Short Story Contest IV [ENTRY THREAD]

[Sulkdodds]

Welcome to the fourth Hl2.net short story contest.

The Rules
- Entries must be between 100 and 5000 words.
- Entries should be in prose form, though abberations are acceptable.
- Entries must be originally created for the Short Story Contest (tm)
- Contestants may write about anything they wish as long as it conforms to the stated topic.
- Closing date is midnight on the 20th September.
- NO discussion in this thread, only entries.
Discussion thread here.

The Prize
At worst, a custom title and +++respect. At best, the true ear of Van Gogh preserved in formaldeyhyde.

The Topic

The subject this time around is: 'Pathetic Fallacy'.

The pathetic fallacy is a literary technique that ascribes human characteristics to natural phenomena. In a wider sense, it is the use of natural phenomena to instill meaning in a story - most commonly applied to weather. We've all read stories where the clouds darken with the mood, a storm rages during the climax, and the sun shines on a happy ending. "Pathetic" doesn't mean 'sad', it means "sympathetic" - objects in sympathetic relation to human events, as if the whole world were a mystical litmus paper for testing the soul of man.

And if that's enough to make you write something then stop reading here. I want you to use the pathetic fallacy to do something interesting. Here are some examples of its application.

Shakespeare's King Lear is dominated by a complex version of this trope. The storm that thunders throughout most of the action of the play is at first a reflection of political turmoil on earth. Lear is seen “as mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud”; he is “minded like the weather, most unquietly”. The storm is a mirror hung in the sky to reflect the social state of the play and the internal states of its tormented protagonists (see also Macbeth). But it is such a powerful symbol with such a variety of meanings, and relates to the protagonists in so many ways, that it eclipses that function, and becomes something antagonistic and wholly alien to the play's human beings, while Lear

Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. (III.i.4-11)

The point is that if a raging storm represents political chaos on earth, at least one thing is stable: the connection between earth and the heaven that imitates it. But by the end of King Lear it seems like the truth is even bleaker, much worse: heaven, or nature, is completely indifferent to the struggles of mankind, and they are powerless before it. So Shakespeare takes the well-worn pathetic fallacy and uses it to play on the expectations of his audiences. He lets it mutate into a new thing.

Another great user of the pathetic fallacy was Charles Dickens. I refer not only to his environments (houses described as if their windows were eyes, their doors mouths, their streets dinner tables around which they sit and grumble; tall buildings lean down to spy through skylights) or to his objects (troublesome hats, seemingly alive, conspire to jump off shelves) but also to his people. Their personalities and characters are inscribed outwardly in a set of characteristics: a forehead like a brick wall or a nose like the prow of a ship. These outwardly visible characteristics express inward meanings, but physiognomy is a discredited science, and we all know one cannot tell a criminal by the distance between his eyes. So this is another kind of pathetic fallacy.

And of course those reified objects are too: a talking toilet or a chair that broods is pathetic, as is a weeping willow or a babbling brook. So that's your mission this time around: take the technique and use it, whether faithfully or playfully. And think about how you can perhaps abuse it, and change it, and make it something new.

GET WRITING
YOU PATHETIC
FAILURES
(<3)

Resources:
- Wikipedia: Pathetic Fallacy
- John Ruskin coins the phrase (but you needn't pay too much attention to him)
- Two key passages from Joseph Conrad
- Rather literally taken to task by scientists
- I don't know if this is actually pathetic fallacy and I don't care http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3Cvs1caeA

 

[lame-o]

A Slug's Rebirth

As they stumbled home from the party, drunk as hell and feeling drained, it was nearing three A.M. and the lightning storm predicted by the six o'clock news seemed to be gathering above. It was supposed to be the first storm in nearly a month. They had another ten minutes to walk, and it looked like they were going to be soaked.

Christopher's parents were awaiting their return, probably searching out the window for any signs of movement. He was going to get it, but his acquaintance wouldn't because he was a guest at Chris' home.

Chris didn't even enjoy the party, and being drunk was his only consolation from the reality that he was incapable of talking to people for enjoyment, or really doing anything at all with someone else. Therefore he was incapable of friendship. He tried hard but he couldn't handle being around other people, he was always lost and had nothing to say. It was a social anxiety he couldn't grasp in the slightest. No-one wanted to hang out with him after recovering from the initial shock of seeing his handsome face and dark, brooding eyes. He felt that he was too thoughtful, and he reminded himself of the phrase "paralysis by analysis".

Then he remembered his acquaintance walking next to him. Chris gave him a sideways glance and tried to initiate conversation.

"Man, I'm so ****ed up... I think it's gonna rain soon."

"Yeah, haha. I'm going to have a major hangover tomorrow morning... Ha! The party was great, and did you see what Ricky was doing when he was on the balcony?"

"No, what?"

"That guy is absolutely retarded. He said he was staving off slugs from eating the flowers in the backyard by pouring beer all over them. By the way, I was invited to another party this Friday, so we'll get ****ed up again pretty soon!"

"Hahaha, nice..." he replied quietly, and looked down at his feet. He tried to think of something witty to say, or to tell his acquaintance something interesting, but he couldn't.

A light drizzle crept up on them, and the wind began to blow. Not being able to think of anything more to say, Chris resorted to proposing that they both have a smoke.

They lit their cigarettes in silence. Then in a drunken stupor Chris tried to kick over a garbage can and stubbed his toe. Such poorly vented angst is always embarrassing. He couldn't show his weakness to the world though, so he laughed it off.

Life was hard for him, but Chris heard somewhere that there's always an end to bad times. Supposedly it's a historical fact. He thought of the bad times lived by starving children in third world countries, and gang rape victims, and the abducted, and even Syd Barrett. Did they find the light at the end of the tunnel? Who knows. Maybe some did despite everything, but it was doubtful to him. Suffering is essential to have strength, but too much of it just cripples people.

He remembered what he once read in a book; that the modern person's war is a spiritual one. There was nothing real left to fight. So he began to think to himself that maybe he didn't have any curse at all. Maybe he simply didn't see all the blessings that surrounded him.

Then it dawned on him. If a god exists, Chris felt that it certainly doesn't care about him. Why else would he be left with a life so dull? Sheltered from all that is terrible, given all that is pacifying, kept from anything of greatness. Completely abandoned in a world where everyone was telling him he should be thankful. He was left with trivialities that, from the lack of real problems, ballooned to the size of monoliths. Those trivialities crippled him.

He took a long drag from his cigarette.

