57) Loser

    Round and round the wheel went and I knew exactly where the ball landed, on that damn green zero. Green for mold and rot and spoiled meat when really it was supposed to be red and fire and raw fresh tuna steak.
    Would it be crazy to tell you I actually place my bets to loose? It’s true. You know that thing where in near death experiences people say they see their lives flash before their eyes? It’s the same thing with me and loosing money. I see all that time and effort evaporate. One grand? Oh, that was a week at my desk job. Ten grand? Oh, that was three years of careful stock picks. One hundred grand? Oh, there goes my marriage and mortgage and Mercedes.
    After spinning dizzily the little white ball bounced and thunked and pinged and slid right in there as the world’s biggest middle finger right in my face. There were groans all around the table of course, but I was quiet and savoring the loss. The croupier used her wooden hook and pulled in the mountains of bets. As they clinked and slid I realized what I’d really lost. I padded my jacket and pants pockets just to be sure. Yup, all gone. No more cash, no more chips. I’d brilliantly cut up my credit card after that last withdrawal.
    I truly had nothing. I was a loser.
    I slinked back out from the crowd and walked through the rest of the casino floor, back to the elevators, and up to my room. If time heals all wounds, and there’s no clocks in a Casino they it’s just a big gaping wound, isn’t it? Just a wounded animal lying still, infested with human filth, and groaning mechanically with clinking tears.
    I let myself into my room and collapsed on the floor sobbing. I was done. I’d advanced my last three thousand dollars from my credit card. I wouldn’t even be able to pay for the room. I wept for my stupidity and avarice and masochism.

    Eventually I must have disrobed and crawled my way to bed, though I can’t remember doing that. I slowly untangled myself from the sheets and checked my watch, 10:30am. Checkout time was a half hour ago. I was screwed. After decades of drunken and disorderly clients casino hotels had every exit covered and security guards up the yin yang, you couldn’t just sleep and dash anymore.
    I decided that it was just best to face the music. I slid back into my crumpled suit and walked to the front desk in shame.
    Suffice it to say the establishment never looks kindly on moochers. There was no leniency for my misery. I was in a holding cell by the end of the hour.
    I wish I could say I woke up a new person there in the smell of drunkenness and the sound of tramps snoring, but I think we’re all relatively the same person even through life changing circumstances.

56) Ahmed the calculator

    This is a wrong place, I shouldn’t have come here. Not that I have a choice.
    The air is wet and damp and shockingly hot as I get off the airplane. Here in New Dehli we disembark from the plane on a rickety old bamboo ladder.
    My name is Ahmed, and I’m a calculator. Not in the modern sense of the word, an inanimate box. But in the older sense, someone who does calculations by hand on paper.
    Why am I anxious in New Dehli? One word, time. I’m here to stop it from ending. I have heard of a bit of metal, well metal, plastic and ceramics. And that bit of metal is the key to the bomb that supposed to stop time, unless I can crack the key first.

