Posts Tagged ‘Bears (Bounding Bears – Gelatinous Bears – Polar Bears – Scary Bears – Winged Bears – and So On)’

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Rainbow Noir

by Jenna on February 6th, 2004

Long ago there was a girl who guarded Rainbow Land. Long ago there were magical bears that lived on clouds up in the sky.

Long ago there was a beautiful and perfect world.

It’s 1952, and Rainbow Land is dead. There’s only Shadow City now. It’s dark and it’s drab but there are glimmers of color here and there around the edges. The shine on the edge of the gang members’ leathers. The shimmer that runs down the length of their guns. The little rainbows you can see in a glass of gin when you hold it up to the light.

Terrence is a sprite. He’s small and cute, covered in gray fur. In another kind of place, it might be a soft and fluffy white. He’s wearing a trenchcoat and a hat. He holds up his glass. He shakes it. Ice cubes clink one against the other. At the edge, the rainbows shine.

“Hey.”

It’s a girl’s voice. He ignores it. Girls are nothing but trouble. But she says it again. “Hey.” A blood-red hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “Terrence.”

“One of my sins,” he asks, “come home to roost?”

“In three hours,” she says, “everyone in Shadow City will die.”

He sets his drink down on the bar and turns. He sees a flare of red and terrible light.

There’s a mansion at the edge of Shadow City. It’s cold white marble, edged in black. In the mornings, the sun casts pale light over its garden and in through its windows. At night, its lights don’t come on. The girl who lives there sits in a chair and looks at the wall, in moonlight or in darkness, and lets her hair grow long.

She hears a bell ring. She rises from her chair. She walks, tall, graceful, and lithe, to the door; and out; and down the garden path to the great black gates.

A man’s standing there. He’s fading away to nothing. He’s drowning in shadows. His face is blurry. “Help me,” he says.

“I don’t have anything for you,” she says.

“Color,” he says. “I need color.”

Her hand comes up to her face. It traces the cold black edge of her chin. It runs across the bleak white of her cheek. It passes across her eyes, two wells of darkness in a perfect face. “I don’t have any,” she says. “I never did.”

She turns and walks away.

“I believe in your rainbow!” he cries.

She walks back to her chair. She sits down. She waits. The man dissolves into darkness.

Terrence wakes, slowly. He looks around. He’s in a car. It’s moving fast. He can make out the driver’s face in the rear-view mirror, but she’s no one he knows.

“Who are you?” he asks.

“Femme Fatale Bear,” she says. “I use sexual forthrightness to unlock the inner desires of men.”

“Sorry, babe,” he says. “Sprites don’t do that kind of thing.”

She smirks.

“Okay,” he admits. “But it’s more ethereal with us. Sprites, we like to get our kids by stork or cabbage, not by knocking up some bear with our star sprinkles, capisce?”

“That’s not what you were moaning in your sleep.”

Terrence frowns in faint memory, then shakes it off. “If this is a kidnapping, you’ve got the wrong sprite. There’s no one left who’d pay a cent for me.”

“You know my kind,” she says.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. His species’ natural deelyboppers wobble. “Magical bears. You live on clouds and ride rainbows around to bestow your gifts on humankind. Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“No,” she says. “There’s no place in the world for that kind of thing any more. It’s a darker time, Twink.”

“Terrence,” he says. “Terrence is the name.”

“It’s a darker time. It calls for a darker bear. All the originals—they shut themselves away back when the rainbows turned monochrome and the stars stopped shining so bright. It’s hard to spread cheer when people’ll kill one another for a little bit of color. It’s hard to spread tender affection when good, honest girls are selling themselves on the streets just so their lips can be red and their hair gold for another few hours of the night. So now there’s just the five of us. Alienation Bear, and Transgression Bear, and Fatalism Bear, and me.”

“That’s four,” Terrence says, and then bites his lip. I’m playing her game, he tells himself. I should know better.

“Nihilism Bear,” she says. “The end-of-everything bear. The bastard bear at the heart of the void. In . . . just under two and a half hours . . . he’s going to stand outside Shadow City and use his Nihilism Bear Stare; and then there won’t be any star sprinkles, or any Shadow City, or any sprites, or even any Earth. Just the great long hungry void.”

“Why’d he wait so long?”

“He wasn’t like this when it started,” she says. “For years, he’s been caring less and less. He’s become a regular grumpy-puss. So last night, he made the decision. ‘Make your goodbyes,’ he said. ‘In the morning, I’ll end the world.’”

Terrence suddenly sits bolt upright. “I can’t help you,” he says. There’s panic in his voice.

“We all pled with him,” she says. “We even tried working together. We all stood next to one another, our bellies bright with the symbols of our aspects and our attributes, and as one we stared. The padlock of alienation, the lipstick of transgression, the hourglass of fatalism, and the broken heart of the femme fatale — our magical bear symbols sprang forth from our stomachs in rays of light and merged into a glorious rainbow of sheer caring. But he only laughed; for he had moved beyond such mortal concerns.”

“No,” Terrence says, vigorously. “I mean, I really can’t help. It’s totally impossible. I can’t do what you think I can. You need to find someone else.”

“You can’t wake the rainbow?”

“She’d never listen to me,” he protests. “Not now.”

Femme Fatale Bear studies him in the mirror. Then she laughs. “You’re afraid, pookie. But you’ll do it for me, won’t you?”

He shakes his head, but the symbol on her stomach is beginning to glow, and the car fills with carmine light. There’s a brilliant beam of energy, the reddest he’s seen in more than a dozen years, and it glances off the mirror to shine full into his eyes.

“Heaven and Earth,” he whimpers.

“You have to help me,” she says, voice almost breaking. “I don’t want to die.”

Terrence closes his eyes and slumps back. “Fine,” he says. “Fine. I’ll talk to her. I’ll talk to her. Please . . . just . . . don’t do that. You’re . . . it’s too much.”

The light fades, and the car pulls up outside the mansion gates.

Wisp looks up as she hears a bell ring. “Twice in one night,” she whispers. “That’s not common.” She rises from her chair. She walks, tall, graceful, and lithe, to the door; and out; and down the garden path to the great black gates.

“Terrence,” she says, to the sprite who waits for her there.

“Rainbow,” he cries. It’s a soft and wounded noise.

“Wisp,” she says.

“Wisp.” He looks up at her, pleading. He trembles. He’s terrified of her. She only looks sad, but he’s shaking like a leaf.

“I don’t have anything for you,” she says.

“Wisp,” he says softly. “Please. Get your magic belt. Put it on. If you don’t harness the power of the rainbow, Nihilism Bear will kill us all.”

She tilts her head to one side. She blinks. “Ask me to move aside a mountain to save a trapped child, and I will stand at its base and push. Ask me to run a thousand miles without stopping, that a starving man might find a meal, and I will set my feet upon that course and run. Ask me to sing to charm the angels, or cut out my tongue to staunch the devil’s hate. Do not ask me this.”

Terrence hesitates. He closes his eyes in pain. Then he says, softly, “I lied to you.”

Wisp’s face is still. Her eyes draw in the moonlight. After a long moment, she says, “Why?”

“It was necessary,” he whispers. Leaves skitter across the road.

“You showed me the machine that made me,” she says. “It wasn’t a lie. I was never a real girl. I was just a thing the sprites put together to save Rainbow Land from darkness. You poured in the star sprinkles and out came a girl.”

“That was true,” Terrence answers.

Wisp’s eyes narrow. There’s a glint in them now that chills. “Then the rest is true,” she says. “I have no heart. I have no life. I have no magic. I’m just a tool. A thing. A vessel for power.”

Behind his back, Terrence crosses his fingers. “That’s true,” he says, “but only when you don’t have sprinkles. Don’t you understand, Wisp? When I put the magic in you, you’re a real person. Your hopes are real hopes. Your dreams are real dreams.”

Fast as a striking whip, she has one hand on each of his shoulders and has him pressed back against the stone arch that holds her gate. She’s grown now. She’s twice her old height and her muscles are strong. She leans into his face. “Why?” she hisses. “Why didn’t you tell me that then?”

“You were a threat,” he answers. “Wisp, it wasn’t my idea. You have to believe me. I had orders! You were a threat!”

Her eyes scan his face. “A threat.”

