I was on my way home after a lengthy session with a patient one afternoon and I happened to find myself walking down Baker Street and, indeed, past my old lodgings with Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Just as I passed my old quarters I looked up to see Holmes’s lengthy shadow upon the curtain. I don’t often drop in on Holmes unannounced as my old friend is prone to bouts of brooding melancholy. Seeing that Holmes was up and my wife was not expecting me home soon I decided that I would stop a while and talk with him.
Holmes was playing his violin when I entered. His skill on the instrument was second only to the skill as a consulting detective through which he made his living. He put down the violin and met me, offering me a seat and a glass of brandy. He was in a notably good humor which I commented upon.
“Am I? I suppose so. I am particularly pleased with the outcome of a few chemical experiments I have been working on over the last few days.” He said.
“I see. I was rather hoping you had a new and interesting case on your hands.” My companion shook his head.
“Only a few trifles recently, all easily dealt with. In fact they were barely worthy of my consideration. No doubt you were hoping for some new adventure to romanticize?”
“You know I am always intrigued by your mastery of deduction.”
“Ah, Watson, I did not mean to wound you with my remarks. Though you may sensationalize them somewhat, I feel it is important for these chronicles of yours to circulate. Perhaps they might teach the populace about sharpening one’s mind to a cutting edge. But you may be in luck! It so happens that I received a call earlier today by a young man who asks for my assistance. I do not know that it will come to much but you are welcome to sit in on our meeting. And I suspect this is our man now! Let him in will you, Watson?”
As Holmes had been speaking someone had rung the bell and been admitted by the landlady. I opened the door and a stout young man entered. He wore a dark shirt with a worn cartoon of a skull printed across the front. His blue jeans were frayed around the cuffs where they rubbed against his canvas sneakers. His round, pale face was topped with dark, curly hair and an uneven growth covered his cheeks and chin, twice as thick where it began to creep down his neck. He nodded to me and then shook Holmes’s hand.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” The man asked.
“Indeed.”
“I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Holmes! My name is Ernest Parker and I fear that something has happened to the woman I love. I have been to the police but they say there is nothing they can do.” At this point the man looked at me and then turned back to Holmes.
“Ah, this is my associate, Dr. John Watson. You may speak freely in front of him, as you may trust him as much as you trust me.” With that he ushered the man into a chair. I took a seat of my own and Holmes sat down across from his guest. “It seems odd to me that a man so concerned about his love can still find it in himself to spend a late night at Keith’s Komix.”
“I did not know what else to do; in fact it is there that I heard of you so I am glad I went.” Suddenly the man sat straight in his chair. “But how could you know that? Have I been spied upon?”
Holmes shook his head slowly. “It is obvious to one who should care to observe details as I have trained myself to do. Pray, continue.”
“Well, you see, sirs, I have been dating a girl for six months now and quite suddenly she has vanished! I spoke to her just a few days ago and all seemed well but now I cannot track her down.”
“Have you gone to her home for some clue?” I asked him.
“Watson, the girl does not live in London. I daresay Mr. Parker’s beloved lives someplace outside England entirely.” Holmes told me.
“Now see here, Mr. Holmes! Where do you come by this information? One of the lads must have put you up to this.”
“Not at all, Mr. Parker. Not at all. What can you tell us about your lady?”
The man looked bemused and a bit annoyed but carried on. “Her name is Martha. Martha Tyler. You’re correct, sir, she lives outside England. In America. Phoenix, Arizona, specifically. She’s a student at Arizona State.”
“America!” I ejaculated. “How could you carry on a relationship over such great distance?”
“We wrote e-mails to one another daily, at least. We sent one another photos and poems and all manner of things to express our love for one another. She is very beautiful but what I love most is how much we are alike. We are a perfect match.”
Holmes steeped his fingers and regarded the man. “And do you speak on the phone? If you do I am sure it is not regularly.”
“Infrequently, I am sad to say. And when we did the conversation was not particularly long. The cost of calling across the ocean is immense. Add in the difficult time difference and, well, the messages just work better.”
“Very well,” Holmes sighed, “I will look into the matter. You have some of the messages and photos she sent you?”
“Yes, sir, thank you!” The young man pulled a small packet of many-folded papers from a pocket and handed them to Holmes. He then jumped to his feet and shook our hands happily.
“I shall begin my investigation straight-away. Mr. Parker, would you please return at five o’clock to-morrow evening?”
“Of course, sir! Thank you again!” And with that the man bound from the room, much happier than when he had entered.
“The internet! It is unbelievable.” I said to Holmes.
