The View From Here - The Book!

Okay, I admit it, I have a problem: I really like writing and putting together books. Now if I could just get people to buy the damned things I'd be happy ...

And here's a new, and rather special, one: a collection if my more ... shall we say 'out there' pieces, including the column I wrote for Suspect Thoughts, The View From Here, from Mindfuck books.

And this is even more special (if that's even possible): my great pal, and amazing artist, Wynn Ryder, did the cover. What do you think? I love how Wynn described it on his blog:

Must be some Monty Python influence in this one... I can imagine the hills animated, sprouting up from the ground and talking.

The View From Here: Vanessa Verdugo

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

Vanessa Verdugo looked striking in the fading daylight, approaching night – but then that year’s definition of beauty was, after all, Vanessa Verdugo: Her hats and veils were in every shop on Gold Road, her dresses were worn to every fete and soirée, the color of her lips, the shade of her blush, washed across thousands of ruffled bedspreads, delicate curtains, plush carpets, swollen pillows, overstuffed chairs, sprawling lounges, and politely sensual settees. Standing on that closely sheered lawn she didn’t appear to have boulevard stockings, avenue heels, promenade gloves, an estate skirt, a mansion blouse, sitting room jewelry or a galleria hat – but a single step beyond Robur Oberon’s estate, to the brass flowers and iron vines that entwined the balustrades of PSV’s streets and lanes and her beauty and style would flow mix and flow, wine in water, with her fashionableness to cover the city.

Sipping a flute of shimmering crystal – the unspoken cost of which would have kept a lesser republic financially solvent for a decade, and thus, for the not mentioning, made it’s prescience so much more powerful – she simply looked striking, not at all the beautiful threat of a woman who had entranced the entire city, and also unspoken, unannounced, and thus immensely more powerful than any priceless champagne flute.

“Great pleasure,” Robur Oberon said, lifting a tankard of frothy brew towards their guest. “Great, great pleasure, to have your company, sir."

Wing’s dark eyes slowly lifted from his glass, where he seemed fascinated by the hesitant streamers of minuscule bubbles in the vintage to stare intently in the direction of Robur Oberon. “I was asked.”

“Well, of course, sir. Absolutely, sir. Could I not have? How could I have turned my back on the plight of a stranger to these shores? I could not have rested if I did not do my duty as a Steward of this City, a Lord of this House and have not at least offered you a hand of friendship?”

“We’re always willing to make new friends,” Vanessa Verdugo said, lifting her own glass slightly in a soft toast.

Wing looked to her, angry puzzlement across his brow. “You and he make people?”

Robur Oberon laughed, holding himself in a tight knot of aborted muscles, the reflex to thump the stranger across the back. “The lovely Vanessa make many things, but we’ve yet to perfect that skill.”

“Fortunate,” Wing said, relief evident. Taking a sip of the vintage, his face lightning-quick changed to shock and disgust. With a smoothly practiced gesture he blew the liquid into his tightened fist, then loudly clapped both hands together.

Vanessa Verdugo noticed, turned slightly away – then raised an immaculately sculpted eyebrow when no champagne flew. She looked inquisitively at Robur Oberon to see if he’d noticed.

He hadn’t: “In fact, we were just discussing how important it is to develop new … relationships shall we say, when one is in unfamiliar lands. Helps the shock, you see, of the strange, the shock of the new, to have a personal landscape of familiarity. This world you’ve found yourself in must be disturbing in its peculiarities, but knowing that certain people - such as the lovely Miss Verdugo and myself – are as stable within it as the earth beneath your feet might give you a comfortable feeling of stability. Not that I would be so bold or arrogant as to imply that we –“ he indicated with a raise of his tankard Vanessa Verdugo “ - are the only ones qualified for such comfort. To be honest, however, Miss Verdugo and I do reach rather extensively through the Territories, so we, or by proxy our influence, would always be near.”

Wing held his flattened palm up to the setting run, examining the tight skin with wide-eyed concentration.

“I do not know how such things are done in … where is it again, friend, that you hail from? I know you’ve spoken of it, but – well - sometimes it does take a few repetitions to get things to stick in an aging mind,” Oberon said, tapping his huge cranium, accompanied by a deep laugh.

Without looking away from his dry hand, Wing said, “Russia. From there I Navigate.” Sadness on his face with the saying of the noun and the verb: a longed for home, and a talent that had betrayed, stranded him.

“Oh, yes, that’s it. ‘Russia’ such an exotic sounding land. Some day when the no-doubt pain of your departure isn’t quite so fresh you will have to tell us of that land: the foods they partake, the strength and duration of the seasons, the music your people enjoy, the mechanisms they may perhaps create. Ah, yes, another reason to join another friend to one’s life: the gaining of knowledge of other places, other lives, other devices and processes. An alliance, if you will: the partnership of two into a stronger one. Would that appeal to you? You with the need for friend in this new world, Miss Verdugo and I with the need to sate our curiosity about your far-flung land? Does that sound appealing to you in any way?”

Wing lowered his hand, blinked once, twice at Oberon – impending tears making his dark eyes shine. His mouth opened, preparation for speech, revealing brass teeth polished to a glowing shine.

But before their guest could expel a sound into the growing darkness of the night, a trio appeared at the far side of the house, rounding the columns. Their soft blue glow, their rolling, liquid gait, their simple shapes – everyone in PSV knew Robur Oberon’s Cell Men, his congealed servants and handymen: low aptitude, chemically dependent, smelling of kerosene and fusil oil, never far from their Master.

They exploded. One, two three – all gone in a wash of shockwave, a balls of fire rolling up into the dark sky. A column, a purple rose bush, a section of hedge crackled and smoked.

Robur Oberon stood and stared, too shock to speak or move. His tankard, held in a suddenly weakened wrist, poured onto the immaculate lawn, foaming at his feet. Vanessa Verdugo slowly lowered her hands, instinctively thrown in front of her legendary face.

“Not good. Making people bad - opposite of good,” Wing said, his dark eyes lit by twirling lights of gold and silver. Turning to that year’s beauty, and the most powerful man in the Territories, he repeated himself, in case they hadn’t heard: “Not good. Making people bad - opposite of good” then, without looking back, he walked through the still lingering flames and away into the soft darkness of that summer night.

“Guess we’ll have to make new friends,” Vanessa Verdugo said, slowly turning her legendary smile at the wide-eyes of Robur Oberon.

(with thanks to s.a.)

