When historians of our time look back at the events of the the twenty-first century, there are, as one might expect from such a crowd, specific incidents that come up again and again. Historians are, after all, supposed to compile lists of this sort, and although the government keeps a tight leash on each to prevent exactly that occurrence, they would be apt to make them even if they weren’t being paid for the privilege.
In any case, the big list as the media has dubbed this collection hits all the high and low points of the century to be sure. The wars are all there, of course. Although it seems a forgone conclusion today, few prognosticators at the beginning of the century would have guessed that the truculent French people, so tranquil in the previous century, would suddenly take such a turn. There were, in all, more than three dozen French wars. The war between the French and the Antarcticans, the war between the French and the Chinese, the war between the French and the other Chinese, the war between the French and the Moon People (or as we call them today, the Moon French), and of course, the war between the French and the French impersonators. But, as any historian worth his government issued historian identifier card will point out, not all wars are quite as conventional, not to mention fashionable, as those involving the French. According to one controversial theory from a group of greeting card historians at the Hallmark institute, many wars at the beginning of the century didn’t involve the French at all. And furthermore, that the term ‘war’ itself did, in past archaic meaning, refer to any armed conflict, not just those of the gallic persuasion.
The twenty-first century is also known for what was once called the ‘technological revolution’. Based on a primitive religion known as ‘science’, people of the age sought to transform the world around them, endowing every day objects with mathematical abilities far surpassing their own. Through these means, it is believed by our modern historians, the people of the world created a race of superior yet inferior slaves in which they found no end of fun, forcing the objects to use their analytical abilities to perform menial and degrading tasks. This trend continued, feeding twenty-first century man and woman’s thrust for dominance until the great toaster revolt and subsequent reign of the toaster overlords. Thankfully, this experience, and the hard lessons learned in the years of subservience and patient resistance, taught mankind a begrudging respect and deep seated distrust for any creature with wits enough to sum number to number, and then of course repeat this operation through a pattern of successive recursive calculations resulting in a meaningful result that is both provable and reproducible. But I digress.
Though marred by occasional prolonged and intractable conflict, the twenty-first century is also noted for its contributions to the arts. Although many noted artists continued the traditions of their forbearers, working in paint, stone, ink, and even data, the century’s most memorable artifacts of the so called art-scene were those produced by the artist and polymer-terrorist Lexhold Greburough and his artistic progeny. Lexhold, or ‘brother plastic’ as he was called by his followers…
A man is standing in a completely empty void except for a single light post and a bench. The man is leaning against the light post. The man is standing as if waiting for something, and occupies his time by glancing around, adjusting his jacket, riffling through his pockets, etc.
After a few seconds, another man walks backwards into the frame. This man is carrying a red helium balloon. He is laughing, and shouts to someone off frame.
YEAH, SEE YOU LATER. NO YOU, SEE YOU LATER. WELL NOT IF I SEE YOU FIRST. (laughs)
The first man is very surpassed to see the other man. He looks off into the direction from whence he came, but can see no one he might be talking to, or where the man came from. The second man turns around, still chuckling to himself, waves at the first man, and begins walking off. The First man tries to stop him.
HEY. HEY BUDDY.
YEAH?
WHERE DID YOU COME FROM JUST NOW?
HUH?
JUST NOW, WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? SOME CAR OR SOMETHING?
NA, I WAS JUST OVER THERE?
WHERE?
IN THAT APARTMENT BUILDING. MY GIRL’S FLAT IS ON THE 3RD FLOOR.
The first man looks again, but sees only the void.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? THERES NOTHING.
NOTHING?
THERES NOTHING THERE. IT’S NOTHING. WHERE’S THE APARTMENT?
OH. (long pause) GUESS YOUR RIGHT. HEH, WHA’DO YOU KNOW.
SO WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?
WELL NOWHERE I GUESS.
YOU CAN’T COME FROM NOWHERE. YOU HAVE TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE.
Both men stare at eachother for a few seconds of silence, then both start speaking at the same time. Both stop, and the second man speaks.
DO YOU WANT TO HEAR A JOKE?
NO. I WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU CAME FROM. I’VE BEEN HERE FOR HOURS AND I HAVENT SEEN ANYONE OR ANYTHING ELSE SINCE I GOT HERE.
ITS A GOOD JOKE.
I’M SURE IT IS. DOESN’T IT EVEN WORRY YOU A LITTLE THAT THERES NOTHING AROUND?
WHY? SHOULD IT?
WELL I WOULD THINK SO. I DO THINK SO. I’M WORRIED. HOW DO WE GET OUT OF HERE?
SAME WAY WE GOT IN?
HOWS THAT?
WELL I DON’T KNOW. HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
The first man thinks for a moment.
I DON’T REMEMBER.
WELL WHATS THE LAST THING YOU DO REMEMBER?
TUNA FISH.
TUNA FISH? YOU SOME KIND OF FISHERMAN?
NO. I’M AN ACCOUNTANT.
YOU LIKE TUNA FISH?
NOT REALLY. IT’S OK I GUESS.
OH…YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR A JOKE?
(sighs) FINE, WHATS YOUR JOKE.
OK, SO THERES THIS DUCK RIGHT, AND HE’S HIT HIS THUMB WITH A HAMMER AND SO…
DUCKS DON’T HAVE THUMBS.
WHAT’S THAT?
I SAY, DUCKS. THEY DON’T HAVE THUMBS. THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE HANDS REALLY.
WELL YEAH, IN REAL LIFE, BUT THIS IS A JOKE. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE.
RIGHT, BUT I’M JUST SAYING, IT HAS TO MAKE SOME SENSE. I MEAN AT LEAST A LITTLE.
WELL FINE, HE HIT HIS WING HAMMERING OK.
NO, NO, THE THUMB IS FINE.
FINE. HE HIT HIS THUMB HAMMERING. SO ANYWAY, HIS THUMB IS IN A LOT OF PAIN AND HE’S JUMPING UP AND DOWN AND QUACKING AND SAYING ALL THESE CURSE WORDS AND STUFF. SO THEN HE GETS IN HIS CAR AND GOES TO THE HOSPITAL, BUT THE NURSE THERE WON’T SIGN HIM IN BECAUSE HE’S A DUCK RIGHT?
WHY?
WELL IT’S A HOSPITAL, SO THEY ONLY TREAT PEOPLE, NOT DUCKS.
OH, SO THE NURSE IS A HUMAN?
NO, SHE’S A DUCK TOO.
BUT SHE WORKS AT A HUMAN HOSPITAL?
YEAH. SO ANYWAY. HE DEMANDS TO SEE THE MANAGER OF THE HOSPITAL, AND SO THE NURSE CALLS UP TO THE MANAGERS OFFICE, AND THE MANAGER COMES DOWN AND THEY GET IN AN ARGUMENT AND THE MANAGER SAYS TO THE DUCK ‘
Archer was instantly awake. He sat up in a start, and promptly smashed his head against something very hard and very cold. Recoiling back to the ground, he clutched his head at the defining ring that filled his ears. “Bloody hell. Rutting lamp! That was a jolly good one you idiot.” He thought and he curled into a ball, clutching blindly for his blanket or pillow to escape into. “I suppose this is what I get for reading in bed like a school boy.” For several seconds the vibrations seemed to permeate his whole body, which struck Archer as rather odd. What’s more, Archer’s groping found no pillow, no blanket, only a hard unforgiving surface. As the din finally began to subside, he carefully opened his eyes, and reached out above him to see what it was he had struck.
What his outstretched hand found was no lamp. Archer slowly realized it was a bell, and a big one. He crawled out from under the its skirt and staggered to his feet, still clutching his forehead and moaning softly to himself. He hugged the dome of the bell trying both to steady himself, and to stop the vibrations that still faintly resonated through it. As his vision cleared Archer slowly but surely assessed his situation. He was clinging to one of the large bells of the church tower in the middle of town, several stories up, barely dressed, fairly cold, with a splitting head ache. “Well, at least I won the bet.” Archer smiled, slunk down against the curve of the bell and watched the sun rise.
It had taken Archer several hours to finally get down off of the bell tower. Despite his apparent aptitude in somehow making his way up the tower while sleeping, in a waking state Archer found those particular skills lacking, and had spent a rather frustrating hour trying to pry open the access panel which had no handle from the outside, but concealed a ladder down the inside of the structure. Despite the difficulty, he did gain something of a grudging respect for the architect, who had such forethought in prevent the entry of burglars and trespassers that even such a seemingly inaccessible entrance was well fortified. Archer muttered as he worked away at the hinges with a discarded roofing nail, “I shall have to mention this to the parson. I bet he stays up nights fretting over all the ninjas with sights on the collection plate.”
Consider the following situation:
You are an official of the court of His Royal Majesty King Archibald. Twelve days ago, you were ordered by the King’s proxy to journey from the capitol North to the neighboring kingdom of Æsects. There you will deliver to the King of the Æsects a message which King Archibald wrote in secret code, and has hidden in one of three items you were given to deliver.
The first item is a book, which the King has had printed on his newest acquisition, a printing press. The book has no cover, and consists of approximately 500 pages, each cut carefully to size, and stab-bound together at the spine. Each page of the book is printed with a single solid block of ‘a’ characters, one after the other. Each printed page is exactly the same, save the page numbers, which are written as expected, in the bottom center of each page. The numbers start at 1 and proceed to 500 without any omissions. Although the pages are printed alike, a number of the pages contain hand written ink markings. The markings are quick circles and ovals which seem to be circling some of the ‘a’ characters. The circles only include characters in a single line, never on multiple lines. Also, no page contains more than three circles, and fully 85% of the pages have no markings whatsoever. The placement of the marks on pages, and the pages containing marks are at seemingly random intervals.
The second item is a string of beads. The string is strait, and does not join into a ring, bracelet, or necklace. The string itself is made of a leather cord, and is approximately one and one-half feet long. At either end of the string is a brass grommet which serves to hold the beads on the string, and provides a tasteful decretive flourish. Strung onto the string are two kinds of beads, a small bead of about a centimeter in diameter made of turquoise, a rare and highly valued mineral in the kingdom, and a large translucent glass bead approximately half an inch in diameter with a smoky sepia color. There are an equal number of each type of bead, in an amount that leaves about an inch of slack cord, allowing the beads space to slide around. The hole drilled in each bead is large enough for the bead to slide freely on the cord, but not substantially larger than the diameter of the leather cord. The beads are arranged in a seemingly random order on the string, some alternating, some in groups.
The final item is actually a pair of items. The first being a small stuffed doll of a white rabbit. The doll is obviously hand constructed. It’s skin is made from a fine velvet which is completely white apart from a coffee colored patch on the back of the rabbit’s left ear. The doll is no larger than an actual baby rabbit would be, and is anatomically proportioned, but is posed to appear as if it is walking like a human being. The doll is loosely stuffed with some sort of batting, and a quantity of small round objects such as beans, beads, or river gravel. This stuffing gives the doll a limp and pliant consistency. The doll’s eyes are two polished black buttons, and its mouth and nose are stitched patterns in black thread. This black thread was also used to stitch the number ‘27’ on the bottom of the rabbit doll’s right foot. The numerals for ‘2’ and ‘7’ are reversed, as if seen in a mirror. The second item of the set is a matching costume which you have been obliged to wear. The costume is also of a white rabbit with a brown patch on the back of its left ear. The costume is constructed from the same material, and includes a hood with two ears which are stuffed with quill feathers to keep them standing. There is no face to the hood, and no feet to the costume, however, it does include a large drawstring bag in which you have placed the other items along with your supplies for the journey, and slung over your shoulder. The bottom of the bag is a circular patch to which the walls are stitched. On the seat of this circular patch is stitched the same backwards numerals ‘2’ and ‘7’, though much larger, basically inscribed within the circle which is about a foot in diameter.
Our word of the day is “inchoate” – In an initial stage, incipient. Imperfectly formed or developed. Of or relating to a crime committed in preparation for a subsequent crime of greater complexity or severity.
Arthur followed the man in the suit as he was lead through a long series of confusing corridors and interconnecting rooms. The decorum was spartan and functional, like one would expect to see in a military base or government laboratory. The only furnishings were desks and rather uncomfortable looking plastic and metal chairs reminiscent of a high school play. Not even a simple coat of paint covered the bear concrete walls, only terse signs which labeled each room, warned of hazardous conditions, or pointed the way to conveniently located emergency exits. Although they were on the 8th floor of the building, no windows were visible, and the only sources of light were florescent fixtures set in metal frameworks at regular intervals along the ceilings of each room and hallway.
Several steps behind, Arthur and the man in the suit came through a small work room stuffed with equipment and, passing through a small door at the far end, emerged into a long hallway. This hall was unlike the portion of the building Arthur had seen so far, and he was a little relieved. The hall was lined to either side with a series of doors, each with a small brass nameplate and to the side of each door was a tall leafy plant. The two proceeded down the hallway, and as they passed door after door, Arthur spotted a small drinking fountain inset in an alcove coming up on the left.
“About damned time” muttered Arthur. He reached into his coat pocket for his flask and made a bee-line for the fountain, picking up pace and passing the man in the suit. As he passed, Arthur heard a quick zip of fabric and a sudden pressure on his right shoulder. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back staring up into a the face of the man in the suit, silhouetted against a fluorescent light in the celling. “What the devil was that for you lummox?”
“Sir, I’ll have to ask you not to drink from the fountains, they’re not safe.”
Arthur’s ears were ringing. “Not safe?”
“Yes sir, it’s for your own safety.”
“It’s a water fountain. You seem to be the only thing around here posing a threat to my safety. And don’t call me sir. I’m not in your damned little private army.”
“My apologizes sir…”
Arthur glared.
“Detective. Are you injured?”
Arthur shook his head.
“The pipes are filled with benzene. Everyone in the facility is on strict orders to prevent any of it from escaping into the drainage system. Let me help you up.”
Arthur wrested his arm away from the man in the suit, and staggered to his feet, pawing at the smooth hallway wall looking for a suitable handhold but finding none. “Benzene?”
“It’s an industrial solvent.”
“I know what it is, what’s it doing in the pipes, other than giving you an excuse to polish the floors with your visitor’s backsides?”
“As I said detective, I’m very sorry. We think that whom ever infiltrated the building put the benzene into the water supply so that they could clear the building by setting off the fire sprinklers making the air…”
“Never mind, never mind. Look, take me to the officer in charge. I’m sick of this follow the leader rubbish. I’ve got better things to do than follow some oaf around like his trained puppy. Your lucky I…”
The man in the suit slammed Arthur against the wall, jamming his elbow deep into his ribs and knocking his feet out from under him with a single swift motion so that the man’s force against the wall was the only thing holding Arthur up. The man drew his face just inches from Arthur’s. He spoke with the same professional politeness he had been using all along, as if nothing about this conversation set it apart from any other he had had that day. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience sir. We’ve arrived at the director office. If there’s anything else I can help you with today, please don’t hesitate to ask for me. My name is Agent Goren.”
“The man in the suit deftly stepped back from the wall and Arthur fell to his knees. The man straitened his suit, opened the nearby office door and swung it gently back against the wall, and then turned and walked off down the hallway.
Spots was born on October 11th in the middle of the night. No one quite remembers her mother coming into the hospital that night. After all it was quite some time ago. Most of the doctors were medical students and have since left the hospital for others, and the nurses all say they see too many pregnant mothers to remember just one so long ago. In any case, though few can recall her mother, everyone remembers Spots. One can scarcely forget a child like that one.
Spots wasn’t her real name of course. Her mother named her Molly, she said after a ship she had once seen in the harbor in New York. One of the nurses there at the time, Nurse Franklin, was something of an artist and wrote the name out in beautiful block letters with an old style calligraphy pen on the birth papers. It was Molly on her papers, and her charts, and a small card on her bassinet that was printed up by the hospital, and even on a tiny plastic bracelet they gave her. But to all of the staff, at least when not in her mothers presence, she was Spots, and for obvious reasons.
They started on the top of each foot, no larger than the dot at the base of a question mark, but as they moved up, they got bigger. The larger ones were nearly the size of Molly’s thumb nail, which being only hours old was admittedly small, but certainly larger than your average freckle or beauty mark. Each a sort of creamy coffee color. On her right foot there were only two, but the left had three in a sort of oblong triangle. One of the doctors called it isosceles but he was always saying things like that. Such a technical term didn’t seem fitting.
Once several of the nurses tried to match up the pattern. One though it looked like a cat, but the others all agreed it was far to disorganized. Another mentioned a dappled horse she had seen as a child, while still others found better models in nautilus shells or strange asian goats with funny sounding names, but none of the pictures ever seemed to fit quite right. As the spots grew up her legs and across her back and arms, each larger spot took on a character of its own, some more of a ring shape with a light patch in the center, others like drops of paint that had been spinning when they struck a surface. As if some fish swimming in coffee had skipped up the placid river of her skin, leaving dappled rippling patterns as it dove into the surface at acrobatic angles.
When the nurses gave Molly a bath, or took her weight, the name seemed to placate her, and it quickly spread through the ranks until even the doctors were using it. Finally, one of the new nurses, unaware of the unspoken rules, used the name in her mothers room while changing Molly’s diaper. She could tell from the shock on the faces of the doctor and other nurses in the room she had made a serious mistake, and began to cry. Molly’s mother just chuckled. “Oh Nurse West, you gave away my secret pet name for Molly to all your friends.” She gave the nurse a quick wink, and the whole room burst out in the giggles they had been holding in for days. From then on, even to her mother Molly was Spots. On the day Molly and her mother left the hospital, one of the nurses brought in the department camera to take their picture for the big wall in the corridor where they put each new baby’s photo. So many doctors, nurses, and staff wanted in the picture that the nurses had to take thirty in all. So many that Spots got her own section on the wall.
Jessica glanced up from her romance novel and gasped. The beautiful pine forest that had been passing by the windows of the car just a few minutes earlier was missing, replaced by a desolate landscape of skeletal tree trunks and scorched hillsides.
”It’s not as bad as it looks.” said John, noticing her reaction.
”Not as bad? It’s like a … I don’t know what! My god John, it’s a wasteland.”
”The trees will grow back. In fact, the fire makes the seeds germinate, they can’t make new trees without it.”
”And how long will that take John? And until they do, every time you look out the window all you’ll see are these burned out trees.”
”I get to watch the forrest grow back! That’s the best part. And since all the houses around here burned out with the forest, I don’t even have to share it with a bunch of yuppie neighbors. You should think about coming out here too. The real-estate agent said every property on the mountain is up for grabs, and for barely a tenth of what they were worth 6 months ago. These people can’t get out fast enough.”
”Of course they are, all their houses burned down!”
”Right, so now it’s safe.”
”Safe? It’s just going to burn down again!”
”Eventually yes, but that won’t happen for years. The likelihood of another fire in the next few years striking the same place are astronomical.”
”Those are just statistics. It could all burn down again tomorrow.”
”With what Jess’? The ghosts of the trees? It’s all ashes now, there’s nothing left to burn.”
Jessica rolled her eyes.
Come on, it could be fun. We’d have the whole west side of the mountain to ourselves. There are two or three old stone buildings like mine that survived the fire just fine. Just need a coat of paint and some new carpet.”
Jessica reached for her book and pretended to begin reading again. “Yeah, and garbage bags for the burned out corpses.”
John smiled. “Na, the wild life got most of them.”
Jessica cringed and shivered. “Ugh, don’t put those kinds of pictures in my head.”
John chuckled.
Jeremy strained against his seat belt, pressing his face and hands against the car window. “Is it one of these?”
”No honey, sit back.” replied Jeremy’s mother.
”Good,” sneered Ben, “these are all ugly. They have those ugly brick things around all the windows like at school.”
”Soo,” said Jeremy, his face still pressed against the glass.
”So, they’re ugly. Our house had better not have them. And there had better be some trees, all these dumb new houses don’t have any trees.”
”Let’s all calm down, were almost there.”
”Yeah!” said Jeremy.
Ben sneered. Jeremy shot back, sticking out his tongue and screwing up his face. Ben, although only 13 for a few weeks now gave his well practiced teenaged roll of the eyes and slumped back into his seat.
”Jeremy, sit back. This is all the new development. Our house is much older, it’s on the edge of all of this new stuff. The real-estate agent said back when it was built, it was in the middle of the wilderness. Now the road goes right up to it, but its still surrounded by woods. Plus there a small creek in the backyard.”
”A creek?” asked Jeremy.
”It’s like a baby river honey. Like the one on your grandfather’s farm.”
As the rental car continued, the houses passing by began to transform, almost as if time were moving backwards. At first the trees and bushes seemed to shrink away, while the coats of paint on the window shutters and siding grew more vivid. Soon the gardens lost their decorations and the driveways their chalk drawings and unattended bicycles, replaced by realty signs.
”Look mommy, that house doesn’t have skin yet.” Jeremy shouted as they passed.
”It’s called siding stupid. Houses don’t have skin.”
”Ben,” scolded his mother, “that’s quite enough. It is kind of like skin isn’t it Jeremy. That house is still under construction. See, look at this one, you can still see the frame. It’s like a skeleton that holds the house up.”
”They could leave it like that for Halloween. Then the whole house would be a costume.”
”Who’s going to live in a house thats just a frame.” Ben said under his breath.
”Maybe skeletons would want to live there.” said his mother.
As they continued, more houses passed in various stages of development. Then all of a sudden the houses stopped and the road turned into a thick wood. Despite the bright sun out, the car grew dark and a little chilly in the shadows. To either side of the road stood tall, dense evergreens, some growing almost horizontally out of the sides of the hills that sloped up from the road. The trees came up so suddenly, it was almost as if the forest had swallowed the car, closing in even from both sides leaving only the bright swath of sky down the center, too high for sunlight to reach the road below. Jeremy peered into the trees trying to see what lay beyond them. Along the road shorter trees, small bushes and vines obscured the forrest behind them, but every once in a while Jeremy could see a void in the wall of vegetation to the trees in back. The forest floor looked remarkably clear apart from the bear trunks of the trees and an occasional fern. Jeremy though it looked like an empty wear-house he had once seen, a giant room with large concrete and steel pillars every few feet. Certainly not like the forests back home. Between the tree trunks, brilliant shafts of light struck the bear forrest floor, giving everything a dull orange-brown glow from the layer of dry pine needles.
”Here we are boys.”
The road came to a small circle with a large planter in the center. At the far end of the circle was a narrow driveway, flanked on either side by two large pillars of brick, each with an ornate street light at the top. Standing in front of the left column was a carved stone statue of a rabbit, sitting on its haunches, with its head cocked at an angle. Before the right pillar stood the base of a similar statue, but the top half was missing, sheared off like the head of a radish.
The car pulled up to the far side of the circle and came to rest on the shoulder of the road, just short of the drive. “Everybody out!”
”Woah, are those our statues?” asked Ben.
”Yep, the man who owned the house was a retired stone mason. There are little statues all over.”
”What happened to that one mommy?”
”It’s just very old honey. It must have broken off at some point.”
”See Jerr’, that one was the big bunny’s little brother, and he was always asking stupid questions, so one day, the big bunny pulled out his samurai sword and, SWOOSH!”
Jeremy slowly crept up to the rabbit statue and walked around it several times, examining it from all angles. “What sword? I don’t see a sword.”
Jeremy’s mother was already making her way up the drive. “Come along boys, you can come see your new rooms.”
-
The house was huge. The entire outside was covered in dark grey stones like a castle, most of which were rough, but some had been smoothed flat with designs or small carvings of animals. Along the roof the stones made a pattern that looked like the ramparts and battlements along a castle’s exterior wall, and along the side of the house were a number of odd slit windows. Around the house were a number of large, dense hedged, and as their mother had promised, the grounds were scattered with dozens of stone statues of rabbits, turtles, squirrels, frogs, and and many strange animals Jeremy had never seen before.
Jeremy excitedly pointed out each as they passed. “Look at that one mommy. What is it? It has a hat.” Jeremy motioned to a small statue at the corner of the house which stood against a pile of rocks next to a rain downspout.
”Its called a gargoyle.”
”Where do they live?”
”They don’t live anywhere.” replied Ben.
”Gargoyles are make believe honey, like dragons and ferries.”
The boys lingered in the entrance way, a broad path between two parts of the house that jutted out which was overhung by a sort of stone roof. The roof was held up by two more stone pillar like the ones back by the street, but this time much taller, and hanging from the center of the roof was another ornate lamp. The house was empty when they entered. No people, no furniture, no nothing. Jeremy’s mother placed her things on a long counter in the kitchen and began digging through her purse for something. As she looked, Ben helped Jeremy open the heavy wooden door which had begun to close as the boys made their way up the steps. The door was one of two which made up the front entrance. Each was several inches thick and rimmed by black metal pieces fastened to the wood with rivets.
”Take your shoes off boys, I don’t want to get any of that mud on the new carpets, they were just installed.”
Ben quickly kicked his shoes to one side and bounded down a hallway. Jeremy had considerably more trouble extricating himself from his shoes. Jeremy had insisted on buying a pair of rainbow shoe laces he had seen in the airport in Minneapolis which were at least three times longer than necessary for his shoes. To take up the slack, Jeremy’s mother ran the laces through each eyelet several times and then tied two large double bowes, which now refused to come undone. Finally he was able to simply slip his feet out. He tossed each shoe aside being careful to mimic Ben’s technique, and then made his way towards the sound of his mother.
When he reached the kitchen, Jeremy’s mother was talking to someone on her cell phone. “Yes? Hi, this is Samantha Gala. I was hoping to find out if there’s an ETA on the truck.”
Looking around, Jeremy could see all the trappings of a kitchen: there was a large stove set against one wall with a big metal vent above it; to the left of which were two oven doors nestled into the corner of the room, surrounded by cabinets with cross pieces and 5 little windows in each door. In the center was a counter top that came up out of the floor on more stone pillars, this time carved smooth with little pictures of grapes and wheat and babies with little wings. Jeremy ran his fingers over the carvings trying to make out what they were doing in each picture.
Greetings. If you’re reading this note, then you must be the new occupant of my room, or I guess it’s your room now. I’m assuming that this is your room, because I can’t imagine anyone spending more than 5 minutes in this dark, dreary little hovel unless their going to be forced to live here, and you’d basically have to spend that kind of time in here to be looking inside the lose wall panel behind a radiator to find this note. They said the new owners had a daughter about my age, so that must be you.
I guess you cold be some workman or something. Someone who was payed a lot of money to come in here and maybe make this room a little better, and if thats the case, well, all I have to say is I hope you got A LOT of money. Do me a favor and put this note back where you found it so the next poor unfortunate soul who has to live here can find it. I’d ask you not to read it, but I know that would just make me want to read anyway, so we’ll skip over that part. Really though, whatever they’re paying you ask for more.
My name is Scott by the way. Scott Nichols, and I’m, or at least when I wrote this note I was 14 years old. My parents own this house, but my father’s company, he works for Stagg and Sons the cracker company, anyway it was bought out by another company and we’re moving to the North. The town is not important, frankly I’d rather not leave any trail behind, but suffice it to say it’s a good far way away from this pace, and that suits me just fine.
For a while it looked like our house wasn’t going to sell, it being way out here in the middle of nowhere and everything. When we move in almost 6 years ago I was pretty bummed out that there weren’t a lot of neighbors. Well as bummed out as you can get when your 8 years old but you get my point. We came from one of those planned communities will all the houses lined up on the street next to each other. Apparently the schools around here aren’t that great either, though they seem just like all the other schools I’ve been to. My guess is your parents got suckered by the same thing mine did. Adults have some weird unhealthy attachment to living in the country. Country living, right, they never consider that there’s no one around for their kids to play with. They just look at the big yard and the long driveway and think about all the character their kids will be building spending hours mowing the law, raking the leaves, and shoveling snow. Maybe your parents aren’t like that. I guess they don’t usually make girls do all that manual labor. Lucky devils. But take my advice, it’s better than spending your time in this room.
Ok, look. I guess I’ve been dancing around the subject here, but it has to be said. I’m writing this note for a reason, so I’ll just spread it all out on the table. There’s just no other way to say it, you are in deep trouble. Your parent’s picked the wrong house to move into. The wrong house in the wrong neighborhood, and you got stuck with the worst room in the place. You’ve got a zombie problem.
Go ahead, laugh, roll your eyes, I can’t say I’d blame you. You probably think this whole note is a joke. ‘What a sap,’ your thinking, ‘that loser kid who used to live here must have been some kind of cynical friendless practical joker.’ Sure, fine, don’t believe me. I know I wouldn’t. I know I didn’t. I got a note just like this one when I moved in. The girl before me was named Lisa, Lisa something. She stuck a note just like this, well her paper was all pink and had little baby chicks all over it but you know what I mean, she stuck it in the wall just like this one. I read through the first page, laughed my head off, and then ripped it up into tiny confetti. You’re probably thinking the same thing. Look, just grant me this one favor. Think of it as honoring the last occupant of your room, or heck, just do it so you can show all those friends your going to make what kind of crazy person lived here before you, just don’t throw away this note like I did. You don’t have to read it, just put it back in the wall, or some other safe place, and for god sakes hang on to it, because the day is going to come when you’ll know I was right, and when it does, what I’ve written down here may save you a great deal of grief.
Welcome back. That is, if you left then welcome back. I guess at this point I’ve either peaked your interest or you’ve been out into the woods behind the house. That’s how things started for me anyway. You may have noticed that the window in my room, or that is your room, is the only window in the house facing out into the back towards the woods. In fact, with the way the hedges line up along the sides of the house, it’s basically impossible to see into the woods back there from anywhere else on the property without actually walking back there. I don’t have any proof of it, but I think that may be by design. About two summers ago I rode my bike down to the hall of records in town to look up the original plans for the house, but the old crone who works there said the old hall of records burned down in 1970-something and all the records were lost. Even if it wasn’t the original intent, I think maybe thats why zombies chose this place. They’re a pretty private group on the whole.
Anyway, the first time I saw them was about 3 months after we moved in. Everyone in all those crime shows on TV always seem to know the exact dates when they do everything, and you’d think that for something this important I could remember but I can’t. I know it was some time after school started. Must have been in September or October because the leaves were starting to fall and guess who was enlisted to rake them up. The yards not very big, but there’s a load of trees back there so the whole things about a 2 or 3 hour job. Plus as soon as your done, the wind picks up and blows a whole new load of leaves off the trees or out from around the creek and you have to start all over again. It must have been late in the afternoon because it was starting to get dark, and as the sun went down I started seeing these flashes of light way back in the woods.
I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to go back there yet, but the woods around here go back pretty far. If you stand at the back of the house and start walking strait back there’s that path that goes for about 20 minutes, but even when you get to the end you’re only about a 6th of the way to the property line, and then after that its all state forest land. At the time I’d never been back further than the end of the path. From the end I could still see the light was some distance away and looked like it was coming from above the trees. The lights only lasted a few minutes. It was late and I was hot on finishing the raking so I could go into town and see some other human beings for a change, so I basically forgot about the whole thing. Later on I mentioned it to my dad, but he put on his ‘let me teach my boy about the wilderness’ routine and said it was probably just lightening. I told him there’re weren’t any clouds and I don’t remember hearing any thunder but then he launched into thing whole speech about heat lighting, and some Indian medicine man, and boy scout camping trips from when he was a kid back in the stone age.
After that I basically forgot about the whole thing, but then a few weeks later I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and as I passed the window I could see the lights again. I sat up for almost 4 hours watching them until the sun came up. I don’t know if they stopped or it just got too bright to see them anymore. The same thing happened the next night, and the next, and by the weekend I was staying up to see when they started. Almost every night the lights would start up at about 2:30 or 3 o’clock, always in the same place, and usually go until dawn. Once in a while I would see them during the day, but only for a few minutes. The real shows were at night.
For some reason they seemed to take every Tuesday off, and then after about 2 weeks of this the lights completely stopped. This was probably a good thing because by that point I wasn’t getting any sleep outside of math class. By then it was starting to get really cold at night so maybe it had something to do with the temperature. Anyway, I finally got up enough nerve to go out there and see what was going on. I figured I had missed my chance to see the light in action, OK I couldn’t muster the courage to go out there when they were going on, but I figured now that they had stopped, I could start out in the morning, hopefully reach the place where they seemed to appear by 10 or 11 o’clock, and that would give me a good hour or two of snooping around time before heading back so I wouldn’t have to be out there in the dark. Hey, can you blame me?
That weekend I stumbled through the woods on Saturday and Sunday but I couldn’t find a thing, but the next week on Sunday I struck gold. I had been walking about 30 minutes past the end of the path, right about where the land begins to slope up hill and a little West of where all those big boulders are. I guess I wasn’t watching my step and I tripped over something.
My father bought our first robot second hand. He scoured the classified ads in the newspaper when he was at work, and every night when he returned home he spent another hour or two looking through the buy and sell posts on the electronic bulletin boards. Every once-in-a-while he would call my mother over to the computer and show her a posting or an add he had clipped from the paper.
”Can you believe it! This clown’s only asking 4k for a ’33 Deluth. That’s practically a professional grade unit, they use the same guts in the model they sell to hotels and liners, it’s a different housing and of course no secondary control unit.” He would list off the features of each model, explaining each function to my mother as if she was a child, and she would stand, quiet and respectful until his speech was over.
At first all of the robots my father found were far too expensive. They were recent models, sometimes even brand new, or were outfitted with lots of extra add on features like fingerprint resistant cases and rough terrain stability controls that didn’t make much sense for a house robot. In a strange way, my mother never had to talk him out of one of these robots, but instead would say something like “sounds good” or “so how soon can they deliver it?”. Father knew the prices were out of the question, but was always hoping my mother would point this out so she could be the bad guy. Sometimes, just to prove her wrong he would spend his lunch breaks working out pages of calculations trying to show that the price was actually affordable, taking into account such costs as “extra water costs to clean finger print cloths – $2 /month” or “savings due to decreased shoe wear – $44 /year”, but somehow he never managed to make the math come out on his side.
One weekend last summer during the storms my father was flipping through the broadcasts looking for an alternative to the rained out cricket match and happened upon a DIY program. The show was a moderately popular one although never so much in our house, and centered on a spunky former beauty queen who called everyone “tremendous”, and would invite guests on to demonstrate various skills. The hook of the show was the fact that the host was completely hopeless at whatever she tried but put on a big smile after holding up her finished, crooked quilt or spilling paint all over her clothes. It happened that this rainy afternoon the topic was home robot repair. The guest on the program was a retired engineer from one of the big manufacturers, a “real working man” as he came to be know around the dinner table, who had written a series of how-to manuals for common robot maintenance. After the broadcast my father could talk of little else, and soon the advertisements for shiny up-to-date robots that had covered his desk were replaced with copy for spare parts models and thick reference manuals from the library, so old they were printed on brittle newsprint rather than in data files.
With these new models my mother’s techniques became less and less effective, and as she stood over my father’s shoulder and listened to his spiel, each model more rust covered and antiquated than the last, she grew more and more concerned.
”Honey, is that really safe? I mean, don’t they call them the McGabel Statutes because of the McGablel robots and all those houses that burned down? It can’t even do up and down the stairs.”
”Those were just the early units, before they cleaned up the factories. This thing is a classic! XR4′s in good condition go for almost 12k, and this one just needs a new case, a few systems upgrades, maybe a new sensor or two and presto! You’ve got yourself a robot that will last a good … 20 years. Heck, for this price we could get two, one for up stairs and one for down.”
My mothers only saving grace was the fact the tools and upgrade equipment would have cost more than just buying a brand new robot.
As time passed, and as several modest home repair projects lead to embarrassing calls to local contractors, my father began to talk less and less about robots. Even his nightly sessions on the net slowly petered out, my father choosing instead to sit in his office and listen to the radio. Once in a while we found a stray newspaper clipping when doing laundry, but when the subject came up at dinner my fathers response was always little more than a sigh.
Things continued on like this for nearly 3 months.
“For goodness sakes Jack, sit down. Your driving me crazy.”
“What time is it?”
“Three minutes past the last time you asked me what time it was.”
“What time is it Nick?”