“Don’t you know what it would have done?”

“I could have stopped the war,” she says. “I could have stopped the killing. But I didn’t. Because I’m not a person. You’re telling me I could have been?”

Some strength returns to Terrence’s eyes. His voice is sharp and resonant. “It was not appropriate for Rainbow Land to get involved. Earth would have found us. They would have annexed us. We wouldn’t have Rainbow Land. We wouldn’t have Shadow City. We’d have nothing.”

She holds him there for a moment, then drops him. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Give me a heart. I’ll fight Nihilism Bear.”

She holds up her hands, and a rainbow-symbol belt slithers through the air from her house to land in them. She buckles it around her waist, exhaling like a cinched horse. Solemnly, Terrence extends to her a handful of colored stars. She takes them. The air around her shimmers and gleams like a soap bubble, thousands of colors livid in the night. She makes a high and maddened keening noise. The paleness and darkness of her drips away like paint washing off of ice. Then there comes silence. When Wisp next speaks, her voice comes in seven tones and strikes into his consciousness like a god’s.

“Where shall I go?” she says.

Mutely, he gestures to the car. She laughs a little. “No budget for a magic horse?” she sings.

“Lady,” he whispers. “Had I the means, I would give you the stars; and the sky; and a magic horse besides. But now, I have a car, and a fuzzy red bear representing sexual empowerment; this only, and my life.”

She opens the door. She climbs in. She gestures, and he climbs over her into the other seat. The bear gets in the front, buckles up, and drives.

“Femme Fatale Bear,” she says.

“Wisp.”

“He’s mine,” the bear clarifies. “My sprite. Now. I won’t let anyone else have him.”

Wisp laughs. “Our contest, Bear, is for another time, and another place.”

The bear slams a foot down on the accelerator and the car screeches away. “We’ll get to the city’s edge before Nihilism Bear,” she says. “Unless we get attacked by random monsters who serve only to prolong the action and suspense.”

Wisp smiles. “It . . . has been some time,” she murmurs, polytonally. “It has been some time since I was randomly attacked by monsters. I almost miss it. Such things do not happen in Shadow City.”

“No,” agrees Femme Fatale Bear. “Yet . . . perhaps times change.” She gestures out the front window towards the strange alien monster that straddles the road, ten miles ahead.

“It’s okay,” Wisp sings. “It will delay us, and nothing more.”

Nihilism Bear’s alarm rings. He stretches sleepily. He pulls himself upright in bed. The sun shines fully upon him. “Huh?” he asks. “It’s 9 o’clock? I was sure I set my alarm for 7.” He stands up and putters about the room. He brushes his teeth. He pulls on a cap to cover his mullet. “Bother. Someone must have changed it. Now I’ll be late to destroy the city.”

He wanders out onto his cloud. “Hello sun!” he cries out. “I’ll be destroying you today. Hello butterfly! Your days are numbered. Hello bird! Life is a pointless parade of misfortune and anguish.” The sun twinkles merrily. The butterfly whirls around his head. The bird tweets, twice.

Nihilism Bear grabs a giant nihilism balloon and floats towards Shadow City. He touches ground at the edge. He yawns. “Huh. I guess no one’s going to try to stop me. All right,” he says, sharply. “Nihilism Bear Stare!”

He huffs. He puffs. He takes a deep breath and the shiny formless shadow that marks his stomach glimmers and glistens. Then a wind rises from beyond, and the air goes chill; and there’s a piping from far away of maddened, mindless flutes. In the alleys of Shadow City, a drunk girl takes out her knife and holds it to her wrist. On its streets, gang members strut and preen. In the high towers, gray bureaucrats push the papers about that allocate the city’s color to the few. The void rises from Nihilism Bear to consume Shadow City, and the void takes breath.

A glimmering rainbow rises to meet it. P’a chao! Color and shadow begin to drizzle from the sky.

Nihilism Bear exhales, startled. The darkness dissolves. “Good morning!” he exclaims. Three figures stride towards him through the chromatic rain. “It’s Femme Fatale Bear! You must introduce me to your friends.”

“These,” she says, softly, “are Wisp, who is the Rainbow, and Terrence, her sprite; and they shall bring your madness to an end.”

Nihilism Bear shakes himself, tummy wiggling. “We’ll see about that. Nihilism Bear Stare!”

The symbol arcs from his chest and strikes Wisp’s heart.

“A lot of people get confused,” he says companionably, as she screams and sinks to her knees. “They start thinking that it’s better to exist than not to exist. That’s why you have Nihilism Bear. I bring the enlightenment of the void. I teach children that it’s all right to set aside the burdens of their life and dance forever in nothingness. My motto is, ‘Stop crying — start dying!’ You look like a girl who needs a fresh dose of nihilism. Have you been imagining that life has a point? That’s a good dream, but all it does in the long run is make you hurt more. When you realize it’s all a futile, endless cavalcade of pain, it makes all that struggling you did kind of stupid. Doesn’t it?”

“I saved the universe once,” she says.

“Tsk, tsk.” He points his fuzzy paw at her. “Bang.”

Wisp slumps.

Nihilism Bear relaxes the black glow, and turns to face the other two. His hand goes out to them, palm up, and he wriggles his fused furry fingers in invitation. “Nihilism Bear is hot today. Who else wants some?”

“Wisp,” whispers Terrence. “You can’t die.”

“What?” asks Nihilism Bear.

“You can’t die, Wisp!” Terrence shouts, hardened demeanor slipping. “Then I wouldn’t see you for days and days! I believe in your rainbow, Wisp!”

“Bah,” Nihilism Bear sneers, and the black glow plays across Terrence and Femme Fatale Bear alike. “Your belief doesn’t matter.”

“It does.” The voice is single-toned.

Nihilism Bear turns back to Wisp, who straightens, slowly and painfully.

“It’s one thing to doubt your purpose when you’re just a lost, tired girl gripped in a miasma of existentialist doubt,” Wisp says. Her voice has two tones now, and rising. “But when a gray fuzzy alien in a trenchcoat declares that you can generate color and possibility out of the magic belt you wore when you were a little girl, then maybe — just maybe — the philosophy behind it all isn’t really that important.”

“Oh, hon,” Nihilism Bear says, moved. “You really do need more nihilism in your life. Do you want me to sing the nihilism song?”

Once again, the black wars with the rainbow, against the sound of flutes; and a long seven-toned scream; and then there’s silence.

In Shadow City, a girl fumbles and drops her knife. A thug pauses, and sniffs the air. A bureaucrat, for the first time in seven years, looks out his window to regard the street.

A bird sings.

Terrence opens his eyes. The air is blindingly bright. It’s full of swirls of color. In the center of it all there hangs a girl, her body limp, her eyes closed, and nothing in her expression that is human.

A symbol shines upon Terrence, falling from far away upon a cloud: the lipstick mark of Transgression Bear. In that spotlight he stands, frozen. This is Transgression Bear’s purpose: to teach children and sinners that they must pay for their crimes.

Wisp’s eyes snap open.

“It’s time,” Terrence croaks. “It’s time to take the belt back off. You’ll run out of star sprinkles soon. You won’t have a heart. But it’s good, right? You saved the world. You proved that you’re a true and glorious rainbow.”

“Oh, Terrence,” murmurs the goddess at the rainbow’s heart. “You have lied to me again.”

She takes off the belt. She drops it. It lands, below her, with a clunk. She smiles at him. It’s fierce. It’s predatory. She does not fall.

“You see?” she says, softly. “You lied to me. I never lacked a soul.” She is silent for a moment. “It is not a thing I deserved,” she adds. “That my fuzzy magical companion should be so cruel.”

A length of rainbow lashes out to stroke under his chin.

Once again, Terrence straightens. He glares at her. “Then kill me. I’ve been waiting more’n ten years for you to wake up and put that rainbow through my heart. I won’t be afraid of you. Make an end to it! Make an end to it, Rainbow!”

“No,” she says, and smiles. The rainbows around her slither faster and faster through the air. He feels his mind drifting away into the shifting colors; and it is beyond Terrence the sprite to speak or move or think now.

“It’s not my job,” she says, softly. “I’m not here for revenge.”

