I remember this movie once with Charlton Heston. He was supposed to be the last man on earth, but of course he wasn’t. There was a black chick, a whole commune full of kids, and albinos in ray-bans around every corner. That’s just as well. It would have been a deadly boring movie otherwise.

I know because I AM the last man on earth. No kidding. No catch. There are no other men on earth. Worse than that, no women either–not so much as a fucking she-male! I’m it. The very last human that will ever exist anywhere. In fact it’s damn stupid of me even to record this. But what the hell. There’s nothing else to do.

I was grounds maintenance engineer at a secret installation in the Mojave desert. I know that sounds fancy but it really just means janitor. When all the lab-coats drove to their homes in the complex I was the one left behind to clean up–and let me tell you, they were pigs!

Apparently these guys used so much of their brains thinking up new weapons and shit that they didn’t have any left for hitting a wastebasket from two feet away. I mean I’ve known guys so dumb they couldn’t find their own ass if their hands were in their back pockets, and even they could hit a freethrow now and then. If the government really wanted to wipe out an enemy army they could just let these scientists join it and make sure they had plenty of hand grenades.

But I digress.

I was in the basement when I got the call over my walkie for a POE. That’s my job’s equivalent of a code blue. The letters stood for puddle on electronics and was someone’s idea of a joke, though I sure as hell never got it. All it really meant was that I had to hot foot it somewhere with a mop and paper towels.

In this case it was the seventh floor. The seventh floor was where they were working on the Shiva project. It is also as far away from the basement as you can get without being on the roof.

So I get there and find like one guy working. His ID badge says Dr. Stormy Archer and he’s wearing a blue turtleneck under his white lab coat–which was just weird.

I mean, who the hell wears turtlenecks any more–let alone in the middle of a desert? Maybe he was trying to be retro but since he was sporting a day’s worth of stubble and one of the pockets of his labcoat was ripped and hanging loose I don’t think he thought that much about how he looked.

Anyway, without a word he leads me into one of the rooms where there’s this big contraption at one end. You’ve seen balls of twine right? Well imagine one about three feet across made out of neon tubes, and instead of one color there’s every color you can imagine all chasing each other through the tubes. That’s what was hanging there in a web of cables and wires. Oh, and the thing was throbbing–making a deep thrumming noise that tingled my danglies.

“You guys sure get the cool stuff up here,” I said.

He shot me sort of a “speak when spoken to” look then motioned me toward the desk. He sat down on the floor against the wall as he looked over some figures on a clipboard.

I moved a White Stripes CD and a pack of Trident out of the spilled liquid. It was white bull, or maybe red–and it was sticky as hell.

I tossed the now-empty can (swish from eight feet!) and reached for the computer’s power button.

“Don’t shut that down,” the scientist said, jumping up.

“I need to unplug it,” I explained, “So it won’t fitz out.”

“No. Just mop it up carefully.” The guy looked like he meant it. “Do NOT interrupt the program.”

I shrugged and started sticking folded paper towels between the keys, soaking out the fizzy liquid. I had most of it cleaned up when I heard the door at the end of the hall open up, and fast footsteps heading our way.

“Damn it all!” the scientist spat as he jumped up. He slammed the door shut, and locked it. “Hurry up!” he barked in my direction, though I think he was actually talking to the computer.

“I’m almost done.”

Then there were four or five guys outside the door all yelling at once, pounding on the door. The one looking through the glass rectangle was red faced and frantic.

I just kept dabbing.

The turtleneck guy went to a cabinet and pulled out a Colt 45–not the beer, the fucking gun!

The guys outside are yelling at him–things like “You can’t do this!” and “Please, for God’s sake no!”

I just kept dabbing and watching, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s too late to stop me now gentlemen,” the blue-necked guy said. “In a few seconds you and all your evil race will be no more!”

I stopped in mid dab, looking at the guy and thinking, ‘Jesus, who the hell talks like that?’

“You can’t stop me!” he yelled, “And coming in here won’t save you. If you do, I’ll shoot you where you stand! I’m armed do you hear? Armed!”

I guess they heard, because suddenly there were several shots and splintery holes opened up on the inside of the door. One of the scientists outside had opened fire right through the door!

The over-actor fell back into a supply cabinet. He slid to the floor–black cables falling out onto him.

I hurried over to take his gun, you know, just in case. I could see under the black cables now snaking around his neck that he had been hit a few times in the chest, but there was also a single ashy hole right in the middle of his forehead.

“Holy cow!” I yelled to the men trying to bust the door down. “That’s the luckiest shooting I’ve ever seen!”

“Open the door now!” was all they yelled back.

I started to, but didn’t have time. That was when the big ball went black. I turned to look as this huge wave of color and deep bone shaking sound exploded out from the center in all directions. The thrum before had made my danglies tingle. This one tied them in a knot.

When I finally came around I was blind and deaf for a while. The numbness in my lips and the nausea took longer to go away.

There was no sign of an explosion but when I opened the door all of the guys outside were dead. In fact every human I came across was slumped down dead like they just croaked in the middle of whatever they were doing. I suppose I would be too if I hadn’t been standing so close to the thing. At least that’s all I can figure.

I started calling everyone I could think of. I even found a phone list of people all over the world and called them too. The best I could come up with was a busy signal from time to time, but once a line was busy it stayed busy. Obviously whoever had been on the line was as dead as everyone else.

