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Amazingly, the six-year-old had managed to assimilate all of Descartes's fairly tricksy riddles in as long as it took to describe them, and then went on to use those same arguments to prove the necessary cruelty of God, followed by the necessary nonexistence of the Supreme Being, and Gran tried to take him home then, b... |
Afterwards, when Art was returned to his scandalized, thin-lipped Gran, Father Ferlenghetti made a point of warmly embracing her and telling her that Art was welcome at his pulpit any time, and suggested a future in the seminary. Gran was amazed, and blushed under her Sunday powder, and the clawed hand on his shoulder ... |
3. |
The theme of this story is choosing smarts over happiness, or maybe happiness over smarts. Art's a good guy. He's smart as hell. That's his schtick. If he were a cartoon character, he'd be the pain-in-the-ass poindexter who is all the time dispelling the mysteries that fascinate his buddies. It's not easy being Art's f... |
Which is, of course, how Art ("not his real name") ended up sitting 45 stories over the woodsy Massachusetts countryside, hot August wind ruffling his hair and blowing up the legs of his boxers, pencil in his nose, euthanizing his story preparatory to dissecting it. In order to preserve the narrative integrity, Art ("n... |
Call me Art ("not my real name"). I am an agent-provocateur in the Eastern Standard Tribe, though I've spent most of my life in GMT-9 and at various latitudes of Zulu, which means that my poor pineal gland has all but forgotten how to do its job without that I drown it in melatonin precursors and treat it to multi-hour... |
The tribes are taking over the world. You can track our progress by the rise of minor traffic accidents. The sleep-deprived are terrible, terrible drivers. Daylight savings time is a widowmaker: stay off the roads on Leap Forward day! |
Here is the second character in the morality play. She's the love interest. Was. We broke up, just before I got sent to the sanatorium. Our circadians weren't compatible. |
4. |
April 3, 2022 was the day that Art nearly killed the first and only woman he ever really loved. It was her fault. |
Art's car was running low on lard after a week in the Benelux countries, where the residents were all high-net-worth cholesterol-conscious codgers who guarded their arteries from the depredations of the frytrap as jealously as they squirreled their money away from the taxman. He was, therefore, thrilled and delighted t... |
He was in the Kensington High Street on a sleepy Sunday morning, GMT0300h -- 2100h back in EDT -- and the GPS was showing insufficient data-points to even gauge traffic between his geoloc and the Camden High where he kept his rooms. When the GPS can't find enough peers on the relay network to color its maps with traffi... |
So he whistled a jaunty tune and swilled his coffium, a fad that had just made it to the UK, thanks to the loosening of rules governing the disposal of heavy water in the EU. The java just wouldn't cool off, remaining hot enough to guarantee optimal caffeine osmosis right down to the last drop. |
If he was jittery, it was no more so than was customary for ESTalists at GMT+0, and he was driving safely and with due caution. If the woman had looked out before stepping off the kerb and into the anemically thin road, if she hadn't been wearing stylish black in the pitchy dark of the curve before the Royal Garden Hot... |
But she didn't, she was, she did, and he kicked the brake as hard as he could, twisted the wheel likewise, and still clipped her hipside and sent her ass-over-teakettle before the runabout did its own barrel roll, making three complete revolutions across the Kensington High before lodging in the Royal Garden Hotel's sh... |
He ended up on his knees, sputtering and blowing and shivering, and cleared his eyes in time to see the woman he'd hit being carried out of the middle of the road on a human travois made of the porters' linked arms of red wool and gold brocade. |
"Assholes!" she was hollering. "I could have a goddamn spinal injury! You're not supposed to move me!" |
"Look, Miss," one porter said, a young chap with the kind of fantastic dentition that only an insecure teabag would ever pay for, teeth so white and flawless they strobed in the sodium streetlamps. "Look. We can leave you in the middle of the road, right, and not move you, like we're supposed to. But if we do that, cha... |