“Not so, Watson. I have remarked to you several times that there are so many people here in London alone that all manner of bizarre and seemingly inexplicable things happen every day. In cyberspace I assure you that these things happen far more regularly.”
“And you knew so much about the man and his case that surely you must have heard some of it someplace before.”
“My old friend, no, as always you see and do not observe. Did you notice how wrinkled and, frankly, pungent Mr. Parker’s shirt was?”
“I did, it was quite off putting.”
“Precisely. Tell me, Watson, what would happen if you bade your wife good bye on a morning and attempted to go off on your rounds so poorly attired?”
“I can’t imagine such a thing would happen! My wife is very careful about the laundry.”
“Quite so. Mr. Parker left his house in filthy clothes that he, I suspect, slept in. This was my first clue that his friend did not live nearby and that, in fact, they rarely saw one another.”
“And how did you know his business last night, if you have never heard of him?”
“Mr. Parker’s fingertips had small smudges of paint upon them. When he shook my hand I came away with the faint, though sharp, scent of acetone. These are the obvious mark of anyone who spends his time painting the small figures used in tabletop games. Mr. Parker also appeared rather ill-rested. It seemed as if he’d risen only a few hours ago. I know that Keith’s Komix has late night sessions of Warhammer, where those who do not play talk to one another and paint their own figures. It was most probable, then, that our man had stayed there until the small hours and then fell asleep straight away upon returning home, and so he had.”
“Again, Holmes, I am astounded.”
“But now, Watson, you must excuse me. I have a small amount of research to do before this case is solved. Will you return to-morrow as well?”
“Absolutely!”
“Then I shall see you then and we will finish what I fear will be a dull case.”
—
The next day I attended to a few manners of personal business and made my way to Baker Street. I happened to approach the door just as Ernest Parker rounded the corner and so the two of us entered Holmes’s quarters together. Holmes greeted us and offered us each a drink. Mr. Parker gripped his nervously and sat in the seat Holmes gestured to.
Holmes sat and lit his pipe. He regarded Ernest Parker through a light haze of blue smoke. “Mr. Parker, I have found Miss Tyler.”
The man sat up, a grin spreading across his face. “Oh thank you, Mr. Holmes!”
“It is not good news, I’m afraid. She has fallen for another man. I understand this is hard news to take but do not be too upset.”
Mr. Parker slumped back in his chair. “How could I not be upset?”
“She is obviously a fickle woman. I suspect she would have left you this way eventually but it is better to have it happen now instead of years in the future. You’re still young, I suggest you go out into the city and find a woman who will make a better class of wife.” Mr. Parker offered a muttered agreement and dejected farewells before leaving the apartment.
“What a shame,” I said, “that you are the bearer of such terrible news. Congratulations on finding her, though I am not surprised.”
“I did not find her, exactly. Martha Tyler does not exist. Rather, she is not a real person but instead a forgery.”
“What!”
“Yes. I suspected from the very outset that that was the case.”
“But all those things Mr. Parker told us- the messages, the photos!”
“Hearing Mr. Parker’s story only convinced me further. I really had very little research at all to do. I went on several social networking sites. I created an account as a student transferring to Arizona State and began to friend as many people as possible.”
“You are truly a master of disguise, but why would they accept an invitation like that from a total stranger?”
“Not all of them did, but a large motivation of these people is to gather as many friends as possible. What is one more in a sea of a thousand? I started sending messages to these new ‘friends’ and introducing myself. I then asked if they knew a friend of mine who didn’t have an account of her own and shared one of the photos Mr. Parker gave me. Not one person knew the name Martha Tyler. No one could even remember seeing the girl in the photo on campus. She is a very pretty girl, I’m sure at least one fellow would remember her face. So I knew the girl was fictional. An assumed name and some photos found online and even you could pretend, Watson. Just as I did to get the information.”
“I would never!”
“Nor I, except to investigate a case such as this one. So I had to figure out what kind of a person would, and I could think of only three. It could be a ruse to defraud Mr. Parker of his money. However, since she vanished without any such exchange I ruled the possibility out. The second option was that Martha Tyler was a woman who was desperate for love and provided Ernest Parker with a false photo so he would fall in love with her personality and then she could confess the trick. Since no one recognized the name Martha Tyler it’s obvious that this was not the case either, since a woman would not lie any more than she deemed necessary. A fake face would be hard enough for a suitor to overcome; a fake name would ruin any hope. No, I decided that ‘Martha Tyler’ was simply a man playing a tasteless joke to amuse himself and his friends. Her disappearance coincided, then, with his loss of interest in the whole affair. The messages Mr. Parker gave me have a slight air of masculinity to them that you would notice if you studied them closely enough. Not to mention a sense of passive deference that sounded more like a parody of a woman’s manner of speech instead of the genuine article.”