The View From Here: The Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

Congratulations on your purchase of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine. Utilizing the finest in Hack Technology, we at Write Way guarantee that if correctly used and maintained the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine can give you years of successfully written columns of any length and subject.

After removing the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine from its ecologically protective shipping container, place it in a convenient location where it will be away from direct sunlight, moisture, dirt or dust, or undue criticism. Next, attach the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s Driving Force inlet jack to the nearest source of creative energy. We are Write Way recommend a standard Emotionally Vacant Upbringing (EVU), or Societally Isolated Childhood (SIC) coupled with the optional Write Way Rare Parental Approval (RPA) module for efficient creative drive. Warning: Insufficient creative energy can result in repetitive, uninspired results (see Appendix A: The Dear Abby Syndrome) or asinine whining (Appendix B: Andy Rooney).

After attaching your Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine to an available Driving Force, open the Inspiration Input panel located on the lower right section of the machine. Using a small, sharp instrument (such as your penis), activate/deactivate the appropriate DIPshit to assign the desired column inspiration input. Warning: Failure to activate the correct combination can result in various undesirable results, leading to arrest and criminal prosecution and/or National Syndication.

Next remove the deebing support ring (located under the forelock wheel assembly) and carefully stipple the mantune cage until the blue light rotates into the green. With the loose pin in your left hand, then proceed to osculate the frandip to achieve maximum caustic relux feedback. If the frandip doesn’t achieve enough caustic relux feedback, consult the enclosed Troubleshooting Guide or kick the mantune cage wearing a size twelve steel-toed boot, aiming specifically for the wizzing input slot.

After the caustic relux feedback has been achieved, it is time to select the Editorial Interface Mask (EIM). Please note that three pre-set Editorial Interface Masks have been preloaded into the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine, specifically the Father Figure (FF), the Tyrannical Ogre (TO), and the Corporate Drone. If you are interested in other Editorial Interface Masks, the Automatic Column Writing Machine Upgrade contains ten others as well as additional viewpoint features such as Alcoholic Blurring (AB) and World-weary Cynicism (WC).

To fully utilize the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s Deadline Matching Feature (DMF) it’s important to configure the Irresponsibility and Compulsiveness scale, located on the back of the machine, next to the Frustrated Author Input (FAI) and the Destructive Relationship Exhaust Fan (DREF). Turning the pip knob to the left will increase the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s dependability in meeting responsibilities (real or imaginary), though it will also affect the Spontaneity Output Mechanism possibly resulting in a creative, if predictable, column. Reversing the pip knob will diminish predictability but can also result in what is commonly referred to as Deadline Lapse Syndrome, which has been proven to be a leading cause of Writer Termination (WT). Correct balancing of these two forces is integral to the correct operation of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine.

While we at Write Way understand that even after utilizing the excellent technology embodied in our Automatic Column Writing Machine there are other, unknown factors that can affect Creative Output (CO) and Monetary Input (MI), we must still insist that payment for the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine be received within one month of delivery (depending on location and volatility of local delivery personnel). Failure to expedite payment will result in financial and physical penalties, possibly including fines, levies, liens, testicular removal, spinal rearrangement, dental extraction, and colonic impaction.

You are now almost ready to use your Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine to produce admirable and possibly profitable columns. Before continuing, however, it is important to observe the three stage Safety Feature Checklist (SFC):

· To ensure proper lubrication of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s internal assembly, a fifth of cheap bourbon must be fed into the Inhibition GearBox (IGB) on a daily basis. If suitably cheap bourbon is not available, a bottle of cough syrup or rubbing alcohol can be used.

· If overheating occurs, the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine must be automatically switched into standby mode by turning the fiddle switch to the Moderate setting. This will cause the machine to “wheel-spin” until it cools satisfactorily. Failure to place the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine into this mode if overheated can cause the sensitive gibber line to vaporize, resulting at a ten x thousand foot-pound force explosion. This, naturally, voids the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s warranty, as well as any operator within three hundred feet of the device.

· Before final activation of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine, the operator must completely fill out the attached Waiver of Responsibility (WoR), absolving Write Way of any damages – real, emotional, or imaginary – that the operator may experience during the operation of the machine. Failure to do so will result in the gibber line to vaporize, resulting at a ten x thousand foot-pound force explosion.

If you have followed these instructions carefully, you are now ready to use the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine and produce profitable and possibly entertaining columns for years to come. If however the machine fails to operate, place it back in its ecologically protective shipping container and return it to an authorized service center or convenient landfill.

If you are in need of a column in the meantime, we suggest that you simply retype this manual – god knows, manuals are just like columns: no one reads them anyway.

The View From Here: Breasts

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

I bought a pair of breasts the other day. I’d been putting it off for months – general hemming, hawing, that kind of thing – but then I walked by a body shop, you know, that pseudoskin place down on Maholley Terrace, by the baby fat bakery, and there they were in the window: two of the most gorgeous set of tits you ever did see. Now I know what they say, that bigger isn’t always better, but I’ll tell ya, it’s only the folks who’ve got stuck with little bitty titties are the ones sprouting that kind of stuff. Size, I’ll tell you, is where it’s at.

So I go into the place right, just to get a feel for them – you know what I mean? – and like a pot-bellied nursing fly this sales drone latches right onto me …ssssuuuuccckkk! I had to whip out my pocket knife and ease the blade between his lips and my skull to break the suction. Soon as he’s free – leaving a mean-ass hickey, too – he starts right into it: a hardcore, non-stop, subliminally packed pitch: “Icansee(buy) thatyou’rethe(buy) kindaguy(buy) whoknowsquality(buy) merchandise.”

Lucky for me, my little neighborhood has recently become a spawning group for telemarketers, the ground thick with their gelatinous offal, egg-cases crackling underfoot, so I’d dowsed myself with cheap-ass perfume to ward off their greedy suckers. Once the smell of the stuff got to his ridiculously under-sized brain he’s quivering eyes lost their luster and his lips sagged down to his waist. “Yeah,” he gurgled through his flaccid sucking organ, “what you want?”

I nodded to the hooters in the window. “How much for the tits?”

He signed, his soft body rippling with the action. It was so disgusting I almost wished I hadn’t cheapened myself before becoming – excited he would have sucked by brain out of my skull trying to remove my wallet from my pants but at least he didn’t fart, burble and quiver like three-day-old birthday pudding. “That’s (sigh) the special. Three hundred goobahs.”

I slapped him hard across what passed for his face, sending his sagging organ whipping around his body at least twice – ending with a disgusting smack when his drooling mouth slapped against the side of his head. His cloudy eyes cleared just a bit so I snapped my hand down to his right hip and slugged his secondary sexual organ. Now completely clear, his eyes jerked and buzzed angrily with the stab of pain. You have to teach these parasites whose boss, you know?

“Don’t give me that feculum,” I growled, kicking him in his distended digestive tract. There was obviously a Paramecium World restaurant nearby, because he expelled a good three and a half bowls of wriggling cilia in red sauce: a venerable geyser of clear, watery flesh and crimson fluids that roared up, hit the ceiling, and rained back down -- pelting the entire establishment in greasy, half-digested Catch of the Day.

“How can I help you, Sir?” he managed to say between loud, sloppy licks of the walls, floor, management, other customers, and me.

“Like I said, I’m interested in the tits in the window,” I said, scraping saliva off my new shark-skin jumper.

“An excellent choice, sir,” he said, belching loudly, the action setting his entire body to quivering with a heavy wave-action. I was momentarily fascinated by him, hypnotized, by the rolls of loose flesh and the way they undulated up to the top of his head – momentarily covering his beady-eyed face with greasy skin. “The finest quality of breast there is.”

“How much?” I repeated, knowing that the ballistic discharge of a meal had most certainly purged his memory as well: our previous conversation just a residue on the harder-to-reach corners of the place.

“For you, fine sir, just two hundred and fifty goobahs,” he said, smiling. The effect was disturbing in the extreme.

I swallowed my revulsion and my own breakfast of immature college graduates and slapped him again. This time his face only wrapped partway around his tiny skull – and I filed away the fact that either these guys were getting tougher or I needed to work out a lot more.

“What was I saying? My goodness, I must have forgotten my brain today! I mean to say that those choice items are currently being offered for the special price of two hundred goobahs.”

Luckily I’d remember to shop armed, so I was able to drop the price down to a hundred and fifty by shooting him in the foot. He made the most delightful piercing scream – shattering every toe and fingernail in the place – as he jumped up and down, thin, yellow blood bubbling disgustedly from the wound.

“Sold,” I told him – pointing my weapon between his tearing eyes in case he had any thoughts about offering insurance or, heaven forbid, gift wrapping. Posthaste, my new boobs were out of the window and into a travel-bubble. The creature was even quite civil as he accepted my squirming pile of goobahs and fed it into the maw of the banking worm.

So that’s how I got my tits. Spectacular, aren’t they? I do have to say that I am quite, quite pleased with them – but, to be honest, while they’re loads of fun, I have to admit that the actually shopping was more fun that the tits ever have been. Funny how that is, ain’t it?

The View From Here: My Gun is Prodigious

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense)

My Gun is Prodigious
By
Zagreel Weegeen, Third Hatchmate of the Lydra Hegemony
(translated by M. Christian)

"Are you a non-public dick?" the female spoke, walking into my professional space on her aesthetically appealing locomotive appendages.

Even though it towards the end of my human mating cycle, I still found her be fertile and more than suitable for procreation, what with her well-developed milk glands, crimson-painted oral display, and blue-toned visual organs.

"That's what the portal mentioned," I uttered, not wanting to let her achieve sexual superiority this early in a potential courtship display. "What can I accomplish with you?"

She continued her courting ritual by coating her eating and breathing orifice with saliva, and bending her locomotive appendages to 'sit' her padded anal orifice down on my sitting device, folding her lower appendages to show me a generalized view of her sexual apparatus. "I need your assistance," she spoke, exhaling powerful chemical attractants.

"What kind of assistance do you require?" I uttered, skeptical of her choice of me as a mating partner. I was not a unsuitable candidate for mating, for I had shared my sperm sacks with many suitable female members of my species, but I have also through many human years of direct experience have educated myself that such a brazen presentation of sexual characteristics is typically deceptive. Still, I did find simply physical pleasure in the female's direct exhibition of her secondary sexual characteristics.

"A person unknown to me is going to attempt to end my physical existence," the female spoke with tones of no alarm, her attack or defend pheromones not present. "I require you to prevent this from occurring."

I was a male of no great lineage, but with ample direct experience with many human interactions, but had never audibly received any like pronouncement from any human during my many orbits of the local solar body in occupation of a non-public investigator. I expressed my confusion by lowering my hairy eye-protecting lids and moving my upper body-structure closer towards the female, and speaking: "I am confused by this. Why would anyone seek to cause you bodily injury?"

This female person then exposed her white incisors, demonstrating to my vision that she found my confusion enjoyable. "Mister Weapon, you do not think that someone would not want to terminate my physical existence?"

Despite the female's obvious attempts to confuse my human thought processes through perceiving her sexual characteristics I was still compelled to complete the mating ritual, and deposit my sperm in her egg receptacles: "Female, you do not appear an individual who would have anyone on this small planet pursuing the end of your life processes."

The female produced a 'cigarette' and ignited it with a mechanical device. The tube of plant fibers filled my moderately-sized professional space with the reek of carcinogenic long-chain molecules. "Mister Weapon, I am a female of pleasant company, a staunch pursuer of only high-class breeding material. Nonetheless, someone proximately very soon will try to terminate me."

Her profession of only desiring a high-quality mate for reproduction made me display my own 'teeth' as the content of her words stimulated my organ of humor. "Female, I presume not on your standing within our human culture. But I cannot comprehend why a person would cause you to die."

She placed the tube of carcinogenic materials back in her oral cavity, drawing in the poisons with a long, slow intake of atmosphere. "I possess great funds, or as I should better state in English, my male parent possesses immense quantities of property and currency. I suspect that this might be the reasons for the attempts to cause my physical self to stop functioning. My parental is William Cash."

I attempted to control the muscles surrounding my air and food intake as well as the ones around my optical organs but I suspect that I was unsuccessful in the attempt against the connotations of the name of her male parental. I doubted that any human in the Metropolis of Los Angeles didn't know the identity label of Cash. His personal signet was on many of the Angeles structures of notoriety, as well as being prominently featured on many of the documentations of control in the big city. I knew little of the structure of this crèche, but I had become informed through various information sources available to me, such as the ink of pulp media of 'newspapers' and primitive radio reception technology that the parental of the female member of my species roosting before my optical receivers was nearing the end of an average human lifespan. If her physical essence should cease to function effectively due to a natural progression of deterioration, then this female progeny would be the recipient of that impressive accumulation of human monetary units.

Even though it disturbed my emotional equilibrium to have such a mortification for the ending of another entity's physical existence, especially one that appeared to my human senses as desirable to pass on my genetic legacy, it remained a viable possibility. "Do you, female of the Cash legacy, have any suspicions as to an individual or group of individuals who would be willing to cease your self for reasons of your parental's immense property and currency reserves?"

TO BE CONTINUED

The View From Here: Suicide

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense)

He’s going to be through that door any minute. I thought about the snail-whip I’d bought last SumSpring in the Underneath Market. You know, the one with the carved face of a weathered old Lunar nomad - the one that looked like my mother? But my place is small, and - well - have you ever tried to use a snail-whip in a room where your head hits the ceiling if you stand on tip-toes?

I could have used the reaction pistol a Hitchcock synthetic sold me, but I quickly threw out that idea - reactions are still really illegal and a sharp-eyed Priest would naturally have spotted the head-sized hole in the corpse, scratched his pink-dyed skull and drawn the obvious conclusion that a promotion was in his future.

The only knives in my kitchen were the degradables they give away with Tinkonese Take-away, and they were all green-spotted and way too soft to slice through a brick of jelly-water, let alone a throat.

Whip too long, gun too illegal, knife too soft ... the question of the morning remained: how to kill myself?

I finally decided on the collected works of Bart Bransom, the thief poet. It was one of my favorite books, but it also weighed a nice, hefty 60 decimars - more than enough to crush a skull. So I pulled up a friable wood chair next to the front door, climbed up and gripping the book tightly - with one finger lodged somewhere in middle of The Tale of the Gold Job - I prepared to bash my skull in as I walked through the front door.

Killing yourself is something I’d had to think about quite a lot - as everyone does, and that doesn’t include suicide. The problem with trying to kill yourself - no, wait, ‘murder’ is more like it - is you have to try and out-think yourself. The way I figured it, he’d walk home, as usual, down Fire Lane, stopping here and there to check out the changes in the shop windows or even indulge in a little purgative at one of the express blow-out booths - so I’d say twelve to twenty dulwhich minutes, maybe eleven mid-range minutes, tops.

He’d also be a little disoriented - okay, a bit more disoriented - than I usually am. Being decanted from a Noh Bureau tank will do that to you. I was counting on him being a bit fuzzy around the edges (and in the cases of some of the older tanks that’s quit literal). Come home, I thought at him as my arms quivered under the weight of the book; come him like you usually do - it won’t hurt. Well, I hope it didn’t hurt much - he might be an official copy, but he was still me. The last time this happened I was a bit more prepared, and had borrowed a spring-gun from my downstairs neighbor, the one with the bathing-in-fresh blood fetish, and had managed to ambush myself on the front stairs.

This time, to be honest, I wasn’t nearly as prepared as I should have been - thus my mad scramble to find something fatal. I’d been way too into my new micro-dome. It was a treat to myself for finally finishing the last draft of my new book, A Fall From A Moderate Height, and I was way too involved in giving the little half-life critters religion, guilt, paranoia, and half a dozen other ugly, unnecessary things to make their lives (and thus my viewing of their little world) interesting - so interesting that I completely missed the notice of my impending imitation.

I was a little cocky, I admit it. I mean, I hadn’t lost a duplication for over twenty nuyears - since ... well, since the last me lost and I took over. While I thought the Noh Bureau was a bit over zealous in the execution of their duty, I sort of agreed with the idea of facing yourself in a life or death struggle every five dolamars. There was something savagely poetic about having to look at your life and decide that it was worth killing to defend, and if it wasn’t then all you had to do was wait till the next you showed up to give it a better shot - suicide by not living a meaningful, happy existence. It also satiated natural human bloodlust, turning it away from some innocent stranger and instead directing it inwards, towards self-examination ... and self-execution.

Yeah, it can be rough to have relationships change overnight when your loved one looses to a copy, or when an artist’s work-in-progress is interrupted by a less-inspired duplicate - but by and large the system worked rather well. Of course, I think that after winning every battle since the third Mumbar SumSpring.

And I wasn’t about to loose this one. Standing there, legs quaking from the weight of Bart Bransom’s rhymes, I rehearsed my motions, running them through my mind, trying to cover every contingency: door opens, down comes the book, door opens, book comes down, door opens, book comes down - crushed skull and five more nuyears of comfort at the end.

It had been a good time, a rich, full time - many loves, many successes, a few failures. Standing there on my chair, the heavy book in my hands, I flashed a few of them through my mind - a mental background to my plans for self-murder: the Coronation of the Black King, getting my fingers lengthened, the Festival of Lust, writing ... lots and lots of writing. Salari, Miss Postilla from down the hall, Valencia, Domache - and all the other good friends and lovers. Yes, it had been a good nuyear.

Maybe that was it - I was so lost in memories, in rewinding the past, that I forgot why, exactly I was there. Whatever the reason, I didn’t think - and then it was too late.

Even as he came at me, from the kitchen door I had completely forgotten about, a knife in his hand he’d managed to find somewhere, I refused to admit that maybe it was time to be replaced, that my mind was so clogged with experience I could no longer think straight.

Just dumb luck - that’s what it was. At least, I admitted to myself as his knife arced towards my heart, I’d finished my book. But as his knife met my chest, sinking deep within, I couldn’t suppress a flash of anger that he’d be the one to get the good reviews.

The View From Here: It's the End of the World As We Know It ...

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense)

"... this is an announcement from Apocalypse Management - your last word in the end of the world reporting. Next Blurmsday, the usage of superfast bacterial computers in the design of advertising jingles will result in the creation of a meme, or memory virus, so potent as to destroy all cognitive abilities in the listener, resulting in an irresistible compulsion to purchase the product indicated and spread more copies of the meme through careless humming and even outright singing. Spreading around the world as fast as it takes to sing "Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner -" the information lifeform will eventually supplant all rational thought, wiping out our species as sufferers become unable to even feed themselves ...."

I started to reach for the dial but hesitated when a rhyme for "encrusted" suddenly came to mind, so I jumped back into my poem - pausing only when getting stuck on "delirium."

"On Trasday, the Unisecurian Cult of Transubstantiated Bliss will mark the 102nd ascension of their martyr, Long Lone Love, by embarking on a divine war against all unbelievers. In a global bloodbath, they will kill over 90% of the world's population in a single week, mostly through the slow, painful process of "fractionating" where the victim is methodically sliced away, starting with the feet. The carnage will only stop when the Cult realizes that only either a cruel and evil god would allow such butchery - even of unbelievers and heretics - or that there is no divine presence at all, and that man himself is the sole moral authority in existence. Facing this existential crisis, the cult will commit a hasty and often extraordinarily messing mass suicide - leaving the few survivors of both the Cult and non-believers to die of starvation and disease."