55) Memoirs on a bus

    Even as I slept the play was running through my head. Parts were reversed. The mother was played by a couple of riggers in bad drag, they would alternate lines. I guess that’s how you know you’re committed to a thing, it saturates your entire being.
    A rough shake woke me from sleep and I came to in the bus, the Ticketmaster had a flashlight in on hand and his other in front of my face. I took out my ticket and handed it to him. He punched it and moved on. That’s the last time I go with Spot Turtle to go cross country. He should have recognized me from before. I got on two days ago.
    I tried to get back into the mutant play, but all I got was a tableaux of the Ticketmaster’s scruffy face. First a huge canyon of pink rock and dark tubular outcroppings. We were on a donkey tour winding down thin little trails, a giant cigar belched acrid smoke off on the horizon. I looked over the edge of my mount to the jagged yellow teeth below and a torrential river of a tobacco.
    I’ve heard about lucid dreaming, and I’ve thought it would be a powerful tool, but I was happy enough just remembering them. Though I’ve heard the easiest way to bore a man is to tell you about his dreams I think they can provide real insight. Not as direct symbols, but as literal emotional palettes.
    I woke with the sunrise as it stabbed at us through unshaded windows. I wiped my eyes of crust and looked over to the line at the rear of the bus, the morning bathroom line. I could wait, all I had to do was empty my bags, a tiresome affair, but not one predicated on muscular pain. The plastic tubes just shunted the waste away from my body instead of it accumulating naturally and threatening to explode me from the inside. As inconvenient as it was in someways it was a godsend.
    I reached under the seat in front of me and pulled out my pack. Everything I would need was there. I pulled out my cleaning equipment, a small sponge and a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol. I pulled out my breakfast, a couple of fiber and protein bars and a small orange juice. And I pulled out my sketch book.
    I gulped down my breakfast and placed the cleaning supplies near my hip. I unfolded my sketchbook, took out the pen, and opened it to a random page. I happened upon the set design for an old play, “Sisyphus and Bottom”. I giggled a little. That one was a great flop. Though the whole crew and cast was into it, though I thought it was great there was an essential part missing that we didn’t catch until opening day. It wasn’t very good. It had a mediocre opening and died on the vine. When the Times calls your work, “An unmitigated bore.” then it’s time to seriously recheck some things in your life.
    I turned the page and was delighted by watercolors of Mercy’s Chateaux. She’d felt sorry for me and invited me out for a little sabbatical in Nice. There were cats and cheese and lovely silence. There gets to a be a point living in a city where the ambulance cries and junky fights and screaming neighbors and explosions just get to be so much background noise, you just learn to live with it. That doesn’t mean its appreciated, just accepted. It’s a constant and tactile pressure. Like deep sea fish who and born, live, and die at pressures that would turn a human into dog food.
    When I arrived in Nice the open spaces and silent fragrant air was a shock to my system. I drowned myself in red wine trying to bring back that tension and violence my body was somehow craving. Thankfully Mercy came by on the third day and talked some sense into me.
    Those six months were refreshing on several layers. One, I was able to get back into writing everyday, writing something new, not just editing the old and rehashed anecdotes. I was able to get good food into me, not just leftovers and takeaway.
    In NIce I was able to write “The Marriage of H”, it did much better than Sisyphus though you probably haven’t heard of it either. In some circles it’s very well regarded. I’ve heard it’s even being taught in Finnish drama schools as an example of late 21st Century black humor. I didn’t mean it as black humor, I was just writing about life. That’s all I ever write about.

54) Magic and Chance

    He was a ghoul roaming the moors, taking what he wanted, feasting on unsuspecting tourists and the odd sheep. He really like the American tourists, they tended to be fatter while still being tender. He didn’t have a name, ghouls never do. He had always been alone so no one had never had to call him. When he thought of himself, which was rare, he used the sounds the humans did if they ever saw him, anything from “oh god” to wordless screams.
    She was a sorceress from over the horizon, from a land filled with deserts and pearlescent castles, of Ifrit and Djins. She had been born into a poor family and sold to a wandering wizard. Against all the odds he had been a good master and taught her the ways under the world in white and grey, her how to divine and how to scry. And in his time he had passed on and left her with the inheritance that had been passed down to him from countless generations before: an iron wood staff, a magical silk cloak, several rings of power and an ancient grimoire. Her name was Hasef The Wanderer.
    They met in a grove of birch trees, a thousand leagues from her birthplace and a hundred miles from his last haunt. She had been folded among the powerful tree’s long shadows for a fortnight, a technique she’d learned on her own to replenish her mana. He had been running away from angry villagers, over the last year he had worn out his welcome by being particularly gluttonous and they’d tracked him back to his cave.
    She’d come out from the in-between world bristling with power, smell, taste, body, and sight all crackled with the life around her. Instantly he caught her sight, the shape of his wound, his silent crying out in pain as he slept edged up against roots in a muddy stream bed. Her feet barely brushed the tops of the green grass as she floated over towards him. Where she passed mushrooms fruited and dandelions bloomed and burst.
    He was dreaming of being chased by the population of every village he had ever terrorized, his bloody limbs scrabbled in the mud and made deep furrows.
    When all of a sudden he woke. Something bright and powerful was watching him, he had nowhere to go, his black heart raced and he pushed himself into the wall of mud trying to get away. His sharp black claws found no purchase, his blood matted fur became covered in dirt and the poor pathetic beast pissed himself. He let out a fearful high keening sound, like the summer insects he loved to munch on.
    She spoke words of healing in her guttural language. At first the poor beast didn’t respond. She continued with the words, adding the slightest touch of her newest mana. The beast calmed and fell unconscious.
    She floated down and picked him up. Clots of dirt and blood rolled off her robe and left it clean. She took him out of the forest and to a nearby bluff she had seen on her way to the grove. She kept him unconscious for several days as she cleaned him and tended to his wounds.
    Her master had always commented on her predilection for careless animals. He told her many times that life and nature would be stronger off without the weak in it. But she continued to follow her heart and reach out to the helpless if they could ask for help or not, if they were predator or prey.