“But Mr. Parker said he spoke to her on the phone! How could that be, if it was a man?”
“I thought at first that the man had a confederate, a woman who could pretend to be the fake Miss Tyler. But what kind of man spends six months on a pointless joke? Furthermore, what kind of man would tell a woman he was pretending to be a woman on the internet? Further still, why were the conversations so brief? No, I realized that the culprit could only be a high school student whose voice had not yet deepened to the tones of manhood. It made sense at once. The awkward frustrations of youth are a perfect motivation for such a cruel type of fraud. To be certain, I sent an e-mail to the address Mr. Parker gave me. I said I was a consultant to the London police and if her persisted in his behavior I would notify the Phoenix authorities as well as, and here was the real threat, his parents. Almost at once I received a reply begging for forgiveness.”
“But if you knew all that then why wouldn’t you tell Mr. Parker?”
“I didn’t see the point. The crime here is poor judgment. This way, hopefully our American female pretender will learn a valuable lesson and find a healthier outlet for his youthful idiocy. Meanwhile, Mr. Parker will learn the importance of dating women he can take out at night. He may even improve his appearance in a bid to become more desirable. Telling him he was being fooled by a prepubescent boy would simply ruin him. As Shakespeare once said, ‘Love is the most beautiful of dreams and the worst of nightmares.’ Now come, there is an opera this evening that I think you will enjoy.”
Once upon a time there was an old woman. She lived alone in a house surrounded by a beautiful garden. This woman was feared and hated by people for miles around for she knew witchcraft, which is how her vegetables grew so mightily. She often wept because her talents made her so unpopular with the townsfolk. Even her own neighbors, who she often saw admiring her garden, were afraid to speak to her.
One day, the woman went out to tend to her garden and she noticed that some of her radishes, which were the finest radishes for miles around, were missing. It seemed, even, that there were fewer and fewer radishes each day. Certain that it was the work of the rabbits and other beasts who entered her garden by night; she sat up to wait for them, that she might hex them.
The woman waited as the moon rose on her pretty garden and eventually there was much rustling by her radish patch. She sprung up to trap the creatures in a spell and was heartily surprised to find one of her neighbors rooting around in her garden.
“How dare you!” She cried. “How dare you climb into my garden and attempt to take my radishes like a common thief! For this a great evil will befall you!”
At this the man grew very pale and his voice leaked out in an appallingly high-pitched whine.
“Please,” he begged, “I have done this out of necessity! My wife became enthralled by these radishes and had to have one. After that, one would not do and she needed still more. Eventually her desire grew so strong that she says she will die if she does not have even more radishes!”
The old woman frowned, for this seemed to be a ridiculous claim. She felt no warmth towards the young couple. They had long wished for a child, the old woman knew, but so far their effort had been for naught. She knew they were most intent on their task for the sound alone had kept the old woman up nights.
“Very well! You make take as many radishes as you please, on one condition: you must give me the child your wife brings into the world. I shall raise it and all shall be good with it.” She was certain that the extremity of the request would send the young man fleeing back over her garden wall.
“I agree.” The man said, and with that he gathered armfuls of radishes and returned to his home. The woman stood dumbfounded in her garden at the idea of a man bartering his first-born for a small heap of vegetables.
The old woman went into her house and sat upon an old worn rocking chair. A cat came and rubbed itself against her legs.
“A most peculiar thing has happened, Grimsby,” she said, bending down to pick the cat up. “Our wretched neighbors have agreed to give me their first-born child. I suppose a part of me hoped that that foolish man would accept my offer, and so he has. I hope it’s a girl. I always wanted a daughter, you know, but no one was interested in marrying me because of my Craft. I’ll raise her properly and she shall be a beautiful and obedient young lady. She most certainly won’t be the kind of person who trades away her progeny for something such as radishes.” The cat said nothing but instead simply blinked slowly at her, as cats are wont to do.
—
The next spring the old woman felt a tingling excitement run down her spine and she knew that her neighbors’ child had been born. As silent as a shadow and as quickly as the wind, the woman stood in their kitchen. She looked down upon the child being held by her birth mother. It was a beautiful baby, blue of eye and with a few golden curls already covering her head. Before the couple could say a word the woman took the baby and saw it was a girl. “I shall name her Rapunzel,” she said softly. And then she and the child disappeared in a whiff of smoke.
