Archive for the ‘Daniel Braum’ Category
Lunch with the Great Barrier Reef
Friday, December 4th, 2009
A pair of human eyes float in a glass cylinder of bubbling water on the center of our big conference table. I don’t like the way they stare. The way they are always watching. They have been here often enough that I can make out the gossamer tendrils connected to their trailing nerve endings. I follow the wires and tubing from the back of the cylinder to where they disappear into the wall under the window.
It is a bright sunny day and the ocean is sparkling, but I don’t enjoy the view. I can only think of the wires and tendrils running snaking out to the blue expanse and the Great Barrier Reef submerged beneath.
“How is the schedule proceeding, Mr. Abarax,” a tinny, synthetic voice asks through small laptop speakers next to the cylinder with the eyes.
I asked it once, why human eyes? Why not a camera or synthetic lens?
We want to look on you as you see yourselves, they answered.
The board is assembled around the table. They shuffle papers nervously. We’re behind schedule.
“We’re having trouble with the second set of Co2 scrubbers online,” Jones says. “But the new tree plantation is going as directed.”
I want to smash the cylinder and tell that damn reef to shove it. But a set of those gossamer tendrils are in my house and at my kids’ school. We’re never very far away from stinging range.
“Here,” the reef says, through the laptop speakers. “This set of schematics might prove helpful. We expect progress next meeting.”
The eyes go blank. They look exactly the same as before but I can just feel that they are empty.
I don’t care about the temperature of the ocean or the coral reefs. But those tendrils found their way into my son one night. With his four-year-old lips, the reef informed me of its plan. Of my new orders. And it is everywhere. Pulling our strings with gossamer stingers. So the board listens. And when the meeting is over, I will get to work.
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FROM THE BOOK OF MONSTERS: YARAMAZ TURKISH CARPETS
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Page 392
YARAMAZ TURKISH CARPETS
Species: Animal
Habitat: Ranges. Prefers city or suburban. Nocturnal.
Designation: See special cautions in hunting.
The above name is a rough translation. They are also referred to as “mischievous flying carpets” in other texts.
Although they bear resemblance to and share the gift of flight with the flying carpets of the Arabian Nights lore, Turkish flying carpets are not inanimate objects imbued with magic but sentient living creatures.
Although not intelligent as say a monkey or a dog they are still highly cunning. The creatures make their homes in carpet warehouses where they blend in and like to sleep during the day. Come dark, they fly out into the night and into the windows of unsuspecting humans, usually children. Through some sort of sympathetic communication that is not yet understood, the Turkish carpet will coax the child onto itself and take it for a wild ride, usually lasting until dawn. It is believed that the carpet feeds upon the thrills of the rider and that the ride itself is not random but somehow linked to the subconscious desires of the host. In 1992 the obese son of one time Monster Hunter Charles Stuyvesant was believed to have encountered a particularly wild Yaramaz that flew him from his Brooklyn brownstone all the way to Hershey Pennsylvania. There is reason to believe that this particular beast perished in a vat of heated chocolate but the police report makes
no mention of the beast, only the child’s unlawful entry into the factory.
Recent Observations:
In 2009, rumors of strange flying objects in Brooklyn has sparked belief that the so called “Hershey” Yaramaz did not perish at all. So little is known about their mating and reproduction that designating this Yaramaz an offspring as has been postulated is premature.
Cautions:
Stuyvesant’s field notes from 1992 also indicate that the Hershey Yaramaz did not perish in the encounter. Stuyvesant went hunting the creature and tracked it to a carpet showroom on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Stuyvesant thought he had surprised the beast but the carpet salesman who had been on his way out reported seeing the carpet rise into the air and that Stuyvesant went into some sort of trance. He claimed Stuyvesant rode the carpet out the window and into the night. Stuyvesant gave up monster hunting in 1992. His last contribution to the field was to caution that only those “dead at heart” attempt to hunt Yaramaz as anyone else could easily fall prey to their sympathetic lures. Stuyvesant moved upstate and opened a chocolate shop which to this day he operates with his son.
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