The storm was starting to groan above. Another five minutes' walk before they'd get home. Then suddenly it started pouring rain. It was a torrential flow that seemed like a translucent wall from all sides. Thunder rolled across the sky, and lightning electrified the air. The lightning strikes made the world around him momentarily seem like a different planet - a blueish black planet of bricks, concrete, and old parked cars. Shadows danced like spectres on the ground and on the walls of the looming buildings. His acquaintance's face was illuminated to show the outlines of his skull, and it seemed bored. In fact, everything seemed bored.

The pouring rain, however, was pleasant. It caressed him with sympathy. The Summer's night air was cool. The rain was too, and Chris lifted his face up to feel the raindrops coming down. He felt like he was reborn. It was as though he would awaken the next morning as the person he always wanted to be. With an inner strength that would allow him to transcend his problems.

His acquaintance began to dance lightly behind him and sang a drinking song to himself.

Their clothes already soaked through and through, they continued walking and he thought of all the ways he would be changed. He no longer hated himself, he knew everything would be different from now on.

Deep within the recesses of his conscience the presence and disposition of his acquaintance overwhelmed him, though he might not have recognized the feeling.

Visions of adventure and excitement danced through his mind. He picked up a rock and threw it at the first window he saw through the torrent of rain. The glass shattered with such satisfying force that he jumped and started to run. His acquaintance looked surprised, then as the lights in the houses nearby flicked on he quickly followed.

When they got home his parents were asleep. His acquaintance disappeared into the dark hallway after saying goodnight. Chris snuck into his bedroom, undressed himself and dried himself off with a spare shirt in total darkness. Falling on the bed he sighed a deep sigh of relief, and went to sleep happy, for he knew that his life was changed forever.

The next morning he felt like shit.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

I'm picturing a man. He's sitting on a bus. Every day he does this. He sometimes thinks about the buses. They're angry things, hurtling down the roads as they do. They might seem excited were they elsewhere, but I think only the truly angry can ignore pains that those holes in the road must inflict. The roads! What a state they're in. So neglected. But the buses. They scream every time they have to come to a halt. It's quite upsetting. Everything screams at a standstill. The man wonders what the buses are angry at. Perhaps they're angry at the roads. They're trying to prove something. You bastards! Get into shape! They never do.

 

[Dekstar]

Pathetic Phallusy
​

Sarah took a long drag on her cigarette. The ash began to buckle under its own weight. She sat up from her slouched position and lent over to the bedside table to flick the grey flakes from her drooping cigarette into the ashtray. She passed the remainders to John before getting up to go to the bathroom. He held the almost spent tube in his fingers, and stubbed it out in the ashtray on his side of the bed. He didn't feel like smoking.
"Listen," Sarah said from inside the en-suite, "We're all getting old, it's natural to--"
John hated this talk and interrupted with, "I'm thinking of buying a new car, y'know? Something with style, class."
Sarah sighed.
"Can you get any more cliché? You might as well paint 'Mid-life Crisis!' in big letters on the side of it."
This time John sighed.
"It's not about that," he said now out of bed and buttoning his shirt up, "I've never had a great car, and since I got that bonus I think it's the perfect time. It's not like we've got kids or anything so it doesn't need four seats."
"What if I want kids?"
"Ok," he thought, buckling his belt, "luxury over sportiness. How about a Mercedes?"
John was feeling his age. The extra length of belt he used to be able to tuck into one of the loops of his trousers now fell short. He had no choice but to let it hang limp from his growing belly.
Sarah emerged from the bathroom,, toothbrush and toothpaste tube in hand. She held up the flattened tube. The end flopped over her fingers as she gesticulated while speaking.
"We're out of toothpaste, and can't this wait a bit? We can go shopping for a sensible car later on in the week. Together."
John agreed, they kissed and he headed downstairs. He made it to the front door before he forgot he hadn't had breakfast. A quick detour through the cupboards produced nothing, and the sight of the most disappointing fruit bowl made him think twice about eating. He saw nothing but elderly apples with what could only be described as wrinkles and the smallest most bent banana ever produced, the runt of the litter. He thought one good mouthful was better than nothing at all, and headed out with 'banana' in hand.
Screw this weather, he thought getting into his car. It wasn't hot, it wasn't cold either, nor was it necessarily raining or entirely dry. Inadequate weather on all accounts. His car, a 1982 Vauxhall Astra 1200S, took a few tries to lurch into life. Whenever he got it running the pressure warning light would flick on momentarily, and the battery would then cease functioning. This was normal practice for the car John lovingly called “Dis-Astra”, and so he was prepared to sit it out. After so many false starts John triumphantly pulled away from the curb, Dis-Astra moving—and sounding—like a limp wet flannel with a cold, except leaking more fluids.

John didn't enjoy the ride to work. The traffic lights either hated him or his car and would constantly force him to stop, which wasn't easy for poor Dis-Astra, because once it got going, it took a while to stop no matter how hard John pressed on the brakes. John had timed the early braking almost perfectly to stop at the last set of lights before the turning for his office's car park, but he saw the car was still moving forward. He slowed as much as he could, then tugged forcefully on his handbrake, at which point Dis-Astra stopped, gave out a painful groan, then lurched forward like it was throwing up. Then it died. John opened his door and placed his foot straight into a newly formed puddle of oil seeping out from under Dis-Astra.
“Cock,” is the only intelligible thing John said between that point and pushing the car himself into the car park not 15 meters away.
“The sodding thing had one more turn to take and it decided to prematurely spew all its contents over the road. If I was already parked up I wouldn't give a shit.”
“Happens to the best of us John,” replied John's boss. He let John off for being late and for his trousers being covered in motor oil stains from slipping over pushing the car.

John's day didn't get any better. It never did. John was half way through inputting new accounts into a database when a routine save corrupted his RAM—and said save—and to make matters worse upon reboot his computer got a hard-drive error. John was not a violent man and so without drop-kicking the computer (just imagining it), he took a breath of fresh air and nicotine while the IT technician tried to fix the problematic hardware.

After what felt like hours of an already very long day passing (but was in fact just twenty minutes), John's boss decided he should take the rest of the day off, so John withdrew early back home on the bus. Then, after John had arranged for Dis-Astra to be towed, John and Sarah took a bus to the nearest car showroom.
“We'd like to see your most luxurious five-door please,” proclaimed John as he entered the showroom. Sarah rolled her eyes. John saw the only salesman in the show-room was pre-occupied with another customer, a wealthy looking and muscular man in his early twenties. In fact John recognised this man as one of the many people who drove past him in an expensive car laughing as he was pushing the now late Dis-Astra into the car park. The man, who looked about three weight-classes above John seemed to be test-driving multiple high-end cars and was talking to the salesman about which he'd like to try next. John strode up to the salesman and interrupted.
“I would like to see the most luxurious five-door you have,” he said in his most suave voice.
“I'm sorry sir just one moment, I'm with a customer.”
“Hey, aren't you that guy I saw pushing that old piece of crap banger that broke down in the middle of the road earlier,” the American asked.
“I wasn't talking to you,” John snarled. He thought of adding an expletive insult on the end of the sentence, but that part of his brain never seemed to function well at the best of times. After a second of empty silence his brain thought the sentence justified at least something, so he merely added “beefcake” on the end of it. The man looked perplexed, then gave John a swift look up and down, like he was sizing up his next meal, then laughed and said “Ah, yeah I know what this is now. You're having penis trouble.”