Back in her own home the woman tended to her new daughter. “You are safe with me,” she told the baby, “because I will care for you tenderly and with love. I have named you Rapunzel, after my own mother, who was kind, and wise, and good natured. You will do her name proud.”
—
As the years went on, Rapunzel grew, much to the old woman’s chagrin, to be a good deal like her birth parents. She was rude, simpleminded, and extremely willful. She was also very beautiful which, as the old woman had noted among others when she herself was younger, was not a rare combination of traits. Once, when the child was six, the woman returned to her neighbors and offered to return their daughter to them. They refused, as they had both found careers and said they frankly didn’t have the time to care for the child. The woman had returned to her house feeing pity for the girl and ashamed of herself for trying to abandon a girl unwanted by even her own parents. For years the child slunk around the house, complaining and refusing to do her chores. Furthermore, the girl would seldom care for her hair, which had grown twice as long as she was tall, and it would drag dust all over the woman’s floors. To make matters even more unbearable the girl would incessantly ask for money.
“If you want money you shall have to earn it!” The old woman cried one day when the girl was fifteen. “At your age I was working from dawn to dusk for Mistress Kinworth, who often gave me a ha’penny every month. Better still, she is the one who taught me the Craft.”
“I do not want to learn the Craft!” The girl whined. “I want to go out with other girls my age! You didn’t even let me go to Cicely’s party last week and everyone else was there!”
“Spiteful child! That girl is common as muck and I know for a fact she had several young men at that party. Her parents should be ashamed!”
“Of course there were boys there! I like boys you horrible old crone! I have even spent some time getting to know Atherol Crowley! And he wound up spending most of the party with that cow Wilona!” Realizing what she said, Rapunzel clapped her hands over her mouth, but it was too late. The old woman went pale.
“Why you hateful little girl! How dare you consort with men like some common trollop! You shall learn a lesson, and no mistake!” And so the old woman decided that Rapunzel would spend her days locked in a tower. It was very tall and had but one window far at the top. The tower also lacked a doorway, making it the most secure, if not poorly designed, building in all the land. Once Rapunzel was inexplicably moved in, the old woman stood before her.
“I will now return to my home where I can tend to my garden. I will come every three days to bring you food. When you hear me cry ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair’ you shall do so that I may climb up and feed you.” Rapunzel wept bitterly as the woman climbed down the girl’s hair to the ground far below. At the bottom she enchanted some thorny shrubs to guard the base of the tower.
And so for weeks this arrangement continued. The woman hoped that the isolation would make the girl a bit more introspective and more grateful for what she had. Every three days the woman would return and cry “Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair!” and climb up the gleaming locks. After several months of this the woman entered the tower to find the girl in oddly high spirits. When pressed, the girl refused to offer an explanation and the woman was forced to leave unsatisfied. The next visit the woman noticed the same thing, only this time the girl’s clothes were wrinkled and askew. Again the girl had no explanation and the woman left. The very next time, as the woman tried to catch her breath after the long climb, Rapunzel asked “Why is it that you find the climb so difficult when my love can scale the tower so easily?” Very suddenly the girl went pale and shut her mouth tightly.
“I should have known, you wretched girl! No matter what I do you find some way to disgrace yourself. I shall be forced to teach this young man how to treat a lady!” And so the woman cut off Rapunzel’s flowing hair and banished the girl from the tower. Then she waited. Soon enough she heard a man cry “Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair!” and she tossed the end of the severed braid to the ground. When the man climbed through the window the woman pounced upon him.
“You ought be ashamed of yourself! I judge you to be at least six-and-twenty and here you are climbing towers to have your way with a slip of a girl no more than sixteen? Well, you terrible predator, I have caught you! And Rapunzel is gone! I have banished her far from here and you shall never see her again. Upon hearing this, the prince, for he was a prince, threw himself from the tower in a fit of anguish. The woman felt this was terribly melodramatic and moved to the window to see what sort of mess he had made over the ground below. She spied him crawling from the thorn bushes clutching his eyes and then running into the woods.
And so the woman decided to spend the rest of her days in the tower herself. She installed some window boxes where she could grow radishes to eat. She often sat, tending to them and looking out at the woods. She never left the tower again; content to be separated from, as she put it, “horrible people and bloody stupid children.”
Abigail Gormwitz sat on the bench in the examination room. Her husband, Henry, stood behind her, his huge hands resting on her shoulders. Abby’s doctor finally looked up from her diagnostics and sighed.
“Mrs. Gormwitz, there’s no easy way to say this. You’re suffering from a slowly cascading series of shutdowns in half the relays into your CPU.” Henry could feel her tense up and then her chrome-plated fingers slid up and over his riveted knuckles.
