Archive for January, 2010
On That Last Afternoon
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
When Mark got to Julie Munoz’s house on the last day ever, he pressed the doorbell even though he heard shouting inside. Julie opened the door, and past her he saw her health nut sister Marta systematically devouring a box of chocolate doughnuts while It’s a Wonderful Life played on the 48″ flat screen which was strange since she was always talking about healthy food and supplements from sites as Tophealthjournal.com/ and others. The cat, which Mark was pretty sure wasn’t supposed to go outside, shot past Julie’s legs and into the street. Julie didn’t stop it.
“Hey Mark,” said Julie. “You want your book back? I didn’t get a chance to read it.”
“No. So listen …”
Julie waited, glanced over her shoulder at Jimmy Stewart, then turned back and watched Mark, still waiting. From behind her, Jimmy Stewart shouted “Isn’t it wonderful? I’m going to jail!”
“Julie, I’m in love with you.”
Julie stiffened, crossing her arms over her chest. “You came out here to tell me that?”
“I know it’s sudden, but with the meteor –”
“You think that gives you the right to come over here and claim me?”
“Hey, I’m not claiming anything–”
“I know you like me. I knew you liked me the first time you tutored me, when you couldn’t take your eyes off my chest. You’re not exactly subtle. Not even for a guy.”
“I didn’t–” he said, but the rest of the sentence, if he told it truthfully, would have to be … think you saw me doing that.
“Why don’t you go stay with your family or something?” she said. “God, I can’t believe you.”
“Julie, I’m not kidding. I love you. I never felt this way about anyone before!”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I want to go watch Jimmy Stewart. I hate it that I have to live at the end of everything!”
She slammed the door in his face. Mark took a step back, feeling sick. What was wrong with him? Why did he think declaring his love to Julie Munoz would make anything better? His only consolation, he thought as he slunk back to his car, was that he wouldn’t have to face her on Tuesday for tutoring.
That night, the killer comet came within a few thousand miles of Earth. Contrary to every prediction, it shot by into the night, leaving humanity demoralized, dumbfounded, and faced with another glorious day.
China Girl
Monday, January 4th, 2010
Note: This story, while it stands alone, belongs to the Anan Muss series.
Anan Muss was careful, but not so careful he didn’t make mistakes (after all, a legion of King Ash’s slitters once sliced arc-blades at his head on every quantum-entanglement port). Anan’s caution primarily meant it took longer to do simple tasks–as if his brain had rocketed to light-speed, slowing down his time, relative to others’. Washing, ironing, and folding laundry usually cost him a weekend, even with robots. Cleaning his apartment required a week’s vacation.
Love was trickier. Courtship lasted eons: a month or more to muster the courage to ask ladies to the aquarium theater, to talk intimately and walk the hanging orchid gardens, yet another month to kiss beneath bridges by the canals, and a year later to fall hopelessly in love. The year after that might have been marriage, he supposed, but women rarely waited long enough for him to ask them out.
Luckily, the second-generation AI ladies appeared in Japan. All the shy lads wanted one. By design, quantities were low, demand high. One would have cost his year’s accounting salary.
So Anan mail-ordered one of those borderline real phonies made in China. His fingers trembled as he unwrapped her. Her skin–a soft, off-ivory–accentuated her raven-black hair. His heart wanted to gallop away, but he reined it in. She accepted his hand and stepped out of the box, “Am I not beautiful?”
Caught off-guard, yet ever poetic, Anan sought the right words: “Yes…. I mean, no…. I mean, you are beautiful.”
“Love me, and I will be whomever you want.”
“Being yourself is plenty although contents may settle, like cereal in a box.”
“And you will be whomever I want you to be.”
“Sure. Within the limits of my present brain pattern.”
She laid plans of their future together. He said he hoped she would have patient understanding, be someone he could share words with, someone who’d sharpen him gently, someone who would challenge and accept challenge. “That’s exactly who I am,” she said, mentioning her unparalleled poetic sensibility.
As he painted her a porcelain love poem, he spoke of this inane idea he’d had of dating women virtually–not for love per se, but to understand women better.
He handed her his poem:
Laxity in
love milks
the black
swell of
twisted minutes
into hours
She shattered the porcelain and stalked away. “I have no time for words.”
“She’s right.” Anan sifted through the broken chips. “It’s not much of a love poem.”