John left the showroom roughly fifteen seconds after the American came out with that sentence.
One second was spent punching the American so hard his nose broke in three places.
Five seconds were spent slack-jawed realising what he had done.
Six seconds were spent running out of the showroom as fast as he could.
One second was realising he finally thought of a come-back.
And two seconds were spent shouting “It's not the size that matters!”

 

[ríomhaire]

Projection

A man steps into a shop. It's an old place, not part of any chain or franchise. It's small and dimly lit by a pair of filament bulbs hanging from the high ceiling. He walks up to the counter, having to turn sideways in the narrow space to get past a hunched-over old man in a battered suit, and takes a newspaper from the nearby rack. He pulls a five euro note out of his wallet and turns to the plump woman behind the counter, who puts down her Hello magazine and relieves him of his cash. As he is handed back a handful of grimy change, he smells the grease of the hot-food counter and immediately turns to face the doorway, muttering a thank you.

He steps into a street lined on either side with old houses, all painted in different, ageing, cracked paints. He walks along the, gum-stained footpath and several dogs charge at him as he passes their yards. He gets to his dark green Ford and pauses to examine the house he is parked in front of.

It's at the end of the street, and the only detached house in sight. Two stories, like all the others, but instead of being built straight up it has a wide ground floor and a smaller upstairs. A garden, more weed than grass, surrounds it and it gives it the distinct impression of not belonging. It probably had been a cosy rural home swallowed up by an expanding city. The long-broken windows are boarded up with rotting wood. The once-bright red paint is so peeled it covers only two thirds of the house. A single window box on the upper story is home to at least six different varieties of weed. In the far corner of the garden he spies a half-collapsed dog house. He sighs, gets into his car, and makes his way back home.



A girl strolls into a shop. It's a family-owned place; small and with wooden shelves built into the walls. She squeezes past an elderly man in an old brown suit. She picks a tabloid from its shelve and tosses it onto the counter. The woman behind the counter, in a flowery dress and pearl earrings, folds up her magazine and they exchange pleasantries. The girl takes a fiver from her back pocket and handed it to the woman. She smells fresh sausages as she takes her change and lingers for a moment before she goes, thanking the woman.

She turns left outside the shop and begins toward her car. She admires the houses lining the road, all painted in different colours; pink, yellow, white, turquoise, and all in different shades. A couple of dogs rush over to her for inspection as she passes. She pauses for each, then continues down the footpath, skipping over the grass-laden cracks. As she puts the key in the lock of her Fiesta she sees the reflection of a house in the window.

She turns to view it more carefully. It's rather different to every other house on the street; the only detached building and the only surrounded by a garden. It has a large ground floor, at least two times the size of the others on the street, but a smaller, square, first floor. The once bold red paint no longer covers the whole house. The various greens of the overgrown garden contrast against the deep red of the house. Boarded up windows hide whatever home was once inside. A hopeful window box hangs from one. In a corner of the garden three walls of a dog house provide shelter to a faded bowl still promising water. She sighs, gets into her car, and drives on.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Hypertree


On the morning of the 23rd Don Santiago woke up with one idea rooted in his brain. For a while he lay in bed as if trying to remember a dream, looking straight upwards at the high ceiling and ignoring the curtains that flicked across his vision in the pale light. Presently, when he was sure the vision would not fade with the advance of the day, he got up and wandered through the old villa, padding in his bare feet over the rumpled cloths and sheets that covered the floor to protect it from the workmen’s muddy boots. Furniture likewise lay under shrouds, or not even unpacked yet. These dust-covers waved and billowed in the light wind that blew through the open windows, so that the house had on the aspect of a sleeper taking his first deep breath of the morning, but Don Santiago paid no attention to these details and strode directly to the forward window. He stared out for a few minutes at the two trees on his yard, pondering his mission. It did not take him long to resolve himself. Within minutes he was dressed and fetching his tools.

As the sun climbed Don Santiago was labouring also, stripping bark from the sides of the trees to reveal pale green flesh, digging furiously at their roots, lashing with ropes, grunting back and forth in the arid earth, the blade of his shovel turning to reflect the sunlight like a signalling glass. Most of the men in the valley would have assured you it was impossible to do what he did in so little time. But Don Santiago was like a man possessed. By noon, he was finished.

He had stripped open the side of the orange tree, and laid bare his lemon tree, and he had bound them together by their mutual wound. He told me later that when their leaves quivered and their limbs mingled as if clinging on in the wake of trauma, he knew he had been right to do it.

But here his troubles began.

*

The valley had seen many invaders and colonists before. Everyone in it made their money by growing, and their allegiances tended to be decided by what they grew. The nurseries, farms and vineyards that lay in a patchwork up and down its mountainous length were allied or opposed on the basis of their crop, so that if you charted where the oranges and mandarins were, where winter tomatoes were grown and where custard apples were cultivated, where were the fields of giant strawberries and where were the different colours of grape, you would end with a bright map like a pre-war atlas of Europe. So if anyone took an interest in the new arrival, they were naturally suspicious of him and kept away - at least for a while.

It was finally three months before Don Santiago, working on his garden, saw a pillar of dust rising from the road below and went to stand on the ridge in his shirt-sleeves with his hat low over his eyes, watching the battered old truck grumble up the winding path.

Once it stopped he approached it and shouted a casual greeting. “Ahoy!” “Ahoy,” replied the surly driver. They shook hands, watching each other under their hat brims, sizing each other up. Don Santiago introduced himself. “Just moved in.” The other nodded. “I’m Diego,” he said, “I grow lemons down the road. This is a nice spot.” Don S. smiled, making an effort for his new neighbours. “Let me show you around.”

Don Santiago was a man whose heart was open, and though his accent was unmistakeably fine and his hands evidently soft he was bashful and modest about his background; therefore they got on jovially enough, if not closely. Diego followed him about, admired the villa and let out course laughs at his self-depreciating jokes. In turn he briefly explained the social lay of the land, mentioning the Salgados who raised oranges, the enormous Chavez family and its several vineyards, the grape-growing Vegas. Don Santiago listened attentively as they crossed out onto the porch and into the yard.

At this point (as Don S.. tells it) Diego stopped dead and took off his sunglasses. “What is that?” he said.

