This is not what Steve had in mind when he signed up to test the virtual reality technology at work. Not at all. He thought it would be unicorns farting rainbows. But this was ridiculous.
The scenes were patterned after video games. Not because the team wasn't creative, but because that meant the testers didn't need to take the time to learn the rules of a new environment.
Steve had pulled Super Mario Bros. from the lot. Except there was a fatal flaw in the technology. Enemies didn't die, they just disappeared for a bit. Then they came back with...
The first time I saw Tommy, I knew he was a total douche. I don't allow my sister to date douches; shit — no brother should. That's rule number 2.
Rule number 1, in case you are wondering, is that you don't interfere with your sister's romances. But I take exception with douches.
Of course, there's a perfectly civil way to address his low-life status without resorting to a politically un-savvy term like "douche," which can alienate the polite, women, and my parents equally well, but anyone who knows me will say there ain't a bone of misogyny in this...
"Bitch don't know how to swim. Bitch need to learn how to swim wit da sharks."
"What?" my Grandmother said.
"You see, whatchoo need he'ah is a metafough."
"A what?" she spluttered.
"A metafough!" he insisted.
We weren't in uptown anymore.
"I think what the kind doctor is trying to say is that it helps to use metaphor to explain your condition, Grandma," I said, waxing poetic to his accented jargon.
God love her, but my granny is a racist old bitch. Nobody would be more happy to see her kick that bucket more than me, were it not for...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Ladies? Gentlemen? Entities?" Helen paused. No response.
Helen glanced around. The large workroom -- some schizophrenic combination of retro and avant0-garde -- was loud, clicking and warbling and chatting in a very large number of tongues.
Helen cleared her throat. It should have been for effect, but it was because her throat had suddenly dried, as if she had swallowed the entirety of the Sahara back on Terra. "People! And non-people! Listen!"
To their credit, many did. Many didn't, but that...
Locked door. Single occupant, female, age 27. No signs of a struggle. Cause of death was strangulation. Body found face-up on the bed.
Three suspects. One witness.
Cal sighed, his breath cutting a thin passage through the haze of cigarette smoke. He rewound the tape and pressed play once again. In all the surveillance tapes, there was nothing to positively incriminate any of them.
He'd tried isolating them, questioning them individually. Good cop, bad cop. Threats. The works. They were all lying about something, but they wouldn't say what Cal wanted to hear. At least one of them, probably all,...
The border. He had. To find. The border. He'd made this trip a hundred times before and each time the damn thing moved. When he thought of it - if he thought of it at all - he imagined it as some kind of mystical shimmering veil. Except you couldn't actually see it. Couldn't map it. It might be there with the next step or it could take a thousand more and he never knew which it would be. He was pretty sure he'd been walking straight for it but... had he just been circling? Was he even heading in...
"It's like a huge, deformed penis sticking up out of the ground," she said. Red Gatorade sprayed her cheek. Nick wiped his mouth and capped the bottle.
"It what??"
"Look at it." She wiped her face with her sleeve. "It looks like a massive stone cock. Big ol' mushroom-tipped cock."
He shook his head, but grinned anyway. "Seriously, what is wrong with you? I thought men were supposed to be the ones seeing phallic imagery everywhere?"
"I can't help what I see. And I see a big cock. God, can you imagine..." She shuddered. "Though if I saw something that...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet. One of the Abel Security Volunteers, Daniel, brought up the rear.
"Peter has been trying to leave the compound again, Major."
"It's Luke. My neighb… my… friend. He's still alive." the boy interrupted. "A runner on rofflenet posted evidence of looting in Mr. Grant's, a shop near where we used to live."
The major pulled out a map. After a brief inspection Peter pointed to one of the orange 'No Go' areas. The Major considered the chart doubtfully.
"There are two or three old supermarkets in the...
My mother loved colour. She spent the last weeks of her life in a hospital bed, with its monotone greys and whites. People gave her all kinds of gifts and cards. But her favourite one was a bright purple robe with pink stitching.
That gift was from me. Truth is, I'm more of a tactile person. Yet I knew this was what she craved most--her two favourite colours in the world.
At her funeral, we released balloons in pink and purple. Or, rather, everyone else did. I held onto mine. I wasn't ready to let her go yet.
Today, though,...
"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" I asked my sister as I folded the paper.
"Because you love me."
"Right," I rolled my eyes as I finished the fold. "Done."
I showed my handiwork.
"That's suppose to be a paper crane?" My sister questioned. "It looks like a crane that has been run over by a steam roller."
"I tried," I said as I added it to the tiny flock of paper cranes we had be making for the past half an hour. "Again, remind me why we're doing this."
"Because, in myth, if you make a thousand paper...