Time, and its associated problems

So, Ecks has been quiet lately. That has largely been because he was working on the "Last Chance" piece below, but also because work, play, novel writing and assorted elements of real life have begun to fill up more of his time than they have done for some time. As such, the posting on this blog may have to become a little less frequent for a while...

The Dancing On Fly Ash book arrived yesterday, though, so that was a good thing.

Last Chance

This piece was written for a competition in a magazine. The guidelines were that it be no more than 2,000 words, and be titled "Last Chance" - nothing else.

It’s hot outside. The stifling night air is gritty and slick with sweat, and when the young woman opens the door it pushes in to agitate the cigarette smoke that hangs floating under the light like a drowned man.
“Hey, Marie,” says the barman, and lifts a bottle of bourbon down from the shelf. He pours a glass and sets it down on the bar before Marie even reaches her stool. The door closes, trapping the sweltering air that chaperoned her in.
“Damn heat,” she says, and tips the whisky down her throat, “Bad for business.” Black fishnets wrestle with the leather of a bar stool. He pours her another drink.
“How’s tricks?” he says.
“So so.”
“You see the newspaper?”
“I don’t read much.”
“There was another one last night. That’s six now.”
“Oh come on Carl, I don’t want to hear it. I came here for a drink, not a lecture.”
“I’m just worried for you, is all. We all are.”
She sips at her bourbon and looks away. A red lip print blooms on the rim of her glass. She lights a cigarette to breathe cirrus clouds into the air. Further along, a young man in need of a shave hunches over the bar in a shirt patched with fresh perspiration. He pushes his empty glass forward, upon whose sheer sides continents of froth paint an atlas. Carl switches the empty for a fresh beer and places it in front of him. The napkin clings to its base – even glass sweats in this heat. The man pushes a five-dollar bill along the bar towards Carl with a hand thick and whorled like carved wood. Carl pushes it back without looking at it.
“On the house,” he says.
“Don’t be a jerk, Carl, I know you’re behind on your payments. I’m paying for this one.”
“You’re my best customer, Donnie. Can’t I buy you a beer?”
“Everyone’s your best customer. That’s why you got trouble with your payments.”
“I’ll be OK. Mr Menezes gave me another week,” Carl waves his hand nonchalantly, “Things’ll pick up.”
“Sure, Carl.”
Donnie shakes his head, pats the crumpled bill on the bar and swallows down a slug of beer. He looks up the bar.
“Hey Marie,” he says through a drawn-out breath, “You know a woman’s mind better than I do: what can I get for Jean?”
“Why d’you need to get her something? It her birthday?”
“No, we had a fight.”
“What about?”
“Doesn’t matter. The important thing is I’m sorry.”
She looks hard down the bar at him with bourbon-rheumed eyes and lipstick like an open wound.
“Flowers. Every girl likes to get flowers.”
“You sure? She’s pretty mad this time. Told me I was on my final warning.”
“Trust me, get her flowers.”
“OK, if you say so. Thanks.”
She returns to her glass, looking down at it as though trying to read the ice-twisted words printed on the napkin beneath. Blonde curls stroke pale cheeks.
“I’d love to get flowers,” she says, confiding in the weeping ice cubes, “Just once.”
“I’d’ve got you some flowers, if I’d known,” says Carl, wiping the bar. She smiles at him.
“You’re sweet, Carl.”
Carl picks up Donnie’s five-dollar bill, wipes underneath it and puts it back on the bar. Donnie sighs and looks away, over to where frayed ghosts huddle over shadowed tables. Above his head a lazy fly slices contrails that simmer in the thick atmosphere; perhaps later the ultraviolet glow of the electric ring out back will seduce it to its death. Carl bites at his fingernail. Marie notices.
