Archive for the ‘Jen Larsen’ Category
The Marrying Kind
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
Her first fiancé, the evil scientist, proposed from the moon. The light glinted off the helmet of his space suit as he shook his tiny fist on monitors all over the world. With the magnet they built together at his back, he threatened democracy and declared his love in one breath. How could she say no? He died in a firestorm upon reentering the earth’s atmosphere, and she never kissed his acid-scarred lips again.
When she helped reinstate the throne of the rightful king of Atlantis, he asked her to be his queen. She wore a seaweed gown and held a scepter made of starfish, and they swam through the reefs on moonlit nights. They planned the reemergence of his kingdom on the world stage, water streaming down the great coral towers. They never saw the shark that devoured him whole–her name the last word on his lips. She emerged dry-eyed from the sea, far ahead of the assassins, and she never looked at the ocean the same way again.
She was the one who left the vampire. Though you never really leave a vampire—you just leave behind a pile of dust.
The bounty hunter, the ninja, the hired gun. They fought to the death over her before she could choose, and she had to leave the country on a swift boat well after midnight, Rio de Janeiro receding in the distance. She dismantled her machine gun and swore off relationships. She went to go live with her mother. She got a job as a marketing manager. She drank cosmos and did not look down dark alleys, accept mysterious packages, or clap eyes with fedora-wearing strangers. She never said yes to anything. She got five paid vacation days a year. She wondered if she could still kill a man with a comb.
One night, at midnight, the mutant king of the alligators showed up in her room with a rustling wedding dress. “I’ve been watching you,” he said. “I’ve been waiting to make you mine.” She had been sleeping. She wasn’t sure what to say. “You dislike marketing,” he continued, “and have a difficult relationship with your mother. Your friends are self-involved. You are tired of the crowds, the pollution, of ordinary life. But in the sewers, you will be my queen.” He extended his glistening paw towards her. He bared his alligator teeth.
Decisions
Monday, October 18th, 2010
“Come home immediately,” her husband said. “Jennette?” The speaker crackled and spit like frying bacon, and she flinched involuntarily. She imagined his voice landing like bright sparks on her skin, raising welts.
She pressed her thumb down hard on the microphone’s trigger, and leaned forward, raising her voice. She cleared her throat. “It was an accident,” she said. “Nobody meant for this to happen.” The head of research and development had assured her it was perfectly safe—and wouldn’t she like to tell her children someday she had participated in groundbreaking research? Time travel was just a matter of plucking the chords of the musical universe and setting sail on the vibration, picking at the tapestry of space and time with a sharp needle and threading yourself through its eye, like merging with the infinite. The head of research went on like that when he was drunk. He was difficult to deal with in the best of circumstances, unbearable at these launch parties. But that was her job, and she always did her job.
Jennette said, “Enough, enough.” She wobbled forward and slid into the seat—it was like an armored dune buggy, greasy with the fingerprints of the team. They never ate in the cafeteria, and she had sent so many memos. Her life was memos and notes and messages left behind—a hair on her pillow case, a lipstick smudge on his briefs. It could have been her own. She tried not to be suspicious. How childish would that be? She had almost done it, though. She stood in her scientists’ genetic lab, and wanted to hand over that long, blonde hair. She almost wanted to know. But then it wouldn’t have been an accident. Then the end of her whole life would have been her own fault.
Champagne buzzed in her head, and she leaned forward to look at the dials. She punched a button, and then another and another. The head of research lurched forward, but the door slammed shut, and the whole world burned away. She was lost in black space. She had merged with the infinite. She closed her eyes and felt a sense of—yes, it was relief. Until the microphone switched on. “Immediately,” he said, his voice all around her. She cleared her throat. “It was an accident,” she said. “Nobody meant for this to happen.” She closed her eyes. “No,” she said.