Within a week the power failed (those plants don’t run themselves you know) and I’ve been living off canned food for the last month. There are still fires burning in some parts of the city where people must have died trying to light a cigarette or while driving a gas truck or something–maybe both. I just keep moving around. The smell is getting pretty bad in places.

Right now, though, I’m sitting here on the most comfortable sofa I’ve ever laid cheeks on; eating crackers, caviar, and vienna sausages; listening to Nirvana on a battery-powered stereo; drinking a $500 a bottle of champaign; and thinking about it all. Oddly, I’m realizing that I wouldn’t really care if all this stuff disappeared too.

I can literally have anything in the world that I want, but I don’t want anything. For a while all I wanted was the one thing I couldn’t have, namely sex. But now I don’t even want that any more. I have lots of time to think, but nothing to think about. The big thoughts are too depressing and the everyday thoughts–well they just don’t exist any more.

I suppose in some weird way I’ve been liberated. I’m, completely free. Free of responsibility. Free of care. Free of fear. Free of passion. Free.

I walk over to the window and look down on the city. The light of the setting sun colors it all orange and red. So beautiful. So quiet.

I think tomorrow I’ll jump.

Tags: last man on earth, shiva, symbology, shivah, comedy, doctor strangelove reference

You are a see saw
Large enough to move the world
And open a stranger’s
Steely grey daytimer heart
Like a popup book.

Tags: Children

Were just tryin’ to be friendly,
Come and watch us sing and play.
We’re the young generation,
And we’ve got something to say.

The words inspire and embolden us. They stir the blood and pluck up the spirit. They are rich with the vigor and promise of youth. But do we really know what they mean? What exactly was it that the Monkees had to say?

Being myself part of the Monkee generation, their message is clear to me. It is a message as bold and as challenging as a Davy Jones tambourine solo, as hopeful as liquid paper (which was invented by Mike Nesmith’s mother, I’ll bet you didn’t know), and as unexpected as a guest appearance by Rip Taylor.

Let us examine the four cornerstones of this timeless message and contemplate what they can do for us today.

1. Diversity has market appeal

Long before it was a buzz-phrase, diversity was incarnated in the person of The Monkees. Let us consider for a moment the makeup of this group.

At the fore we have the suave and continental Davy Jones. Raised on the mean streets of Manchester England, Davy narrowly avoided a career as a lawn jockey to become an emblem of urbane sophistication for countless teens.

What stronger counterpoint could there be to the cool worldliness of Davy than the wild antics of Micky Dolenz? Born in a circus he learned the art of clowning from his adopted father. Who also taught him how to water elephants.

Opposing both of these, Mike Nesmith (whose mother invented liquid paper) added an angst-ridden nihilism to the group. Seeking some escape from his dead-end life as a talented rich kid he became a role model for all seekers and experimenters unhappy with their lot in life. In an age full of young people searching for their identity, he was the one with a wool hat.

And what of Peter? He was cuddly, cute, and innocent. What more can be said?

How strange it must have seemed to the executives of NBC when this motley cross-section of the youth of the day came to the studio demanding their own series. “But what is the focus?” They must have asked. “What exactly is a Monkee?”

The answer, of course, is that no one of these four young men alone was a Monkee but together they were The Monkees. Together they were the new generation in all its pied glory, the melting pot of American youth, the Mulligan Stew of contemporary mores, the entertainment equivalent of those variety packs of cereal in the little tiny boxes.

A quick side note: It occurs to me as I write this that one major difference between the Monkees and individual serving cereal boxes is that the cereal boxes could be opened in such a way as to form the box into a serving bowl. To the best of my knowledge no similar experiment has been attempted with a Monkee.

Fortunately for us, that ragtag collection of proletariat managed to sell their vision to the stubborn execs. In the end The Monkees worked as a cohesive whole–appealing to a broad range of teens almost as if they had been designed to do so.

2. Charm is a talisman against all evil.

No less a part of the Monkee message than diversity, is the idea that youthful charm will win out over power and evil any day of the week, especially Mondays and Saturdays. Whether you are faced with foreign agents wanting to steal your maracas or a mad scientist wanting to steal your brain, if you just stay perky and fresh all will work out for the best.

Think of all of the dangers that the Monkees faced in their 60 or so adventures, yet how often was one of them beheaded? Hardly ever, and never fatally. I can’t even recall so much as a single disemboweling. Even paper cuts were scarse. Why? Because somebody “up there” liked them? No, because everybody down here liked them.

So let us as a Nation learn from these brave souls. The next time we accidentally bomb an embassy the president should forego all attempts at denial or explanation. Instead he should appear on international television and simply shrug with a twinkle in his eye—maybe popping a Mentos or two into his mouth. The world will respond with a smile and shake of the head that says “Ah, we just can’t stay mad at you.”

Trust me. This will work.

3. The easiest plan is whatever happens to happen

This is the one cornerstone of the Monkee message that we still embrace as a country. Carefully thought out and executed plans are not America’s forte. America is never entirely sure what the best course of action is until the excrement makes contact with the cooling device. But once it does? Brother, oh boy howdy! We know exactly what must happen next!

This bold tradition of innovative hindsight is embodied by the very set on which The Monkees was filmed before a live laugh track. The “crib” of the Monkee “crew” looked as if it were decorated by throwing a hand grenade into a pile of junk. Is this not the very earthly expression of the “I meant to do that” attitude that built this great country?