“Listen, don’t worry about me,” she says, “Honestly. If business is good, tonight could be my last night. I’m getting out, I’m finally going to take a shot at being an actress.”
“Sure, Marie,” says Carl, “I hope so.”
“Oh come on, lighten up. I’m going to Hollywood, not Afghanistan. The least you can do is be happy for me.”
“I am, it’s just that…well, can’t you just wait until they catch him?”
“And when will that be, huh? Just…try not to think about it. I mean it, I’m nearly there. I nearly got enough to get to L.A. and rent me a place. I’m so close I can almost taste it, I’m not stopping now. Besides, these looks ain’t gonna last forever.”
“Don’t say that. You’ll still be beautiful in twenty years and you damn well know it.”
She laughs, which makes him laugh. A small wrinkle dances by the corner of her eye. They look at one another, the freckles in their eyes shining iridescent. Then an enormous man with a face like a rockslide steps out of the smoke and asks for a drink, and their laughter gently fades. Marie looks sadly at the door as Carl gives the caveman a bottle of beer. The wrinkle remains by her eye.
“All right, if you got to work, why don’t you go work up west tonight?” says Carl, “Just for tonight.”
The chime of the cash register sounds out through the clogged air like a funeral bell.
“Too many damn police up there,” says Marie, still looking away, “That’s why.”
“Don’t I know that,” the man says, “They make me itch all over.”
“Just keep yourself away from them, Mitch,” says Carl, “How you holding up?”
“Oh, you know, man,” says Mitch, “Parole’s parole.”
“You got work?”
“A little.”
“Is it straight?”
“A little.”
Mitch grins, discrete peg teeth jutting from his gums like gravestones. Donnie looks up from his beer.
“You know, the mill’s always looking for guys,” he says.
“Huh? Even guys like me?”
“Maybe.”
“‘Cause the courts is operatin’ this new, uh, ‘three strike system’ now, and I figure I must be pushin’ about two and three fourths.”
“Steel don’t care who works it. I’ll put in a word with the foreman for you, if you like.”
“You’re a good guy, Donnie.”
“You tell Jean that.”
Mitch laughs and claps Donnie firmly on the back with his slab of a hand.
“Really, man, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“You know it all depends on my foreman. It’s not a promise or anything.”
“I know, but all I need’s a chance. I won’t mess up, neither. Not this time. Can’t afford to.”
“I know. You’ll do fine.”
Mitch leans a hawser forearm on the bar and swigs from his bottle. Donnie listens to the game commentary crackling out of the old radio, nursing his beer. Marie still looks towards the door. She lifts her glass to her lips as though she were kissing a child’s forehead; amber liquid trickles over too-vivid lips.
“It’s now or never for the Pumas, deep into the fourth quarter,” chuckles the radio.
“Damn Pumas,” says Donnie, shaking his head, “If Glascoe don’t turn things around for next week’s game, he’s out. Gone. Pfft.”
“Not a minute too soon, neither,” says Mitch.
“You like baseball, Marie?” says Carl. “You going to start following the Dodgers when you get out on that West Coast?”
She turns back distractedly.
“I…no, I don’t much care for it.”
“Oh, I didn’t…hey, we can turn it off if you like. You know, if it’s bothering you at all.”
Carl fusses at the dial on the radio. It hisses at him in protest.
“No, it’s fine, leave it,” she says, “I just don’t much care for it, is all.”
“Are you OK?” he asks. Marie doesn’t answer. Above them a drowsy ceiling fan slowly moves the sultry air from one end of the bar to the other. Mitch frowns and turns his head to look at Marie, as slow as the rotating of the wooden blades above.
