John closed his eyes tightly. He could feel water welling up in the corners of each, but his mind refused to recognize them as tears and marked them down as sweat instead.
“Geez it hot in here.”
“Calm down, we’re almost done.”
The tattoo artist’s tone was derisive and insulting in that way you talk to a child when your trying to be polite but you’re really annoyed. John knew the tone well. He heard it all day long from mothers at the end of their ropes who came to his teller window at the bank to deposit a check or turn in a few rolls of coins.
“There we are. That wasn’t so bad now was it?”
John could tell he said this to everyone. You could end the day on the table dead and he would still say it, scrawling his name on a bill and tossing it over his solder as the medics rushed into the room too late to make a difference. John felt like telling him off, but he knew he wouldn’t so he mustered a weak forced smile instead.
“There’s a mirror in the corner. Give it a good look over and then I’ll bandage it up.”
John stood up, and the fresh flush of blood and feeling to his arm sent a new shock of pain up his shoulder and through his neck. He winced, but quickly hid.
He stood up to the mirror and looked over his new addition. At first all he could see was the swollen redness of his battered skin, but as his eyes focused, he began to see the faint ink lines emerge and congeal into shapes and pictures. He continued to stare, at first lazily, but with increasing intent, as if his mind was slowly working out a math puzzle and the final operation just eluded him. Finally things suddenly snapped into focus.
“What is this?”
“Hmm”, mused the artist half listening as he prepared a gauze bandage.
“This, what is this on my arm?”
“It the brogan’s cross, for Brogan State Penn. And two roses. You were in for two years right?”
“Brog…Brogen State Penn? You mean the penitentiary? It’s supposed to be a book. John Brogen’s book ‘An English Rose’! What have you done to me?”
“Na mate, its right here in the invoice. One Brogen…” The artist stopped short as he squinted at his own inscrutable handwriting on the bill of sale.
John’s heart began to race. He looked back in the mirror, examining the new tattoo over and over, forcing his mind to actively identify each element and assure him that he was seeing what he had seen just moments before. Each time the same, a ghoulish gothic style cross, throned with jagged black spines and flanked on each side with a smiling skull holding a rose in its teeth.
“Here,” John’s voice shook as he spoke, “quick, wipe it up before the ink dries.”
“I ah, well, I can’t. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Of course it does, here,” John grabbed a sterile towel from the counter and pressed it hard to his flesh. His skin burned at this further indigence and he winced at the pain. Then, gritting his teeth he began to rub furiously.
“Wait, wait, you’ll tear your skin to shreds and get an infection. Look, the ink’s down deep, under the skin, you can’t just soak it up.”
“Well the get your erasing fluid or whatever you use. Just get it, hurry.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Tattoos are permanent. Only way to get them off is with a laser, and the…”
“So get the laser, what are you standing there for.” John was practically in tears now.
“Calm down. Like I was trying to tell you. Only a doctor can do that. And they can’t take it off until the skin’s healed up. Look, this happens every once and a while. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal! I look like a hoodlum.”
The tattoo artist almost started laughing at John’s choice of words. “It’s cool, look, we’ve got a dermatologist we work with. I’ll give them a call and make you an appointment. The shop will cover everything. You’ll have to wait 6 weeks for the skin to heal up and then you can go to the office and have it off. It just takes an hour or so.”
John looked back in the mirror, purposlly blurring his gaze, but his two new osseous companions starred back at him with their wide grins intact.
Have you ever wondered why the stereotypical Anglo-Saxon style old English phrase replaces the word the with the word ye? OK, I admit that I never really wondered either, but it’s one of those little tidbits of information that, once you know it, makes you feel like a better English speaker.
It turns out that what we’ve all been pronouncing as /ji/ (rhymes with tree) is actually not originally a y, but instead the Anglo-Saxon letter thorn, written as a capitol Þ and lower case as þ, and pronounced as a dental fricative—a th sound.
Þ capitol letter thorn—UTF-8: 00DE
þlower case letter thorn—UTF-8: 00FE
According to Wikipedia, thorn (or þorn) once originally accounted for both voiced th sound, as in the, and the unvoiced, as in think, but was eventually replaced with the modern th combination—and example of a digraph—and by the letter Y in a few stock mems like ye olde. The letter thorn, þ, is still used in modern Icelandic to represent the unvoiced dental fricative, and even appears on the standard Icelandic keyboard layout.