“What does that mean?” She asked.
“It’s a significant problem. It’s hard to say exactly what course it will take in the end, but the symptoms you’ve been suffering will get worse. The headaches will get more painful and last longer. The blackouts will not only persist but begin to lead to permanent corruption of memory files. Your motor skills, first fine and then gross, will-”
“We get it, it’s bad,” Henry interrupted, tightening his grip on his wife’s shoulders. “So what do we do?”
The doctor looked back down at the charts for a moment and then shook his head. “There aren’t a lot of options. A few stopgap measures, mostly. The only cure would be a complete overhaul of most of your wife’s systems.”
“But you can do it?”
“Yes. But it’s not an easy procedure. And with parts and labor it’s very expensive.”
“It doesn’t matter. How much?”
-
Abby watched as her husband paced the kitchen floor. “Honey,” she said, “it’s alright. We’re going to be okay.” Henry spun and faced her.
“Okay? Okay, Abby?!” He slammed one of his thick steel fists onto the counter, shattering it. “You’re sick. A complete shutdown!” He swept his fist to one side, scattering counter fragments across the floor.
“Henry, there are those therapy sessions he talked about… and if I watch my intake…”
“Then what? You’ll last a few more years? We need to get you that operation.”
“We can’t afford it. Your insurance from the plant…”
He turned away. “It’s crap. I know. Dammit, Abby!” He turned back to her, his eyes dim. “Look, a few weeks ago Jack came by the factory… he said…”
Abby got to her feet. “Henry! You can’t consider going back into the ring!”
“What choice is there, Abby? What choice do we have?”
-
Jack was already stirring a cup of coffee when Henry got to the diner. Jack had been a good manager considering, or in spite of, the fact he was a human. The years hadn’t been kind to him and Henry noted that the few hairs left on top of his head were plastered down with sweat.
“Henry, my old friend! I was so happy when I got your message! What changed your mind? Missing the glory after all?”
Henry looked down until his blocky chin was almost against his convex chest. “Abby is sick, Jack.”
Jack had the decency to look concerned for almost a full minute. “That’s rough, Henry. So it’s financial motivation, then?”
“Yeah. We can’t afford-”
“Well great! It just so happens I’m putting together a special event. One of your old colleagues is coming out of retirement, too. I figger we get you two in the ring, you go a few rounds, and to the victor goes the spoils. Probably get an endorsement or two, maybe even a run of the talkshow circuit. Sounds good?”
“Only for the winner.”
“Ah, Henry, you’ll just have to give him hell!”
“Who is it?”
“You remember Carmine?”
-
The night of the big fight, Henry found himself across the ring from Carmine the Butcher. It was a pretty fair match; the bookies were running almost even odds. Carmine was manufactured half a decade before Henry, but Carmine had gotten a bit of work done and his modifications eliminated the age discrepancy. The difference was in their approach to fighting. Carmine was practically a berserker- there was almost never a pause in his flurry of blows. Henry used to be called “The Hammer,” he’d take a few hits and then let loose a powerful strike. Now he wasn’t sure he could do it. He looked down at his fists, the blue metal gleaming in the overhead spotlights. He looked across the ring at Carmine, who was already working himself into a frenzy, and then over to Abby, who was smiling nervously. She gave him a little wave and then looked down at her hands. At the ref’s signal, Henry stood and made his way to the center of the ring. The ref was talking to him, but the noise was so far away. All Henry could think about was the operation. Suddenly there was the ring of the bell and Carmine was on him.
Henry faltered back, guarding himself against the sudden onslaught. The crimson paint scraped off Carmine’s knuckles leaving streaks along Henry’s shoulders and arms. A few strikes hit him in the ears and Henry crouched, shoving his opponent away. As Carmine came whirling back, Henry pulled back a heavy fist and landed a hit square in the other robot’s chest. Carmine staggered back and surveyed his crumpled breastplate and then his fists were flying again. Henry managed to get a good hit in for every six he received.Towards the end of the second round, Henry was concerned. He listened to the methodical chanting of the crowd, set his jaw, and headed back into the fray.
The goal of the fighters was clear- as much damage to the head as possible. Hits to the chest and arms were really meant to push the other fighter back, not to cause any real harm. Henry managed to get a good blow to Carmine’s ear but in doing so opened himself up to several hits in the nose. He felt the metal crumple and one of the bolts in his jaw became partially unthreaded. As he faltered, prepared to go down for the count, he saw his wife. She had turned her face away and was sobbing into her palms. He turned back to Carmine who hit him in the face again. The red robot, confident in his victory, stepped back to wind up for the final blow. Henry narrowed his eyes and took a half step forward. He twisted his body and drove his fist directly up into Carmine’s chin.
