Archive for the ‘Trent Walters’ Category
The Ghost Key
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
A leaden skeleton key lay locked in his head. Arthur could feel its heft when he shifted in his acceleration couch. He traced the lumps of his skull like a phrenologist divining the contents–lumps received by attempting to retrieve the key the hard way.
The key to unlock his head was locked in his head, so Arthur was baffled how he might retrieve it. Even if he did, it remained to be seen whether it would fit all the locks that needed opening: his Babbage Engine of Analysis, an empty chest of drawers (he’d been living out of his space suit for weeks as though the ship might spring a leak any second–his fishbowl helmet was flecked with toothpaste), and a medicine cabinet stocked with the essential toiletries.
The color of the key he could not see, it being on the inside, his eyes on the out. But he felt it. The once machined-smoothed edges had corroded down to brittle sharps that broke apart and cut if he stood too quickly from his acceleration couch to stare out the bay projection window into the starry night–the stars aswirl in golden flames. The impression of the grooves–that the key slipped into–still hung in the convoluted knots of his gray matter, like that image of a child that remains after he’s fallen backwards into a snowbank, flailing his arms.
Arthur had fallen back into the acceleration couch, just smelling the rusty tang of impossibility. The key’s teeth must have bitten into his olfactory. A drop of blood leaked from his nose. He held the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger, recovering. A bridge. That’s what he needed–the kind Einstein and Rosen might construct.
But he needed the right equations to plug into. The equations lay in his engine of analysis. The key opened his engine. His fingers drummed the couch’s leather armrest. He tapped something hard.
A keypad! If he could visualize the equations and escape coordinates, freedom might once again be his. His fingers tapped the keys, then again–harder. He pounded them with his fist.
They didn’t respond. They were frozen.
The ship was losing heat rapidly, becoming a cryogenic freezer. Or a coffin. Depending on whether rescuers spotted his ship in the vast expanse of space. He’d wait quietly. Not hope. Hope disappointed. Instead, he’d drift: down passageways, haunting them as if still alive.
One Man’s Heaven
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
Frank,
You oughta drop in. It’s all chew what they say about how grate hell is (sp? Nobody thought to bring a dickshunary. Thank God. Books would of made life in hell hell!)
It’s a never-ending bitch party with necked sand volleyball and castles that last forever (unless someone kicks ’em over. Someone usually does). One half of the place is frozen, the other a fiery lake. Remember the Polar Bare Club in Alaska? Like that accept we brake holes in the frozen lake, leap in, then dripping ice cubes, dash over to the one of fire.
Hey, remember the good times when we’d boozed up at ol’ fatty Slim Jim’s, then you’d talked me into driving us around town doing crazy shit like playing chicken with oncoming traffic or tossing the “Bridge Out” sign into the ditch? Damn, that was funny. At least I thought so until I drunkenly forgot about it on the drive home.
That’s what it’s like here–crazy fun! non-stop parties by the lakeside! the best practical jokes! One hot chick keeps an everlasting stash of whiskey chilled in the frozen lake. While we slurp Southern Comfort from rose-colored, plastic sand-buckets, the guy or gal who’s been the biggest pain in the neck of late gets roasted on a spit over the lakefire. It hurts like a son of a beach, but the pain receptors get charbroiled quick enough. Then we’ve got something to snack on with our buckets of booze. The meat rots fast, so we wolf it down. Tastes like chicken. Not a big deal to the guy being charred cuz he reappears after we’ve licked the last grease off our fingers.
You were always the life of the party, so I know you’d be a favorite as I’ve been. Life here is so much more exciting–better sex, sexier babes, faster boats, spicier meats, and no work. Heaven can’t beat this living.
RSVP. The guys look forward to meating you.