The rainbows merge and twist, and the rope of them plunges endlessly into Terrence’s eyes. He shivers. He opens his mouth to scream, and another rainbow plunges in. The gray fades. The white returns, and his fur burns like a star. The trenchcoat whips in the wind and rips away. His hat flies off. He sinks to the ground. The rainbows withdraw.

“I name you Glorious Servant,” she says.

Glorious bounces happily. “All right, Wisp! Thanks for chasing my gloom away. I bet it’s time to bring some color back to Rainbow Land!”

Wisp smiles.

In the alleys, a girl gropes on hands and knees to find her knife. She’s drunk. It’s hard to find. There are only so many places it could be. So many garbage cans, so much waste-strewn ground. She finds it. She brings it to her wrist. “I can’t stop just because I had a moment’s hope,” she says. “There’s so much more despair.”

In the distance, beyond the city’s edge, a tide rises.

In the high towers, a bureaucrat sees the tide. He chokes on his coffee and staggers back away from the window. “Heaven and Earth.”

The tide crests.

The girl cuts. Her white arm begins to trickle deep black blood. She cuts again.

The wave falls.

Spatters of coffee, sinking into the bureaucrat’s papers, shimmer a bright and wooden brown. The cuts on the girl’s wrist shine; her skin turns flush and pink, her blood a pure wine-red. The shadows and grime of Shadow City fade. The bandanas of the gangs shine a brilliant blue, save for the one that is green; and a gangster realizes with cold terror that he’s been hanging out with his blood enemies for the past ten years.

There’s a wind, and it carries a message from the rainbow girl.

“Hi,” says the wind.

“This is my city now.”

There is no blood that flows but red; and no tears that fall that are not jewels; and for a time, of Rainbow Land, we hear no more.

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The Bride of Transgression Bear

by Jenna on April 17th, 2004

It’s 1952, and not all the beauty has gone from the world. There is a woman. Her name is Shalva. She lives in a little temple by a lone lakeshore.

Shalva was a child in Germany during the war. Her parents begged Heaven to save her, and so she came under the blessing of a secret angel; and all those who saw her knew not to think of her. She was forbidden.

She grew in beauty and in grace, and soon she wished to find love, but this was also forbidden to her. So she lived in a temple, by a lake, and opposite she built her tomb. She wrote this message above its arch, “Here I shall lay my body down, and at my side the one who loves me.” Then she retreated to her home, and dwelt.

There’s a kingdom in the clouds. It’s always covered in shadows, and neon lights reflect from pale streets. Magical bears live there. One of them is Transgression Bear.

It is Transgression Bear’s birthday. She rises. She’s a cute little bear. There’s a lipstick symbol on her chest. She shines it at people, sometimes, to teach children and sinners that they must pay for their crimes. “Today,” she says, “I am an adult.”

She goes to the treasure vault. She opens it. It clicks. She looks around. Then she takes out the mirror. Its frame is hammered from gold and set with opals, and in it is a mirror of such purity as none of earth have seen.

“I’m pretty,” she says. “I wonder if there’s anyone prettier.”

The mirror isn’t magical. So it doesn’t say. But Transgression Bear suddenly thinks of Shalva.

“No,” she says, shaking her head fiercely. “I mustn’t think of her!”

She thinks of Shalva again. She imagines her fuzzy orange finger tracing the outline of Shalva’s cheek. She imagines the wells of Shalva’s eyes.

“It’s wrong,” she says. “Transgression Stare!”

The lipstick mark springs forth in bright fury from her chest and plays against the mirror, casting back upon herself. In that beacon she stands frozen.

There’s a trundling noise. Then Alienation Bear waddles in. He wriggles his nose. He looks her over. He pokes her. Then he pokes her again.

“Oh,” he says. “She’s transgressed.”

He looks in the mirror. He can’t see himself. He’s Alienation Bear. Then, with a shrug, he takes it from her hand.

Transgression Bear screams.

“It’s okay,” he says.

Her eyes regard him. The pupils are dilated to points.

“You did something wrong, right? It’s okay. You’re Transgression Bear. It’s who you are.”

“. . . I guess,” she says.

“What did you do?” he asks.

She looks down. “I thought about Shalva.”

“Ah.” He hesitates. Then he touches her shoulder. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t understand how things like that work. But I think you’ll be okay.”

There’s a long moment’s hesitation.

“But you can’t live here,” he adds. He looks down. His eyes are shadowed. “Not in the magical kingdom. Not if you’re thinking of Shalva. It’s not a Bear thing.”

“Who decides that?” she says. “Who decides what’s a Bear thing?”

Alienation Bear shrugs. “Fate,” he says. “The fates that make us what we are. If you stayed, you’d eat away at the clouds. You’d wither in on yourself and become a shrunken gray homunculus, and unmake our whole world. If you go, you’ll die, and maybe be reborn. That’s how it works. We’re not supposed to understand.”

She stares at him. The padlock symbol on his chest is glowing slightly. But not very much. Not enough to Stare her.

“In the blood of Bear there is a tide,” he says. “A current. That draws us to our destined place. Go. Your place isn’t here.”

So, bitterly, she puts on a trenchcoat and crams a fedora against her ears to shield her from the cold. She summons a monochrome rainbow and twines herself in its shades of gray and casts herself down to the world below. And wherever she goes, the windows slam down, and the doors close, and mothers pull their children away; for well humanity remembers the ancient powers of the Bears, and fears them.

By night she curls herself down in the doorways of the shops, and shivers in the cold; but each dawn brings her hope, and the sunrise echoes in the shining of her fur, and the wind tugs at her hat and her coat, and she walks ever onwards, ever closer, driven by the heat and the fire that is in the depths of her mind the forbidden image of the beauteous Shalva.

When she reaches at last the lone lakeshore at the temple’s side, she bathes herself in its waters, and save her fur is nude; and the grime of her journey she casts away from her; and then she rises and wraps herself in the air of her aspect, Transgression. She boldly casts open the door of the temple and goes within. And Shalva does not turn her head from her, or shrink back, but only steps forward once and said, “You can see me.”

“I can,” Transgression Bear says.

Shalva looks down. “Will you love me?” she says.

“For all the ages of the earth.”

“Not so,” Shalva says. “Not so; for when I look at the stars, I see my ending written there.”

“How long?” asks the Bear.

“Three months,” Shalva says. “Three months, you may love me, and then be buried at my side.”

“I should go,” Transgression Bear says, but she does not, and stands there looking at the forbidden. Her thoughts are filled with a strange orange fuzz.

“Don’t,” Shalva says. “I have not known love since the Holocaust, and I have three months left to live. You are a Bear, and a girl, and this is not what I had wanted, but you are here, and that is more than I had hoped.”

“I cannot leave,” admits Transgression Bear; and so she knows her ending. She loves for three months, bright and well, and then she and Shalva go to Shalva’s tomb; and Trangression Bear’s breath grows still and quiet; and with a sudden terrible pain she dies. Then by the lake, two entwined flowers grow. Their seeds fall on the world, and in the course of time turn orange. From them rises a new Transgression Bear, and she travels home.

Related links:
Rainbow Noir
“The Bride of the Man-Horse,” by Lord Dunsany

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Sympathy for a Stranger

by Jenna on July 12th, 2004

Ashen labors.

Ashen is a squirrel. He is white. His paws are almost as flexible as hands. He has a tiny hammer. He pounds metal into place. He has a tiny screwdriver. He twists tiny screws. He is building something. It is large. It is imposing. It has a shape much like a bear’s.

One ear twitches.

“Come in,” Ashen says.

The door opens. It’s a walking dog. He has his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat.

“Hi, Joe,” Ashen says.

“Here’s a tough spot,” narrates the dog. “Ashen’s a top government scientist, but he’s using the knowledge he picked up through military research for a personal project.”

“I’m not using any government resources, Joe,” Ashen says. His tail twitches. He looks a bit nervous.

“Good, Ashen,” says the dog. “But what would you do if communists approached you and asked you to put your knowledge to their ends?”

“I’d bite them! Then I’d run away!”

The dog hesitates. His eyes narrow. “That’s not what you’re doing, then? You’re not working for them?”

Ashen shakes his head vigorously. “I’m a loyal American!”

The dog’s suspicion fades. “Well, that’s the right thing to do,” he admits. “If communists approach you for a project, bite them. Then run away! Then tell your local police.”

“Thank you, Joe.”