He was pointing at the two trees. Since Don S. had grafted them together they’d grown towards each other, so that now their branches were intertwined and slowly, hesitantly, shaking as if scared at the prospect, carefully as if they had plenty to lose, becoming inextricable from each other. The hot wind in their leaves made them seem to whisper privately to each other, in tones too quiet to be audible to anyone looking up from ground level. Their trunks twisted apart, then together, bent in uneasy unison under the hot sun.

“Ah! My trees,” said Don S., quite mildly.

Diego paced around them and subjected them to an intense dark-eyed scrutiny. Eventually he put his hands on his hips and looked back at Don S.. “Why have you done this?”

“Oh? I had this idea…it’s hard to explain really. I’m not sure I could – well, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t understand – it struck me as something that had to be done. In the spirit of…” Don S. gestured lamely.

Diego walked up to the trees and inspected them more closely. He seemed reluctant to actually touch their buckled bark, shying back from the ripple where they had begun to properly graft. “Hmm,” he said.

He peered upwards for a while. Then he addressed Don Santiago: “And what do you think will come of it?”

“Why, I’ve no conception. Actually that’s rather the point.”

“How long have you been growing, Don S.?”

“Not so long. My father taught me.”

“Are you sure you know what it is you’re doing?”

Don S. took this as a joke, which did not help at all, since Diego just continued to gaze levelly at him with a grim line to his mouth. He brushed his hair back. “Of course. Sure.”

Diego just looked at the ground, rubbing his chin. “Hmmm,” he said again. He nodded doubtfully.

They parted with polite greetings and the promise of invitation to dinner or a party sometime that neither one of them intended to fulfil.

Diego rattled back down the road in his battered old truck and took a left turn where normally he would take a right. His brother saw him coming a mile off and rose from the veranda to greet him, a glass of wine in his hand, hat cocked back on his forehead.

“Diego! What in God’s name brings you here? Not that I’m unhappy! Come and have a drink, come on. You’ve got a funny look on your face. What’s up?”

Diego sat, still rubbing his chin. “I’ve just been up to see that new owner who lives above you. Who moved into old Chino’s pretty house.”

“Aha. What kind of man’s he, then?”

They both looked up the mountainside. Diego frowned. “I don’t like him.” Mandarins bobbed on their branches nearby, happily riding the breeze. “I don’t like it at all.”

*

For twelve months, as if from the shame of their forced union, or fright of its violence, the trees produced nothing. Don Santiago cared for them well, watering them while cooing into their leaves, and they themselves lay awkwardly in each other’s arms. But no fruit came forth, and meanwhile the rumour of them passed around the valley by way of Diego, his brother and their chattering wives. These rumours were met at first with incredulity, then with amusement, then with a dim worry, and finally, as seasons passed without incident, with a dismissive scorn. Where men gathered together they usually gave at least a little time to the matter, and, snorting into their drinks, would invariably reach the conclusion that the weird grafting would come to nothing, that no fruit would ever appear, that the new man was a fool with more money than sense who would before long be laughably disappointed. At a party held by the Vegas on their estate, I heard Diego declare in his cups that he had seen from the start with his own eyes that the trees would be barren, and that he’d eat his own boots if he was proved wrong. With the exception of myself and the local priest, nobody came to visit the trees or their planter again.

But in the second May they started flowering. And by that Christmas two bright little orbs had appeared in the dark boughs, unexpected but tenacious. Don Santiago was beside himself. Diego – not so much; nor anyone else.

By the same time next year Don S. was harvesting a rich crop of impossible fruits of a kind neither I nor any of the experienced growers had ever seen before. Their reputation spread quickly. Of course Don S. invited people round to try them, but none of them would respond, for not a single man would dare to touch one. Children were another matter. Kids from miles around would come and gaze at the two trees, which now appeared to be growing peacefully and strong, as if locked in thirsty, intricate embrace, touching at a thousand points, formed and reformed around a partner, so closely twined as to be indistinguishable and confident in each other. The kids would stare and stretch out wary hands. Then Don S. would step out blinking onto his veranda, and they’d all hide behind the trees, but eventually they would emerge and accept the fruit he offered from his wicker basket. I tried one myself, once. It was delicious, lacking the papery aridity too often present in Mediterranean produce, ripe and moist and very strong to taste. Sure enough, soon there wasn’t a kid in the valley who didn’t know about the magic tree of Don Santiago.

Nevertheless the community-wide embargo on his company continued. It stung him, I could tell, however much he tried not to show it. And then one day someone put a brick through his window. It was silly, because Don S. always kept his windows open, and only closed his shutters at night, but somebody had crept up to the wall of his house and actually closed a window just so they could break it. Tied to the rope was a scrap of paper with a drawing of an axe on it. The message was clear, if absurd, and Don S. was shaken, if not materially disadvantaged.

If anything it made him more determined to ignore the constant sinister bickering of the other growers, among whom Don S. became a regular fixture of conversation and the subject of elaborate cursing. More so his tree, of which men spoke darkly, knitting their brows with such intense and unironic expressions of foreboding that it was positively comical. Still, perhaps the affair would have ended there if not for an incident that took place one year later, for which I was not present.

As Don S. tells it, he was sitting up in bed with an old book at a very late hour when without warning he heard a shot and commotion outside. In the poisoned atmosphere he naturally feared the worst and rushed out to the balcony, pausing only to put on his hat. Someone held a shaking lantern at the foot of his trees, but he couldn’t see anything distinctly. So he rushed downstairs, grabbed his own light (he did not keep a weapon), and ventured out into the dark.

Under the linked bowers of the double tree, cowering among its roots, there were two shivering young shapes: a boy struggling with his trousers and a girl in the first flowers of womanhood desperately trying to cover herself up with a sheet. Her flesh was bleak and pale in the beam of the lantern and her right hand was clenched white-knuckled around a gnarled root, while an older man with a thick moustache (Don S. recognised him as a minor Chavez nephew) had seized upon her arm and was attempting to wrench her away. In his other hand he held an old rifle, and that was what had fired the shot. All of them were screaming at each other.

Don S. bounded forward. “Stop this! Stop at once!” The nephew sprung backwards, dropping his gun, and his lamp smashed on the ground. Don S. swung his own light over the scene. The girl and boy shrunk away from it, holding each other. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Please, sir, we didn’t – “

The nephew cut them off, swearing abominably. “Don Santiago, this is your plot to deflower my sister! You have let them come up here under your devilish tree and **** like animals! I’ll kill you! I’ll marshal my whole family against you!”

Don S. turned the lantern full on the man, which seemed to cow him. “You’ll do nothing of the sort, and nor will you ever bring a weapon onto my land again unless you’re properly willing to use it.” The youth opened and shut his mouth. Don S. continued, shaken but deadly calm, “I’ve never seen these two before. Let them explain themselves, since you’re hysterical.”

