking a step to the side, just in time to see Tom Bridgman back out of the room with a tip of his hat. William smiled at him. After all, there was nothing unusual happening, just a guard dog greeting his master in the appropriate manner.

The silence between them evaporated as the airship’s engines were cranked and prepared for takeoff. William watched as Jon slid back in his seat and gripped hard at the arms of his chair. “The report, Mr. Claxton,” he said in a tight voice.

3.

They were drunk. Edmund disgracefully so, but William wasn’t far behind him. Technically they didn’t have nights off. The job of revolutionary wasn’t one that came with an office or routine, so in general it suited them to be as sharp as they could whenever possible. Some nights though, some nights you just needed to let your hair down.

The necklace at William’s throat was spinning, receiving a message. “You,” he said, pulling at the waist of the woman closest to Edmund. She giggled and fell back into him. He gave her his widest, most charming smile and said “do you have a looking glass on you, my dear?”

“You’re still the prettiest in the land, Will,” Edmund crowed, and pinched the breast of the girl in his lap. She shrieked compliantly.

“No,” William said. “I believe it’s the boss.”

“Ah, that familiar stirring in your heart, then?”

“Almost surely,” William said. The girl handed her mirror over and William took it over to the fire. He unbuttoned his shirt down to his stomach and pulled it and the lapel of his jacket aside, holding the mirror up so that he could clearly see his left collar bone. There they were, the familiar raised bumps on his chest in the code that only the Architects knew. Morse code for the devil himself. “I believe we’re being summoned,” he said.

“Let the bastard bring his arse down here where it’s warm and comfortable,” Edmund said.

“The bastard shouldn’t have to bring his arse anywhere.”

William turned around quickly, almost tripping over his heel. “Mr. Henley,” he said. “Jon.”

“Has this fine young man come to join the party?” said the girl in Edmund’s lap.

“I’ve come to join nothing. You are needed, Wilson,” he said to Edmund. “If you’re finished polishing your saber you can clean yourself up and meet Mr. Bridgman outside.”

Edmund frowned and stood, carefully pushing the girl from his lap. She gave a small pout, but he tapped the end of her nose with his finger and spared her a smile. “I’ll be back for you,” he said. To Jon he said, “you could use a little polish yourself, careful you don’t tarnish.” Then he stomped from the room.

Jon stared at William expectantly. Do something, William thought. You have an audience. What would get the greatest reaction?

“What a pleasure this is,” William said. He tripped forward toward Jon as foppishly as he could manage in his already disoriented state. “You are always welcome in our home.” With that William clasped Jon’s neck in both of his hands and dragged him bodily forward, laying a wet, welcoming kiss on Jon’s lips.

The girls clapped and cheered. Jon stood very, very still as William let him go and stepped back, grinning for all the world like a street mutt that had just found a bone.

“You forget your place, Mr. Claxton. And you do it often.”

William let his lips fall, drawing himself in and trying to look more serious. “You forget that you wouldn’t have your place if I knew mine.”


This bit of fiction was written for the Second Chance Topic: No Man Is a Hero to His Valet at therealljidol. I realize this is kind of ridiculous, even for me, so you know, let me know if you were amused. As always, all comments and questions are welcome.

Original fiction.
~1500 words.

This entry follows directly after this post. Though, if you missed it, you might need some of the information from this interlude.

. . .


“There is something I do want to know, if we're done with the questions,” Mattie said.

The Or across the table put down her pen and crossed her hands over the pad, blocking Mattie's vision of the words that were written there. “Yes?”

“Who are you?”

“What do you mean? I'm Or.”

Mattie shook her head. “No, who are you really? Because if you were Or I'd be able to see your halo. Unless you people have learned how to hide parts of your souls along everything else you've fabricated.”

The Or looked down at her hands and smiled. “Why didn't you tell your male friend there was something wrong? Don't you want him here to save you?”

( Do I need saving? )


This post was written for Topic 24: Bats in the Belfry at therealljidol. Please let me know what you think. All comments and questions are welcome.

Original fiction.
~1700 words.
This week on LJ Idol is another intersection. This fiction entry has been written to correspond with the non-fiction entry that comedychick has written. You can read hers here. I highly recommend that you do.

This story is another installment of the ongoing serial. It follows directly after the last LJ Idol post.

. . .

They didn't have to cover a lot of distance to get back to the headquarters, but Mattie had never been on a motorcycle before so the trip felt like it lasted for ages. The wind fingered wildly through her hair and coarsely brushed her exposed skin. She shivered and clutched tighter to Chet, burying her cheek into his back and closing her eyes. The sound buffeted around her and she let the landscape create itself in her mind. It was there, somewhere between flying and fainting, that she realized that this little trip into someone else's life could get her killed. She found that, when she really thought about it, this wasn't a possibility that scared her.

( Mattie had never given a thought to the notion that she'd live even this long. )


This continuation of ridiculous fiction was written for Topic 22: Playing the Odds at therealljidol. All comments and questions are welcome.

Oh hey! I didn't give up! I owe Em and Stevie cookies for telling me not to. It seriously came easier than I thought it would. This LJ Idol entry follows immediately after the last one.

Original fiction.
~1000 words.


Mattie helped Maynard climb into the back of the cab as Or pre-paid the driver and told him where to take them. “Are you sure you don't want us to take you to the hospital?” Mattie whispered.

Maynard shook his head. “This is the most exciting thing I've ever been a part of. You think I'm going to let you run off with that mysterious woman and have all the fun?”

“I'm sending you to a safe house outside the border of this node,” Or said, bending over and sticking her head into the back of the cab. “Hopefully our shooter is just after me for the time being and you can play clueless. If you're accosted tell them that I broke in, that I held a gun to your head, anything.”

Mattie nodded. “Yeah, we'll do that.”

Or stood for an extra several moments and looked at Mattie. She was hanging halfway out of the back of the cab in a way that seemed incredibly uncomfortable. Mattie found herself shifting forward towards Or, ever so slightly.

“Or,” Maynard said.

She tilted her head and squinted. “Yeah, sorry. I'm going. I'll meet up with you in a couple of hours. Do not leave the safe house under any circumstances.” She slammed the door and stepped up onto the curb. The cab pulled away.

Mattie watched the apartment blocks and houses as they went by. She thought about how she'd never really noticed them before, even though she'd looked at them all hundreds of times in her daily comings and goings. They suddenly seemed prominent, as if they were asserting their will onto the landscape. Mattie felt like they were trying to teach her something.

The cabby turned the radio on and it began playing an old Jazz standard. Someone's girl had done 'em wrong. She was the direct cause of his affair with the bottle. “Is there anything that women don't get blamed for?” Mattie asked.

Maynard scratched his chin and pretended to be confused. “I'm sure I've never blamed a woman for anything.”

“Except for when I dumped the coffee all over the floor.”

“I didn't blame you for that. Though, I suppose I should have blamed Or, which would have been about the same, all things considered. It was her that startled you that night, wasn't it?”

Mattie stubbornly stared away from him and didn't acknowledge the comment.

“You think she knows?”

“I think I could I could probably write a set of encyclopedias on the things she knows that I don't.”

“That's part of the attraction, isn't it?”

Mattie shook her head. “Not really.” Because it wasn't. Her infatuation had started so long ago that it wasn't possible for the two things to be related. Not in a way that made sense, anyway. Then as an after thought she said, “you won't tell anyone, will you?”

“You mean, will I rat you out to the people who apparently just shot me? No, that's not something you need to worry about. Not even if I could see your halo.” He squeezed her elbow and she smiled at her reflection in the side window.

The cab pulled to a stop outside of a warehouse building. Mattie looked at the cabby, confused. “This isn't outside the node.”

The cabby gripped the steering wheel and stared forward. “This is your stop, young lady,” he said.

There was a knock on her window and when Mattie turned she was staring down the barrel of a small handgun. It had an infinity symbol at the tip of it. She felt Maynard shift away behind her.

“Get on out now, girly,” the man behind the gun said. “I think you've got some things to tell us.”

“I don't have anything to tell you!” She locked the door. The man cocked the hammer.

“The thing is, precious, I think you do. But I'm not above shooting you or your boyfriend. Now don't let's be silly. Get out of the cab!”

Mattie heard someone choke and turned her head to see Maynard hovering off of the back seat, his arm wrapped around the cabby's throat. “Drive!” he shouted. “Drive now or I will kill you, and it won't matter how much money you've been paid!” The cab lurched forward and the man with the gun let out two shots. One of which shattered the back window.

Maynard was thrown back against his seat and the cabby leaned forward into his steering wheel. “You touch me again and I'll have your balls,” he seethed. “I don't owe you nothin'.”

“No,” said Mattie, “we owe you. Now take us where you were supposed to.” She was thrown into the door of the cab as it took a sharp left turn. When she pulled herself back upright she could see another car gaining on them from behind.

“We're only a short way off from the bridge!” Maynard shouted. “We'll never get through clearance looking like we're evading the authorities though.”

The cabby took another sharp corner and launched Mattie into Maynard's side. Maynard yelped as her elbow hit his wound. “Stop,” she said. “Stop!”

The cab skidded to a halt at a red light. They were in the outskirts of the node. There were few buildings to hide in, but more wooded park area to get lost in.

“I can run,” Maynard said, guessing at what she was going to ask.

“Good,” she said. “We're going to have to.” Mattie scrambled with the lock on the door before she finally got it to pop up. She launched herself out of the cab just as the car following them came around the corner. It didn't have enough time to stop. Maynard was on her heels. There was a screech of tires and the crumpling, mangling sound of steel collapsing on itself. Without looking back, Mattie ran for the tree line. Her lungs started to burn as she gulped for air.


This continuation of ridiculous fiction was written for Topic 29: Whisper at therealljidol. All comments and questions are welcome.

Original fiction.
~1100 words.

For those of you following along, I've finally named The Waiter. We're calling him Maynard. This follows closely after my last LJ Idol entry, which can be found here.

* * *

Maynard ran his finger across Mattie's collarbone, pausing over the small, round tattoo just below it. The touch tickled. She squirmed, pulling away slightly, and he took it as an invitation. His lips followed the line as his fingers pushed the strap of her bra down her shoulder. Mattie wasn't sure what she was feeling, but none of those feelings were sexy. Or needed. Or wanted. She just kept thinking about Or and her heavily lidded eyes and light skin.

“Mayn,” she said, and placed a hand flat against his chest.

Maynard stopped and pulled back. He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her. One of his fingers traced its way down her side, as if he was afraid to let her go. “Yeah?”

“I'm sorry, I just.”

“No, it's fine. It's fine.” He leaned in and kissed her on the nose. “I know I don't glow for you. I'm just trying to be the perfect distraction.” He nipped at her chin and she laughed, pushing him over as she sat up.

“It's not like I glow for you either.” She straightened her bra strap and sighed. “What are we doing?”

“Killing time,” he said. “Slow and easy.”

“Just the way it was meant to die,” she said.

“Is there something eating at you, Mattie my girl? You seem farther away this evening.”

“Nothing.” She sighed and flopped back on her pillow. “Everything. You weren't far off when you asked if I'd seen a ghost. I have. I've been seeing it for a week now, here and there. It won't leave me be.”

“Is there anything for it?”

“Not really. I've been...censoring myself since I was very young. Things happen sometimes that I don't know how to deal with, so I lose them. I make the decision to cast them to sea so I'm not weighed down by them.”

“Except they're never really gone, are they?”

“No, not really. I pretend I'm fine for long periods of time, until something floats to the surface and reminds me of who I used to be.”

“That sounds lonely,” he said.

“Sometimes loneliness is just a part of surviving.”

Maynard opened his mouth to answer, but anything he might have said was drowned out by a pounding on the door. “What the hell?” he said finally.

Mattie shrugged and tumbled out of bed, finding her balance as she went. There was more pounding as she made her way through the kitchen. “All right already!” She opened the door with the chain on, giving her two inches of space to investigate.

Or was on the other side. She placed her face right against the crack. “Let me in,” she said. “You have to let me in.”

Mattie didn't think she had to do anything, but Or seemed to be legitimately startled, which threw her. She closed the door, undid the chain, and then opened it again. Or rushed in and slammed the door shut behind her, redoing the chain and throwing the deadbolt.

When Mattie turned around Maynard was in the living room. “What is going on here?”

Or turned to look at him. Mattie was suddenly aware that neither of them was wearing very much. Or raised an eyebrow, but she didn't bring attention to what she may have interrupted. Instead she pulled off her red gloves and shucked her black pea coat, dropping her things onto Mattie's couch. “I'm sorry for the interruption, but I seem to have gotten into a spot of trouble.”

“Okay,” Maynard said slowly. He ran his hand through his hair and and looked helplessly at Mattie for a moment before returning to the bedroom.

Mattie stood in the center of the living room, her arms wrapped around her waist, and waited for an explanation. Or huddled on the edge of the the couch and looked Mattie up and down. The corner of her mouth turned up and Mattie suddenly felt warm.

Maynard returned then, and chucked a shirt at Mattie. “Right,” he said. “Who are you, and what's this about?”

Or waited until Mattie was clothed again before answering. “I'm being tracked,” she said.

“Tracked? You mean followed.”

“No, tracked. Like an animal. I'm sure they mean to kill me eventually as well.”

“What the hell,” Mattie said, echoing Maynard. “What have you done?”

“I haven't done anything, yet. But those fuckers are going to get theirs when I get to the bottom of all of this.”

“The bottom of what?” Maynard flipped his hand in Or's direction. “Mattie, what is going on?”

“I don't know,” she said. Because she didn't. To Or she said, “how did you find my apartment?”

“The same way I find everything. Research, Mattie, research. Please keep up, because I don't want to die tonight.”

“No one is going to die here,” Maynard said. “I'm going to turn the light on. All of us standing here in the dark is ridiculous.”

“No!” Or leaped up from the couch and grabbed his wrist. “No, don't. I don't want you to draw any attention here. Not until I can find out who it is exactly that I'm dealing with. Does either of you have a computer?”

“Yeah,” Mattie said. “In here.” She led Or through to the bedroom and turned on the old desktop machine. “I barely use the thing.”

Or sat down in the desk chair and then looked back at Mattie over her shoulder. “I find that hard to believe,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why do you have one of the Diviner's Marks tattooed on your chest?”

“That's not—”

“It most definitely is my business. Especially now that they're trying to kill me.”

"Why would the Diviner's be trying to kill you?"

Instead of answering Or slapped the side of the computer, which was being slow to start. “Come on!”

Out in the living room Mattie heard glass break. “What the hell?” she said again, her voice tighter in her throat this time. It seemed to be the only response she could muster to the mad alternate universe she'd just been dropped in. Before she could make it out of the room Maynard trundled in and collapsed against her. She swayed under his weight. It took a moment for the wetness between them to register. His shirt was wet. She pushed him away and saw that there was a dark, rapidly growing stain on the front of his shirt.

When she looked down she saw that the front of her shirt was now wet as well. The stain looked dark purple in the bluish glow from the computer screen. Maynard stumbled backwards onto the bed and passed out.

Mattie screamed.


This bit of fiction was written for Topic 18: Jetsam at therealljidol. Thank you to paragraphs for helping me name The Waiter. All comments and questions are welcome.