The dog leans against the wall. “That’s how you can take a bite out of communism!”

Ashen nods.

“But what are you working on?” the dog says. “I mean, if it’s not a secret communist project?”

“I’m building a mechanical bear,” Ashen says. “I call it Mecha-Smokey.”

The dog looks sad. “Oh, Ashen.”

“It’s legitimate!” Ashen says.

“How is that legitimate?”

“I’m going to send it to Germany,” Ashen says. “It’s going to challenge, and kill, the Black Forest Bear.”

The dog hesitates. “Ashen,” he says, “you know that I can’t give my official support to projects involving the assassination of foreign nationals.”

Ashen blinks. “I thought you did a commercial promoting it.”

“As a last resort,” Joe says. “If you’re caught in a foreign country and can’t get home and a duly authorized agent of the U.S. government says, ‘Hey, since you’re stuck here anyway, could you kill this guy?’ Then it’s okay, sure. Mindless loyalty helps you take a bite out of communism! But you can’t just sit in your lab and build anti-Smokey robots. That’s the kind of thing that might damage our diplomatic position.”

“You miss him,” Ashen says.

“He’s a [censored] Nazi!” storms McCarthy.

Ashen watches him for a moment.

McCarthy’s shoulders slump, under his trenchcoat. “Yah,” he says.

“I miss him too,” Ashen says. “That’s why I’m doing this.”

McCarthy raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t actually have eyebrows, being a dog, but the gesture is pretty much the same.

“Even the Germans don’t want him any more.” Ashen’s nose twitches. He’s not happy. “He was the one weapon that the Allies could never defeat, the one terror not even nuclear weapons could stop. But one weapon wasn’t enough. They lost the war. And now he’s just an unpleasant reminder of their temporary sojourn into cultural insanity. They don’t like Nazis over there, Joe. Not any more. But they can’t kill him either.”

“It’s his own fault,” Joe says stubbornly. “If he’s miserable, good!”

Ashen fondles a nut in his little squirrel hands. Then he screws it into the robot bear. “Joe,” he says, “he’s our friend. We have to give him peace.”

“Not any more,” Joe says. “He betrayed our country. He betrayed us!”

“He meant well.”

Joe sneers. “You believe that [censored]?”

“It was true,” Ashen says. “At the time. Only U-boats could prevent forest fires. And . . . say what you like about him, but the Black Forest Bear is dedicated to preventing forest fires.”

“And Auschwitz?”

Ashen hesitates. Then he shrugs. “It’s not about forgiving him, Joe. It’s not about him at all. It’s about doing what I think is right. And I’m not vengeful. I just want closure. I want to give him a grave somewhere with a headstone reading, ‘He Shall Put Out Hell.’”

“I’ll stop you,” Joe says.

Ashen laughs. “I’ve got a good lawyer, Joe. I’d like to see you try.”

“You haven’t seen legal pressure until you’ve seen the Communism-Fighting Dog at work!”

“I’ve signed on with the owl.”

McCarthy bares his teeth. He growls, softly. “The owl?”

“‘Give a hoot. Don’t prosecute!’”

“Damn it, Ashen!”

Ashen turns back to his work. “You know the way to the door.”

Joe turns. He strides away. He reaches for the doorknob. Then he hesitates. “Will it really,” he says, and then pauses. “You know. Be able to kill him? Not even Mothra could take down Smokey.”

“Mecha-Smokey will be invincible,” Ashen says.

“And he won’t run amok?”

“He’ll walk through the sea, all the way to Germany. Then he’ll emerge. He’ll be dripping water. He’ll roar. He’ll begin crushing towns. Not because I ordered him to. Simply because they’re there. And Smokey won’t be able to resist.

“He’ll wake.

“He’ll stretch.

“He’ll stand.

“He’ll march to face Mecha-Smokey. And they’ll take one another’s arms in a great bear hug, and they’ll wrestle.

“Then Mecha-Smokey will rip him, limb from limb. Its quantum hydraulics will be unstoppable.

“And blood will pour from the stumps of Smokey’s arms.

“And in the spring, where that blood fell, flowers will grow.

“They will be Mecha-Flowers. They will be the color of blood and steel. And they will remember him.”

Joe sighs.

“Go,” Ashen says.

“I still have to stop you,” Joe says. “But . . . if I don’t . . . have it tell him . . .”

Ashen nods. He turns back to the machine. He pounds. He screws. He twists. Then he buries his head against his hands.

Joe opens the door. Joe walks out. Joe begins to close the door.

“What could it possibly tell him?” Ashen asks.

The door slams closed.

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A Cautionary Tale

by Jenna on August 26th, 2004

There was a young sonnet from J. van Wick
That, falling deep and hard to love and need
With that so fickle form the limerick
Engaged in such inhuman acts to please
Its own form’s honor seemed to it diseased.

It learned the ways a lady fair could be
Stripped bare by winds, geometry or rhyme;
Seduced by bears, the faculty, or fleas;
Turned inside out, or upside down in time;
And all the while its spirit gathered grime;

Then came the blow that turned its love to pain:
The lim’rick one day spurned it, harsh and cold:
“I do not know what we through sex can gain
When I can find no poetry in your soul.”

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Under the Ice

by Jenna on September 16th, 2004

Shelley travels to the North Pole to conduct a survey, and, also, to die.

The survey is about polar bears. Traditionally, polar bears receive their surveys by post, but this time, Shelley’s boss sent her north.

“Polar bear literacy rates are reported at 98%,” said Shelley’s boss. “I don’t believe those numbers. I think that many polar bears are ashamed to admit that they can’t read. Others, unable to read, eat our survey. It’s a tasty paper treat! We can fix the first problem with marketing—making it glamorous to admit one’s flaws. But to fix the second problem we need someone on the site. We need someone to go there and put the question to the polar bears directly!”

“Me,” said Shelley. Her voice was quiet and her affect blank. “Send me.”

“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed her boss, and hugged her. That’s one reason why Shelley is traveling north.

The other is that she’s had a hard life and she’s tired.

Shelley reaches the north pole and begins lining up polar bears. She administers the survey to each. It becomes rapidly obvious that very few polar bears can read. Some even try to eat her. Shelley does not want to live. But she clings to life. When they snarl and bite at her, she flees across the snow. Behind her, more civilized bears run interference, crying, “Without table manners, we are nothing more than animals! White furry animals! With teeth! Please, you must show restraint!”

Shelley does not hear. She runs, and runs, until the ice cracks beneath her feet and she falls into a cavern beneath the snow.

“I don’t deserve to live,” she says. “I have no value.”

A time passes, in the dark.

“But it’s very cold.”

So she lights a flashlight and looks around her. She’s in a great cavern, and all around her, in frozen sleep, they are.

“What are you?” she says. But she knows. This is a thing that was not meant to exist in her world.

She stands. She hobbles over. She stares at them.

They are princes in shining mail, and great beasts, and witches, and old women, and golden spindles. And there, to the left, is hers. Her prince.

She touches his frozen skin. “I had a wicked stepmother,” she tells him. “I ran from her, out into the forest, but you never came. She enchanted me, and for years I lived with that enchantment, and in the end she died and turned to ash and never the enchantment broke. And you never came.”

The prince is silent.

Shelley walks through that great cavern, and sees them all, and after a time, she tells them the story of that place.

“You were here before humanity,” she says. “Before people. When we were still rats and lemmings, you were here. And you fought others. The gnawing things from the Moon’s dark side. The unshaped things from the bottom of the sea. And you won. But the world grew cold.

“‘We shall die,’ said the princes, and the princesses with their golden hair, and the beasts that spoke, and the witches, and the frogs. ‘We shall die. The world grows cold.’

“And so you came to the coldest place of all and buried yourselves here. Not to die. Not truly. Simply to be.”

Shelley sits, leaning against an ice-pink unicorn. Its face is feral and wild.

“I do not think I can revive you,” she says. “I do not think anyone can.”

The unicorn is silent. Shelley’s prince does not move.

“I must die here,” she says. “People must never know. The universe cares more for us than I can bear, and that gift is frozen under the ice.”

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At the Cherry Tree1

by Jenna on September 23rd, 2004

1 based on an apocryphal story about George Washington.

There is a young boy. His name is George. He is empty.