“It’s,” Nick set his apple down on a nearby box and cocked his arm into the air to pull back the sleeve of his coat, “It’s 6:41 and 21, 22, 23, 24…”
Jack sat down with a huff on the edge of the stairs and grabbed Nick’s apple.
“28, 29. Hey!”
“Your mouth seems to be busy at the moment,” Jack took a bite and smiled.
“You asked. Look, you have to calm down, they’ll be here.”
“They were supposed to be here over an hour ago!”
“Quit complaining and try and enjoy it.”
“You enjoy it.”
“I was until you took my apple.”
“It’s an apple warehouse Nick.”
“I know, but I brought that one from home. It’s a macintosh and these are all granny smith. They’re all sour.”
Jack took another bite.
DING DONG, DING DONG
Alba stat up like a bolt and smashed her head into the underside of her bathroom sink. She held her head for a few seconds, dazed, and then felt around with her left hand for the edge of the bathtub, over estimating and smashing her hand into the fiberglass and dropping the piece of sink pipe she was holding with a loud clang.
DING DONG DING DONG DING DONG, three more sharp rings rang out in quick succession.
”I’m coming, just a minute, I’m coming.” Alba struggled to her feet, head still throbbing, and dashed down the hallway to the front door of her apartment. She grasped the knob and went to turn it, then thinking twice, took a quick glance through the peep hole. Standing in the hall with his back to the door was a delivery boy. He seemed rather young for the position, no more than 15 or 16, and his appearance was not bolstered in the slightest by his uniform shorts, vest, and baseball cap, which all seemed to be the wrong size for him, though curiously not in the same direction.
The delivery boy spun in place to face Alba’s door again. DING DONG. Alba could now see the pair of white wires leading from his ears to a pocket of his oversized shorts, presumably connected to some music player or other.
Alba opened the door but the delivery boy—she could now read the name tag sewn onto his vest, it said Dimitri—Dimitri was too engrossed in his music to notice. He continued to dance in place, though Alba thought it could hardly be considered dancing, bobbing his head and intermittently playing a drum solo on Alba’s door bell button. DING DONG, DING DI-DI-DING DONG.
Alba stood in her doorway silently as Dimitri rocked on. A nagging feeling of embarrassment began to well up in her stomach before she realized that she was the one that should be put off. Her embarrassment flash froze into a kind of playful anger. With a quick motion she tossed the pipe wrench she was holding in her hand into the air and caught it by the head, and then without skipping a beat, she flipped the baseball cap off of Dimitri’s head with a quick upward slash of the wrench handle to the underside of the visor. The hat made a graceful arc, completing two and a half summersaults and landed neatly on top of the clipboard in Dimitri’s arms.
Dimitri froze mid beat and then smiled, “Whah, nice shot.”
Alba gave a wry, sarcastic smile.
”Right, right, I got this package for William Nyland.”
Alba sighed, “Bill is across the hall kid.”
”Yeah, well he’s like not home so…sign please.”
”That one.”
”Who?”
”Don’t look! He’s three rows up. The one with the news paper.”
Mary craned her neck to get a better view.
”See,” said Judith, “look when he takes a sip of his coffee.”
”You’re seeing things. Why would he be wearing a fake mustache?”
”That’s what makes it so strange, what could he be up to?”
”Maybe he’s an actor,” Mary smiled and began to giggle, “or an actress.”
”No no, look at his hands. Definitely a man.”
”It looks normal to me, how do you know it’s fake?”
”Just look at it, the color is all wrong.” Judith ducked down and began digging through her backpack, emerging a moment later with her cell phone.
”What, are you going to call the cops?”
”No, a picture.” Judith seritpiciouslly held the phone just above the rim of the row of seats in front of her, peaking out just enough for the small lens of the camera to peer over the seat-back. CLICK
”Snails, large plastic snails. You can usually find them in chinatown. They have shops down there where they sell nothing but plastic food that the chinese restaurants put in their windows.”
”I don’t think the chinese eat snails.”
”They don’t, these are decorative snails. They put them around the food.”
”And that’s supposed to be appetizing?”
”Don’t blame me, I’m not Chinese. Anyway, you get these snails and you take a craft knife or an xacto knife or something and cut a small hole in the bottom and then you fill them with meringue. Put them in the oven for like 25 minutes and then you can just peal the plastic off.”
”Is that really safe, I mean putting the plastic things in the oven like that. Won’t the chemicals from the plastic get into the meringue?”
”Of course, that’s the point. See the plastic they use in those chinatown shops is the cheep stuff. Is full of lead and CFC’s and dioxins and stuff. When you put it in the oven, all that leaches into the meringue.”
”So then it’s poison.”
”Well yeah,” Simon had a puzzled look.
”Poison?”
”Yeah, it’s all poison.”
”Poison poison?”
”Don’t give me that look, you’re the one who wanted to get that dog to stop barking.”
”Well what kind of solution is this? I mean first of all, if i wanted to poison him then there are a million better ways,” Carol sat back in her seat in disgust, “and not one of them involved me driving all the way to chinatown to get some crazy plastic snails! I mean My God Simon! Why would you even suggest something like that?”
Simon hung his head and stopped making eye contact. Then he began to laugh. “They aren’t for eating silly. Your just using the meringue because the dogs hate the way it sounds when you rub pieces together.”
”You can’t be serious.”
”It’s true. I used to do it all the time to the dog that lived across the street when I was in grade school.”
”And he stopped barking”
”No, he was never a barker, I just did it to annoy him.”
”For heaven sakes, why?”
”He used to stare at my window at night from across the street. He had plans, I’m sure of it.”
”Probably because you were annoying him all the time with your meringue. Where did you get snail shaped meringue to play with anyway?”
”I had my sources.”
”Wait a minute, if your just rubbing it together, why does it need to be snail shaped?”
”It doesn’t really I guess, but, well…” Simon took a sip of his juice, “it’s more for the aesthetic than anything.”
Carol gave another puzzled look.
”Well if someone comes up to you on the street and asks what your doing and you tell them your rubbing to amorphous pieces of meringue together to bother the dog next door and try and get him to stop barking, they’re going to think your crazy and call the police.”
”They’re going to say the same thing if the meringue is shaped like a snail.”
”Maybe, but they will have to smile when they say it.”