They’d come up here in the night, drunk on stolen wine, in the throes, I suppose, of their youthful passion. And the nephew, who turned out to be the girl’s older brother, had followed them up there in the dark with his father’s gun with the fuel of wine in him and the fuzzy intention of interrupting them. They’d clearly eaten of the fruit: bitten-out husks and skins lay on the soil around them. Above them the branches of the trees caught a wailing, mournful wind, and bowed and heaved towards the ground as if in a mutual attempt to shelter these new lovers.

*

 

[Sulkdodds]

In the end the situation was resolved (they were married). But the event was like a firebomb under the dry kindling the trees had become. Don Santiago was not thanked for his part in the situation. Instead, he was blamed for allowing it to happen on his land. Further it was claimed that the strange fruit of his unnatural trees had driven the young man and woman to their sinful coupling. Eating of it they had abandoned themselves (the wives muttered excitedly) to an animal lust, naked under its bowers. Some argued about the exact significance of the married trees and what part they had played, but all had a broad consensus. I was forced to slip quietly out of the meeting that they called at the priest’s residence because it was too much like a rally.

Now everyone was against Don Santiago, and regular sermons were delivered against him. He suffered under the constant rumour that he would soon be selling his horrid wares to a sinister buyer from America, or that he was somehow linked to Anarchist activity. It was as if each man and woman had been seized by a fire or force that I couldn’t grasp the origin of, and that none of them suspected or resisted. Once, Don S. found that his car had been vandalised. Another time he narrowly avoided a fire among his crops (though that could easily have been accidental). Accordingly his health began to suffer and I took upon myself the duty of regular visits and care.

On one such night we rode out to the highest point on the mountain and sat in the scrub smoking cigarettes under a vast and empty bowl of sky, whose colossal and pitch-black extremity gazed down on us like the eye of God himself and rang like an incalculable bell with the heavy silence of ages. Lonely stars were winking, light a million years old. Their dim and desolate pulse reached us long after they were dead, like radio signals from ships that would never be found.

One of them moved, and I perceived it was a meteorite flashing overhead.

Don Santiago pointed up at it.. “Entire races were ended this way,” he said after a pause. “Entire branches of the evolutionary tree.”

“Entire races were started, too,” I reminded him. “That’s how it works.”

Around us the cicadas roared like a shrill sea. I knew from the sound and from the time of year that it was their mating song. They live longer than most insects, cicadas, but in the end it is not that long. I remembered their constant rattle from living in the country in my youth, remembered how it came to me as if out of a skull. If you were silent, as now, you could also hear the movement of small animals and the hoot of the owls that hunted them. Although their flight was silent, I’d still swear I could sometimes catch a swooping shadow move in the corner of my eye.

Don Santiago sat brooding inscrutably up at the Milky Way, attempting, perhaps, to look the cosmos in the eye with a gaze intense enough to make it blink. Like all dreamers he had grown proud and angry when his vision went sour.

“What on earth possessed you to do it?” I asked him.

His mournful look turned to one of wrath, which he directed scornfully back at me. “You too?”

“Not at all – it’s your own affair. But I can’t quite see why it’s so important to you. You have a lot to gain by abandoning the venture.”

He tried to smile, failing risibly. “At first I didn’t know. But now I only need to look at those trees.” He nodded down the mountain. “They’re all I need. What I’ve done deserves to be protected. And after all,” his temper flared, “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Far down the valley they were holding on to each other, stirred by an evening zephyr and trembling all night.

*

The reckoning came just as that year’s fruit were growing ripe. Don Santiago was entertaining an expatriate friend originally from the state of Mississippi, who he hadn’t seen for years. But the presence of this nominal American in the valley was taken for a dangerous portent. It was decided that something had to be done. I had gone up to stay with them the night that Something was.

The first I knew of it there were shots outside. A youthful spell in the army, though occupying only a fraction of my many years, had given me the lifelong habit of sleeping in my clothes, so that when I heard the half-remembered but instantly familiar chorus of rifles I was on my feet instantaneously. I threw open my shutters to see the most remarkable thing. Every man of the valley was spread in the yard with lanterns and weapons, milling around in the half-light with serious looks on their faces. The Vegas, the entire Chavez clan, Diego and Diego’s brother, most of the Salgados, the Grignans and the Monteserin brothers – all of them were there, and at their head was the priest. Seeing me at the window they must have mistaken me for Don S. for they raised up a tremendous shout and pelted me with stones. I reeled back and slammed the shutters, locking them tight.

Don S. was already up, arguing in a hushed and agitated tone with his American friend. I curtly delivered the news and he became inconsolable, so that we had to support him and let him down gently on the chaise-longue. But no sooner had he sat than he sprung up again, demanding to be let out and confront the neighbours. We argued vociferously against this, raising our voices above the patter of stones on the shutters outside, but Don S. shook us off and bounded down the stairs, giving us no choice but to run shouting after him, the American hastily checking the chambers of a long revolver.

Don S. knocked a vase from its pedestal as he ran through the halls. He reached the front doors and with a great boom of wood on stone he threw them open. This had the effect of instantly silencing the crowd, but he was too shaken to take advantage of the moment and as we arrived at his shoulders the priest cried out:

“Don Santiago! Your disgrace against nature is tearing our valley apart, and you must concede to our demands and immediately tear down those wicked trees, or suffer the consequences!” A ragged cheer went up behind them.

Well, this was perfectly ridiculous, and even at a moment of such gravity it was difficult not to laugh. But at that instant Don S. went limp and collapsed on his own stairs. His eyes rolled back into his head, and amidst the sudden jeers of the people I perceived he was having a fit.

“Get back!” I shouted. “All of you, get out of here! This is an outrage! You come onto a man’s own land, a sick man, and try to run him off it!”

“Doctor,” said the priest, “you cannot defend this man. What he’s doing is - ” what it was, precisely, he didn’t seem quite able to articulate. He fell back instead on the authority of force, waving one hand at the men behind him. “We won’t have it!”

I stepped forward, trying my best to look a little crazy. “He is sick and he is my patient. I’ll spit in the face of any man who tries to harm him.” Some men started towards me. “One step forward on land that isn’t yours, gentlemen!”

This appeal to land rights was well observed. Land was the most precious thing to most of these men, after family. I continued, quite in a funk. “You’re acting shamefully. You’re like a pack of animals. No – you’re worse. Get out! Gentlemen, please. Go home and **** your wives.”

I scarcely want to credit myself with beating back that crowd on my own. But after a while they started to retreat in dribs and drabs, some of them hanging around to glower menacingly at me, others to press forward nervously and enquire after Don Santiago’s health. I was short with them but not hostile. The priest left without looking me in the eye.

