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Showing posts from September, 2019

Bad User on Device

(for Damon Knight) Though Riley awakens only two hours after falling asleep, her alarm will not negotiate peace. By the time the coffee’s aroma pervades the kitchen, she realizes she will never shake off this hangover in time to confront the office smilers where she interns at Life Inc., America’s premier self-help conglomerate. She sighs with the knowledge there are days to enjoy and others, like today, just to survive. To guarantee her survival, she gobbles some pills before stepping into the wintry city. A few seconds later, a nondescript package the size of a shoe box thuds upon the sidewalk a few steps ahead, splattering her Life uniform with street sludge. She expects to spot a Smile delivery drone above, but the sky shows nothing but a snow-threatening slate. Pedestrians step around the delivery. No one stops. Riley moves closer and hazards a glance at the label: no letters, just logograms—she assumes Chinese. It is heavier than she expects. Once she carries it back

Just a Little Touch of Mojo Hand

I haul groceries to my fourth-floor studio one landing at a time. My bottle of discounted rum, a 5 lb. sack of potatoes, and a rocket-shaped golden squash—so irresistible at the market—anchor me down like sandbags. Around me wafts the dinners of my neighbors. Sweat drips from my face and armpits. At my door, I dig for keys, but they escape, bounce off my knee, and land at the balcony’s edge. Sighing, I set my bags upon a nondescript pattern of mauve and cream tiles. Below me, a door opens, Landlady Busybody’s. “Mrs. Queen,” she says. “What now?” I sound unjustly exasperated. Busybody is not her real name—I name characters outside my books too. I snatch up my keys. “The rent…” “The rent? What about the elevator?” “It was working.” She addresses her words more to the ether than to me. “I’ll pay you next week,” I promise and ferry my groceries across the threshold. “But you better fix the damn elevator.” Inside, I lean against my door and breath once luxuriously. Be