Archive for October, 2009
King Karl
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Karl pulled one drawer clean out. Bolts, a small screwdriver, wing nuts that should have been in the wing nut drawer, a ball bearing, and some tacks left over from paneling the den hit the floor. The ball bearing rolled under Madge’s Pinto. Something flashed from the empty slot where the drawer had been.
Karl set the drawer on the floor and bent down, hands on thighs, to peer into the hole. He moved a little to one side and again saw a flash. Could it be a broken piece of mirror? He reached in. His hand touched a cold smooth plane. Aha, he thought: it’s a mirror or piece of glass. Before he even finished the thought, he began to feel quite peculiar. His skin buzzed like the time he stuck his finger in the electrical outlet, then he was falling fast and headfirst, but after a moment of panic (during which he shut his eyes) he seemed to be at rest, on his feet, and unharmed. He opened his eyes.
Something stood or crouched in front of him. Its face reminded him of a fish, although the texture of its skin said lobster, and tufts of tendrils around its mouth called to mind a sea anemone. The body gave a similarly chimeric impression; it had elements of arthropod, mammal, and reptile, although in places the shapes and textures were more reminiscent of the inorganic. Karl laughed weakly.
“This sculpture is the most far out I’ve ever seen!” he said, looking around for the artist.
The thing spoke, its voice a bubbling hiss. Karl screamed and turned to run, only to discover another of the creatures right behind him. It seized his arms and, after a while, he stopped screaming.
“You are most honored,” it burbled. “You are the human chosen to rule the earthly portion of the coming Eternal Empire. All others of your ilk will serve as your abject slaves. Rejoice!”
“Rule? Me? Empire?” Patiently it was explained again. And again. It finally sank in. He wiped drool off his chin. Then he pumped his fist in the air.
“Yes! Karl Johnson will rule the WOOOORLD!!”
“Excuse me, Karl Johnson? Karl Johnson?” The thing let go of his arms.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out. Let’s see…Emperor Karl Johnson? No. Potentate Karl … what?”
“Sorry, we were looking for Carl Sandstroem.”
“Oh, uh, his house is the white one on the corner.”
end
The Automatonist’s Assistant
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
“Darling!” squealed Eleanor, pulling the covers over her body as she scrambled out of the bed. “What are you doing home at this hour?” Her husband’s new assistant, Mr. Twall, was left completely naked on the mattress.
“I was looking for Mr. Twall,” said Horace, the husband. “I hadn’t realized there was a queue.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Mr. Twall. “I’m profoundly sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault, Twall. Eleanor, I’ll have you know that Mr. Twall is one of my biomechanical automatons. I purposely created him to see if you would be unfaithful to me.”
“I am not!” protested Mr. Twall.
“Of course, I programmed him not to know this. Mr. Twall, would you be so kind as to recognize shutdown code five-ought-R-R-four?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Twall, apparently to his own surprise. Then he went utterly limp.
“You bastard! You pustule!” said Eleanor.
“Call me whatever names you like, but I had to test you. I suspected you had fallen out of love with me, but hadn’t cared to bring it up.”
“You suspected right, and is it any wonder? And it isn’t easy, you know, to find out over time that one’s husband will not become less emotionally frozen, that the clumsiness of his intimacy is not something one can correct. I was wrong to think you could be better!”
Eleanor dropped the covers with a warning glare, swept up her clothes from the floor, and strode out of the room. Horace stood frozen for a few moments, then slowly walked over to Mr. Twall and popped open his neck panel to erase both the unpleasant incident and the inclinations that led to it from the automaton’s brain. He found, though, that his hands were shaking, and he had to sit down on the floor as he began to cry. It was just gasping and tears at the corners of his eyes at first, but it quickly degraded into hoarse, barking sobs that he couldn’t stop or even quiet down without clamping his hands tightly over his mouth.
The naked automaton looked on blankly, still inert, as the sound of Eleanor slamming the front door reverberated through the house.