Incedently, Icelandic also includes the letter eth, capitol Ð and lower case ð, representing a voiced dental fricative. Eth also derives from old (Anglo-Saxon) English, and was once used interchangeably with thorn.
Ð capitol letter eth—UTF-8: 00D0
ðlower case letter eth—UTF-8: 00F0
There now, don’t you feel better? Incendentally, if you’re now concrned that you don’t know where thorn and eth appear in the alphabet, fear not, Michael Everson and Baldur Sigurdhsson can help you out.
Tiny dogs, that all Sam was seeing lately, tiny designer dogs yipping and jumping on the end of ridiculously long thin leashes as their owners paid them little attention. When he was a kid Sam could remember lots of his neighbors and friends all up and down South Avenue having dogs, but none was smaller than a fire hydrant or stack of news papers, at least not after it was a puppy. Sam could never have a dog. He wanted one desperately and when he was about 5 or 6 went through a phase of asking his mom for one whenever he was asked a question himself.
“Sammy, would you like to have peas for dinner tonight, or broccoli?”
“I would like a dog mother, a brown dog.”
“Did you brush your teeth yet?”
“I want a dog with small teeth.”
It was a desperate ploy, more than Sam could have dreamed up on his own. He got the idea from one of the Saturday afternoon movies that he watched in the back room of the beauty parlor while his mom worked. In the movie a little girl—Sam thought one of the other characters had called her Sam and that’s what caught his attention away from coloring—desperately wanted her father back for christmas, and so started in on a similar campaign asking first every Santa Clause bell ringer she and her mother passed, and then eventually every bearded man.
The film played the whole incident up as sweet an endearing. Sam was too young to get the full effect at the time, but he was old enough to recognize the formula. The camera at eye level with the girl, the charming laughs and knowing smiles elicited from the Santas as they gave the girl’s mother a heartfelt look, and of course the music—soaring violins and warm horns.
Sam couldn’t wait to try this new method out, but for some reason things just didn’t seem right. The first time he tried it was right after his mother’s shift. She swept up the spent hair from around her station and then came into the back to get her purse from the row of lockers along the back wall.
“All done pumpkin. You ready to go?”
“I’m ready to get a dog mommy. A brown dog like Greg has.”
Several of the other hair dressers were in the room, also collecting their things, and like a wave Sam could see that same look he had seen in the movie wash over their faces. “Aww”, they all laughed, and Sam couldn’t hold back his smile. But somehow his mother had missed the wave. At first he though she hadn’t heard him. He tried again.
“Do you have all your things?”
“I don’t have a dog mom.”
Again the “Aww” from around the room, but this time with a little less feeling. There was no doubt she had heard it this time, but nothing registered on her face. Sam looked up at her expectantly, consciously trying to increase the level of wonder in his face but probably, he knew, affecting something more like queasiness or the look of someone about to sneeze. After a long silence his mother finally rolled her eyes and spoke.
“You know we can’t get a dog, you’re allergic. Remember when we went to visit grandma and grandpa on their farm in Vermont. All you had to do was pet their sheepdog for 5 minutes and you were sneezing and coughing and your hand got all red and puffy.”
“Yeah, but that won’t happen this time mom.”
“Oh yeah, and hows that?”
“Becuase I’m older now and I grew out of it.” It was the best he could come up with. Strangely it hadn’t occurred to him that he would have to defend his position. Surely the overwhelming power of his wonderment and the soaring violins would take care of that.
Sam was smart enough to see that the plan wasn’t working, but with little else in his bag of tricks, he stuck with it for the next few days.
“Sam, did you wash your hands, it’s time for dinner.”
“If I had a dog I could wash his hands before dinner.”
Writing Exercise (three paragraphs): When you go out to a restaurant or a bar, jot down your observations in a notebook. In one paragraph, describe a loner’s looks and behavior. In another, a couple’s looks and interaction. In a third paragraph, describe how a waiter or a bartender communicates with the customers.
Sara groaned as she lifted the heavy tray of dirty plates and glasses into the small sink at the end of the bar. After rattling the basin around to dislodge the last fork, stuck to the inside corner by a thick glob of chocolate sauce and what appeared to be salsa, she paused for a moment, looking at the way small bits of leftover sauces and dressings were leaching out from in between a short stack of plates from table 3.
