Archive for the ‘Edd Vick’ Category
Constance
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
Perhaps it was that an angel’s shadow had flitted over the sand of which the window was made. Perhaps it was the pressure used in the making of it, multiples of the mystic numbers six and thirty-seven. It could have been both, or something else entirely.
“Constance? Come here, girl.” The orphanage matron, Miss Gult, stumped over to pull the child away from her embroidery.
When Constance looked out the window in her room, she saw a most beautiful place. Delicate castles dotted a green landscape, and gaily-dressed paople glided from one to another of them without benefit of wings. Twice they nodded to her in passing.
“She’s a good ‘un, she is,” said Miss Gult. “Works hard. Don’t hardly make mistakes. A bit dreamy, but you can soon mend that.”
But when the window was raised, she saw once more the ugly dark smokestacks, smelled the excrement of the horses that pulled fine carriages she would never use. It was twenty feet straight down to the paving stones.
“What you think? Can you use her? She don’t eat much.”
Constance shrank back from Miss Gult. The woman smelled of laudanum, gin, and greed. The man with her loomed over Constance and placed a hand on her head to tilt it toward the light. He skinned her top lip back with a thumb to examine her teeth.
“Pretty,” he said.
Ducking, Constance slipped out of their clutches to flee up the stairs. She knew only one place to go.
“You girl,” Miss Gult called. “You come back!” The stairs shook to the measured treads of the man as he climbed after her.
Constance dashed into her room, shut the door, looked wildly toward the window. It was raised, showing only her ugly world.
Footsteps approached.
She darted to the window.
The knob turned.
Sobbing, she hauled down on the sash.
The door opened.
She dived into the window.
The man entered. He looked at, then under, the empty bed. There was no other place to hide. He crossed to the window and looked out at the city, down to the pavement.
No body.
Some weeks later another orphan girl was assigned the room. Esther sobbed on the bed, then lifted her head to look out the window.
She smiled.
System Tour: The Moon
Friday, September 7th, 2007
Cinderella’s castle in Lunar Disneyland is a latticework of thin metal rods with nanodots that cycle through a thousand color changes a day. Right now it’s purple near the base, shading into pink with white starbursts above.
Right now it’s all blue with an animated Tinkerbell swooping in and out the tower windows. That’s how fast it changes.
Park Hoppers are a constant nuisance, teens in spacesuits leaping over the fences. They carry resonating jammers that opens holes in our forcedome just big enough, just long enough, for them to pass through. The computer feels this and notifies me of their trajectory. Usually I’m there before they touch down, zipping through underground tunnels in my bullet car. I read them the riot act about loss of atmo, about endangering park guests, about paying their entrance fee. I tell them a fable about the kid who landed on the Matterhorn tracks and got run over by the bobsled. Then I have my robo-Pluto sniff their DNA and bill their families.
Everybody’s got a robo-Mickey, or robo-Donald, or robo-Goofy. Part tour guide, part guard, part shill, they ensure that no part of the park gets overcrowded. “Let’s go visit Main Street,” they’re always saying. That’s where most of the shops are.
Lunar Disneyland has the largest dome in the solar system. It’s visible from Earth, but of course there’s nobody down there to see it any more. From the outside it’s opaque: white to reflect the sun, cycling to black in the shade. Inside it’s all puffy clouds and flying horse-ladies. Pegasi with women’s torsos and heads. You know, from Fantasia.
Guests come from all over to visit the park. Spindly Martians, half-gaseous Venusians, bulky Uranians. They’re human inside, where it counts, and mouse ears come in all sizes.