I found this corpse of an old mugwump lying around at the café. I'm not sure what model it is, or even what decade it was made in, but I'm not at a complete loss. See, I have some facility with the psychic art of psychometry.

For instance, I can tell that this device was loved--and then, as the relationship soured, hated and despised. I can feel that in its last days of operation, its owner tried to develop the tricky technique of typing with great force with the flat of the forehead. Not many writers can master this technique for putting their pain on paper. Perhaps the would-be author, in failure, substituted for his head a bowling ball.

A definite mistake, that. A true connoisseur of angst-ridden verse can tell the difference. The poetry of true pain is, for all the expected reasons, shorter. And more bloody. Headwounds bleed like the Dickens.

I can sense that this elderly typewriter was crushed with the abuse and betrayal and finally leapt from a moderate height onto stone or concrete.

I've named it ADO, after the missing key-caps. Though DOA would be just as, if not more, appropriate.

I play with it like a cat plays with the remains of a bird or a baby squirrel. I bat at the keys, inducing something between a semblance and a parody of life for my own amusement.

There is no dignity in the death of a device. What's the point? When they fail us, we don't give them a dignified burial. The best they can hope for is an ignominious dumping.

Often, however, we disassemble them and offer their corpses for the amusement of creative display. We cut them up for parts. We stake them out as examples to their still functioning brethren.

Even now, I'm showing the keyboard I'm typing on at this very moment--the one with the flaky U, I , O and P keys--how devices end when they frustrate us, when they deny us fruitful expression. When they can be blamed, rightly or wrongly, for causing us to fail. My keyboard shrinks in fear and I gloat.

When I'm done writing this, if the staff will let me, I'll tuck the old typewriter corpse under my arm and show it to my car.

[*]

Posted by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri

Budding new publishing company seeks very short fiction for a new series on a tight deadline:

http://www.zocalopress.com/submissions-guidelines.pdf

Thank you!

I'm working on a couple of new works for microhappy too.

Posted by cyberpunkdreams

There's an event like rain -- that isn't rain -- that makes these things pop up like mushrooms in the yard.

The species of creatures are all familiar, like the Zanies of the Commedia della Arte. You know. The Professor, Skipper, Mary Anne, Ginger, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, etc. You get the two- or three-storey ferris wheel, a monstrous slide, three or four varieties of the little spinny prayer wheels dedicated to the god of vomit, plus all of their own chibi versions that additionally allow young mothers the fantasy of sending an infant away on a tiny postmodern rocketship, either to be rid of them or, through the magic of relativity, to keep them in training pants forever.

Add to that the varieties that promise to turn thrown darts, flung balls and plastic rings and carefully aimed streams of water into demonically banal soft toys, desired until you actually see what it is you've won up close. The thaumaturgy that makes one spend actual money and effort to obtain a small mirror largely obscured by a silk-screened unicorn and/or logo for a soda-poppy beery beverage is worth some study.

And for miles around you get the smell of cotton candy versus corn dogs, with good ol' funnel cakes cheering from the sidelines. You have to get much closer to be struck by the pong of previously owned weakened beer -- only one owner who used it to get to church on Sundays. A hundred years ago you wouldn't be able to smell any of that over the odor of the horses and mules that drove the machines.

These things unfold from semi-tractor-drawn trailers, like kinder, gentler, and more insidious giant robot mecha. Other vehicles turn into giant metal warriors ready to do battle whereas these turn into giant clowns and priests and candy-merchants and pickpockets and inflatable nursery guards, made inherently trustworthy by their painted fluorescent bulb-sticks and battle-worn jolly colors and coloratura.

So what's the event, like rain but not rain, that make these carnivals spring up through cracks in the asphalt in the parking lots of dying shopping malls? Are they feeding on the corpses of the malls themselves, maybe?

[*]

Posted by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri

It's true. Every egg eventually hatches. Every seed eventually sprouts.

All those eggs in your fridge? Just give them time. They might not necessarily hatch into chickens, but they'll hatch. They'll crack. They'll hatch green smelly furry stuff. The fundamental stuff of life!

It's not their fault if they're not the sort of children a mother would love.