“You should listen to Carl, missy,” he says, “What he said before. This guy out there, what he’s doin’ to girls like you, it ain’t right.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says, “Will everyone stop worrying?”
“This last one, he sliced her neck right up. Said so in the paper. Sliced her from here to here. You know that?”
“Well I didn’t, but I sure as hell do now.”
“No need to scare her, Mitch,” says Carl.
“Oh man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Hell, I was just tryin’ to warn her, is all.”
“I know,” she says quietly, and runs her fingers through her hair. “Forget about it. Hey Carl, pour me another, will you?”
He does. She gulps half of it down in one go, then slams the glass on the bar, sits up proud and turns to face the men. Droplets of bourbon spatter the bar.
“You,” she says to Mitch, jabbing a slender finger at him in mock anger, “You go home and get some sleep so’s you’re sober when you see this foreman tomorrow, and you, Donnie Pearson, you go buy some flowers for your wife or so help me God I’ll take a belt to your sorry hide myself.”
“Hoo hoo, yes ma’am!” says Mitch. Carl laughs. Donnie smiles and drains his glass.
“And as for you,” she says to Carl, “Well, you can just…you…”
Her voice dwindles in the syrupy air, leaving only the cloying scent of whisky hanging by her lips.
“What?” he says.
“Oh, nothing. I don’t know. You should just…keep on being you, I guess.”
She sinks back down on her stool.
“Strike one,” says the radio. Mitch and Donnie snap their attention back to the set, Marie’s scolding immediately forgotten. She cups her drink in her hands like a child.
“Don’t go,” Carl says quietly. Scarlet fingernails tap on glass. She sighs.
“I have to.”
“What if you don’t come back?”
“If I’m not here tomorrow night, look out for me in the movies.”
“I meant what if this guy—”
“I know what you meant.”
Carl shakes his head, eyes closed.
“Come back later, then,” he says.
“Why?”
“So I know you’re safe.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“All right then, come back later so I can take you to a late movie.”
“I got to work.”
“Not even when you finish? I…we might never see you again after tonight.”
“Well…I suppose maybe I could.”
“I’d like that.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think I’d like that too.”
“Strike two,” comes the plastic voice from the radio, “All you Pumas out there better cross your fingers and hope that Gonzalez sends this one off into the bleachers.“
“Come on Gonzalez,” says Donnie. He tucks his hair behind his ears.
“Come on old man,” says Mitch, “Swing this one for us and you can retire happy.”
“It won’t be the same without you here,” says Carl. “When you’ve gone to Hollywood, I mean.”
“I’ll write you,” says Marie.
“You say that, but you’ll be too busy being a star. I know how it goes.”
She doesn’t answer. Carl crosses his arms and tilts his head forward. He looks earnestly up at her.
“Marie,” he says, “Come on, take the night off. I’ll close up early, we’ll go get something to eat, then we’ll take in that movie. You’ll be safe, and it’ll be fun. Last chance, what do you say?”
“Here comes the pitch,” says the radio. Mitch and Donnie tense, glasses halfway between bar and lips, breaths caught in expectant mouths. Marie leans forward, her breasts perching on the bar like two lovebirds, and kisses Carl softly on the lips.
“Let’s see what happens.”
He stands limp behind the bar, his body hanging from his head like damp washing on a line. Marie turns quickly away, avoiding Carl’s eyes, and gathers up her purse. Tinny white-noise cheering splutters from the radio; Donnie and Mitch look at each other, eyes wide, mouths agape. Carl doesn’t hear what the commentator says. Marie bites her lip, slithers off her stool and walks out of the door. She looks like a setting sun.