Later, what Henry remembered was the noise. He’d caught his rival underneath his chin, but his fist kept moving. Carmine’s head kicked back, but not far enough. As Henry’s fist rose past Carmine’s shoulders, so did Carmine’s head. There was a horrible grinding noise underneath the tortured scream of twisting metal. In the replays the heavily grooved side of Carmine’s spinal core could be seen ripping up through the body. Henry looked into Carmine’s eyes, now a foot and a half higher than they were. He thought maybe the robot was staring at him. Later doctors told him it was impossible. Carmine was dead before he even began to fall. Henry shrugged off Jack, who had materialized screaming about fame and fortune. As he made his way towards Abby he again noticed the rhythmic chant of the crowd:
Today I have the honor of presenting you with an amazing scientific discovery. Surges of radiation were discovered bouncing off the Horsehead Nebula. Just this morning the surges were decoded as information we could read. They are the thoughts and ideas from the future, from a time when human beings have evolved past the needs of mortal bodies and have become creatures of energy and thought. The numbers before each entry are thought to be some advanced form of dates, though the system it is based on is unclear. While certain parts of speech become muddied without corporeal form, the messages are clear.
Enjoy the majesty of this peek into where humanity is headed.
244762
Bellax has invited one to the outer rings of the Sunset System. There it and one shall attent to 3 x 1010 Hz and 3 x 1017 Hz. The event is supposed to be an exquisite display of energies. One is sublimely enthused about this schedule.
244783
The event was amazing. Bellax makes an excellent companion. One can not get over how good it looked glowing in the upper spectrum of the rings. It also has the most beautiful curls of abstract thought that one has ever seen in one’s existence. One hopes to see it again soon.
245118
One has tried contacting Bellax several times. It claims it never receives one’s pulses. Once it did answer but the conversation was short, awkward. It made small talk briefly and said it had to end transmission. Current emotion is disappointed.
249050
Elation! Bellax finally had a transmission with one lasting longer than 221! It suggested that it and one transmit cloud-to-cloud. One suggested another trip to the Sunset System. Bellax said that it was thinking of someplace busier, where other beings may be. One is confused but excited for another date!
250112
One hates one’s existence.
250301
Retraction! One hates Bellax’s existence! It thinks it is the greatest being in the multiverse, but it is wrong. One has seen the multiverse and there are plenty of beings far superior! It thinks it is so attractive, with its stupid curls of abstract thought and glittering spheres of memory. One does not need Bellax. One is happy alone! Current emotion is furious.
252203
Paklin probed into my system today. It says one should not be so down about Bellax. One is not thinking about Bellax, one is enjoying time as single.
252213
One is so lonely.
254976
Saw Bellax at Raoen Vertex today. It looked so beautiful. It was with a younger being, with slimmer planes of theoretic reasoning. Bellax should be ashamed of itself, it’s companion could not have been older than 77320!
In other news, one joined a gymnoversity today.
256210
Bellax pulsed today. It said it enjoyed seeing one at the Vertex, and that it and one should get together. It said it likes one, just not in a joined-in-a-dual-mind way.
I looked up into Edward’s liquid amber eyes and sighed. Poor Edward. How could I tell him how I was feeling? How could I possibly describe this cloudy, gnawing sensation that had been growing inside of me, wrapping itself around my heart?
“Edward I’m just not into you anymore.”
Oh. It was actually pretty easy, I guess.
“Is there someone else?” Edward moaned, his perfect face cracking into a heart wrenching visage of despair.
“Yes,” I replied, “there is.”
“Is it…” he trailed off. I’m sure he was wishing I wasn’t immune to his mind reading ability. “Is it Jacob?”
Jacob? My Jacob? I smiled at the thought of his smiling face, grinning my grin. I thought of the days and nights I spent on the reservation. I thought of his embrace, fever-hot against my skin. I thought of how silly Edward was.
“Oh Edward, you know I’m just stringing him along for, like, ever.”
“Who then?”
Did I dare tell him? There was no point in keeping it a secret. Forks was a small town, there was no chance Edward wouldn’t find out. He could read minds and his sister could see the future, for crying out loud.
But what would Edward do? Would he attack my love? Take revenge? I couldn’t bear the thought. My boyfriend was everything to me. He was the one solid part of a world that seemed so vague and fluid. He was the sun, the air, the moon and stars to me. My heart did not beat without him near me. He was the methadone clinic for the heroin junkie of my soul. I had no identity without him. I was nothing. I didn’t exist. We were two sides to the same coin, only he was also my side and the coin itself, as well as any other nearby coins.