Yes, this message is alive and well. Look at restaurants from coast to coast and you will see the torch kindled by that chaotic set taken to new heights of clutter, and what better than the Iraq War exhibits the spirit of “We’ll know what the plan is after it happens”?

4. A wacky chase scene is never out of place

Of all the parts of the Monkee message, this is the one that holds the most promise for a brighter future. Whether it be a grueling senate hearing or a brutal interrogation, there is no occasion so dour that a madcap chase would not be appropriate.

I suggest that in any serious affair, at an appointed time somewhere near the middle, a designated person should nab an important article of some sort—be it a crucial piece of evidence, a wedding ring, or the deceased’s toupee– and lead those involved on a wacky romp around the grounds as they try to retrieve it.

As an essential part of these proceedings, at least one person must hide in a suit of armor or disguise themselves as a floor lamp. Also, several people must be knocked out with a blow to the head, preferably dealt with a rubber chicken. An upbeat tune should be playing throughout, though the lyrics need have nothing to do with the action.

Conclusion

In closing, let me help you understand the power of the Monkee message by suggesting a thought experiment. Ask yourself how things might be different had Bush grown up watching The Monkees (a diverse group of energetic and progressive rebels) instead of Howdy Doody (a wooden headed dummy who’s every move is made by an invisible hand from above)?

Could it be that this one change in role models would have made him a different man? Could it, in fact, be that an early fascination with Howdy Doody compels him even today to seek the company of clowns and leads him (and us with him) inexorably into Doodyville?

Who can say. But I do know this. The next generation of leader will have grown up with the pre-fab four rather than a glorified two by four. Will that make him or her a better leader? All I can say is: baby, I’m a believer.

Tags: Humor, Monkees, Dolenz, Nesmith, Jones, Tork

———————————————————————————-

I have been getting tons of email after mentioning the GMO tomato thing on my blog so I’m going to go ahead and post this once and for everyone.

I first heard about this at a party and I thought what you will probably think when you hear it. It sounds ridiculous at first but the more you think about it the more sense it makes. You probably know that there are tomatoes on the market that have genes spliced into them from cattle, but what you may not know is that there are more of these around than you may have thought and that they are using other animals than cows.

I’m not the kind of person that takes these things as I hear them. While I have never gotten the nerve to put a vacuum cleaner up to my mouth, I have looked in a mirror late at night and said “Candyman” three times in a row. I have tried dissolving a nail, a steak, and human hair in Coke. I have even flashed my headlights at approaching cars in gang territory. So naturally I had to try this out.

Since it is sort of a pain to set up I wanted to make sure that I got everything right the first time. I went to every market in town and bought one of every type of tomato that they had. Then I had to find the pigs blood.

I checked the yellow pages for slaughter houses. I found them under “Meat Packers”. There was a large one on the edge of town but I went to a tiny little place in a nearby town.

Even in that little berg, I had to convince the old guy that I wasn’t an animal rights activist and promise not to throw it on some lady wearing a fur, but I finally got a gallon jug full of pig’s blood.

The instructions I heard said that the blood needs to be kept within 1 degree of 102.5F. Luckily I know a bit about electronics so I rigged up the sensor from an old incubator with a crock pot I picked up at a garage sale. I won’t bother posting the details because I doubt you have exactly these items anyway.

Next I cut a piece of the outer flesh from each of the tomatoes. You must cut the tomato. Don’t stick it in whole. Also, do NOT remove the skin. The skin must remain on the tomato or it won’t work. The size is not important. I made my pieces roughly the size of a half dollar.

You don’t have to do this but I carefully marked mine. I was curious to know which stores were selling me Frankenfood.

Next I put the chunks in the crock-pot along with the pigs blood and the experiment was under way. I was ready to kick back when I remembered that the stuff had to be agitated almost constantly!

I started scrounging around again. I took an old box fan and some bungee cords that I had in the garage. I opened the grate of the fan and bolted some heavy washers to one of the blades.

I then took a card table and connected a bungee cable from each corner of that table and connected each to one corner of the box fan. I was left with a box fan suspended parallel to the floor, forming a little table under the top of the card table. I sat the crockpot of pigs blood on top of that. Then I patched an old dimmer switch into the power cable so I could run the fan at very low speed.

As the unbalanced blades of the fan turned they caused the fan to wiggle around. The elasticity of the bungee cords exaggerated the movement and I quickly found a speed where the whole thing was in a very steady oscillation.

The rest of the week went by without a hitch. After a couple of days I noticed that the table was creeping slowly across the basement floor but that was no big deal. I just let it creep.

I let it go for seven days. Then I got the crockpot out from under the table and opened the lid. That smell is not something that I want to experience again soon, but I was too curious to care much.

I took a pair of salad tongs and fished around in the blood to find each piece of tomato. One after the other they came out mushy and sagging. I had pulled out about 10 of the 22 before I found one that had sprouted. I could tell by the feel of it even through the tongs. It was more solid and had a different texture.

I pulled it out and my jaw dropped. It had actually sprouted a fine coat of course bristles. I kid you not! I rinsed it off and stared in amazement at the light gray and black hair growing from the thing. This piece of GMO tomato was actually growing pig hair!

In all, two of the 22 tomatoes I bought sprouted hair, meaning that they were GMO and spliced with pig genes. The scary thing is that both of them were bought from the Community Pantry, a health-food store where wild hippies graze. These were supposed to be all organic, no chemicals, picked by sherpas, etc., etc., tomatoes, yet here they have pig genes in them! Go figure.

Anyway, that’s the whole story. So you can quit emailing me with questions about it. I’ve had quite enough of pigs blood and tomatoes for a while.There is, however, one thing I’m still wondering about all of this. If anyone out there is a rabbi maybe you can write and tell me, are these GMO tomatoes kosher?

Tags: Flash-fiction, urban myth, gmo

The day Christ died
The earth shook
Time stopped–reversed
The eleventh hour became the ninth
And at last again
Through eyes like a child’s
I saw
The glory that had passed return
And all around me shone
Mysterious
Enticing, and new
The day Christ died
Jesus was born
A son and brother of Man
And so was I.

Tags: Poem, Religious deconversion, atheist experience, enlightenment

The drink cart approached Seth’s seat too slowly. It seemed as if the flight attendant had been pouring out half-cans of soda for the last twenty minutes and had only advanced two rows. Seth yawned and stretched to try and revive himself. He needed a caffeine fix.

To fill the time he scanned the plane once again. No red flags. He caught the eye of the sky marshal, John. John crossed then rolled his eyes to communicate his boredom. Seth smiled in agreement.

“Sir, would you like something to drink?” the flight attendant at last asked politely.

“Yes please. Black coffee.”

“Certainly. Will your daughter want anything?” she continued, referring to the the young woman sleeping in the two seats next to him.

“She’s not my daughter,” Seth corrected sternly, “She’s my wife.”

The attendant’s look was too much for Seth. He had to laugh. “Just kidding,” he admitted, “I don’t even know her.”

The attendant’s eyes narrowed playfully. “You’re a bad man.”

“Leave a Coke in case she wakes up.” He looked at the slim form of the teen again. “Probably diet.”

The attendant moved on as Seth sipped at his coffee. He made a mental note that the attendant’s bio checked out. Lisa Wendle, age 20, started work as an attendant last month. Only a newbie or, as his real daughter would say–noob, would make such a loaded assumption about passengers just because they were sitting next to each other.

When he was half way through his coffee the teen next to him stirred. She sat up and blinked, brushing the wisps of soft blond hair from her face. Her face stretched comically as she tried to force her eyes open further. Seth had to smile as he watched her.

After a yawn she looked down the aisle to the attendant. “Oh,” she said, then turned to Seth. “Which direction is she going?”

“She’s already been by,” he said with a smile. “But I got you a diet coke.”

She sat up and scooted over to clear the empty seat between them. “That’s really nice of you. Thank you.” The can hissed as she popped the top. Over the the tinny gurgle and fizz of her pouring the soda she said. “Are you on all the way to London?”

“All the way,” he confirmed.

“Me too.” As she was about to sip from the plastic glass, the plane lurched. Soda plopped onto the tray, bubbling.

She froze with the cup suspended, held with forefinger and thumb. Her blue eyes, now quite wide open, moved about as she listened to the strange creaking groan that seemed to be coming from the walls of the plane itself. The sound quickly subsided. Eventually she looked over at Seth, moving only her head. “Is it supposed to do that?”

Seth was warily surveying the structure of the cabin. It all seemed ok. He looked at the sky marshall. He was heading down the aisle to the front of the plane. Seth sat back and looked at the concerned young woman next to him. “It’s not that unusual,” he assured her.

The seatbelt lights came on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain,” came a voice over the intercom. “We’ve experienced a slight malfunction. It’s nothing to be alarmed about, but as a precaution I’ve turned on the seatbelt sign and I’m asking that you stow any loose items at this time.”

“Bottoms up,” Seth said with a shrug and downed the rest of his coffee. She quickly gulped her drink.

Before she was finished there was another sharp jolt, followed immediately by another.

Seth turned to the now terrified girl. “Stay buckled,” he admonished as he tilted her tray up and locked it in place. Then he unbuckled and made his way down the aisle. A flash of his badge got him past the attendant who was giving instructions to the nervous passengers.

He met John by the cockpit door. “Any word?”

“They won’t open up.” John informed him.

Seth held his badge up to the the security camera and knocked. “The cameras could be out. They would have to assume we were hostile.”

“Goddamn electronics,” John grumbled, “What the hell’s wrong with a peephole?”

Seth didn’t wait for John to go off on another one of his “Murphy’s Law for Engineers” rants. John had been an engineer in his previous life and the taint of blueprint ink and eraser dust had never quite gotten out of his blood. “Keep trying,” Seth said, “I’ll check the package.” He turned and left John to pound on the door.

As he made his way down the aisle there was another sharp jolt followed by a shudder and a series of groans. Once he was sure it had stopped he continued.

As he made his way down the aisle, his apprehension grew. How could this be happening? He had taken extraordinary precautions. He had run background checks on everyone: passengers, flight crew, ground crew, everyone! He had men watching every minute of the plane’s routine inspection. There was no way a device of any kind could have been planted on board and there damn sure had been nothing smuggled on board in the luggage!

He entered the aft section that had been specially walled off. A spook stepped up and tried to intimidate him with his black suit and sturdy frame until he realized who Seth was.

“Everything secure?” Seth asked.

“Yes sir.” The spook affirmed.

The package sat among body guards, gripping the arm rests with white knuckled hands. The old senator shot Seth a glance. Seth had nothing to say. He had great respect for this senator. As far as Seth could tell he was one of the very few honest men left in congress. That was probably why the death threat had been made. He couldn’t be sure that the glance of the old man had carried any censure for him, but it had felt that way. He turned and left.

As he was passing his seat there was a jolt that seemed to pull the floor out from under him. He fell to the floor hard after bouncing off of one of the seat backs. The jolt was followed by a sustained violent shaking.

He pulled himself into his seat. Something warm ran into his eye. He wiped it away and streaked fresh blood across the side of his hand.

The girl was pressing herself back into the seat with her eyes shut tightly, muttering some sort of prayer. Seth leaned over her to look out the hazy, scratched, plexiglass window.

Ribbons of thin metal were trailing tautly behind the wing. Smoke was pouring out from underneath. His guess was that they had lost an engine. Literally lost an engine.

Seth craned to try and see the tail. The stabilizer was gone–a ragged stump in it’s place. The engine had taken that with it.

He sat back in the middle seat and felt the world go hazy all around him. It all seemed to take on an unreal quality. The screams of the passengers and the voices of the attendants faded into a blurred wall of sound.

He was aware of the teenager grabbing at his arm and clinging to it in terror. He absently reached up and stroked her hair to comfort her. But he was far away.

He had done everything right. He had seen to it all personally. There had been no sign of terrorists. No sign of anything wrong. He had done everything right.

He pulled the girl closer as the plane fell from the sky. The impact with the ocean was hard enough to rip the plane apart and separate limbs from bodies.

The remains sank into the darkness of the deep.
April 15

“I’m sorry Tim,” Eric said. He was doing his best to look compassionate but resolute.

“What exactly does that mean?” Tim asked, “You’re offering me a package?” He had been in Halcorp long enough to know that nothing meant what it seemed to mean on the surface. Usually if it sounded like a good thing it wasn’t.

The professionally dressed young woman seated at the end of the meeting room table explained. “What that means is the we are offering you a severance package.”

Tim looked over the packet of papers in front of him. He knew there was no use trying to read through it. It had been crafted by managers and lawyers, it was nothing an engineer would understand. “But from what you’ve explained about the package its no different from what I could get any time.”

The HR woman shrugged slightly. “That’s true.”

“So what does it mean that you’re ‘offering’ it to me now?”

The HR woman didn’t feel like answering.

“We’re asking you to leave.” Eric stated.

The HR woman continued. “Your behavior has been determined in the eyes of management to be disruptive to the workplace.”

“Oh yeah,” Tim snapped, “It’s frickin’ chaos. I show up at work and all hell breaks loose.”

“I’ve had enough.” Eric snapped. “I have enough on my plate without you pissing someone off every other day.”

“Every other day,” Tim’s tone was derisive. “How many times in the last year?”

“Several.”

“How many?” Tim pressed. “If you are so put out by it you should remember. Or are you saying it was too many to count?”

“I said several.”

“More than one?”

“Definitely.”

“More than two?” Tim asked, knowing the answer.

Eric knew the answer too but was refusing to give Tim even this tiny victory. “Several,” was all he would say. He tried to change the subject. “This is exactly the sort of thing that gets you in trouble.”

“It wouldn’t cause trouble if you had an ounce of integrity.” Tim griped.

Eric shot the HR woman a “See what I mean?” look.

“There is no need to get confrontational about this Mr. Caskill.” HR said.

“No, we wouldn’t want a confrontation.” Tim grumbled. “Confrontation is bad, isn’t it?”

“It’s unproductive.”

“Let me ask this.” Tim leaned an elbow on the table and pointed at Eric with his free hand. “Was there anything I said in that review that was untrue?”

Eric half shrugged. “I’m not going to go into all of the details with you, Tim.”

“Was there anything that I said that was not true?” Tim repeated.

“I’m not here to be cross examined by you,” Eric snapped, “I am your manager. Bill is a senior engineer. I’ve tried to get you to see the value of being more diplomatic but you have refused my direction.”

“Diplomatic my ass.” Tim sat back in exasperation. “I’m an engineer! I deal in facts. It’s not my problem if the facts upset someone.” He remembered where he was and what was happening. “Or at least it shouldn’t be.”

“I will not have my people appearing to call out a senior engineer.” Eric said flatly. “He has more experience and knowledge than you can hope to have. He refused to work with you any more. That’s a scheduling nightmare for me. I have to juggle everyone’s projects now and…”

“Look,” Tim leaned forward, “Every year you have me sign off on a new job description. My salary depends on my following that description and achieving the goals in it.”

“That’s right.”

“Well one of those objectives says that I am to drive acceptance of new procedures across all of our department.”

“Well yes, but.”

“But what? Bill wasn’t following procedure, I pointed it out in my review.” He sat back and crossed his arms. “He wasn’t doing his job. I did mine. He throws a fit like a spoiled two year old. Yet you’re booting me.”

“You should have gone to him privately and asked, politely, why he wasn’t following procedure.” Eric explained. The tightness in his jaw and color in his face betrayed is anger.

“But that is the entire reason for the review!” Tim threw up his hands. “One of the reasons we do that review is to make sure people are following the procedure.”

“It’s not my place to second guess the reasons for the procedure changes.” Eric dodged.

“Second guess?” Tim held up his hands in a “what the hell?” attitude. “It states that explicitly in the overview!”

“That may be what it means,” Eric allowed. “It may not.”

Tim was dumbfounded. He never knew what to do when managers entered this nether world of fuzzy language and thought.

“But I’m not going to discuss this any further,” Eric stated. “What’s done is done. An offer is on the table. You have a choice of accepting it or being given a conditions letter.”

“Probation.” Tim corrected.

“Conditions of employment” the HR woman insisted.

“Do you even understand why they changed the procedures?” Tim asked Eric point blank. “Did you even read the new procedures?”

“You have two weeks to accept the offer.”

“Do you understand that the software we work on is embedded in 911 call systems all over the country? It’s in dialysis machines, engine control units. Jesus, Eric, the software I was reviewing is used to control the fuel of jet engines. If something went wrong there it could lead to a fire.”

“Two weeks.”

“But because I followed procedures I’m out.”

“Damn it Tim,” Eric snapped, “Bill is a senior engineer. You’ve only been here four years. Why couldn’t you just learn to…” Eric caught himself and mastered his anger.

“To what?” Tim pressed, “Be seen and not heard? Not annoy my betters? Not be an uppity engineer?”

“An offer is on the table. You have two weeks.”

“I don’t need two weeks.” Tim rose and headed to the door. “Let me out of this chickenshit outfit.”

He slammed the door behind him.
April 1

Bill Weathers rubbed the bridge of his nose and clenched his eyes shut. They burned from hours staring at the computer screen. It was eight o’clock at night and he was still at it.

He needed to stretch and get some coffee. He left his study and made his way to his kitchen. That was one of the perks of working from home, the coffee wasn’t nearly as bad.

As he poured, his wife Ellen entered and walked past him to the sink.

“You’re never going to get to sleep tonight,” she admonished as she got herself a drink of water.

“I’ll probably be working all night anyway.” He rubbed his hand across his graying hair.

“Not again,” she complained. “Bill, you’ve got to get some rest.”

“I will,” he assured, “I just can’t right now.” He took a sip of brew. “Since they closed the Cleaveland shop we’ve all had twice the work. I have to get all of these designs done by Wednesday if we have any hope of making the May ship date. If we miss that then the units won’t be ready for June deployment to the fleet and we make our largest aeronautics customers very angry. Then with Hadir going back to India…”

“Well we have to talk tonight about Teri,” she interrupted.

He sighed. “Not tonight, I’m overloaded already.”

“It has to be tonight,” Ellen insisted, “She has to turn in the paperwork tomorrow and we’ve put her off over a month already.”

“Look, you know how I feel about it,” he stated. “It’s too far away and she’s too young.”

“But you said Seattle would be ok.”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the difference really?” Ellen held out here hand as if asking a question. “It’s not like we would be able to hop in the car and get to her in an hour either way.”

He fidgeted, turning this way and that. The frustration was building. Why did she always have to do this? Why always when he was tired and harried already? “No,” he stated flatly.

“But why not?” Ellen pressed.

He could not put it in words. Or rather he could not put it in words that would be convincing and logical. He was in that logical corner again, the one that Ellen so often backed him into. She was forcing him again to put his reasons into words. But somehow he knew inside that if he did that they would lose all power. They would be exposed as irrational and she would disarm them with a look. Then he would be left with nothing but stubborn will. He didn’t want to be that sort of husband. He didn’t want to be that sort of father. He just wanted them to do what he said and shut up about it.

“I have to get back to work,” he sighed.

“We have to decide.” She blocked his exit.

“Not tonight.”

“Then she won’t get to go.”

“Fine,” he allowed. “Then the answer is no.”

“But why?”

“Do I need a why?” he snapped. “Because I said so, that’s why.” Hadn’t he earned this? Year after year of answering to people. Countless reviews picking apart his work. Years of explaining why.

“Bill.” She crossed her arms. “She’s not eight any more. She’s a young woman and she deserves to know why.”

“Well what about what I deserve?” He put down his mug so hard that coffee plopped out onto the counter. “How long have I been her father? Why can’t she just trust that I’m making the best decision for her?”

“Bill, you can’t pull seniority on a teenager.”

“Why not?” he almost begged.

“Because by the time they are teens they know you too well.”

He was silent.

“They know you make mistakes,” she said softly.

He clenched his jaw. There was no escaping this. He looked away. “Alright,” he said quietly.

Ellen hugged him. “She’s gonna be so happy.” She turned his face to hers and kissed him. “It’s all going to be ok.” She assured him.

“It’s just scary,” he said meekly.

“I know.”

“With terrorists and hijackers…”

“Thousands and thousands of people fly every day,” she said.

He closed his eyes. She was starting with the facts again. “I might be able to get discounted tickets from one of our clients.” he said to distract her, “I’ll check tomorrow.”

“Good.” Ellen said, smiling. “A flight to London on June eighth,” she reminded.

Tags: Fiction, Engineering, Accountability, Terrorism, Disaster

It started a month ago when I noticed Jane’s smile beaming at me across a room full of Physics graduate students. That smile made me acutely aware of a deficit in my valence shell that I hadn’t noticed before.

Before long we were working together on a project. I soon learned that she had far more going for her than hair like sunshine through honey and curves as perfect as a sine wave. I learned that inside that beautiful head rests a magnificent mind. As we worked together, problems that had been holding back my research were falling away.

I learned two more things as we bent together over the workbench, our heads almost touching: one, that Biology and Chemistry excite me more than I had thought, and two that they scare me more than I had thought.

The earth swept out a quarter of its orbit as I persistently failed to ask her out. The ideas we shared grew more and more exciting. If our hypothesis proved correct it would mean time translation of macro objects. Every experiment we ran supported that possibility!

We designed a major test. I pitched the idea to the heads of the department. They rearranged five years worth of scheduled experiments to give us two weeks on the supercollider.

Jane and I worked feverishly to get everything ready. We ran our lab assistants ragged.

We planned to send one gram of titanium forward in time two days. We could not send more because even with just a gram I calculated a good chance of a release of energy equivalent to a few grams of TNT when the titanium appeared.

The day of the test arrived and Jane, I, and the assistants were giddy with anticipation. It had all been checked, double checked, and triple checked.

I looked into Jane’s eyes.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“One last thing,” she said, then kissed me.

I can’t describe the feeling that I fell into–except that it seemed to cause a state change in every bone of my body from solid to semi-liquid. I can, however, describe the equipment I fell into. I can even explain how the accident produced exactly the effect we were hoping for, except translated some 50 yards off target and much, much stronger. I don’t see the point though.

Suffice it to say that half of my car and a good piece of the parking lot were sent an indeterminate number of days into the future.

Naturally they have quarantined the supercollider until my car appears, in case it explodes on arrival, and until it does, Jane and I’s status remains in limbo between hero and bungler.

The wait is making me nervous, but at least I have the comfort of not waiting alone.

Tags: flash-fiction, romance, science-fiction, humor

The torn pieces of the letter on the table with the broken GI-Joe. The half-eaten bowl of cereal and the overturned coffee cup. The cereal box eviscerated across the table. Within the sweet smelling spray, a toy hides unclaimed.

Milk splashed from the bowl mixes with the spilled coffee. Together they drip onto the floor, soaking into the empty envelope. The address is in Kansas. The return address in Nevada.

On the refrigerator: crayon drawings–some on yellowing paper, others fresh and bright. In a photo: a smiling young girl at her grade school graduation. Her younger brother looks up at her beaming. The calendar is filled with reminders and events. A few days away in large red letters: Rent. The next day: OBGYN 10:30.

Water from under the bathroom door. The sound of the tap. The tub overflowing.

The kitchen cabinets are open. Plates in pieces on the floor. The bottle of anti-depressants sits behind bottles of Scotch and Rum. Beneath shards of broken glass and china, wet footprints from footy pajamas scurry toward the living room.

In the living room: furniture in disarray. Sofa pulled haphazardly from the wall. End table upset. Chair flung away from the corner. On the wall in the archway: drying streaks of milk the width of little hands.

The water creeps out from under the bathroom door. The dark stain grows down the hallway.

In the girl’s room: the bureau on its side with its back along the front of the partly opened door. The floor littered with buttons, ticket stubs, a broken alarm clock, many collectable perfume bottles–some whole, some in pieces. Rich aroma streams from the perfume, splattered violently across the battered wall beside the door.

Outside the house: bare feet in the grass next door. A terry cloth robe pulled tighter around a woman’s body. In her hand a cell phone.

Sirens in the distance.

In the girl’s bathroom, the door jamb is busted out. A curling iron singes the rug. A sturdy glass bottle shaped like a cartoon character rests in the sink–a trace of blood on one sharp corner.

The curtain is torn away from the bar in the small shower stall–a streak of blood painted thin along the curtain and out the door.

In the downstairs bathroom, water flows over the tub and onto the floor. It flows around the woman sitting in the corner–two children held to her chest. It soaks the woman’s bathrobe. The pajamas of the boy and the tee shirt and jeans of the girl soak the woman’s bathrobe.

A raging red burn across the woman’s cheek. Bruises on her forearm.

Eyes watch the water but do not seem to see the water.

A gentle hand pets soaking wet hair.

So still now.

So still.

Tags: fiction, flash-fiction, horror, tragedy

Instead they did nothing. With the entire Whitehouse mall covered in artillery and troops, they did nothing. With every sort of communication we could think of beamed at them, they did nothing. When everything we had, short of fission bombs, pummeled the sphere it refused even to dent. It simply hovered silently over the ruins of the Washington monument–doing nothing.As time wore on, ratings on the all-globe channel fell. Within six months we were all going about our business as usual. In fact, people had to be reminded that the aliens existed when, two years later, they finally made sense of our communications and contacted us. The planet-wide, pan-lingual radio message said they had come in peace, from another star, through a dimensional rift. A face to face meeting was arranged.

The event had the largest viewing audience in history. Nearly everyone on Earth tuned in to get a glimpse of the aliens. It turned out that they were seven remarkably human-like beings wearing silvery jumpsuits and surgical masks. They seated themselves at a table with the Earth’s leaders: the President of the Mostlyglobal Federation and the President of the United States.

I remember thinking early on that there was something strange about the way the surgical masks of the aliens moved. The full horrible truth was not apparent, however, until one of them sneezed and blew his off.

“Terribly sorry,” the alien said to a stunned world, “Silly things anyway.” The rest of the aliens seemed relieved. They took the opportunity to remove their masks as well–in spite of the world press secretary frantically waving at them to stop.

Nothing happened for several moments as most of the world sat stunned. Even the television crews seemed to be dumbfounded. The shot did not change in spite of the Earth’s leaders making repeated slicing motions across their throats.

The mouths of the aliens were not long slits like ours. Instead each was a puckered asterisk, practically identical to a human rectum. The noses of the aliens were of two types. One type resembled a full-sized human scrotum and penis, the other a human vagina. Both were covered with sparse, kinky, short hair.

There is probably not a person on Earth that remembers anything that was said after that. In the weeks following, any attempt at serious discussion about the aliens was doomed to end in vociferous arguments concerning their faces. In particular the primary question was whether or not the aliens should be allowed to appear in public without masks. Some groups adamantly insisted on masks. Others thought it unpardonable to even suggest it.

One camp insisted that allowing the aliens to go maskless would demystify genitalia and must therefore not be allowed. To allow it, they warned, would lead to mass impropriety. The other side agreed on the effects, and for that very reason insisted the aliens must go maskless. The time had come, they said, to liberate the crotches of Earth.

Tee shirts, pins, and bumper stickers with the slogan “Ask me about my penis and/or vagina.” appeared and grew in popularity. The rival “Keep it in your pants” movement grew up in response.

Tensions escalated until, on the live broadcast of the 2034 Academy Awards, fifteen male and female dancers flashed their privates at the end of a musical number and ignited the powder keg.

Historians (and by historians I means me) call it the flash seen ‘round the world. Never before in the history of mankind has so little of so few moved so many. The result was an almost instantaneous polarization of opinion.

Long marginalized religious sects grew in power almost overnight and within a week a Jihad was declared on the aliens and the country that had let them into our dimension.

When New Orleans–the world’s largest underwater brothel–disappeared in a mushroom cloud, the planet lit up in global civil war. In the midst of it all, the ignored aliens disappeared through the dimensional rift in a tizzy.

So here we are, a few scattered survivors on a ruined planet, waiting for the radiation and nuclear winter to finish us off. I cannot possibly know the outcome of this war. Perhaps the pro-modesty tribes will win–perhaps the pro-genital tribes.

We Gens must continue to fight, however, because only a race completely comfortable with itself is truely ready to meet any other. Under Gen rule there is at least a chance of that. If the Mods win, the best that can be hoped for is a temporary respite. For as long as we remain human, the seeds of the problem will always be there, lurking in our underwear.

Tags: fiction, flash-fiction, sci-fi, scifi, science-fiction, sexuality, comedy

“Don’t get too close to the edge,” Rita warned.

“I’m not,” Joe grumbled, “Back up, you’re fogging the window.”

The overwhelmed wipers gave only a split second’s visibility with each swipe.

He sighed. “We should be at the highway by now,” he admitted. Rita narrowed her eyes and tightened her jaw.

In the back, the young girl and boy exchanged nervous glances.

“What’s that?” Rita asked pointing to a light ahead. As they approached, the lighted windows grew until they could make out the word VACANCY.

“I’m tired,” the girl whined.

“Me too,” the boy concurred.

The adults looked at each other, negotiating with their expressions.
Through the rain, the headlights swept across the tattered motel. The van door slammed and Joe trotted to the office.

In the van the kids broke loose of their seatbelts.

“Does it have cable?” the boy asked. They pressed their noses against the windshield. The motel lay bleached and dripping in the headlights glare.

“Eeew,” the girl pronounced.

The mother was looking for other lights, and finding none.

The children went back to their seats and sulked. For a long while there were only the roar of the rain and the whir of the minivan idling.

“What’s taking so long?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know,” Rita said as if she had been about to ask the same thing.

They waited a little longer, then Rita shuffled around to get her jacket.
When she entered the office her shoes and jeans were soaked. After brushing back her hair she looked around. She was alone in the yellow light of the office. She scanned the room–the cluttered desk, the reading lamp, the wooden door opposite the entrance. She listened. The steady drone of the rain and the ticking of a clock were the only sounds.

“Hello?”

No reply.

Again, “Hello?”

No reply.

Suddenly she screamed as something smashed the wooden door against its jamb. There followed a slow scraping from the far side.

Rita froze, unable even to breathe. The knob turned slightly and flipped back.

“Joe?” she quavered.

She saw a dot of red liquid peek from under the door and soak into the dirt on the jaundiced linoleum.

“Joe!” She leaped to open the door. She could only open it part way because something lay against it. The room beyond was dark. The weight shifted and an arm grabbed at her through the opening.

It was Joe. She pulled him into the office. He was ripped, riven, and torn.

Shaking uncontrollably she knelt down to him. Blood bubbled out of his neck as he tried to speak. He tried to push her away.

She heard a raspy sigh like air from a tomb. She turned her head to see the silhouette of something hideous in the doorway.

Conflicting instincts paralyzed her until terror dominated protection. Screaming, she ran through the front door into the pelting rain.

She opened the driver side door, leaped into the seat, pulled to slam the door. The door was yanked from her grasp.

In an instant the thing was on her, slashing and tearing.

The children screamed at what they saw between the seats. They scrambled to the back, hid their eyes, dared not breathe. The boy wet himself.

Movement inside the van stopped for a long time.

“Mom?” The girl ventured.

In an instant the thing was over the seats and onto them, finishing its work.

Tags: flash-fiction, horror