Archive for the ‘Trent Walters’ Category
Tyrone Wilson’s Metropolis
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Tyrone Wilson grew up across the street from Metropolis–the details still snap like a Polaroid fished from a closet shoebox… vivid until you finger it.
Metropolis was trifling–as far as metropolises go–but its sundry skyscrapers impressed: jade-colored glass, clunky obtuse obsidian distortions, steel needles stitching heaven and earth, arches sculpted from dark marble and granite ledges topped by grimacing gargoyles.
Before the school bus arrived, Ty knelt in the bromegrass and peered through the glass-domed metro down at the traffic bustle. He liked the warehouse heavy equipment operators because that’s what he wanted to do when he grew up: lift heavy stuff men couldn’t budge.
On cold mornings when the machinery refused to turn over, Ty made sympathetic chugs by flapping his lips, and the engines started right up. Though Metropolis largely did not notice him, an operator gazed up and thanked Ty, which delighted him immensely.
Once a mother pushed a double stroller across a curvy road and, with her parka hood up, didn’t see the oncoming furniture truck. Ty shoved it into a stack of pomegranate crates and panes of green glass lining the sidewalk. At the whining steel, snapping wood and shattered glass, the mother whirled in the middle of the lane to gape.
For days, she counted beads.
Because she reminded him of Mother–warming formula, microwaving Spaghetti-Os, changing old diapers for new–Ty kept watch, saving her life again when her toddler turned on the old gas stove without the pilot light on. But the mother never learned of this and soon forgot the furniture truck.
The truck driver did not. He cussed out whatever inflicted this upon him. His life savings were tied up in that truck–not to mention his responsibility for the furniture, now lacquered kindling. The driver, it turned out, was a frustrated writer; and the incident ignited his muse. The book, detailing how a superior being must be inferior in a screwed-up world, became a bestseller. This wouldn’t have troubled Ty if the mother, whom he’d saved, hadn’t nodded agreement with the book. If everyone quit believing in superior beings, it reasoned, they would cease to exist; the universe would make sense.
That seemed as good as any way to ask Ty to leave.
***
Years later, whenever he met someone from his old neighborhood, he’d hedge around the crazy question. No one remembered Metropolis. Only a weedy parking lot where people dumped their defective appliances. Which made more sense when he thought about it.
A Truer Story
Monday, June 30th, 2008
This is a true story. How true is a true story? You could hear “eye-witness” accounts or reverse time to camcord events, but how true is that? You’d bypass the motivations of the players. Besides, you’d probably accidentally drop the timeportal in the bathtub and electrocute dear old Granny, and then where would you be?
By all eyes and camcorders, I assure you, this story is far truer than Lucian’s or any Samosatan’s. Three out of four dental hygienists agree. Everyone knows what big fat liars Samosatans are. They imbibe too much cheap Dionysian and would as soon sign a hex on your kinsman if you didn’t buy their story. Such fabricators of truth are unworthy of your trust.
***
So my brood of brigands and I were sailing the seven seas of castaway, backyard bathtubs (about which Mum nags Da fortnightly) when–Lo!–we espied the next-door neighbor boys, fording a stream unto strange new territories. “Lo!” we cried, “wherefore art thou next-door neighbor boys going?” They replied, “Huh?” but one of the lads, brighter than a half-watt light bulb, said, “We wage war against the hoards of Bullylanders who hath flunked three grades, beat us up and thieved our lunch money, and who ride upon scorpions and eat tarantulas for breakfast. Will you not join our worthy cause?” My brood and I gazed upon one another. Ought we to risk blood and guts to aid the distressed? Dare we stir the hive of Bullylanders whose vileness we had just rid ourselves of the year before?
But of course!
We moored our ships and, after saddling up our galloping dogsteeds and securing alleycats to swing at enemies, we joined the fiercesome warriors on their journey through treacherous marshlands, nomanslands, wastelands, and tseliotlands, battling pterodactyls and bogmonsters along the way. We flew on raven’s wings across the oceanspace to the floating island of Bullyland, berthing at dusk. Crouching in bushes–so excited we could’ve peed our britches–we stripped to scibbies and pasted our skins in the red moon mud as camouflage.
Alas, that dastardly Lucian lounged amidst Samosatan hoards, imbibing Dionysian and bragging of conquests: literary exploits and many a betrothed lady to our comrades (that is, as soon as our manly beards sprouted). We unleashed, by their tails, the alleycats, which let loose their mighty war-whoop, outstretched claws, and madly scratched the air. Our dogsteeds and we, makeshift clubs aloft, charged after…!
***
Thus we vanquished our foes. Believe not in Lucian’s tale. If you buy his over ours, may your grandmother’s warts beget a plague of horny toads.