Still, in the end it was futile. Don Santiago told me the next day he would make plans to sell the land, move away, and return to where he’d come from. I wondered aloud if he understood the significance of his decision, but he was a defeated man and he knew it. In my professional role I could not pretend that I disagreed with his plans; they would, in the strictest medical sense, be good for him.

The next month he was gone.

*

As I said, land rights are one of the few sacred things in the valley. So at first nobody even tried to move against the trees, and not a soul approached that high and lonely place which is known these days as ‘the Adulterers’. Meanwhile, the fruit dropped to the ground and was neglected.

Then the new owner moved in. I don’t know why - perhaps he was simply malicious, or perhaps he prided himself on being practical – but he took one look at the trees and decided to fetch his axe.

He approached them without any sense of reverence or sorrow. In the high tail-end of summer the trees had never looked so closely bound. It was as if in their final moments they were attempting to become utterly identical and utterly indistinguishable, for if nobody could tell them apart then perhaps nobody would know where to strike. They leaned desperately towards each other amidst their fallen fruit, shaking their limbs.

Well, I wasn’t there. But the new man took his axe and hacked away at the fused seam until it split and perhaps – I don’t know – the wind howled in their branches all the while. Diego told me later that he had visited them to see their new and separate positions, and the cut was very good, very clean. The new owner of was a reliable man, he said, a man with his head on properly, one who the community would be very glad to welcome.

So much for them.

The trees did not die, wither, decline or grow twisted. They did not bear ruined or sterile fruit. On the contrary, they delivered their produce as normal, two separate brands: orange and lemon. They didn’t incline noticeably towards each other, and their unhealed flanks did not smart or weep sap every spring for the loss of the flesh that had been their own and for the ten or so yards that now lay between them. They were trees, and trees do not weep, or cry, or ache, or shout, or feel sorrow, or long for what they cannot have, or remember the warmth of other bodies, or thrill to the visions that animate men. They’re just trees. And trees are all this story was about.

 

[Viperidae]

WINNING ENTRY

Bookes


The office was a mess. Most of the desk was occupied by a large monitor, paper, and a fan. In a corner were a pile of cables and old hard drives. Under the desk ran the numerous black tendrils of cable from a desktop computer to the small server against the dun back wall. The only surfaces that had any order to them were the walls. Where a bookshelf might have been were hung a Computer Science degree and two technical certificates. On another was a large poster of the Andromeda galaxy. There was no heating system, only a large vent overhead that blew cold air in. The only light came from a single fluorescent bulb that hung naked above the desk.

Jerry perched on the edge of his Ikea chair, in his Ikea desk, reading, delirious. He was not even slightly perturbed by the mess. Genum prided itself for being open to its employees’ work habits and eccentricities. There was no dress code, no mandate for office cleanliness.

Jerry Morris sifted through the hundreds of new emails. There was a lot of diplomacy that had to go between him and the publishing companies. They had all signed on to Books as partners, but were being choosy about which texts they would give him in which order. Most of the time there were problems with the authors who were reluctant for their works to become part of the Genum Books collection. He did not mind the delay much; eventually, they would have them all.

Over the plod of his fingers on his keyboard he caught the distinct accent of his direct subordinate outside his door. He expected her to bring him the next memo. She had probably been sidetracked just outside.

‘... Ah no. I used to study ancient books in Spain before my MA. I was one of those types who would go into the old stacks and search. Let me just talk to the boss for a few minutes. I’ll catch you after.’

Jerry was intrigued; she had never told him about her undergrad. The office door opened and Macarena entered.

‘Hey, boss,’ she said cheerfully.

‘Hey, Macarena,’ Jerry replied over his monitor. ‘Everything done with the astrophysics collection?’

She waved the document she carried. ‘Almost done.’

‘Good. I’ve got an even bigger list next. Are you up for it?’

Macarena shrugged. ‘Sure?’

‘Here,’ he handed her a list on a collection of University Press history books. ‘How’s everything else? Did those Xerox guys fix the problem with the scanners?’

‘Yeah, so far they’re working no problem.’

‘Alright, good. Any issues with the servers?’

‘Nope. Well, Geoff says there’s still problems with compatibility with some of the old Javascript, but that’s splitting hairs.’

‘Hmm, good. I’ll let you go.’

‘OK, boss.’ She turned to leave.

Just then Jerry had a thought. ‘Oh, uh, wait. You liked to study old books, right?’

Macarena turned back around, a curious look on her face. ‘Yes.’ He nodded for her to continue. ‘Well, it was mostly stuff before the Renaissance. I studied a lot of the books from the Mussulman period in Iberia—before it became Spain.’

‘So, what, 1300s?’

‘Oh yes, and earlier than that.’

‘The Arab books, are they very important to historians? They must be, with all the influence on science.’

‘Uh, yes, but they wrote about many things—’

‘What about English books from that era, did you study those?’ Jerry leaned forward, and his cheap chair groaned.

‘No, I didn’t study any of those. But they’re generically considered just as important to your history as mine. If I remember correctly.’

‘Hmm, I don’t know either.’ He paused, thinking. ‘What drew you to old books?’

She came over and sat at the only other surface in the office: a stool he used to help him hang up models his models. A smile framed the corners of her mouth.

‘It’s the original texts. Es niente—um, nothing like holding an old book.’ She held out her hands, palms up. ‘The vitela, or how do you say—’ She rubbed her fingers together and closed her eyes, her forehead creased in thought. ‘Vellum? I think is how. Skin of the cow. Lasts for thousands of years. So much work went into each book. So many jobs for a single text. The escribanos, the illuminators, they were experts. Beautiful. There is big difference between the copies, what you find in ordinary libraries and bookstores, and originals. Copies use more modern spellings and the translations don’t always work.’

‘The translations for the Arab books,’ Jerry ventured.

‘Oh no. Even books in old Spanish have problems from the modern. Small things, fino e sutil. Sometimes the meaning is lost almost completely. Words we don’t know anymore.’

This surprised Jerry. ‘Really? I thought Spanish hadn’t changed much. I mean, aren’t most Latin languages pretty close to the original? You’re saying much of these texts have to be translated?’

‘Well, possibly not as much as English has changed; older English is almost entirely different, I think. But there are many things in old Spanish that my parents, for instance, wouldn’t know now.’

‘And English has the same problem?’

‘It is what I read.’

‘The same necessity for translation?’

Her smile faded. She glanced at her watch. ‘Maybe.’

He leaned back. ‘Sorry, Mac. I’ll let you go.’

She stood up to leave, but right as she was at the door, she turned around again.

‘I might know someone who studies these things, boss. Maybe I could make a meeting for you.’