Likewise every seed we plant will sprout.

All throughout every town there are lovely little green gardens where we plant our most precious seeds, lovingly cleaned and sterilized and perfumed and wrapped and dressed and boxed in boxes inside boxes and buried deep deep deep.

Because the harder we make a seed work, the more surprising and beautiful the flower that eventually eventually eventually will burst forth.

A good seed loves a challenge. Formaldehyde, concrete and marble make a wonderful compost, a fantastic mulch. Tears are the best water we could sprinkle on our gardens. It's the pure water of love.

Has a single one of our most precious seeds sprouted yet? It's only a matter of time. I hope I'm around to see it when the crop finally comes up.

In the meanwhile, I carry these two eggs around in my pocket everywhere I go. I fertilized them myself.

All the time I daydream, wondering what my children will look like.

[*]


PS:

Happy Halloween!

[.]

Posted by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri

"Nothing's ever achieved by planning." Joshua Stewart firmly believed
this, so much so that it dictated his life. He ate what was bought
each day and took his holidays when obliged by his profession. Joshua
didn't wear a watch but made his meetings on time. Success came
quickly. "Take care of the elephants and the pygmies will take care of
themselves" he'd joke. And there'd been a few heavyweight obstacles to
sidestep. His wife didn't care for his reactionary, laissez-faire
approach. Her political machinations had made her the master
puppeteer. But he'd always be remembered as the country's
longest-serving premier.

Short story written and kindly submitted to Microhappy by Merlin Goldman

Posted by jc1000000

"Defy Ageing With Mr Amito's Amazing Japanese Mind Enhancing
Technique" only $99. The thought of a future wasting away in an old
people's home terrified Colin so he ordered a set immediately.

Mr Amito's sense sharpening exercises left Colin more alert, aware and
invigorated than he had felt in years. Which only made his untimely
death all the more tragic.

Because while heading to the office early one Monday morning, head
buried in Mr Amito's exercise book, Colin failed to notice the bus
careering towards him as he vainly attempted to cross the road.


Short story written and kindly submitted to Microhappy by Chris Bradshaw

Posted by jc1000000

It's hard for me to forget that intoxication was once considered (and still is, in places) influence from some sort of nature spirit, some elemental or duende or elf drawn evoked into a potion of grain mash or fruit juice or cane juice by building a trap and waiting, concentrated and purified by distillation, and bound and sealed in clay or glass jars.

Fermentation was necromancy, medicine was sorcery, and literacy was high magic indeed. Still is.

A can of Pabst Blue Ribbon ... lacks. It's like the industrial process captures one spirit per vat, and it's shared among all the cans filled per run. Wine has one spirit per barrel, whiskey one spirit per cask. That's better than per vat, but it's still not up to snuff.

The only real way to do it is one spirit per bottle. And keep the bottles small enough to be drained in a single draught. Anything else is watered down to the point of uselessness. For necromantic purposes, anyway.

[*]

Posted by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri

I'm convinced the reason people used to carve roaring animal faces into the corners of their furniture was in effort to stop housecats from sharpening their claws on the legs and arms.

It's like those people in India that wear masks on the backs of their head in order to keep tigers from pouncing on them from behind.

I expect the efficacy was similar, though I have no guess to what extent it worked.

In fact, I think every reference to the need to repel "evil spirits" was a euphemism of a sort. For housecats, or maybe their larger cousins. But if you let on that it was housecats you were trying to repel or defend yourself from, you invited their retribution.

Gargoyles and other scary carvings? Repels housecats. Burning incense? Repels housecats. Crossing running water? Can't be done by housecats -- if it's farther than they can jump. Garlic on the windowsills? Repels housecats. Salt over the left shoulder? Repels housecats. Knocking on wood? Repels housecats.

A least in theory. If done right. Housecats don't like sudden loud noises. They don't like to lick garlic off their paws. They don't like to get their paws wet. I had a housecat that could be kept out of a room by having a fan blow across the doorway. Whether a gargoyle (or a mask on the back of the head) would work more than once I leave as an exercise for the reader.

I really hope there aren't any housecats reading this.

[*]

Posted by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri