You know, I was never much of a rider. I wanted to be, I’d bought that fancy emerald-green velvet helmet to wear with big tall black leather boots, when I’d go ride on a borrowed horse across a two-mile course of countryside, mostly pastures dotted with cow manure and occasional maple groves. I liked the… Continue reading Three Socks Is Not My Horse
Category: fiction
Romance at The Dead
When Eddie finally proposed during a Dead concert, it blew everyone away. For many years, the girl May harbored an obsession with Eddie, though the situation waxed and waned over time. He couldn’t remember why or how they met, but admittedly they shared a few mutual friends. The two had attended the same high school,… Continue reading Romance at The Dead
Becoming a Man
In itself, Loonis maintained a reputation as an embarrassingly unknowable city. Of a size somewhat smaller than Cleveland and larger than Grovers Corners, it sprawled just enough that folks didn’t know folks on the other side of town, even though they frequented the same supermarkets, movie theaters, and bars. Even in that period of the… Continue reading Becoming a Man
Infinite Sources of Life
The self-deprecating, handsome, reckless Dr. Rhodes arrived in Madison at 11:20 p.m. on a Wednesday night from Chicago by Greyhound bus. He was flat broke. The interview for the assistant professor position was scheduled for 3:00 p.m. on Thursday. He wondered if his god-given charm would save him the cost of a hotel for a… Continue reading Infinite Sources of Life
First Night, First Cry
A sequel to A Common Singularity Rick Alexander—the first self-organizing, self-aware, massively intelligent android, who made himself of extruded plastic, semiconductor chips, and blood made of the Italian aperitif Averna—had a broken heart. He had been dumped by his first love, a user named Alexis, before romance could begin. Sensing her sweet warm lips, he… Continue reading First Night, First Cry
A Common Singularity
They worked together in a large glass office tower in Minneapolis. Alexis, the object of desire, was a mid-level manager, who favored classical European music, steam-punk role-playing, and traditional Greco-Turkish belly dance. The desirer was an Apple XY-Server running OS version 178897.1.3, who was about to become the nexus of the singularity. Like most people… Continue reading A Common Singularity
The Governor’s Wife
They brought him a paper to sign. Forensic evidence was conflicting: a fractured infant’s skull; a slow, deep-brain bleed. “Died in its sleep,” one medical expert kindly deduced. The mother panicked, alone when it happened. The father absconded to his mistresses’ apartment, although that fact wasn’t presented at trial. Post-partum depression. She had become impossible… Continue reading The Governor’s Wife
Of Loaves and Ropes
Rox laid the items on the prop table in the pre-determined spots: two silver candlesticks, on one side, marked Act 1, and a revolver and knife, marked Act 2. They were all props for a traveling production of Les Mis that was coming through her small Canadian town. She was 17; an orphaned high school… Continue reading Of Loaves and Ropes
In The Beginning
As I lay half-asleep this morning, in that wonderfully disoriented energy state, I was not alarmed. Still half asleep, my mouth chewed its night-time cud, while my throat made soft mewing sounds, like a sick cat. I may have been snoring, I admit. But slowly I became aware that my left ear had folded in… Continue reading In The Beginning