"You!" she said, pointing a long and accusing finger at Art. "You! Don't you watch where you're going, you fool! You could have killed me!" |
Art shook water off his face and blew a mist from his dripping moustache. "Sorry," he said, weakly. She had an American accent, Californian maybe, a litigious stridency that tightened his sphincter like an alum enema and miraculously flensed him of the impulse to argue. |
"Sorry?" she said, as the porters lowered her gently to the narrow strip turf out beside the sidewalk. "Sorry? Jesus, is that the best you can do?" |
"Well you *did* step out in front of my car," he said, trying to marshal some spine. |
She attempted to sit up, then slumped back down, wincing. "You were going too fast!" |
"I don't think so," he said. "I'm pretty sure I was doing 45 -- that's five clicks under the limit. Of course, the GPS will tell for sure." |
At the mention of empirical evidence, she seemed to lose interest in being angry. "Give me a phone, will you?" |
Mortals may be promiscuous with their handsets, but for a tribalist, one's relationship with one's comm is deeply personal. Art would have sooner shared his underwear. But he *had* hit her with his car. Reluctantly, Art passed her his comm. |
The woman stabbed at the handset with the fingers of her left hand, squinting at it in the dim light. Eventually, she clamped it to her head. "Johnny? It's Linda. Yes, I'm still in London. How's tricks out there? Good, good to hear. How's Marybeth? Oh, that's too bad. Want to hear how I am?" She grinned devilishly. "I ... |
Art nodded, miserably, fishing for an argument that would not come. |
"Half a mil, easy. Easy! Get the papers going, will you? I'll call you when the ambulance gets here. Bye. Love you too. Bye. Bye. Bye, Johnny. I got to go. Bye!" She made a kissy noise and tossed the comm back at Art. He snatched it out of the air in a panic, closed its cover reverentially and slipped it back in his ja... |
"C'mere," she said, crooking a finger. He knelt beside her. |
"I'm Linda," she said, shaking his hand, then pulling it to her chest. |
"Art," Art said. |
"Art. Here's the deal, Art. It's no one's fault, OK? It was dark, you were driving under the limit, I was proceeding with due caution. Just one of those things. But *you* did hit *me*. Your insurer's gonna have to pay out -- rehab, pain and suffering, you get it. That's going to be serious kwan. I'll go splits with you... |
Art looked puzzled. |
"Art. Art. Art. Art, here's the thing. Maybe you were distracted. Lost. Not looking. Not saying you were, but maybe. Maybe you were, and if you were, my lawyer's going to get that out of you, he's going to nail you, and I'll get a big, fat check. On the other hand, you could just, you know, cop to it. Play along. You m... |
"I don't think --" |
"Sure you don't. You're an honest man. I understand, Art. Art. Art, I understand. But what has your insurer done for you, lately? My uncle Ed, he got caught in a threshing machine, paid his premiums every week for forty years, what did he get? Nothing. Insurance companies. They're the great satan. No one likes an insur... |
She released his hand, and he stood. The porter with the teeth flashed them at him. "Mad," he said, "just mad. Watch yourself, mate. Get your solicitor on the line, I were you." |
He stepped back as far as the narrow sidewalk would allow and fired up his comm and tunneled to a pseudonymous relay, bouncing the call off a dozen mixmasters. He was, after all, in deep cover as a GMTalist, and it wouldn't do to have his enciphered packets' destination in the clear -- a little traffic analysis and his... |
Trepan: Any UK solicitors on the channel? |
Gink-Go: Lawyers. Heh. Kill 'em all. Specially eurofag fixers. |
Junta: Hey, I resemble that remark |
Trepan: Junta, you're a UK lawyer? |
Gink-Go: Use autocounsel, dude. L{ia|awye}rs suck. Channel #autocounsel. Chatterbot with all major legal systems on the backend. |
Trepan: Whatever. I need a human lawyer. |
Trepan: Junta, you there? |
Gink-Go: Off raping humanity. |
Gink-Go: Fuck lawyers. |
Trepan: /shitlist Gink-Go |
##Gink-Go added to Trepan's shitlist. Use '/unshit Gink-Go' to see messages again |
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