53) Strange Romance

25 Oct 1968, Middle America
    Autumn wind blows crisp and dry and the colors in the trees burn coldly, Halloween is just around the corner. Something is in the air, something heavy and electric. This is where they first meet, on a street like everywhere else in the suburb, a street like every street in every suburb, on a night like no other.
    But not just yet. Morning comes and goes, kids go to school, adults to work, and this is the simple truth: discipline is the simple act of doing the same thing over and over again. And they’re all perfectly disciplined little consumers, but tonight will be different, it will mark two of them for the rest of their lives.
    Kids come home from school in the afternoon, latchkeys all around. Adults come home in the evening, flick on their televisions and start making dinner. They eat, watch more TV, then brush their teeth and go to bed.
    Then, around 2am, when some of the night owls are still up, clandestinely reading their science fiction magazines or fiddling with their ham radios, it begins. First there’s a thud on someone’s roof, then another just down the street. Then a downpour of heavy sound like thunder or gun fire over every surface in a one block radius around the intersection of Derby Street and Gerald Avenue. For a whole forty five seconds the onslaught continues, deafening and surreal.
    The adventurous children are up and out of their beds first, grabbing flashlights and pulling blankets over their shoulders like super hero capes to keep warm. Most of them are stopped by their parents who are just as awake, but far more frightened. Could this be the Russians, they think, maybe the Chinese? They dare not come out in case it’s a strange attack.
    Two children finally make it outside, a boy and a girl, twelve and thirteen respectively. The two of them stand outside in front of the huge pile of fish in the middle of the street. They stare at the pile for a moment. The boy’s the one with a flashlight. The girl, tall and lanky, walks over to him and deftly takes it from his hands.
    “Hey, what’re you doing? That’s mine!” He protests.
    “Shh,” she says, “I’m taller.”
    “Oh.” he says, conceding to her superior logic.
    She grabs his hand, remembering her father long passed away, and more reassuring herself than him.
    Emboldened by her touch he walks them both forward.
    The pile is iridescent fins and tails and scales gleaming in the light of the flashlight. She says, “Do you think they’re dead?”
    He reaches forward and bravely pokes one of them with his bare foot. Nothing happens.
    “Yeah, dead.” He says.
    “Where the heck did they come from?” She says. “There’s so many. I think they’re all salt water fish, maybe. Like, that one’s a tuna, I’m sure.”
    The boy turns to the girl and says, “Hi, my name’s Mike. You’re Kate, right?”
    “Catherine, but close enough.” She says and smiles. He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back.
    They share that rare moment we all want to have and rarely do. That moment of perfect shared understanding.
    At that point Catherine’s mom comes bolting out of their house in her bathrobe and curlers, yelling for her daughter. The two kids quickly let go of each others hands and the essential magic of the night is broken.
    It’s still a grand mystery, it lives on in newspaper articles and urban legends, and the hearts of two children.
    And those children grow into adults. They move out and move on, making their own way into the world, that moment mostly forgotten.

52) Fish or Flight

    Chalchiuitl stared into the river. The sun stabbed back into her eyes making them water. Huitzilopochtli the angry sun god would not make her waver in her task. With her father and brother off to battle the Spanish at Tenochtitlan she was now the head of the house. Her mother and grandmother could no longer do anything but weave. She could finally hunt. Though her fingers were still calloused like a woman, mated to the loom, she knew her aim would be true.
    There it was, a slight jade flicker below the sparkling river. Chalchiuitl tensed, aimed, and let her bronze tipped spear fly. It made a tiny splash and slid into the river. She waded forward and pulled back her spear with the twine attached to it. As she pulled back the empty spear the chill in her legs was just a little more than she could stand. She waded out of the river and back to the sunny rocks for a small snack of corn fritters and dried fish.
   
    Jim Cougan woke in his airplane seat, groggy and unsure of the time, jet lagged from flying back and forth from Mexico City to Rome to Montreal to California, to every Anthropology conference that would pay his modest fee. For several years he had had a wide portfolio of books and lectures ready to go on gender roles in prehistoric Mesoamerica, and that seemed to be the hot ticket this year. And he knew well enough to ride a good wave when it presented its self.
    The vision of an Aztec woman fishing quickly slid out of his mind for several reasons. He’d never heard of a woman fishing, their work was in preparing food and weaving cloth. As thirst clawed at the back of his throat, was he coming down with something, the vision disappeared entirely.
    Jim grabbed his toilet bag and pushed himself out of his isle seat. As he walked in the semi dark of the business class cabin, past other sleeping passengers, he fought his sleeping leg, pins and needles shooting up from his toes to his hip. Left leg, right leg, the pain was electric and cold at the same time. He hoped he didn’t have deep vein thrombosis. He reminded himself to read the inflight magazine about it when he returned to his seat.

51) End Clock

    Do you remember where you were when the count down started? Of course you do, everyone does. It’s more of a conversation starter in these last days than a sincere question. We all just want our story to be heard before the end.
    I had just gotten my permanent wand license and was cavorting around town like a child on my newly enchanted broom. I had just passed this cute girl in a giant scarab, she was on her phone chatting away, when the boom came. You remember that sound like a giant exploding chime? Some people weren’t outside when the boom came and they didn’t get the full effect. I was outside and believe me, it was intense and I nearly soiled myself. It wasn’t just a boom, I guess. There was more to it. Sure, it’s been analyzed to death on the TV and online, but whatever. If you were there you knew what it really felt like. It was like a church organ going off full stop, like a million wind chimes all being dropped at the same time.
    Thankfully all my broom safety training was still in mind and I pulled up without thinking and off to the side of the freeway, along with everyone else. I barely dodged a semi-truck and a dozen wild scarabs until I got to the nearest off ramp. I heard collisions all the way back for miles and kept going, trying to find some place safe. Finally I zoomed into town and landed next to a dry fountain.
    My first thought was to curse my mom who had insisted I didn’t take my cell phone lest I be temped to use it while I flew. Well, now I couldn’t call her to make sure she was okay. Little did I know that none of us were going to be okay.
    I sat there on the fountain for a few moments until noticed that it was a little too quiet. Sure there were screeching tires and the occasional crash, but I guess I had expected screaming and crying and explosions like we were under attack, I don’t know who from, but it felt like what a battle zone should be. I looked around and everyone was frozen, moms with strollers and joggers and business men were all looking up. I followed their gaze and it all became clear. The giant clock face.
    You’ve seen it, I don’t have to describe it. Ten times the size of the sun, semi transparent, no numbers, three hands, and set to midnight. Well, a few minutes to midnight. What I want to know is why the thin hand is minutes, the big hand is hours, and the little hand is days. That’s just weird. Why wasn’t it digital?
    So, yeah, giant clock in the sky going backwards. What a trip, right? Although if you were looking down from space it would be going the right way.
    Whatever.
    When I finally got home it was dark. Everyone else was there and we were up all night trying to figure out what was going on. We still are, aren’t we? Trying to figure out what it’s counting down to, where it came from, and if it’s going away. I mean, this is totally better than the time the Wizard Pirate Camille painted her face on the moon, man, that was crazy.
    So, where were you when the count down started?