He is empty, and from that emptiness is born a fairy, and her name is Lilimund. Through the white and cutting summers of his youth she is with him.

“Is this the way things are?” George says.

He is looking at a dog, lolling on the ground, its stomach thin, its body ripped by a bear until it died. There are insects living in the dog.

“It is one way,” says Lilimund.

“The b’ar was very strong,” says George.

In town, there is a store, and it sometimes sells liquor, but not to George. So he sends Lilimund to fetch him some. She is quick and she is subtle. She brings a bottle to George. He drinks.

“You’re very beautiful,” he says, to Lilimund.

There are cherry trees behind his house. He goes to them, still with liquor on his breath, and there he sees the dryad. She is curled and straight: her body upright, but her hair wound round her in gentle curls and knots. It forms bark, and leaves, and flowers. It gives her more branches than her outthrust arms. Her teeth are wooden.

“George,” she says. It is a minimal acknowledgment. She does not give much time to George.

“Dance for me,” he says. It is rude, but he is a child, and he is drunk.

“There is sun,” says the dryad. “There is soil. Leave me in peace, child. I am content.”

“Dance,” insists George.

“You are nothing,” she says.

“I’m more than you.”

So George goes to the shed, and he finds an axe, and he takes it out. And he cuts the dryad down, hacking once, twice, thrice, and finally seven times, and she only stares at him through it all.

“You had no right,” she says.

And George looks down at her, as the blood ebbs from her roots, and suddenly he’s scared.

“I did,” he says.

“I will not hear a lying tongue,” the dryad says, “as my life fades.”

“You’re my father’s tree,” says George. “So I can do what I want. And besides, God doesn’t like your kind.”

The dryad says, softly, “You will know sorrow if you should lie again.”

Her eyes close.

“It’s okay, George,” says Lilimund. She lights on his shoulder. “It’s . . . well, it’s not okay, but it’s done.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” he bursts out.

Lilimund is silent.

“Right?”

There is a chill in him. The fairy falls, gently, off his shoulder, her body limp, her heart pierced through by wooden thorn, and splinters seal her eyes.

“George?” It’s his father’s voice. He’s walked into the field. “George, what happened?”

It is an inconceivable loss.

“George?” says his father. “Why are you crying? What happened to my tree?”

He searches for the words, and for the strength.

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Why Don’t Ducks Have Hides?

by Jenna on January 5th, 2005

Ducks don’t have hides. They have feathers!

Bears have hides. That’s why you can’t see them. Look! There are no bears in evidence.

Geese have down. Down is a quark. Geese are indeterminate! If you observe geese, they collapse. That’s why geese aren’t used to guard houses any more. Burglars got too observant!

Elephants have hides, but Daredevil can see them. This is because he does not actually see. Instead he has enhanced all of his other senses.

Giraffes have spots. Here and there. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. You get through the bad spots to get back to the good spots. That’s the giraffe attitude towards life.

Fetuses have placenta. The placenta is a form of currency. It is a medium of exchange. Fetuses use the placenta to obtain goods and services. Fetuses have a strong economy. Everybody invests in fetuses. That’s why they don’t use pladimas or plaquarteras. It’s too much money. Fetuses don’t have anything they need to buy that would merit upgrading their currency past the cent. They could get a Ferrari, but it wouldn’t fit into the womb. It would need to be a mini-Ferrari, and those are nice and all, but at a certain point you just can’t have miniaturized fetus versions of everything. It’s bad enough that they can buy crack, nicotine, and subscriptions to special fetus-enabled massively multiplayer online games.

Wolves have fur. This makes wolves furries. Since they’re already wolves, they don’t pretend to be wolves. They pretend to be humans. A small excerpt from wolf furry-play follows.

The alpha male struts in. He puts down his briefcase. He says, “Hello, honey, I am home! Since you do not need estrus to stimulate your sexual interest, perhaps you would be up for a rousing bout of Church-endorsed missionary position sex?”

“Oh, no, honey, not now! I am too busy shooting my gun at the wolf who culled the weakest members of our herd of cows! Bang!”

“That sounds like fun. Shooting wolves improves the strength of their gene pool! But surely we could have sex and shoot wolves at the same time?”

“That is very kinky. I admire your dirty mind!”

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

Together: “Bang!”

That is how wolves imagine human intercourse must be.

Birds feather their nests. Invest in birds! In the old days, everyone invested in birds. That made social mobility very easy. Today, few people invest in birds. Instead, they give them to other people. That’s their investment mistake!

Lions have manes. Sewer lions have sewer manes. Gas lions have gas manes. Sewer lions are like regular lions but they live in the sewer. They have long flowing hair. They stink. They are greenish. Gas lions live in the upper atmosphere. They are ethereal. They also stink, but it is only because the gas company adds a foul smell to them. Newborn gas lions are odorless killers. Legerdelions have legerdemanes. They’re tricky, though, so I can’t explain them here.

American eagles have lush heads of obviously natural hair. They’re not just the Presidents of the hair club for birds. They’re also members!

Fish have scales. They weigh your soul against a feather. The feathers are just laying around in the ocean. They’re duck feathers. They are very heavy. A fish weighs your soul on the scales to determine whether you deserve Heaven. Then the fish realizes that it cannot breathe air. It flops about in increasing agony. Someone hits it with a rock. That’s pretty much the end of things for fish.

Giraffes, on the other hand, don’t die when they find themselves out of the ocean. Maybe it’s because their lungs can breathe air. Maybe it’s because they’re immortal! Or maybe it’s just because nobody hits them with a rock.

Lemurs have lema. It’s a special kind of skin. It’s also used for lemons. That’s why lemurs seem so zesty all the time.

Clocks have faces. They are good at facing their doom. They know that they are counting down the seconds to their own oblivion, but this does not bother clocks.

Sharks have sharkskin. Ducks don’t like being eaten by sharks. When a shark attacks, the ducks try to hide. But they don’t have hides! They have feathers. This is sad for the ducks, but good news for the fish.

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Panda Dancing

by Jenna on January 14th, 2005

This is a story about the purpose of the world.

It is 1991.

Sydney meets Michael in a coffee shop. Soon they are talking about their work. Michael is an accountant. Sydney breeds pandas.

“Pandas?” Michael says.

“It’s my family trade,” says Sydney.

“I see.”

“We used to be corrupt diamond merchants,” says Sydney. “But one day, Grandpa stood up at his desk and exclaimed, ‘Day in, day out, it’s always the same! Why are we murdering men to sate our greed when we could be some lonely panda’s angel of love?’”

“A man of vision,” Michael says.

“It was a midlife crisis,” says Sydney. “I assume. But he never looked back, and we’ve been breeding pandas ever since.”

“You too?”

“I’m in biotech,” says Sydney. “I use my laboratory to invent powerful new panda fertility drugs and then I bulk advertise them over the Internet. It takes about 10,000 messages to reach even one panda, but that’s enough to make it worthwhile.”

Michael holds his coffee cup. It’s warm. He approaches the subject delicately. “Some might not call this fulfilling.”

“Oh,” says Sydney. “But it is!”

“It is?”

“That’s why we’ve stayed with it,” Sydney says. She thinks. “Listen,” she says. “Do you know what it is to have a purpose?”

Michael thinks about it. “I have tasks at work,” he says.

“Not tasks.”

“I would like to consume this coffee,” Michael says. “And process it into energy and urine.”

“Not survival.”

“I might want to seduce you later,” Michael says. “Hypothetically.”

Sydney stares at Michael. “What do you want to be? What do you want to do with your life?”

“Well, that,” Michael says. He laughs a little. He holds a hand flat over the table. “I suppose I want—”

Sydney tilts her head to one side. Michael frowns.

“Yes?”

“It’s strange,” Michael says. “But I think that what I want is to manage the books for a firm that breeds pandas.”

Sydney laughs. “Why that, good sir?”

“You just know,” Michael says. “Don’t you. I mean, it’s like when you’re playing a video game, and suddenly everything’s all in line; or when you’re dancing—”

“Yes,” says Sydney. Her eyes widen a bit. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

“And suddenly everything’s right, and it doesn’t matter how much you have to give up for it, because this, this is the purpose, and you’re flowing through your life like a river.”