“You look hungry,” Mike said, putting his hand on her shoulder as he turned sideways to squeeze by her and get to the stack of clean glasses behind the bar.
“No,” she said without looking up, “it’s just kind of pretty.”
Mike gave the metal scoop hanging from a beaded chain a deft kick, catching it as it swung up, and dove its end into the large bin of ice a few times. He gathered a good scoop and filled the glass he had retrieved. “Shift’s over, let me pour you something.”
“I have to get up in the morning. Casey taking me shopping for something to wear to the funeral.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Anyway, we’ve still got our writer.” Sara motioned with he eyebrow to the figure sitting in the dark corner booth, hunched over a small computer.
“I’ll take care of him…”
“No, no, I’ve still got dishes to do. I’ll get ‘em when I’m done. Anyway, it seems like he’s in the middle of something. I hate to break his concentration.”
“Your just hoping the story is about you.”
Sara laughed, “look who’s talking. Mr. ‘Would you like my life story with your check?’.”
“What, he asked me.”
“Uh, huh—and I suppose that was an accurate account too. How many years did you say you worked on that oil rig.”
“Oil derrick, it’s called a derrick.”
“One pump in the middle of an empty field on your parents hog farm.”
“Oil is oil.” Mike said with a huff. He held the glass to his lips, now filled with a mixture of Sprite and juice from the cherry bin, and stared at the man in the booth. “What do you think he’s writing?”
“Screen play,” said Sara knowingly.
“How do you know.”
“I saw the formatting over his shoulder. I don’t know what it’s about, but there is a character named Michael.” Mike gave Sara a sarcastic look, but she ignored him, faining effort in scraping melted cheese from a plate of half eaten nachos. When she had finished, she wiped he hands with the dish towel tucked into her apron strings and joined Mike in watching the writer work.
The man looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, but in a way that you might easily think he could be older. He had been coming in to the bar for almost 3 months now, always angling for one of the dark booths in the back, or when he couldn’t get them, the stool at the far end of the bar that everyone—including Mike and Sara—always assumed was supposed to be decorative. He had dark hair which wriggled out from under an old mussed and creased beret. Mike had often though how it was strange that hats like that always seemed to look goofy or like a costume on some people while others, like this writer, seemed to inhabit them. A few months ago the man had worn a thick black wool overcoat which only heightened the ensemble, but with the spring weather now breaking through he had switched to a grubby hooded sweet-shirt with the logo of an old bakery on the south side that had long since gone under. It only made him look younger and more literary than before.
The antique clock on the counter began to chime, once, twice, and Sara looked down at her watch and then around at the empty tables and booths. “Mmmm, alright, ” she yawned. Mike slid her a small plastic tray with a receipt and a mint on top, and Sara caught it and headed for the back booth, brushing back her lose pony tail as she zig-zagged through the tables.
“It’s 2 a.m., closing time.” She said, laying an extra smile in her voice.
The writer continued typing for a few seconds, his fingers suddenly speeding up and his eyes clamped down tight. Then he made a quick motion with his left had, saving his work and then looked up at Sara with a weary smile. “tha…” he coughed a few times, clearing his throat, “thanks,” he said, and flashed a quick smile as his eyes darted over the table, apparently taking a quick inventory of all his belongings. His hand dove into the large pocket on the front of his sweeter and pulled out a wadded ball of cash from which he extracted several bills, smoothing them on the edge of the table, and then sheepishly handing them to Sara who met his gaze with a tired smile of her own.
“I’ll be right back with your change.”
The man waved his hand and winced, coughing again for several seconds. “You keep it. You keep it, it’s yours.”
“Thank you sir,” she replied, obviously expecting this response but still grateful for the generous tip. She glanced over his bill, 4 coffees and a basket of fired clams he hadn’t touched. “You have a safe trip home.”
The writer nodded, closed his laptop under his arm, and walked across the room and through the door, tipping his beret to Mike as he passed.
Writing Exercise: (one page) Write a scene of a story from a glimpse you have had of a group of people—in a café, zoo, train or anywhere. Sketch the characters in their setting and let them interact. Do you find that you know too little? Can you make up enough—or import from other experiences—too fill the empty canvas?