“Bella?”
“Oh! Sorry, I was metaphoring. It’s Mike. Mike Newton.”
“Mike Newton?! You don’t even like him!” Edward slammed his fist into the lockers next to me, bending them wildly out of shape. I turned my head.
“Well now I do.”
A snarl ripped itself out through Edward’s throat and he began to walk stiffly away.
A chill wind swept across the field. The few patches of grass left on the dusty soil waved feebly. A tall figure in dark robes faced the two smaller forms a dozen yards away as the flickering green light of the Dark Mark glowing above them cast odd shadows on the ground.
“Ah. Harry Potter. The Boy who Lived. How I have longed for this moment, my chance to finish you once and for all.”
Harry’s green eyes narrowed and he stepped forward. His friend, Ron Weasley, hung back looking nervous. “Voldemort!” Harry shouted, “I’ve destroyed your Horcruxes! It’s over!”
The Dark Lord stepped back in shock and then hissed. “Impossible!”
“It’s true! Your evil reign is over. I’m here to end this.”
Voldemort laughed. “You think you could destroy me? I killed your parents, Potter, I’ve killed many wizards more powerful than you. How could you even think that you could stand up to me?”
“I’ve been studying, Voldemort. While you’ve been killing Muggles, I’ve been learning from them. I was raised by Muggles, I’ve decided to go back to my roots.” He raised a hand and then brought it down sharply. Voldemort’s thigh exploded in a haze of splattered blood. He howled with pain and dropped to the ground, supporting himself on his good leg.
“What- what is this?!”
“My friend Hermione was born to Muggles. She’s hidden a quarter of a mile away, Voldemort, with a high powered sniper rifle. Try finding one of those in Diagon Alley.”
“You dare try and defeat me with Muggle tricks?!” Voldemort screamed. He reached a pale hand into his robes and pulled out his wand. “Cruc-“ Voldemort’s Crucio curse was interrupted when his hand blew apart in another spray of blood and the sound of screams and splintering bone. His wand dropped, broken, to the ground. Ron stepped forward, slightly braver now that Voldemort was so incapacitated. He gingerly raised his wand.
“Accio cricket bat!” A moment later a bat whistled through the air into Ron’s waiting hand. “Brilliant!” Ron exclaimed, “I did it!” Then he swung the long flat piece of wood lengthwise into Voldemort’s back with a sickening crunch. The evil wizard fell to the ground and then rolled onto his back, gasping for breath. Ron kicked him, his trainers driving deep into Voldemort’s side.
“Enough, Ron!” Harry said, stepping forward. He bent over the bloody and broken wizard, grinning.
“P-Potter…” Voldemort gasped. “Have m-mercy…”
“Mercy? You and your Death Eaters never showed any mercy, why should I?” He spit in Voldemort’s glowing red eye. Then he reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out a gleaming silver handgun. Harry swung his hand around so the barrel was just inches from Voldemort’s forehead. “Avada Kedavra, bitch.” Scowling, he pulled the trigger.
I’ve started a new project that, I think, could be a lot of fun. Check out “Day Off of the Dead,” a choose the path bastard child of web novels and those books you loved when you were in middle school.
Razz grinned. He casually hooked his arms over the back of the sofa and crossed his legs.
”Y’see, Mr. President, it’s not a particularly difficult problem. The Emperor, well, the Emperor is not an unfair being, you understand.” He waved a blue-grey hand in small circles as if trying to conjure his next sentence. “Certainly you feel a bit put upon, with the warships in orbit and all, but understand his position… Center-1 is the seat of his entire empire! The whole planet, lush with beautiful gardens and sprawling estates, is the biggest jewel in the imperial crown! And then he gets this news and… well… he was not happy to hear about the transgressions of your planet against his home.” He grinned at the man at the desk across from him and the president noticed that the creature only had two teeth. Not like a backwater yokel- the effect was more of a game show host whose teeth had fused into just a top and bottom row. “You do understand, Mr. President?”
Chester Gregory, President of the United States, stammered. It was one of his more eloquent contributions to the conversation thus far. This… this ALIEN had waltzed into the Oval Office and simply disintegrated his bodyguards! The piles of dust were still sitting on the carpet! And then he plopped down on the sofa and started talking about an act of war Earth had launched against another planet! Finally he managed a complete sentence.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
Razz raised a black eyebrow and began to speak slowly as one might address the hard of hearing or a foreigner who doesn’t understand the language. “We are talking about theft. A private company has sold the Emperor’s property to an American citizen. He is very angry. Follow?”
