December 2009
13 posts
Jeff sips from the steaming mug. Wisps of heat, suspended in frigid air, draw patterns over his hot chocolate. He trails a finger through, writing a message. A gust of wind carries it off in a rush — urgent to deliver it elsewhere.
Jeff pops the lens cover, tucking it in his back pocket. His back to the brickwork, his feet precarious on the ledge — he steadies himself, fidgets with the telephoto. Seven stories down, the cab is pulling into position. He sets his eye to the viewfinder.
Jeff pushes the red button. Glass shatters on every side, shards pelting, melting. Droplets hanging in mid-air. Rain becomes fire; the air solidifies and is drowned in liquid light. Sounds grow color as a searing white consumes the platform, atom by atom. Last to disintegrate is the warning sign: Do Not Press.
Jeff pulls the ring from his finger and studies it. Such value, imparted to so impermanent a thing. He releases, watches it fall, watches it vanish through the gap in the storm drain. Steps off the curb and down the street, a steady pace, heading east. Away from the church.
Jeff straps a bomb to his chest and sets the timer for fifty years. Unreliable mechanism, yes, but sufficient — give or take twenty years at the most — an acceptable variance. The rusted spool had to be finished at any rate. The device beeps, every two minutes, a soft acknowledgment. He begins to smile.
Jeff cracks the shell of the candy. A complex maneuver, the extraction. He widens the gap, clearing excess chocolate with a pair of tweezers. Green-white crystals pour onto the tray, suspended over an open flame. In minutes, the powder boils away, leaving flecks of electric blue. Forty-one more and he’ll have enough.
Jeff tilts his head, ever so subtly: an acknowledgment. The barkeep slips away, exits without a word, sliding the lock. Lights wink out. Alone in the dark, save the flash of the diode, intermittent red to match his mood. Waits to finish his cigarette. A single button press, and the floor drops away, forming stairs. A descent into fluorescent green.
Jeff cracks the lid on the rusted pickle jar. An odor, pungent — filling the room, curling noses. Amidst the chaos, he smiles thoughtfully. Still the best way to clear a hall of librarians.
Jeff names his daughter after a mythological creature. Twenty-seven years later, during a routine parallel-park procedure, she hops the curve. The gas, rather than the brake, is engaged (an accident, she later explains) and his spine is severed. He tells himself the two are not related.
Jeff tightens his grip on the handrail. The shuttle sways, rocked in the wake of an ocean liner, passing overhead. Outboard lights brighten as the craft dips. A swarm of green — SCATTERING, a burst of piscine fireworks. A glimmer of gold, reflected in the beams. Somewhere below.
Jeff surveys the landscape before him. Rolling hills, lavendar in the fog, a seamless blend with an azure sky. An old-growth forest, untouched by time, split from a crystalline lake by a stretch of sand, purest white. He smiles quietly to himself. It’s the perfect place for the mini-mall.
Jeff assembles instructions, bit by bit. A spark of light, perhaps there, perhaps imagined. Just behind molded eyelids. He studies them, fixated, the heavy goggles on maximum magnification. One last tweak to the subroutine.
Jeff consults his intergalactic compendium. No entry for “elenzhorn”, not in twenty-six dialects. He shuts the menu, giving up, turning to the Rhuvian gentleman on his right. “I’ll have what he’s having.”