Michael is staring off into the distance. Then he gulps down his coffee in a quick, convulsive motion. “I haven’t felt this way since sixth grade, when I decided I wanted to be a CPA.”

“You do understand,” Sydney says. “How marvelous!”

Michael starts working at Sydney’s company. It’s not even too surprising that they fall in love. Eventually, they have a daughter of their own, named Emily.

It is 2004.

“This one’s special,” Sydney says. She looks at a printout of her lab notes. “She’s a mutant.”

Michael rubs her shoulders. “Is that so?”

“It’s the new fertility drug,” Sydney says. “It caused something more than just ordinary breeding. It made a super-agile panda.”

“I told you not to use spider DNA.”

“I didn’t!” Sydney protests.

Michael waits.

“I only used a little,” Sydney hedges. “Spiders are very fertile. Their offspring are everywhere!”

“Use spider DNA in your panda viagra, get a super-agile panda.”

Sydney sighs. “Well, it’s not a bad thing,” she says. “We can teach her to dance.”

And so they do.

It is 2005.

“It’s time for the panda to dance,” Michael says.

“I’m nervous,” Sydney says.

“Why?”

“It’s just . . . this feeling,” Sydney says.

“What’s that?”

Sydney gestures towards the wall. “Do you know that there are hundreds of thousands of people gathered outside this building, waiting for the panda to dance?”

“Surely not that many,” Michael says.

“They’ve been showing up,” Sydney says. “For weeks now. Months. They’ve been camping outside. They’ve been bringing food and water and medical supplies into town. This dinky little town of ours has grown tenfold.”

Michael scratches at his forehead. “What we do here is important,” he says. “I guess people are starting to realize that.”

“It’s not real,” Sydney says. “People don’t show up like this just because there’s a panda gonna dance.”

“How do they know?” Michael says.

Sydney shrugs uncomfortably.

“I mean, this is just a recital you set up,” Michael says. “We didn’t tell everyone. Maybe they’re just here as some kind of subculture thing and it doesn’t have to do with the panda at all.”

“They know it’s important,” Sydney says.

“Oh.”

“I asked one,” Sydney says. “Because he was sleeping in my parking space. And he said, ‘It just feels right. It doesn’t matter how much I have to give up for it. I needed to be here. For this. For the panda.’ And I said, ‘But I ran over your leg. You need a doctor.’ And he laughed, and said, ‘It don’t matter none. I’ll live long enough.’”

“Did you get a doctor?”

Sydney opens her mouth, hesitates a long moment, then shrugs.

“What?”

“He’s right,” she says. “He’ll live long enough.”

Emily comes in. She is a young and demure girl. She is wearing a gingham dress.

“The panda’s ready,” she says. “I just helped her with her stretches.”

“Good girl,” says Sydney.

The three of them go to the panda room together.

“Dance,” Sydney says.

“Do you know,” says Michael, “I think this is what the Earth is for.”

There’s a moaning, a humming, a whispering, a chanting from outside. There are a hundred thousand voices raised in worship outside the building walls.

“You think so?”

“God made this whole Earth,” says Michael, “so that one day he could watch a panda dance. Not just any old dance, but like this.”

“I guess you’re right,” says Sydney.

The panda dances.

“And bless Him for it!” Sydney says, suddenly, fiercely.

The panda bobs in place.

“So do you think,” says Sydney, “that it’ll go on? I mean, the world? After the panda’s done?”

“I hope not,” says Michael fervently.

The panda shuffles from side to side, her paws an expressive counterpoint.

“But . . . I wouldn’t have guessed,” Sydney admits. “That this would be what we’re for.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Hm?”

“Emily,” says Michael, “if I’d asked you last year what the purpose of the world was, would you have known it?”

Emily nods firmly. “Yes, father.”

“What would you have said?”

“I would have said, ‘I think it’s . . .’ And I wouldn’t have had the words. But it would have been a panda dancing.”

“I guess that’s true,” says Sydney.

The panda shuffles to a halt, flumps to the ground, and falls asleep.

Emily goes to the window and looks out.

“Look, mama!” she says.

The sky is falling, and Emily laughs with a sudden, bright, clean joy.

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The Old Man of the Sea (1 of 2)

by Jenna on February 17th, 2005

It’s Tuesday, the 20th of April, 2004.

“We’ll go away from Santa Ynez,” says Liril.

So they do.

“And do we just run?”

“We’ll go to where I screamed,” Liril says. “To Elm Hill. We’ll take back every god they took and steal every tainted bill and coin and favor they bought. Then we’ll run away to the hills and live richly forever.”

“I didn’t know,” Micah says.

“It’s what people do,” Liril says. “They keep their own gods.”

Micah looks tired. He is still recovering from torture. He is not at his best. But he tells everyone where to find the supplies he stole from a grocery store on Saturday. They find the cache.

“I should have realized,” Micah says, “about the milk.”

“I like the peanut butter,” Liril says. She has opened some up and spread it on crackers.

She thinks.

“We can live off the milk of the land,” she adds.

“That’s a good idea,” Micah agrees. “Please make one for me?”

Liril looks at him. She’s a bit startled. But then she nods, and puts peanut butter on a cracker, and offers it to him. He takes it. He bites it.

“What’s up ahead?” he asks.

“There’s a river,” she says. “That’s where we probably all die, except Tainted John. He probably dies in a train wreck.”

Tainted John looks at her, or rather, doesn’t look at her, because his eyes are all blood and shimmer.

“Oh,” says Micah.

“If we can survive two years or so,” Liril says, “we’re okay.”

“So if I get eaten by a shark,” Micah says, “I should try to hang on for at least two years.”

“Sharks are sharp. But you should try. Or if you get burned. Or whatever.”

“If I’m dangling off a cliff?”

Liril looks at him. Her eyes are deep. “Pull yourself up,” she says. “Don’t just hang on for two years.”

Micah smiles at her.

Liril blushes.

“Don’t,” she says, in a small voice.

“What happens at the river?”

“There was a gate,” Liril says. “Once upon a time. And ministers in attendance upon it. I was screaming. But they wanted me to grow up and become something else.”

“You can grow up,” Micah says. He’s deliberately ignoring the fact that he’s been the same age ever since he was born. “It’s okay to.”

“I didn’t want to,” Liril says. “Not that way.”

“Oh.”

“There were ministers I couldn’t touch because they were too strong,” says Liril. “And ministers I couldn’t touch because they were too gross. It was just the way it was. I couldn’t touch them. But there was one who was pure and bright and kind of cold. His nametag said, ‘Proteus’, and under that, ‘Cruelty.’”

“The monster is really bad at Greek,” Micah says.

“I could touch him,” Liril says, “because he was impartial to me. He didn’t have anything he was for. He was just there. So I gave him a purpose. I said, ‘Proteus, wait for me at the river, and I won’t pass through the gate until I see you there.’”

“And he did?”

“Yes,” Liril says. “And since that time there’s been no change, except when a wind blew off the chaos and brought him strength.”

“Also, I rolled a rock,” Micah says. “It changed things.”

Liril considers.

“It did,” Micah says.

Liril touches his mouth with a finger. “It was a cause,” she says. “Things have more than one reason. It’s okay. You’re a good Micah.”

He looks at her wryly.

“You’re delicate with me today,” he says.

“I looked at what she was doing to you,” Liril says. “I was crying the whole time but I couldn’t face her yet.”

“Things have reasons,” Micah says, and he shrugs. He sees her face, and his own face starts to get a little weird.

“No,” Liril says. “We won’t discuss it now. Later. Later, when it’s not—we can’t discuss it now.”

“Okay.”

They walk towards the river, carrying their bags of groceries.

“We shouldn’t cross at a bridge,” Micah says. “We shouldn’t cross anywhere people are. But the river’s kind of hard to wade.”

“I know,” Liril says. “But there’s a river-man in the river. He’s part of why it’s so deep. Tainted John’s going to hold his face down in the mud and the river’ll sink. Then we can cross.”

“Kuras did that once,” Micah says. “To defeat Belshazzar.”

“What?”

“He lowered the river that ran through Babylon, and marched his people in on the riverbed.”

“Oh,” says Liril. She looks pleased, because Micah seems a little less drained when he’s talking about this.

They reach the river. Micah looks at the river. It’s deep and wide.

“Is he . . . can John do stuff like that?”