Stanza finished, I rested a bit - sipping my quickly cooling mug of Buggery Brew, absently mulling over my work ... did "incidentally" really work in line two? "Prurient" definitely needed work, as did "iron monger" in the fifth line ....

"Purseday will see the complete destruction of reality itself, when the Think Big Project - an unique cooperative effort between world-renown philosophers, religious leaders, particle physicists, mathematicians, French Chefs, and garage mechanics will result in the realization that the substance of our existence is nothing but a complex symbolic hallucination of a specific ant colony in Brazil. Before this colony can be protected against outside interference, a housewife in Sao Paulo will dose the nest with several cans of extra-strong Riddo brand insecticide. As the individual ants perish, increasingly fundamental components of our world will fade, replaced by conspicuously blank sections of geography, vocabulary, anatomy, and societal structure. The few survivors, unable to stand because of missing limbs, speak because of missing limbs, or breathe because of missing lungs, will cling together until the last of the ants dies."

In one brief moment, what I saw as my best work to date died in a rolling wave of self-criticism: what the hell was I thinking? None of it worked. It was crap - no, worse than crap, it was pure Reader's Digest. Not even worthy of lining a beefly cage. I picked the sheet up, intending to dramatically tear it into shreds when ....

"The moon will hit the earth next Scarnsday. Surprisingly, however, there will be survivors. Unfortunately, they will kill each other off in a series of wars over who was to blame for the moon falling in the first place. On a side note, man will be succeeded by cockroaches, which will settle the issue by simply claiming that 'man' - nonspecific race, nation, etc. - was to blame, leaving it at that."

Ummm ... you know, I though, this isn't THAT bad. If I tweaked the second stanza a bit, tied in the imagery of the graveyard from the 13th line, fourth stanza, and then switched the eighth and the second ...

"Those who believe that men have only a certain numbers of orgasms will have their theories validated next Vernsday when a cosmic alignment will cause men to experience all of their unspent orgasms over a period of 12 minutes. The subsequent erectile ruptures will totally decimate the male population of the planet, causing only a small number of women to become despondent but will completely revitalize the flagging sex device industry. Women will manage to survive and create a near utopia - until befalling to an ancient disease that had been kept in check for through male urination on toilet seats."

Momentarily frustrated, I again reached out to turn the damned thing off - but bumping my wrist against my still partially full mug and almost spilling the orange drink all over my desk shocked me silly. Not wanting another near disaster, I took a break from the page to carefully walk the cup to the sink and throw the rest of the cold brew away.

"... in quite a shock to believers of Molloth, the ancient starman will not come from his Cold Home on Sirius 4, but will rather send his brother, Vellum. Vellum, who is not as well known or popular as Molloth - who, it is said, helped the Egyptians with the pyramids and copy-edited the 10 Commandments - will borrow money, lay around watching TV all day, and criticize everything we've done. When humanity will have had enough, and will ask him to leave, he will become argumentative and claim that humanity is a bunch of jerks who never liked him, always preferring Molloth, that "goody-goody jerk." Vellum will then drink too much and pick a fight with humanity - which will loose. Vellum, feeling superior, will then return to Sirius 4, telling Molloth that humanity started it all - and, besides, had it coming."

I stood at the sink for a long time, having long finished washing my mug, just letting the cool water splash over my hands. I knew I should be getting back to work, but didn't - after all, it would all be over soon anyway.

The View From Here: The Care And Feeding Of A World

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

Damn, I forgot to feed my world. Sigh. I just have to face it, I guess: I'm just not good with those kinds of little responsibilities. I mean, I can handle the big stuff, but things like watering plants, remembering to take the trash out on Thursday nights, or buy moisturizer just split right out of the ol' brain-pan.

What was worse, when I glanced over at the bowl I realized that I hadn't remembered to sprinkle in some flakes for quite awhile. The poor little things had grown these horrible little social-economic structures, diplomatic and interpersonal fangs and all. It was kind of cool, in a scary kind of way, to watch them stab at each other. One of them developed industry and started smoking up the habitat, while others twisted themselves all corkscrew and backwards with surreal belief systems. Those wouldn't be around long. Still others started to spore their philosophies, releasing streamers of missionaries to infect the rest of the bowl.

Then they really started going at it, and it was quite the show: one turned completely feral, lashed out at a nearby one, lighting up the tank with fires and making this fog of little burned bodies. Soon, a few others started getting in on the fun. Man, you could read from the glow of all the burning artificial structures. Over in a far corner, another was drying to breed itself into superiority, but after a really short time it sort of imploded and as I watched, hypnotized as it boiled with cannibalism.

Remembering what the guy at the pet shop said, I dug around under the sink and got out some Solar Flare Bleach ("Nothing Cleans Better than a Blast of Radiation!") but standing there, looking at all those little critters, I just couldn't do it. Okay, they were really starting to stink up the place, what with all their ridiculous petrochemicals and fluorocarbons and I knew the longer I waited the harder it would be to clean up the tank, but there was just something about their pathetic struggle to survive. You know, I never really thought of myself as someone who gets off on watching horrible things happen to good critters, but there was just something kind of hypnotic about the way they toothed and clawed at each other.

By noon several had found out how to split the atom -- and, oh boy -- then they really lit up the place. First one, then another, and after awhile it looked like all of them were vaporizing this, that, and lots of other things -- but mostly themselves. The flashes almost made my eyes hurt and the steady blue glow followed right after was really very pretty, if you could deal with the charcoal smell, that is.

Oh, wow, I thought, as one of the major sprawling infections began to transform a far corner of the tank into a fireworks show: pulsing reds, fluttering yellows, storm clouds of fallout, forks of bright white lightning. After that I kept my all my eyes on that tank, waiting for the next show.

I didn't have long to wait, as it seemed they all wanted in on the act. For the next few hours they popped and crackled, flared and flashed themselves into extinction. Still, it had been a great show, the way they lobbed those weapons of mass destruction at each other, the lovely way they stripped their tank of anything burnable or eatable. Despite how I might feel about myself, I have to admit that it was really quite wonderful to watch.

After they'd all finished their dying, I scrubbed out the tank -- not easy but I did it anyway -- tripped down to the pet store to get a new plastic baggie full of healthy, hearty critters, and just enough flakes to keep them that way for a day or two. But no more than that.

Like I said, I just can't seem to handle those silly little details. So I have come to accept the fact that my plants are always going to dry up and die, the trash will just keep getting bigger and bigger, or that I'll always be running out of moisturizer. But isn't it weird how sometimes a personal fault can lead to finding something new? If I'd remembered to feed that tank I never would have known how entertaining those critters could be -- as they died, that is.

And that's how I discovered my new hobby.

The View From Here: Vanessa Verdugo

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

Vanessa Verdugo looked striking in the fading daylight, approaching night – but then that year’s definition of beauty was, after all, Vanessa Verdugo: Her hats and veils were in every shop on Gold Road, her dresses were worn to every fete and soirée, the color of her lips, the shade of her blush, washed across thousands of ruffled bedspreads, delicate curtains, plush carpets, swollen pillows, overstuffed chairs, sprawling lounges, and politely sensual settees. Standing on that closely sheered lawn she didn’t appear to have boulevard stockings, avenue heels, promenade gloves, an estate skirt, a mansion blouse, sitting room jewelry or a galleria hat – but a single step beyond Robur Oberon’s estate, to the brass flowers and iron vines that entwined the balustrades of PSV’s streets and lanes and her beauty and style would flow mix and flow, wine in water, with her fashionableness to cover the city.

Sipping a flute of shimmering crystal – the unspoken cost of which would have kept a lesser republic financially solvent for a decade, and thus, for the not mentioning, made it’s prescience so much more powerful – she simply looked striking, not at all the beautiful threat of a woman who had entranced the entire city, and also unspoken, unannounced, and thus immensely more powerful than any priceless champagne flute.

“Great pleasure,” Robur Oberon said, lifting a tankard of frothy brew towards their guest. “Great, great pleasure, to have your company, sir."

Wing’s dark eyes slowly lifted from his glass, where he seemed fascinated by the hesitant streamers of minuscule bubbles in the vintage to stare intently in the direction of Robur Oberon. “I was asked.”

“Well, of course, sir. Absolutely, sir. Could I not have? How could I have turned my back on the plight of a stranger to these shores? I could not have rested if I did not do my duty as a Steward of this City, a Lord of this House and have not at least offered you a hand of friendship?”

“We’re always willing to make new friends,” Vanessa Verdugo said, lifting her own glass slightly in a soft toast.

Wing looked to her, angry puzzlement across his brow. “You and he make people?”

Robur Oberon laughed, holding himself in a tight knot of aborted muscles, the reflex to thump the stranger across the back. “The lovely Vanessa make many things, but we’ve yet to perfect that skill.”

“Fortunate,” Wing said, relief evident. Taking a sip of the vintage, his face lightning-quick changed to shock and disgust. With a smoothly practiced gesture he blew the liquid into his tightened fist, then loudly clapped both hands together.

Vanessa Verdugo noticed, turned slightly away – then raised an immaculately sculpted eyebrow when no champagne flew. She looked inquisitively at Robur Oberon to see if he’d noticed.

He hadn’t: “In fact, we were just discussing how important it is to develop new … relationships shall we say, when one is in unfamiliar lands. Helps the shock, you see, of the strange, the shock of the new, to have a personal landscape of familiarity. This world you’ve found yourself in must be disturbing in its peculiarities, but knowing that certain people - such as the lovely Miss Verdugo and myself – are as stable within it as the earth beneath your feet might give you a comfortable feeling of stability. Not that I would be so bold or arrogant as to imply that we –“ he indicated with a raise of his tankard Vanessa Verdugo “ - are the only ones qualified for such comfort. To be honest, however, Miss Verdugo and I do reach rather extensively through the Territories, so we, or by proxy our influence, would always be near.”

Wing held his flattened palm up to the setting run, examining the tight skin with wide-eyed concentration.

“I do not know how such things are done in … where is it again, friend, that you hail from? I know you’ve spoken of it, but – well - sometimes it does take a few repetitions to get things to stick in an aging mind,” Oberon said, tapping his huge cranium, accompanied by a deep laugh.

Without looking away from his dry hand, Wing said, “Russia. From there I Navigate.” Sadness on his face with the saying of the noun and the verb: a longed for home, and a talent that had betrayed, stranded him.

“Oh, yes, that’s it. ‘Russia’ such an exotic sounding land. Some day when the no-doubt pain of your departure isn’t quite so fresh you will have to tell us of that land: the foods they partake, the strength and duration of the seasons, the music your people enjoy, the mechanisms they may perhaps create. Ah, yes, another reason to join another friend to one’s life: the gaining of knowledge of other places, other lives, other devices and processes. An alliance, if you will: the partnership of two into a stronger one. Would that appeal to you? You with the need for friend in this new world, Miss Verdugo and I with the need to sate our curiosity about your far-flung land? Does that sound appealing to you in any way?”

Wing lowered his hand, blinked once, twice at Oberon – impending tears making his dark eyes shine. His mouth opened, preparation for speech, revealing brass teeth polished to a glowing shine.

But before their guest could expel a sound into the growing darkness of the night, a trio appeared at the far side of the house, rounding the columns. Their soft blue glow, their rolling, liquid gait, their simple shapes – everyone in PSV knew Robur Oberon’s Cell Men, his congealed servants and handymen: low aptitude, chemically dependent, smelling of kerosene and fusil oil, never far from their Master.

They exploded. One, two three – all gone in a wash of shockwave, a balls of fire rolling up into the dark sky. A column, a purple rose bush, a section of hedge crackled and smoked.

Robur Oberon stood and stared, too shock to speak or move. His tankard, held in a suddenly weakened wrist, poured onto the immaculate lawn, foaming at his feet. Vanessa Verdugo slowly lowered her hands, instinctively thrown in front of her legendary face.

“Not good. Making people bad - opposite of good,” Wing said, his dark eyes lit by twirling lights of gold and silver. Turning to that year’s beauty, and the most powerful man in the Territories, he repeated himself, in case they hadn’t heard: “Not good. Making people bad - opposite of good” then, without looking back, he walked through the still lingering flames and away into the soft darkness of that summer night.

“Guess we’ll have to make new friends,” Vanessa Verdugo said, slowly turning her legendary smile at the wide-eyes of Robur Oberon.

(with thanks to s.a.)

The View From Here: The Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

Congratulations on your purchase of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine. Utilizing the finest in Hack Technology, we at Write Way guarantee that if correctly used and maintained the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine can give you years of successfully written columns of any length and subject.

After removing the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine from its ecologically protective shipping container, place it in a convenient location where it will be away from direct sunlight, moisture, dirt or dust, or undue criticism. Next, attach the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s Driving Force inlet jack to the nearest source of creative energy. We are Write Way recommend a standard Emotionally Vacant Upbringing (EVU), or Societally Isolated Childhood (SIC) coupled with the optional Write Way Rare Parental Approval (RPA) module for efficient creative drive. Warning: Insufficient creative energy can result in repetitive, uninspired results (see Appendix A: The Dear Abby Syndrome) or asinine whining (Appendix B: Andy Rooney).

After attaching your Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine to an available Driving Force, open the Inspiration Input panel located on the lower right section of the machine. Using a small, sharp instrument (such as your penis), activate/deactivate the appropriate DIPshit to assign the desired column inspiration input. Warning: Failure to activate the correct combination can result in various undesirable results, leading to arrest and criminal prosecution and/or National Syndication.

Next remove the deebing support ring (located under the forelock wheel assembly) and carefully stipple the mantune cage until the blue light rotates into the green. With the loose pin in your left hand, then proceed to osculate the frandip to achieve maximum caustic relux feedback. If the frandip doesn’t achieve enough caustic relux feedback, consult the enclosed Troubleshooting Guide or kick the mantune cage wearing a size twelve steel-toed boot, aiming specifically for the wizzing input slot.

After the caustic relux feedback has been achieved, it is time to select the Editorial Interface Mask (EIM). Please note that three pre-set Editorial Interface Masks have been preloaded into the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine, specifically the Father Figure (FF), the Tyrannical Ogre (TO), and the Corporate Drone. If you are interested in other Editorial Interface Masks, the Automatic Column Writing Machine Upgrade contains ten others as well as additional viewpoint features such as Alcoholic Blurring (AB) and World-weary Cynicism (WC).

To fully utilize the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s Deadline Matching Feature (DMF) it’s important to configure the Irresponsibility and Compulsiveness scale, located on the back of the machine, next to the Frustrated Author Input (FAI) and the Destructive Relationship Exhaust Fan (DREF). Turning the pip knob to the left will increase the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s dependability in meeting responsibilities (real or imaginary), though it will also affect the Spontaneity Output Mechanism possibly resulting in a creative, if predictable, column. Reversing the pip knob will diminish predictability but can also result in what is commonly referred to as Deadline Lapse Syndrome, which has been proven to be a leading cause of Writer Termination (WT). Correct balancing of these two forces is integral to the correct operation of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine.

While we at Write Way understand that even after utilizing the excellent technology embodied in our Automatic Column Writing Machine there are other, unknown factors that can affect Creative Output (CO) and Monetary Input (MI), we must still insist that payment for the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine be received within one month of delivery (depending on location and volatility of local delivery personnel). Failure to expedite payment will result in financial and physical penalties, possibly including fines, levies, liens, testicular removal, spinal rearrangement, dental extraction, and colonic impaction.

You are now almost ready to use your Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine to produce admirable and possibly profitable columns. Before continuing, however, it is important to observe the three stage Safety Feature Checklist (SFC):

· To ensure proper lubrication of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s internal assembly, a fifth of cheap bourbon must be fed into the Inhibition GearBox (IGB) on a daily basis. If suitably cheap bourbon is not available, a bottle of cough syrup or rubbing alcohol can be used.

· If overheating occurs, the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine must be automatically switched into standby mode by turning the fiddle switch to the Moderate setting. This will cause the machine to “wheel-spin” until it cools satisfactorily. Failure to place the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine into this mode if overheated can cause the sensitive gibber line to vaporize, resulting at a ten x thousand foot-pound force explosion. This, naturally, voids the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine’s warranty, as well as any operator within three hundred feet of the device.

· Before final activation of the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine, the operator must completely fill out the attached Waiver of Responsibility (WoR), absolving Write Way of any damages – real, emotional, or imaginary – that the operator may experience during the operation of the machine. Failure to do so will result in the gibber line to vaporize, resulting at a ten x thousand foot-pound force explosion.

If you have followed these instructions carefully, you are now ready to use the Write Way Automatic Column Writing Machine and produce profitable and possibly entertaining columns for years to come. If however the machine fails to operate, place it back in its ecologically protective shipping container and return it to an authorized service center or convenient landfill.

If you are in need of a column in the meantime, we suggest that you simply retype this manual – god knows, manuals are just like columns: no one reads them anyway.

The View From Here: Breasts

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

I bought a pair of breasts the other day. I’d been putting it off for months – general hemming, hawing, that kind of thing – but then I walked by a body shop, you know, that pseudoskin place down on Maholley Terrace, by the baby fat bakery, and there they were in the window: two of the most gorgeous set of tits you ever did see. Now I know what they say, that bigger isn’t always better, but I’ll tell ya, it’s only the folks who’ve got stuck with little bitty titties are the ones sprouting that kind of stuff. Size, I’ll tell you, is where it’s at.

So I go into the place right, just to get a feel for them – you know what I mean? – and like a pot-bellied nursing fly this sales drone latches right onto me …ssssuuuuccckkk! I had to whip out my pocket knife and ease the blade between his lips and my skull to break the suction. Soon as he’s free – leaving a mean-ass hickey, too – he starts right into it: a hardcore, non-stop, subliminally packed pitch: “Icansee(buy) thatyou’rethe(buy) kindaguy(buy) whoknowsquality(buy) merchandise.”

Lucky for me, my little neighborhood has recently become a spawning group for telemarketers, the ground thick with their gelatinous offal, egg-cases crackling underfoot, so I’d dowsed myself with cheap-ass perfume to ward off their greedy suckers. Once the smell of the stuff got to his ridiculously under-sized brain he’s quivering eyes lost their luster and his lips sagged down to his waist. “Yeah,” he gurgled through his flaccid sucking organ, “what you want?”

I nodded to the hooters in the window. “How much for the tits?”

He signed, his soft body rippling with the action. It was so disgusting I almost wished I hadn’t cheapened myself before becoming – excited he would have sucked by brain out of my skull trying to remove my wallet from my pants but at least he didn’t fart, burble and quiver like three-day-old birthday pudding. “That’s (sigh) the special. Three hundred goobahs.”

I slapped him hard across what passed for his face, sending his sagging organ whipping around his body at least twice – ending with a disgusting smack when his drooling mouth slapped against the side of his head. His cloudy eyes cleared just a bit so I snapped my hand down to his right hip and slugged his secondary sexual organ. Now completely clear, his eyes jerked and buzzed angrily with the stab of pain. You have to teach these parasites whose boss, you know?

“Don’t give me that feculum,” I growled, kicking him in his distended digestive tract. There was obviously a Paramecium World restaurant nearby, because he expelled a good three and a half bowls of wriggling cilia in red sauce: a venerable geyser of clear, watery flesh and crimson fluids that roared up, hit the ceiling, and rained back down -- pelting the entire establishment in greasy, half-digested Catch of the Day.

“How can I help you, Sir?” he managed to say between loud, sloppy licks of the walls, floor, management, other customers, and me.

“Like I said, I’m interested in the tits in the window,” I said, scraping saliva off my new shark-skin jumper.

“An excellent choice, sir,” he said, belching loudly, the action setting his entire body to quivering with a heavy wave-action. I was momentarily fascinated by him, hypnotized, by the rolls of loose flesh and the way they undulated up to the top of his head – momentarily covering his beady-eyed face with greasy skin. “The finest quality of breast there is.”

“How much?” I repeated, knowing that the ballistic discharge of a meal had most certainly purged his memory as well: our previous conversation just a residue on the harder-to-reach corners of the place.

“For you, fine sir, just two hundred and fifty goobahs,” he said, smiling. The effect was disturbing in the extreme.

I swallowed my revulsion and my own breakfast of immature college graduates and slapped him again. This time his face only wrapped partway around his tiny skull – and I filed away the fact that either these guys were getting tougher or I needed to work out a lot more.

“What was I saying? My goodness, I must have forgotten my brain today! I mean to say that those choice items are currently being offered for the special price of two hundred goobahs.”

Luckily I’d remember to shop armed, so I was able to drop the price down to a hundred and fifty by shooting him in the foot. He made the most delightful piercing scream – shattering every toe and fingernail in the place – as he jumped up and down, thin, yellow blood bubbling disgustedly from the wound.

“Sold,” I told him – pointing my weapon between his tearing eyes in case he had any thoughts about offering insurance or, heaven forbid, gift wrapping. Posthaste, my new boobs were out of the window and into a travel-bubble. The creature was even quite civil as he accepted my squirming pile of goobahs and fed it into the maw of the banking worm.

So that’s how I got my tits. Spectacular, aren’t they? I do have to say that I am quite, quite pleased with them – but, to be honest, while they’re loads of fun, I have to admit that the actually shopping was more fun that the tits ever have been. Funny how that is, ain’t it?

The View From Here: Songball

(the following is part of an ongoing 'column' I did for Suspect Thoughts, and, no, it's not supposed to make sense: only be weird fun)

The neighborhood kids are playing songball again. I don’t mind - except when that poor hydrocephalic kid from down at the Corporate Dormitories plays. His voice just grates on me -- and three times now he’s hit just the right frequency, causing my precious candyglass trinkets from that wonderful Summer at Bronze Beach to explode like kitsch-shrapnel hand grenades.

Last time I thought I’d escaped unscathed, that his screeching rendition of Baldwin’s new hit “Peacocks on my Mind” had somehow bypassed those mnemonic souvenirs of firm breasts and multicolored pubic hairs against a backdrop of pure, blue sands and a crashing champagne sea -- but after one drop, then two of blood on the manuscript pages I was laboring over, I reached up to find a sliver of cheaply spun crystal at the end of a wicked slice of skin.

I have to admit that when I heard their tunes drift up from the alley, I jerked my head to my little shelf of erotic brick-a-brack, waiting for one to detonate -- mentally running my apartment full of crap for something suitably heavy, but not too weighty, to drop on the poor little spud’s head.

Luckily for him and for my criminal record -- the Magistrates being tightly wound that Summer as the League of Handsome Prostitutes had decided to attend their Convention of Postures in unusual droves -- my kitsch stayed intact on my little shelf, the swollen-headed fry obviously having something better to do that screech and therefore inflict minor flesh wounds on lowly writers.

A writer lives for distractions. Anything will do. Messages suddenly crying to be composed, a stubborn pillow under the ass that cries to be fluffed and then fluffed again, a speck of grit on a window, a cup that simply looks out of place, a candletip that needs trimming, a fingernail just a shade too long -- or, in my case that afternoon, the local spawn playing songball in the alley.

I’m not a fan. Oh, sure, I like swingtag like most good Franciscans, but frankly I just don’t have the pitch or pipes to do anything but get teammates and adversaries to gag on their laughter or fall over backwards. So a lot of nuances of the game are lost on me.

But ... writers and their distractions, so I took my favorite cup, full of deepest black and wondered over to sip and stare -- anything but face that damned blank page.

Songball? Really? I had no idea what I was looking at. Oh, sure, I saw the alley, a battered couple of charcoal bins, a few flutters of litter, and the half-dozen or so scruffy (and sometimes not) local kids standing there on the soiled pavement, marked the usual cubic patterns of places and HOME, cheering, jeering, and chanting. I thought I knew the basics of the game, but either somehow I lost what little knowledge I’d had or the game had evolved on the street into something totally unique. The pitch was the same, that’s what I’d first heard, but the delivery, the spin, was strange and new.

I kept looking, listening, trying to figure out the play but just when I thought I had a grip on the rules, the behavior, it slipped away. Songs seemed to change and evolve totally at random as one child skipped forward and another skipped back. An outstanding performance -- like when a copper-headed sprite in Naval Greens belted out what I thought to be a perfect rendition of Carol’s “Death of Summer” -- brought catcalls and squeals of disappointment, and then when one of the little urchins tore up the air with what seemed to be just random squawks and squeals they got applause, cheers and to progress up five, and even seven squares

Fear started to niggle at the back of my mind, as if the world has suddenly twisted out of whack. Had I set down to my work in one world, with one version of songball only to look up somewhere else where the rules were completely different?

I thought about yelling down at the insufferable brats, either to get then to stop playing their game with my mind -- or at least key me in with the damned rules. I also thought about grabbing my shawl and rollers and just getting out of there -- maybe to the library where the books would hopefully still be books and the clerks as rude as ever.

I felt a shiver of panic, imaging a trip out my door -- down suddenly unfamiliar roads, past unfamiliar buildings, neighborhood commonalties having shifted into not-quite right, and what-the-hell? Would menus be nothing but puzzling heliographics and impenetrable encryptions? Would signs become a dance of squiggles and stylish ciphers? Was the city outside the city I remembered?

Just then, right when I was really starting to worry, one of my trinkets blasted away into a rainbow cascade of cheap materials -- and I knew, much to my satisfaction -- that the more things change, the more they stay the same.