The team filed into the hospital lobby to the concerned looks of people waiting in the atrium chairs. Coach Brenum’s warnings from the bus ride over still ringing in their ears the boys kept their usual banter to a dull roar, but they were boys after all and young and riled up and so it was inevitable when their chatter began to grow again, prompting the receptionist to cast dirty looks at the group over the telephone clasped between her neck and shoulder.
The small waiting area had only a hand full of chairs, too few for the team even under the present circumstances, and not helped by the fact that several people were already scattered about the lobby. Robby, Sam, and some of the other younger boys had already stacked out a set of chairs in the far corner by the window and were now already well into flipping through the month old magazines, snickering at the expressions on peoples faces in the advertisements and acting out exaggerated pantomimes of rapturously enjoying paper towels or fat-free salad dressing.
“Boys,” Robby’s mother snapped at them from across the room in a forced whisper, “show some decorum, this is a Hospital.”
From the boys looks it was clear they had no idea what ‘decorum’ was, but Mrs. Simon’s tone left little to the imagination and the small group renewed their social commentary in the form of empathic silent pointing, stifled snickers, and screwed up faces.
Candice said she would call down from the ER when they had more about Luther’s condition,“ said Mrs. Simon, turning to Coach Brenum and two other mothers who had just walked in from the parking lot, ”But did you see these signs.“ She motioned to a large printed sign near the entrance that read ”Please Turn Off All Cellular Devices Within the Hospital, Thank You.“ ”I don’t know if they’ll even let her call. And if she does I sure as hell can’t answer. Do you think one of use should wait outside?“
At her suggestion the other mothers began to look contemplatively at their shoes, no doubt running the hundred degree temperatures outside through their minds. Coach Brenum looked cooly down at his watch, as if not listening to Mrs. Simon’s question, and then spoke abruptly.
”Candice knows the drill, they can send a page down to the receptionist when things are ready.“ His tone was one of someone who had obviously spent more than one Sunday afternoon in a hospital lobby, and it was a bit comforting to the other mothers, though it didn’t seem to have much effect on Mrs. Simon.
”I don’t see why you’re so cool about this. That medic said that gash on Luther’s head might need surgery.“
”Sutures, Melony. Sutures aren’t surgery, its just another name for stitches.“ Coach replied, still looking at his watch. ”Its just a superficial wound. He’s bleeding so they’ll see him pretty quickly, have ‘em sewn up in about 20 minutes and then we’ll be out of here with a bottle of antibiotics and a bunch of rowdy soccer players all wanting to hear what it was like in the ER. It’s the quietest you’ll ever hear them.“
Mrs. Simon wanted to argue the point further—to go on about how she hoped he had insurance for the team and how traumatic the ER had been for Robby when he was 4—but the coach’s steady tone made her think twice. She sat back in her chair and turned towards the boys who had moved from the magazines to critiquing the paintings of rural doctors offices and country landscapes.
“Maths,” said Jimmy Whales, “I like maths. And my Mom says I’m good at ‘em too.”
“Maths? Your good at ‘maths’?” said Charles in a lilting tone, “First of all it’s ‘math’ not ‘maths’. There’s only one of them.”
At some point in his life—Jimmy wasn’t sure exactly when—it had become his older brother’s duty to correct anything and everything that Jimmy said. At one point he asked his mother about it, but she’d simply scrunched up her nose and then stormed into the other room and said something in that quick low hushed way she always talked when she didn’t want him to hear her say something important. This time was no different and Jimmy couldn’t hear what she had said, but for the next few days Charles decided rather than clear verbal corrections, swift jabs and prods to the bank of the head would be more appropriate. He called it the Pavlov method, and said that all the world famous dog trainers used it to keep their dogs in line. Jimmy felt sorry for them.
“It is too maths, that’s what they call it in England,” said Jimmy with a defiant look.
Charles prepared to rebut this remark, but looking around the table at the dirty looks from the visiting relatives he though better of it and instead focused his attention intently on a mound of mashed potatoes that must not have been properly mashed.
Jimmy continued, “…I’m working on a new formula now that’s going to make lots of power for everyone.”
“Well power, we could all use more power dear. What kind of power is it?” Aunt Linda said, humoring him a bit.
“Like wall power, like in a socket. The news said the other day that the power is running out like a cold plants and nuclear plants and all over the world, so we need more power from windmills and, and, other places to make all the power for everyone’s houses.”
“Their called coal-plants dummy.” Charles couldn’t help himself.
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter because their using up all the cold and so we have to make the power somewhere else.”
“Do you even…” Charles began with a sneer, but quickly amended his tone into a faining interest, “ even know what electricity is?”
“Ya, I saw it on TV. It’s made of electricity balls that are all minuses. And they go through the wires like pipes from the cold plant and into the wall socket and then into the stuff you plug in.”
All the relatives smiled and Uncle Radar gave a little laugh. “Good show boy.” He said winking at Jimmy, “you sure put him in his place.”
“He doesn’t understand it. That wasn’t even close.” complained Charles bitterly, but no one seemed to listen.
“So how does your formula work honey? Tell everyone how it works,” said Jimmy’s mom.
“I can’t tell you all of it, ‘cause its kind-of secret. I’m not aposed to tell anyone. But i figured it out with Dad’s old college books. I used all the maths in the book and it’s really powerful. If, if you even tried to use it on the power grid then, um,” Jimmy motioned wildly with his hands, “it would probably blow out all the lights in the whole city or even the world.”
“Wow, well that is powerful isn’t it. You’d better be careful with that.” said aunt Linda with a smile. She turned to Jimmy’s mother. “I don’t know where he gets it, Sam was always a klutz at math.”
“Oh I know, remember, I was his tutor in high school.” Jimmy’s mom replied with a smile.
“Well that’s not fair. I was distracted by her beauty obviously.” Chimed in Jimmy’s dad Sam.
Jimmy’s Mom and Dad made kissey faces at each-other and Jimmy rolled his eyes and groaned. “Mom,” he moaned.
Congratulations, and welcome to the exiting field of inter-dimensional travel. You are just beginning your first steps into what is sure to be a career of excitement and new discovery.
You are almost ready to begin your journeys into other dimensions, but first, to help you along your way, this instructional pamphlet has been created to help you cope with the unique challenges that will await you in your career ahead. In the following pages we will brief you on what our scientists currently know of the alternate dimensions to which you will be traveling, and what to expect when you get there. We will also cover some basic cultural information, survival techniques, and other information you may find helpful. Finally, the back page of this pamphlet will provide you with a form onto which you can enter your living will. This document should be filled out, signed, notarized, and provided to the dimensional quartermaster before you embark.
So, the best of luck to you, our first dimensional explorers. May your journeys be swift, and the worlds you find verdant and laden with resources the the good of democracy.
¤
Tree Universe 27-alpha:
Discovered in the first year of exploration by Dimensional Command and the site of a continued command presence since 2304, this site was originally classified as an uninhabited forest. Further examination, however, has revealed that this dimension is home to two dominant species: trees, and humans.
Although trees within this dimension are exactly like trees in our current dimension, the appearance of humans within this zone can be a bit confusing, leading to the original classification as an uninhabited dimension. Humans within this realm are indistinguishable from trees. They look and act like trees, have tree like features and structures, do not have traditional human biological components, and spend their lives living a tree-like life cycle.
Some of our scientists have argued that calling these creatures human is a fallacy, and that they should be correctly classified as trees. They point to the fact that, because they are indistinguishable from trees, no one has of yet been able to identify a human in the realm. Furthermore, some speculate that the classification of some trees as human by early survey teams might have been a mistaken entry on the complex survey paperwork, or even one of the survey team member’s idea of a joke or retaliation for having to fill out the 37-page documents. However, due to the subsequent deaths of these original team members in a transference accident, and the fact that their alternate dimensional counterparts are by definition evil and cannot be trusted to provide further information, it is assumed that the original assessment of both tree and human inhabitants is correct.
Because of the difficulty in distinguishing trees and humans, it is recommended that all service members, when encountering a possible human or tree, first address the tree using standard greetings. Any suspected human/tree which does not respond should be considered a possible threat to the mission, and accordingly incapacitated. Although standard procedure dictates that uncooperative natives should be returned to command for interrogation, past dealing with local inhabitants of this realm have proven ineffective, and a costly drain on base resources of light, potting soil, water, etc. Thus, the taking of prisoners is not authorized in this case.
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