Micah’s voice is a little resentful now. His greatest talent is surprisingly relevant historical trivia. It bothers him that Tainted John has actual magic powers.

“Can,” Liril confirms.

Tainted John looks at Micah. The boy reflected in those eyes is small and tired and dirty and smells of sweat and pain. Then John grins, and turns to the river, and flows in. The water level begins to fall.

“He’s a jerk,” Micah says.

“It’s okay.”

The water level falls further.

There’s a man standing by the river, rising from the river, falling from the trees, forming from the air. He’s old but in good shape for his age. He’s wearing a white shirt, and there’s a nametag attached that says, “Proteus,” and beneath that, “Cruelty.”

Micah looks at him.

“I think,” Micah says, “that you’re really happy that at last Liril can grow up, and so you’re going to join our rag-tag band, seal a promise of friendship with us by eating a cracker with peanut butter on it, and you’ll accompany us on our magical adventure to Elm Hill.”

“Your theory is flawed,” Proteus says.

Micah looks really tired. “Come on,” he says. “Please? I’m really tired. I don’t want to fight you.”

“I am an agent and a creature of change,” says Proteus. “They called me the Old Man of the Sea. And I have been held in stasis for more than twenty years because I chose to participate in a process otherwise marked only by horror. Now I am resentful and bitter and wish to kill you all.”

“You were there when they were breaking her,” Micah points out. “You could have helped.”

“The sea is cruel.”

“You can’t have the moral high ground at sea level,” Micah says, “unless you’re like a squid or something.”

“I buttress my moral standing with raw power,” Proteus says. He demonstrates, transforming into a tower of flame, a terrible lion, a serpent, a tiger, a silk shirt, a porcelain doll like Liril’s Latch, a dragon whose eyes are like the emptiness, an angel, a twig—

Micah steps forward, sharply, and snaps Proteus in half.

Then he sags.

“What?” Liril says.

“He was a twig,” Micah justifies. His eyes are blinking pretty quickly and there’s a horror at their back.

“Oh,” Liril says.

The river runs dry. But Micah does not stride boldly forward.

“It’s—I mean, I mean, you have to, you have to fight,” Micah says.

Liril tries to take his hand, but he wrenches away from her. He’s staring blankly at the twig.

“Oh my God,” he says. “Oh my God.”

“Micah—”

Micah snaps out of it. “We have to go,” he mumbles.

“We can fix him.”

“We have to go. It’s just a twig. Twiggy face Proteus oh God.”

Liril takes his hand. This time he accepts.

“It’s okay,” Liril says. “We can fix him. It’s okay. I didn’t tell you to break him. I didn’t mean you to.”

“He was in the way,” Micah says. “He’s . . .”

Micah’s voice is rising towards a child’s howl.

There are distant sirens.

Liril’s hand tightens on Micah’s. Slowly, he calms.

“All right,” he says. His face is pale. “How?”

Liril looks at the broken twig.

“You can fix a broken twig with construction paper,” she says. “You cut it up into pieces and paste them on as a brace. Then the twig is whole, because paper and twigs are the same.”

“I didn’t know that,” Micah says.

“Most people just leave twigs broken,” says Liril. “Most twigs aren’t, aren’t, aren’t—um.”

“People,” Micah says.

He roots around in the groceries. There is construction paper, and scissors, and tape, and glue, and paste, and crayons, and pens, and paper, because Micah’s life has provided him with a startlingly complete exposure to the lessons of kindergarden. There is also a coloring book that describes the fall of Belshazzar. He had stolen it in hopes that Liril would find time for coloring on their journey.

“Use too much paste and you’ll stick to everything,” Liril warns.

Micah ignores her. He begins to work.

“Uh,” Micah says, as he works. “There’s handwriting on this paper.”

“Like?”

“‘Anger.’ ‘Blood.’ ‘Fury.’ ‘Resentment.’”

“Huh,” Liril says.

“Huh?”

“It’s probably to make him hate us,” Liril says. “It’s too bad.”

“‘Mene,’” Micah says.

“Huh?”

“‘Mene,’” Micah says. “It just got written on this paper twice.”

“Write ‘miney moe,’” Liril advises.

Micah complies.

There’s a long pause.

“It was probably going to say ‘tekel parsin’,” Liril says. “Mene mene tekel parsin. You have been measured and found wanting and will be divided among the Medes and the Persians.”

“I don’t want to be divided among the Medes and the Persians.”

“I know,” Liril says. “It probably won’t happen. I mean, nowadays.”

“Now there’s an illustration of a middle finger,” Micah says.

“Just fix,” Liril says.

So Micah fixes Proteus with paste and cut-up pieces of construction paper. Micah gets paste on his hands and arms. Proteus gets his life back, and transforms himself into a man.

“That was rude, boy,” Proteus says, referencing the fact that Micah stepped on him and broke him in half while he was in a vulnerable ‘twig’ form.

“I tried to fix it,” Micah protests.

“I should kill you now.”

Proteus lunges at Micah. Micah’s face grows paler, but he has not lost the will to fight. He wraps his arms around the man even as they fall over backwards. Proteus becomes a thrashing shark. He becomes acid. He becomes a pony with a mouth full of terrible teeth. Then he is a man again.

“You’re holding on well,” he admits. “It’s practically heroic.”

“I don’t want to,” Micah says.

“What’s that, boy?”

“I have paste on my hands,” Micah says. “I’m sticking to everything.”

Liril looks slightly away.

“Oh,” says Proteus.

“We’re attached to the things that hurt us,” rasps out Tainted John.

There is a long silence.

Tainted John looks down and away.

There is a further silence.

Then Proteus transforms into a hissing serpent, a many-limbed horror, a tree, and a cloud, wrestling against Micah and his paste.

“Are you actually going to hurt me, or just turn into things while I’m stuck?” Micah asks.

Proteus becomes a tiger. He bites deep into Micah’s arm. Micah’s arm runs with blood. His brain fills up with endorphins, which allows him to swallow back his scream. Then Proteus is a man again, spitting and cursing.

“Um?” Micah says. He sounds a bit upset. After all, Proteus bit him, and now he’s acting all like Micah’s done something wrong.

Proteus spits.

“What?”

“You taste like paste.”

Micah stares at him.

“I don’t like eating paste,” says Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea.

“I’m a boy,” Micah says. “I’m supposed to taste funny.”

“You taste like paste and dirt and sweat and grass and mud.”

“Then don’t eat me,” Micah says. “I dunno. If you learn anything in kindergarden, it’s not to eat paste or boys. They taste bad and you don’t know where they’ve been!”

“Did you even go to kindergarden?”

“I . . . I’m like Kuras,” Micah says.

“Kuras?”

“His grandfather believed that Kuras would rule over all of Asia, so he ordered his servant Harpagus to set the infant Kuras down on a hillside and watch over him until he died. Instead, a miraculous sheepdog suckled him until Harpagus gave up and said, ‘Fine, he gets to live.’ It wasn’t like kindergarden, but it gave him a startlingly accurate simulation of kindergarden’s life lessons without actual attendance.”

“Ah,” says Proteus. “You mean Cyrus.”

“I guess.” Micah grins a little. “He’s kind of my idol.”

“Your story differs from Herodotus’ account of the matter,” Proteus says skeptically. “In his History, he alleges that the miraculous dog-suckling was a rumor Cyrus spread purely for political gain.”

Micah handwaves, as best he can while pasted to a god.

“I think Herodotus is too cynical,” Micah says. “Kuras beat Belshazzar. He’s smart enough to have put forward a less embarrassing animal to suckle him. Like a shark. Or an eagle.”

Micah is actually sounding better, because he likes talking about Kuras.

“Probably not a shark,” Proteus says. “In the mountains.”

“A grizzled mountain shark,” Micah says.

“Hm?”

“That’s what I’d say. A grizzled mountain shark, so tough he didn’t need water and could just swim on rocks, suckled me. Then everyone would know I was badassed. But since he didn’t say that, the whole sheepdog thing must be the truth.”

Proteus reaches a sudden resolution.

“Let us not debate the veracity of Herodotus,” he says. “Instead, I will wash you off!”

He begins to run towards the sea. Micah is dragged along with him, and cannot stop him, but he shouts, “Wait! Wait! I have scissors!”