Apologies to fans of real science fiction

They discovered the first one in 2091, during the seismic lunar surveys. It was communicated to the lab at Mare Anguis 4, in that self-consciously ambiguous way that scientists have, as an 'anomaly' - an unexpected spike on the graph, an unusually sinuous line within the oscilloscope, a decimal place lurking too far to the left - which meant that they had got their predictions wrong. A second survey was ordered, but the results were the same - anomalous - and so an excavation unit was dispatched. Three weeks and several metres of basalt later, a message chirped through the satcom to Mare Anguis 4:

"Littrow? Are you there?"

"Go ahead, EX2."

"You're not going to believe this."

"What have you found?"

"It's...well, it's a bell. A giant golden bell."

The bell, some thirty metres tall and sunk like a boil deep into the epidermis of the moon turned out to be made not of gold but of a material greatly resembling it. Science scanned and centrifuged and resonated and imaged and oscillated, but no conclusion could be drawn from the find other than that it was of non-human origin, and it remained a curiosity, a tourist attraction, until the seismic surveys of Mars in 2118.

The western slope of Olympus Mons was the site of the Martian anomaly. Excavation crews were soon on the scene, and Littrow was contacted immediately when the scientists at Olympus Station received the call to inform them that what seemed like an enormous sunken bell, thirty metres high and made of gold, had been found beneath the surface of Mars. Naturally, Littrow boarded the next available shuttle and was there in hours. But again, weeks of scientific endeavour gleaned nothing more than that the bell was not of human making, and it too fell into folklore.

Then, in 2130, deep beneath the rushing clouds, seismic surveyors on the surface of Venus were alarmed to notice a glowing blip on their hand-held screens as they logged the surface of Ishtar Terra. Checks and double checks led to the deployment of the excavation units, and Littrow, long retired, could scarcely breathe when he was contacted by his old friend Juralle at the Lakshmi outpost.

"I thought you'd want to know," he said.

"Another bell?" said Littrow.

"No...that would have been fine. That was almost what we were expecting."

"Then what?"

"It was a pair of cherries."

"Cherries?"

"A huge representation of them, thirty metres high. Carved deep into the earth and painted bright red."

"Unbelievable!"

"But wait, there's more...next to it there was a message inscribed into the bedrock. Each letter was twenty feet high. Can you imagine?"

"What did it say?"

"That was the funny thing...it said 'Bad luck! Three matches required for jackpot. Better luck next time.'"

The perception of guinea pigs

As is often the case, Pongo Richter himself was the only person who did not think that he had gone mad. The authorities certainly thought he was; they were convinced of it. And the guinea pigs were convinced as well, which was ironic as they were the ones responsible for his condition.

Pongo hadn't minded at first. It was unusual, certainly, to be sharing the Tube with a six-foot tall guinea pig dressed in a business suit and reading the Financial Times, but no-one else batted an eyelid. And besides, he didn't think that guinea pigs were so bad; in fact he thought the way they snuffled those little noses of theirs was rather charming. So Pongo simply accepted them as one of the changes that he had to accept as part of modern life - some new genetic miracle or something - in the same way as he had accepted the Chinese family that had moved into the house across the road from him.

He saw more and more of them. Working in his bank, driving about town, playing football in the park, they were everywhere. He looked forward to seeing them; their soft, exuberant fur always made him feel calm. The guinea pigs, that is; not the Chinese family.

But one Sunday morning, as he was digging his garden, Pongo saw in the street one of the guinea pigs hop up onto another's shoulders, crack into its skull with those brutal incisors and lap at the brains inside as though they were the yolk of an egg. Horrified, Pongo leaped over his fence and whacked the guinea pig in the head repeatedly with his shovel until it lay crumpled in the street, dead. Panting, sweating, he walked into his house and called the police.

The police arrived within minutes, and the psychiatrists soon after, when he'd told the police what had happened.

"We can't have this," they said.

"You're telling me," said Pongo.

"Just killing people like that."

"You mean guinea pigs."

"Ah yes, the police told us about that. Do you see these guinea pigs often?"

"All the time. They're everywhere."

"And you say they're six feet tall, some of them? The same size as us?"

"Yes, yes! Haven't you seen them?"

"Dr Berner?" one of them called over his shoulder, "Will you bring the kit, please?"

As the sedatives began to take effect, Pongo reflected to himself that he really should have expected this - one of the psychiatrists was, after all, a guinea pig herself.

Even after years in the asylum Pongo didn't consider himself mad. But unfortunately for him, everyone else did. Especially the guinea pigs. Sadly for him, it was all simply a matter of perception.