Jerry gave her a grin. ‘That would be great.’

As she exited his office, he turned to his monitor. His exhaustion and hunger forgotten, he then opened a browser and Genum’d ‘old english texts.’

What seemed like 30 minutes later, she returned with a knock.

‘Alright boss, I’ve scheduled a meeting between you and a friend of mine. His name is Charles Clothier. He is one of the senior researchers for the Berkeley library. He wants to meet in front of the campus library at 12:00 on Friday.’

‘Yeah, that should work. That didn’t take you very long.’

‘Jer, it’s been three hours since we’ve talked.’

‘Oh. Damnit. I guess I got carried away. Well, thanks, Mac.’


______________________________________



It took an hour to arrive on campus. He had not been here since they made the deal between the university and his project. He was glad Clothier had picked 12:00: any later and he would have been caught in the Friday jam.

The lawn before the complex led onto white stairs onto a small stone promenade leading to the main doors. Some undergraduates sat on the low wall that lined the promenade, lounging. He suspected they would not remain much longer; clouds had been forming all morning, and were heavy with rain.

However, Jerry noted with a some confusion, the air seemed especially dry, which would indicate the opposite to impending rainfall. It was as if the air and the clouds still had not reached a consensus on what to do.

Jerry saw no man who might be Clothier. According to his watch it was 1:54. There was nothing to do but wait. With a sense of foreboding he sat on a section of wall furthest from the library, away from the students. Knowing his luck, it would start pouring while he waited. He regretted not bringing an umbrella.

He yawned. Despite his self-promise to do so, he had failed to get more than five hours’ sleep the previous night. The endless research and work had reduced his brain to a clump. There had been barely a moment to sit and think for the past few days. His consciousness floated over all his occupational baggage, and he knew that if he was not careful he would risk diving headfirst into it.

His gaze wandered over the face of the library. It stood a good four storeys. The first floor windows were squat, and, above them, the second and third floor were receded inward. What shaped the face of the building were tall marble pillars that sat on top of the first floor and reached the roof. He counted 16 of them in total. Between each pillar was a twelve foot window, and he somehow knew, without having ever been inside, that when caught in the setting sun they would cast a brilliant amber light on the reading hall inside. He somehow knew, without having studied architecture, that the pillars were styled in the Roman composite order. His gazed travelled to the inside. He saw the hundreds of stacks throughout the library, felt the heat from millions of books neatly ordered, waiting to be read. Here and there a student moved between the shelves of the endless rows, some searching for a few select tomes, and a rare few just browsing, browsing in a sea of bound paper for pure pleasure. The silence did not press on him, but absorbed all sound he created. He could yell and scream at the books, rage at their numbers and his inability to grasp them all, and they would take it in, stolid and stoic. Here his voice and his quest meant nothing.

Then his gaze turned upward and outward, back to the exterior of the building, and he saw the pillars again, but in a new way. He could see microscopically, see the small minutiae of cracks and fissures in the stone and their slow branching over time. He cheered for those cracks, urged their growth. Let them settle deep, let them spread to every surface until they brought the pillars down. Let them crumble and snuff out the reading hall. Let the roof cave in on all the readers and continue, a controlled demolition, to the other floors, snuffing out all those lives, those unchanging voices.

‘Mr. Morris?’

Jerry was immediately snapped out of the vision. A smart looking man with glasses, dressed in a blue suit and tie, had appeared beside him.

‘Oh, yes. Are you Clothier?’ he said shakily.

‘Yes, sir.’ The other man held out his hand, which Jerry tentatively took.

‘It’s this way.’ Clothier motioned behind him. Jerry followed the man out from the gaze of the library.


______________________________________



The office was a mess. Clothier’s desk was an old chunk of mahogany, badly scratched and worn. Both walls were covered in eight-foot bookshelves. They were stacked from top to bottom. Jerry had difficulty making out the edge of the frame of some sort of diploma hidden beside one of the bookshelves; it was dark in here. Once he stepped over the threshold he fought the urge to sneeze. The dust was palpable. Despite this, he felt welcomed. Something about the soft light.

Clothier offered him a padded chair and sat down in a leather one behind his desk. Jerry took it.

‘You’ve been here a while?’ mused Jerry.

‘Sixteen years. Yes, you could say I’ve settled in.’ Clothier’s posture confirmed it; he looked immersed in his chair, likely from having sat in it for ages.

‘So you’re the man who knows about all the old books?’ Jerry asked.

Clothier remained impassive. ‘All the old books? No; that would be quite a feat. I specialise in the English ones. Pre-Renaissance. Macarena told me you have recently become interested in them. How can I help you?’

‘Well,’ said Jerry quietly, still looking around the room. ‘Explain exactly about this business of translation for the old texts.’

‘You mean between older English and modern English? Well, it’s fairly straightforward. As the language changed, so did the meaning of words. New words came up and replaced some of the old ones. So did some of the grammatical rules, especially with Old English. But mostly it’s the terminology that’s undergone extensive revision. A single word of Modern English, like, say, courtesy, has a straightforward meaning to us, but in Middle English curtesie had a whole slew of other meanings attached to it. Thus, subtleties are completely lost in translation. But judging by the way you’re nodding, you already know all this.’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Jerry. ‘I’ve read as much. For researchers they merely reprint the original, and learn the old language.’

‘True, that way the original’s text can be scrutinised, and not the translation.’

‘But there’s something—’ He wanted to frame his words carefully. It was crucial Clothier understand. ‘Artificial about such reproductions, isn’t there? The nuances are lost. The illuminations, the distinctive handwriting of the scribe. All of it. The authenticity. That’s the appeal behind them, right?’

Clothier shifted uncomfortably. ‘Yes, I guess you could say we value the originals for their uniqueness.’

‘Right. And how many do you have on campus?’

‘In English? Not many. None of the famous texts, you’ll have to go to England for those. Yale has some 16th century, I think.’

‘But even in your own small collection, not many people have access, do they?’

‘No. You have to be pretty important to get to touch. Is that what you want?’

‘No. But you hit the problem, I think. Limited access. Wouldn’t, for the sake of academia, wouldn’t it be better if students around the entire world could experience these texts? In the authentic original, complete with all its subtleties?

‘I’m not sure if the whole world would necessarily appreciate them. And how would you do—’ Clothier’s eyes widened. ‘You want to scan them? For your project?’

‘It’s just something I hadn’t considered until recently. Would it be possible?’

‘How many?’

‘Well, all of them. We’re trying to be as comprehensive as we can. Would that be a problem?’

‘Most would say yes. With all the damage considerations.’