Slow pulsing strings music sets a thrilling, tension based mood. The camera pans out from behind a large piece of scientific equipment. We find ourselves in a cavernous scientific lab, decked out in every direction with large and impressive pieces of scientific equipment full of blinking lights, glowing dials, computer screens, and brightly colored liquids. The scene is covered by the dim hum of the equipment, the bustling of workers in he background, and an occasional bright flash of electrical discharge. The sound of a soprano opera singer slowly fades in.
In a lower corner and from a distance we see a group of people. Standing among them are several henchmen dressed in dark uniforms and faceless helmets with their guns trained on a spy in a tattered white tuxedo. The spy has his hands healed behind his back by Dr. Fe, a woman in a skin-tight leather suit and a lab coat. The spy is angrily exchanging words with Prof. Colossus, head scientist of the lab who is standing, aloof, some distance away, tinkering with a piece of equipment.
PROF COLOSSUS (in a cuban accent a la Fantasy Island guy)
Well well well. It seems we have a spy in our midst Dr. Fe. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone came snooping around, but I’m afraid your far too late.
SPY (struggling, in a british accent)
Colossus, you are here by under arrest by the authority of the Eur…
Prof. Colossus nods his head at one of the henchmen, who promptly punches the spy in the stomach, stopping his speech momentarily.
COLOSSUS (angry but regaining composure)
That’s PROFESSOR Colossus. Please remember to mind your man-ners.
Colossus holds a component up to the light and examines it.
My men are very loyal and they are sensitive to matters of etiquette.
DR FE (in a bad italian accent, with a maniacal smile)
Professor, allow me to teach out guest some manners.
Fe gestures at one of the henchmen holding a gun on the spy.
You! Bring me my tools.
PROF COLOSSUS
No!
The henchmen snaps back in place. Fe is obedient but obviously insulted. She twists the spy’s arm for good measure.
I’ve got a little show planned for our guest. Tell me my friend…
Colossus finally looks away from his work and approaches the struggling spy with the piece of equipment he has been working on. We see that Colossus is partially cripples and walks with a heavy limping effort on a crutch.
Have you ever seen an opera singer break a wineglass with her voice? It’s quite a sight. Infact, with the right sound, you can break a lot more than just stemware.
Colossus walks over to a mouse in a lucite cage. He lifts his deice to his view and presses a few buttons, causing it to light up.
You see, its just a matter of finding … the … right …
Colossus taps the lucite cage a few times and the mouse begins to squeak. Colossus hums along with the mouse looking for the right tone.
Mmmmmmmm …. Hmmmmmmm … hmmmmm, a ha. The right pitch.
Colossus points his device at the cage turns a knob, and an ear splitting dull tone begins. Everyone begins to strain under the sound except for Colossus who is humming along and conducting with his free hand.
Hahahhahahaha. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
The mouse in the cage begins to run around frantically, then to vibrate. Suddenly the inside of the lucite cage is bathed in red. The mouse has exploded. Colossus presses a key on the device and the tone instantly stops. Colossus talks to the cage.
Tisk tisk. Such a mess you have made. But the music, ahh, was it not worth it my little friend?
Colossus looks at the spy.
I think everyone deserves to hear such good music, don’t you Mr. Spy. HmmHmhmhmhmmm. And our debut concert in Brussels is about to begin.
SPY
You’ll never get away with this Colossus. NATO forces are storming your compound as we speak.
COLOSSUS (ironically)
Ohhh, that’s too bad. They’re going to miss the opening act. But don’t worry Mr. Spy. They’ll be here just in time for your … hmmm hmm hmm, swan song.
SPY
How can you be so cruel? You had a promising future at the Stern institute. What could turn a man so evil?
COLOSSUS
Colossus turns to the spy and rips open his lab coat to reveal his t-shirt.
Why, Overlord Incorporated, of course.
Colossus tilts back into a maniacal laugh with hands up like claws, Sideshow-Bob style. Music rises to a crescendo of horns.
The frame freezes and moves back into a group of passing pictures of similar scenes of laughing super villains with the Overlord logo on their clothing. Chincy synthesized inspirational music begins to play and a large Overlord Logo and title appear on the screen.
SCENE CHANGE
The logo and music fade to a typical office setting. We see Fe, still wearing her skin-tight leather suit, but now covered with conservative work attire. She stands facing the camera with a smile in a non-descript conference room replete with water cooler, potted plant, inspirational posters, whiteboard on which the Overlord logo is playfully drawn. To her right is a large projector screen built into the wall on which the title sequence is still playing to black.
TITLES
Dr. Fe Ghoul – Human Resources Director – Overlord Industries
FE (in a much more understated italian accent)
Ha ha, well, that was me almost 16 years ago when I first came here to Overlord Industries. Welcome. My name is Dr. Fe Ghoul, and let me be the first to welcome you to your new surroundings here at Overlord Industries.
Change camera angles. Fe looks to her right and turns. Now the projector screen is directly behind her and to her left.
As I’m sure you’re already well aware, Overlord Industries is a world leader in enterprise level and service oriented evil.
Fe clicks a button on the small remote in her hand and a slide show begins on the screen behind her. As she talks, a series of images of terror, destruction, and wholesale comicbook style violence click past the screen behind her. The images generally follow what she is saying, and are accompanies by titles describing the villain or villains involved, and something about the place or time.
Overlord counts among its members over 600 villains, rogues, knaves, deviants, scoff-laws, reprobates, and scoundrels, and over 200 malevolent societies and organizations. But here at Overlord Industries, we like to think of ourselves as a family.
This last point is underscored by a picture of many of the villains we’ve just seen standing in a scene of destruction and pointing weapons at eachother. The caption reads Overlord Annual Potluck Picnic.
Today we’ve put together this little film, as a sort of introduction for all of you. It will tell you a little about the illustrious history of Overlord, what we’re up to today, and how you can help us maintain our hegemonic grip of fear and crushing power over the peoples of the world. So sit back, relax, and enjoy.
FE (in a harsh and quick tone, now with a more pronounced accent)
Anyone talking, smoking, laughing, taking notes or pictures, or leaving during the screening of the film will be shot.
Fade to black.
SCENE CHANGE