“No!” The President spat out. “What could we steal from a planet light years away?!”
“Ah,” grinned the alien as he tossed a folder onto the President’s desk. It said “National Star Registry” on it. “The sun that rises over the Imperial palace has been sold to one Charles Abernathy. We’d like to speak to him.”
“Kelly, I told Mrs. Johnson you could baby sit her twins tonight.”
“Mooom! I can’t! Not tonight!” Kelly Bradley pouted and stamped her foot. “Jenny is supposed to come over, and we were going to work on the theme of the junior prom! I’m president of the committee!”
Mrs. Bradley shook her head. “Kelly, I already told her you would. You can work with Jenny tomorrow.”
“Mom! Those kids are such brats! They scream and they hit and they bite and they are so strong for such little kids! They’re terrors! Have you ever seen what they do to their cat? I can’t take that tonight! It’s… It’s my time of the month.”
Mrs. Bradley sucked a breath in through her clenched teeth. “Kelly Marie Bradley. I will not have you making silly excuses to get out of this. You are going and that is final. Time of the month or not, you will behave yourself and baby sit those kids.”
—-
That night after Kelly had stuffed little Tommy and Teddy Johnson with pizza she asked them what they wanted to do.
“Cops and robbers!” Shouted Tommy.
Kelly winced back from the scream. “I was thinking more like a movie or…”
“Cowboys and Indians!” Screeched Teddy.
“Guys, I really don’t think…” Kelly began.
“Space aliens!” Screamed Tommy.
“Yeah!” Agreed Teddy. “Fluffy can be the alien king!” At this, the family cat ran under the sofa. The boys launched themselves out of their seats, screaming, and began running around the house making laser blast noises and the screeching of, Kelly assumed, space aliens. She pressed her hands to her forehead. She glanced out the window. The sun had gone down and the little suburban block was dark. She winced as sharp cramps stabbed through her abdomen. As she tried to ignore the screams and sound of things breaking she saw the moon appear over the trees. She gasped.
Her time of the month.
One of the twins streaked by and shot her with a foam dart gun. She turned to yell at him but could only manage a growl. Her blond hair rustled slightly and then began to grow. It grew shaggily in across her scalp and then the growth spread down across her shoulders. Her Gap t-shirt puffed up with coarse hair and then bulging muscle. Her pink nails grew out into razor sharp claws. Soon, her trendy low-rise jeans split along the seams as powerful legs tensed and swelled. There was a crackling sound as the knees changed direction. Kelly fell onto her front paws and her nose lengthened into a cold-nosed snout. Finally, there in the Johnson’s living room stood a large golden-brown wolf. It was twice the size of a regular wolf, with strong jaws lined with ivory teeth. It was built for one purpose- to hunt. It was sleek, strong, clever. A perfect killer in every way. Just then the twins tore back into room and skidded to a halt. They looked at the creature with open mouths. It glared back with sharp green eyes. Finally, as one, the twins screamed out.
“Doggy!!!”
They ran at it, sticky fingers outstretched. The werewolf’s nails clicked on the hardwood as it tried to run for the front door in a panic.
“What?” Mike looked at his girlfriend curled up next to him on the sofa.
“I want to have a baby, Mike. Don’t you?”
“Kate, we’ve been over this…”
“I don’t care. I don’t understand why you don’t want to have a kid!”
Mike groaned quietly. “I don’t want to have this fight now. We’re sitting here, talking about where we’re going to go for dinner, I suggest we try the Applebee’s they just opened up on Route 26 and you start talking about having a baby!”
Kate pouted. “Think of how great it would be! You love kids. I know you do.”
“I do, babe, I do, but they are so much work! You have to put in a lot of effort.”
“I have to put in a lot of effort? Just me?”
Mike groaned again, a bit louder. “You know what I meant. If we had a baby you know I’d help, but… I don’t know, come on, let’s just go out to dinner.”
Kate crossed her arms and squared her shoulders, huffing angrily.
“Aw, Kate! I’m just saying… look, do you know how much a kid costs? We don’t make a lot of money, you really think we could afford to have one? Really?”
“We could afford one. Kids don’t cost that much.”
Mike rolled his eyes. So much for a nice dinner out. There was no way he was going to win the argument. Now he was going to have to spend the next couple hours making a baby. Great.
“Fine. We’ll have a kid.”
Kate squealed with delight. “I’ll go to the store and pick one out! You get the marinade ready, ok?” She kissed him and then grabbed her keys and dashed out of the apartment, singing happily. Mike grumbled and set the oven to preheat. This was worse than when she discovered lobster for the first time.
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