“What?”

Proteus slows.

“I have scissors,” Micah says. “You’re running with scissors. Somebody could lose an eye.”

Proteus stops cold, face going ashen.

“Your life did provide a startlingly accurate simulation of kindergarden’s lessons without actual attendance,” he says.

“I know,” Micah says.

Proteus looks towards the distant sea. He ponders how long it would take to walk to it while pasted to a boy.

“If we work together,” Proteus says, “we could probably get unstuck.”

“You’d eat Liril,” says Micah. “And then Tainted John. And me.”

“I’d eat Liril, boy. She doesn’t taste of paste. The rest of you, I dunno.”

Micah looks at the river. He looks at Tainted John. His nose curls.

“You could eat him,” Micah says.

“I don’t want to find out what he tastes like,” Proteus says. Micah is annoyed, but can’t help seeing Proteus’ point. “I just don’t.”

Tainted John smiles impassively. He is holding the river down. That’s why he can’t help!

“I can’t let you eat even Liril,” Micah says. “She’s important to me.”

“Why?”

“I’m a startingly accurate rendition of her volition,” Micah says. “I mean, I was. Before. Now maybe I’m just someone who fights for us.”

“Ah,” says Proteus.

“Ah?”

“I could give her a head start,” Proteus says.

“Or let us go?”

“I’m not inclined to be forgiving,” says Proteus. “What with the words ‘anger’, ‘fury’, ‘blood,’ ‘resentment’, and ‘mene mene miney moe’ written into my very flesh.”

“Uh,” says Micah. “I only wrote the miney moe part. Who did the rest?”

“Some creepy handwriting girl,” Proteus says. He shrugs.

“Oh.”

Micah would investigate further, but right now, he’s affixed to a man who can turn into a shark. It distracts him.

“I’ll help you get unstuck,” Micah says. “Then you’ll give her a head start.” He thinks. “But it has to be a good one. It can’t be like five seconds.”

“What about seven seconds?”

Micah looks at Liril.

Liril judges, “Seven seconds is like five seconds, even though it’s two seconds longer.”

“Five minutes?”

Liril looks unhappy.

“What?” Micah asks.

“Well, it’s not like five seconds,” Liril says, “but it’s awfully short.”

“Ten, then,” Proteus says.

Micah looks at Proteus. “Deal.”

“Deal.”

They pull at one another. They wrestle. Eventually the paste succumbs to the transience of all things. Micah and Proteus stumble apart.

Proteus turns into a talking bear.

“Run,” Proteus growls.

Micah turns to run.

“Not you,” Proteus says. He slaps Micah with the paw of a bear and Micah falls senseless to the river bed. Proteus points to Liril. “You.”

Liril runs.

Tainted John looks up. He frowns.

Liril looks back.

“Stay,” Liril says to Tainted John, for Micah is in the river bed.

And then she runs.

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A Raw Deal for Creepy Handwriting Girl (2 of 2)

by Jenna on February 18th, 2005

Liril runs.

Her doll, Latch, is heavy and awkward and flops as she runs. She does not let him go. He is all she has with her.

Liril runs.

Proteus will soon follow. She is fast, but not faster than a bear, and far slower than a bear that is a god.

There are words appearing on the road signs as she flees.

“Liril makes
Proteus frown.
He eats her bones
Then Micah drowns.
Burma Shave.”

“That’s dispiriting,” Liril says.

“It’s a sign of our times,” the next sign she passes says.

“Oh.”

Liril stops. She sits down. She’s out of breath. She has two minutes left on her lead.

“You’re Cheryl,” she says.

The sign clears. Liril cannot see the hand that writes, but handwriting appears all the same, in blood.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Mene, mene, tekel, moed.”

“I could have saved you,” Liril says, “if I’d been what they wanted.”

“I know,” writes the hand, upon the sign.

“You could have saved me. Same deal.”

The sign goes blank.

After a time, it displays a symbol that would have been perfectly polite in many other societies.

Then it is blank again. There are the soft crunching footfalls of a bear.

Liril starts to her feet, but her ankle twists. Her doll Latch tumbles towards the bear. Liril’s arm sprawls out behind her. She looks up at Proteus.

“I have been measured and found wanting,” Liril says. Her voice is calm, distant, and precise. She is interpreting the writing on the sign. “But instead of being divided between the Medes and the Persians, I am destined to be split among the Three Stooges, whose pranks will no doubt be extremely entertaining as they rend me into three parts.”

Proteus glances at the sign, which is once again saying, “Mene, mene, tekel, mo’ed.”

“There is an alternate interpretation,” he says, “in which you are devoured in a sacred feast.”

“I would rather Moe,” says Liril. “He seems congenial.”

“To be torn apart by the Three Stooges,” says Proteus, “is a grim fate. I will save you from it with my own two jaws.”

Liril accepts this answer with philosophical resignation, until Proteus steps forward. Then she is scared.

“Can’t you forgive me?” she asks.

“I’m still dying, you know,” Proteus says. “The boy broke my back. You can’t fix that with construction paper. Also, the paper has ‘anger’ and ‘resentment’ written on it.”

“That’s a . . .”

“No,” Proteus emphasizes.

“But I’m trying to change,” Liril says.

“And?”

“I didn’t have volition,” Liril protests. “I had to rely on what I thought volition would look like. That makes it pretty good just to get this far, right?”

Proteus shrugs. He walks forward. He steps on Latch’s head. It crunches.

“Porcelain,” says the bear. A shard is wedged deep into his foot. “Ow.”

“You can’t break things and then complain that they’re sharp,” Liril says.

“I can and I will,” says Proteus. He stalks forward another two steps. Then he winces. “OW.”

“Let me see,” Liril says, and she crawls forward, and she looks at his paw.

“If you take it out,” says Proteus, “then I’ll eat you.”

“I know,” says Liril. “But if I don’t, you’ll also eat me.”

“That’s true,” says Proteus. He holds up his paw.

“I could push it,” Liril says. “And maybe cripple you enough to get away.”

She puts her hands on the shard of Latch’s head.

“Will you?” Proteus asks.

Liril pulls it out. She sits back down with a thump. She cuddles the shard of Latch’s head, covered in bear’s blood.

“Ah,” Proteus concludes. “You will not.”

There is handwriting on the sign. It is writing, over and over again, “Bitch.” And many other names.

“She does not like you,” observes Proteus.

“When they couldn’t hurt me any more,” Liril says, “they got harder on her. That’s why there’s nothing left of her but writing and disliking me.”

“Why didn’t you help her?”

“I would have,” Liril says. “I keep trying. I keep trying to help everyone but it never works. It always . . . it always comes apart.”

Liril is near tears. The bear’s breath is very warm.

“You could have given yourself up for her,” Proteus says.

“I tried,” she says.

The sign is blank.

“I called them up,” Liril says. “The monster answered. And I said, ‘I’ll come back.’ And he said, ‘Oh, Liril.’ He laughed, like it was funny. ‘Micah is the one who defies us.’”

The sign is blank.

“I hid under my bed for six weeks,” Liril says. “I almost turned into a lurkunder with a buggy face. I couldn’t shower clean.”

“That’s sad,” the bear says.

“Shut up.”

Proteus is silent. Then he shrugs.

“I’m going to eat you now,” he says companionably.

“I could try fixing your back,” Liril says.

“Yes, you could,” Proteus agrees. “I will eat you slowly to maximize your opportunities.”

Liril is crying.

“I will also wait,” Proteus says, “until you’re done with that.”

There are so many tears that Proteus imagines that they could wash him away; but it is not her tears that save her, but the writing on the wall.

“I don’t regret that he’s going to kill you,” says the sign.

Liril nods.

“But now I feel kind of guilty-angry about the whole thing.”

“We could flip a coin,” says Liril.

“We could?”

“You fix the handwriting on his back. I flip a coin. If you call it, then we switch places and memories, and I’m the creepy handwriting girl, and you’re Liril, and no one ever knows.”

“Will I call it right?”

“No,” Liril says. “It’s a raw deal.”

“Oh,” writes the sign.

But after a time, Proteus walks away; and after he is gone, and before Micah arrives, Liril flips a coin.

“Heads,” the sign writes.

The coin lands, and Liril doesn’t look at it before she picks it up and tosses it away.

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