Only What Is

Ding-dong!
"Hello?"
"Parcel for Mr...uh...Ri...Ridgehead? Did I read that right? Is that really your name?"
"Yes! How dare you, it is a perfectly reasonable name."
"Uh, yeah, buddy...sure. Anyway, here's your parcel."
"Thank you. Now kindly get off my driveway or I'll shoot you in the spine."

And that was more or less how Ecks received his copy of Only What Is by Richard Lawrence Cohen. And what a great little book it is. Though it will not be read from cover to cover in one sitting - Ludmila's Broken English and Melmoth The Wanderer will put paid to that - that doesn't matter; the beauty of it is that it can be picked up as and when the mood or situation allows, and a single anecdote, thought, poem or story can be read in just a few minutes. A few such entries have been read by your intrepid reviewer already, and the vagaries of his memory mean that although they have already appeared on Richard's blog, they still read fresh. Perhaps the action of reading them from a printed page lends them a different aspect? Who knows. Either way, buy yourself a copy - you won't be disappointed!

Then, when you're done with it - though it's the kind of book to keep, in the opinion of your humble ridge-headed correspondent - you can set if free via BookCrossing, if you like.

Hank Marvin

Dear Sir or Madam

It is a little-known fact that the cruellest thing for a shadow is the death of its owner, for though a shadow's life is not directly linked to its keeper, its fate is sealed once that final breath slips out past the lips. It lies trapped beneath the prostrate body, sliding around away from the sun but unable to free itself from the dead weight that pins it to the ground. And beyond the initial incidence of death, what awaits it? Burial or cremation of its host, both grisly fates - closure inside a wooden box, six feet of earth denying the life-giving light from sun or lightbulb, or cowering beneath the body as it, that which gives form to the shadow, is obliterated by fire.

But what can I do about this macabre state of affairs, you might say. What can I do to stop my shadow being denied the rights that I enjoy?

The good news is that it does not have to be this way - there is something you can do. The insertion of a simple paragraph into the last will and testament stipulating any of the following:

• Open-air "burial" in a perspex casket
• Inclusion of a skylight or internal lighting system in a conventional coffin
• Cremation followed by reconsitution of ashes into an effigy

...will guarantee that your shadow continues to lead a vivid and fulfilling existence.

So ACT NOW! Change your last will and testament today - create a better tomorrow for your shadow.

Thank you for your time

Linda Aykanian
Liaison Officer
People For The Ethical Treatment of Shadows

One sided conversations #4

"It's not unusual to trademark a new species, especially not after the years of modifications that have gone into it. They do have a proper scientific name, but it's quite dry. Not snappy at all. Round here we call them Piggets - you know, like 'pork nuggets'. The fast food places are just lapping them up - they keep them in little pens out by their freezers, like hamster cages, so they're absolutely fresh when they hit the deep-fryer."

"At first we experimented with dunking them in the breadcrumbs whole, but our test consumers were a little squeamish about eating the little heads and limbs, so now those parts are just clipped off. The next stage will be to develop a variant with particularly thin, weak necks and legs - for easy detachment - and beyond that hopefully to go totally headless and limbless. The guys are looking into it as we speak, but it could be months or even years away."

"Initial attempts have been fairly unsuccessful thus far, so we currently recommend just feeding them a diet high in butter and oil - saturated fats - to keep their skins nice and tacky. Then you can roll them straight in the breadcrumbs without adding any binding agent and just drop them in the deep-fryer."

"Oh, you get used to it, and it's quite high-pitched anyway. It's the same with lobsters, you know."

"I know. But we're hoping to bring out equivalent lamb, beef and chicken variants over the next five years, and beyond that...who knows? Mark my words, though - one day all livestock will be bite-sized."

The last celebrity

The arrival of the television crew surprised Bee, but this was only because Bee was a hermit, a proper old-fashioned wild-eyed straggly beard hermit, who'd fled to the remotest cave in the remotest hill on the remotest island he could find, just to get away from civilisation. He didn't think anyone knew where he was, but somehow the civilisation he had escaped had sought him out via a three-man team armed with a shoulder-mounted camera and a fluffy boom mic.

"What do you want?" was all that he could think of to say as they set up and began to film him.

"Oh, that's perfect," said the photogenic man who preened his slick of thick ginger hair with an undisguised pride. A camera winked a red eye.

"What's perfect?"

"You are. You're exactly as we imagined. Perfect!"

Bee rolled his eyes, ignored them and went about his morning ablutions, fully expecting the crew to lose interest - though he decided to postpone the rewardingly noisy defecation that resulted from his restricted diet of nuts and berries until after these idiots had gone, as he thought that would probably just encourage them - but they continued to follow him, filming all the while.

"Look, what do you want?" he snapped.

"Just to film you. You're going to be on television."

"I don't want to be on television," said Bee, acutely aware of the degenerative state of his underpants, the only item of clothing that he still wore, "Leave me alone."

"Hard biscuits, sonny - we didn't come all this way to lose a scoop."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're the only person left on Earth who has never been on TV. You're going to be famous!"

"What if I don't want to be famous?"

"Fame isn't something you choose," said the photogenic man, his eyes misting over dreamily, "Fame is something that chooses you."

"Balls," said Bee.

"It's true. A lot has changed back in the real world since you left."

"Like what?"

The photogenic man checked his watch and turned to the cameraman.

"Hang on, that seems about...how long's that, Gerry?"

"Fourteen and a half minutes," said the man with the camera on his shoulder.

"OK, let's wrap it up there and get going."

"What," said Bee, "So that's it? You're off now?"

"Well, yes - what did you expect?"

"I don't get it. You seemed so excited to see me."

"Oh we are, we are! But once we add in ten seconds of intro, ten seconds of outro and ten seconds of scenery, that's your fifteen. And no-one, but no-one gets more than fifteen minutes."

HGP

Malcolm

If you are reading this, then it means that I am dead. Let this letter be my epitaph, and my last chance to tell you that which I could not tell you whilst I was alive - had I done so they would have killed you. That you are still alive to read this letter is testament to my keeping my end of the bargain.

The Human Genome Project, my life's work, was supposed to be a beautiful achievement for mankind, but as you are more than aware it was anything but. No-one foresaw the riots, nor the reprisals, the genocide, the slavery...except for Them, the organisation whose name I never even found out. Our current state of affairs was exactly what they planned.

In hindsight, it was insultingly easy for them. They bought us off, all of us - what is more depressing, that everyone has their price, or that the price is always so low? The Project was funded by their money anyway, and it kept rolling in. We were each given bonuses when milestones were reached, and they showered us with expensive gifts - we didn't suspect anything, we just thought that perhaps, finally, scientists were being truly appreciated. Then, when we were nearly finished mapping the genome, we each received a visit from them. At night, at our homes. They told us what they wanted the Project to say - what conclusions it should draw - and they gave us a simple choice. Financial security for life in exchange for total silence, or...well, they made perfectly clear what would happen to us and our families if we decided to jump ship. So we were forced to publish what they told us to publish. That's where the data that went public came from.

That data was wrong, though. What was published wasn't what we found - there is no one single "master race"! No racial type's DNA is any closer to that of animals than any other! But we were too afraid to blow the lid off. These people are too powerful, too dangerous. Even when the riots started and we started to whisper amongst ourselves about exposing the lie, it always came back to "but what about our families"? So, to my shame, we stayed quiet. The lies became the accepted orthodoxy and we entered the age of modern slavery.

As my last wish, I would like to disassociate my memory from the lies, but I regret that I cannot make that decision as it will affect not me but you. With your mother and me gone, you are the only one that they can still hurt. What you do with this letter is up to you, but be aware that if you go public with it, you must be prepared to die. So you must ask yourself - is the truth more important than your life?

Dad