‘We’ll take care of that. We’ll bring in our equipment, but everything else will be on your terms. Your supervision, your staff—if you want—so there will be no chance of damage from inexperienced hands. Plus,’ he squeezed in, before Clothier could object, ‘once we’re done, there will be literally no chance of anyone but experts wanting to see them in person for whatever reason. The rest of the world would be content with just viewing them on Genum Books. Everyone could have that experience. Surely you can't object to that.'

Clothier looked on the verge of being convinced, but he just needed that push.

‘There will also be donations to your department, of course.’

Clothier sunk back in his chair and eyed him coolly. He stared at him for about a minute. ‘Alright. It sounds achievable. There isn’t, as you said a financial or academic downside in this. You have your bases covered. I’ll bring it up with the board of directors.’

‘Oh, you will of course receive accolades for being the first university—hopefully of many—to help us with their collection,’ said Jerry with a grin.

‘Yes. Yes.’ Clothier sat up, his jaw working side to side. ‘Can I just ask one question, Mr. Morris?’

Jerry nodded.

‘Have you yourself ever actually held a 13th century manuscript in your hands?’

‘No. But I guess I won't ever need to, if this works out.’

‘Well, some experts might object to that.’


______________________________________



The outer hallway was still bare, and echoed his footfalls loudly. He wondered if there was anybody else in the building aside from the himself and Clothier in the office behind him. He glanced out a passing window. The clouds seemed to be as threatening as ever.

Outside, it had finally decided to moisten up. It had also become choking cold with wind. On the way back to the parking lot it actually started snowing. Jerry watched, bemused, as flakes the size of dimes floated crazily around him, landing silently in the well-kept California lawns. They were quite shapely and moved with rhythm. The image reminded him of camping as a child, when they would use newspaper as kindling, and how little bits of burnt paper would jump out of the fire into the windy night.

When he was in the warm safety of his car, he pulled out his phone from his pocket. It sang autodial.

‘Hey Mac, it’s me. You won’t believe this. We’ve got the rarest of the rare now. You want one of your old books? You won't even need to go to Spain for that.’

 

[Sheepo]

There was once a house in a field somewhere between two towns in the countryside of a dying nation. The house was large, well built, and almost completely empty. In the house lived a middle aged man and a dying dog.

On Monday the man awoke, as he always did, at sunrise. He had a large breakfast and went to sit out on his porch by the time the Sun was well past the troubling horizon. The man sat with his dog and fondly told the stories of his time in the Navy during the war. He never said names and never spoke of death and by the end of every story he was chuckling and he liked to think the dog was too. When the Sun was far into its journey through the sky he went inside, had a small snack, and sat down to watch television. He laughed aloud at jokes he didn't find particularly funny and avoided the news while the dog sat on the porch and did not chuckle because he didn't get around so well anymore. When the Sun began to duel with the horizon again the man went into his kitchen and had a large meal, mostly from a box. By this time the Sun was set and the stars lit the sky. He walked up two flights of stairs, past the armchair, past his room, past the dresser where two photographs, one of an elderly couple and one of a beautiful young woman, were placed face down, and onto the roof. On the roof was a telescope, a chair, a lamp, and a great deal of blank paper. The man sat down and watched the heavens and saw nothing, staring for hours and viewing nothing at all. He took detailed notes of his findings, placed them in an envelope, and mailed them to an interested organization. Then the man went to bed.

On Tuesday the man awoke, walked through his living room, and found that his house had been broken into and vandalized during the night. The television had been busted through so now it was just a large empty black box, a chalk outline of a body marked his hardwood flooring, and several collection of Shakespeare's tragedies was on the ground (a curious development for the man owned no books). Now, the man was a calm, reasonable, and logical person in most respects, so he decided the best course of action was to call the police. Upon walking into his kitchen it dawned on him that he had no phones installed, having only lived in the house a short time and not having a strong desire to make any calls. He then decided that the only way this criminal could be beat was to not let his crime affect him. The man proceeded to make breakfast, eat slowly, go out to sit on his porch, and tell stories to his dog who was considerably more tired today. The man was tired of his stories and sat quietly for a few minutes, growing more uncomfortable as the silence grew more steady. Finally he could no longer take it, and he went inside to watch television, knowing there was no television to watch. He sat in his chair for a few minutes, a silent fury growing steadily within him, then he picked up the book and tried to read it, but it only made the rage come faster. The man stormed out of his house, got into his truck, turned left on the dirt road, and drove to the nearest town. Having slowed his breathing to a steady cadence on the peaceful country drive, the man calmly walked into the police station, filled out a report, was told someone would be sent to his house as soon as they became available, and left. On his way home, the man stopped by a department store and requested the model of television he had already owned. He was told they had none in stock, but if he'd like to come back in two day s they should probably have it. The man went home and sat for a few minutes to think. Then he went to the roof, wrote a letter apologizing for not sending in research today, placed it an envelope, addressed it, and put it in his mailbox.

The man sat on his chair, gun in hand, and watched the clock dutifully count off the hours. At three in the morning on Wednesday the man’s eyes were shut when a sudden and distinct noise brought him to instant alertness. It came from the roof and that was where the man found himself sprinting when he got a bearing on his surroundings. As he came closer he began hear a loud and insane giggle coming through the door. He jumped outside and whirled his gun around looking for the figure, only then realizing it wasn’t loaded and had been replaced with a banana. The door slammed behind him with one last chaotic guffaw and the man slammed into it. He was locked out. The man sighed, and knew there was no point beating his head against the ground trying to get inside. Looking around the roof he noted that there was a new mattress, new binoculars, and that his telescope was gone. This burglar was a piece of work. Man woke four hours later to gorgeous orange and purple clashing ion the horizon. The man ignored it, and walked through the now open door And through his completely untouched house and sat at his kitchen table. When he looked at the clock again it was one in the afternoon. He frowned and went to check on the dog, who he found was worse than ever. The man could not convince him to get up with any promises of joy to come. He sighed, got in his truck, and drove into town. He noticed a new apartment complex that was just about to open as he turned into the pet store. The man cautiously looked through the aisles, saw nothing that looked good, and left, feeling silly for having come at all. The man stopped by the police station and filled another report. The receptionist raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he Left. The department store gave him a heartfelt apology for the television not being in, which he dismissed with a laugh. As he drove home he faced directly into the setting Sun. A tear fell down his face and he didn’t think twice about it. When he saw got home the dog hadn’t moved since he left and he patted his head. Then he went inside, made a pot of coffee, found his gun, by chance, in the silverware drawer.
The man sat down for another long night and realized he didn’t care very much what happened to his goddamn house. As this thought crossed his mind he shook his head, sat up straight, and listened. Some one knocked on his front door. The man stared at it for three straight minutes before he stood up to get it. In front of the door, fear gripped him, and he wasn’t sure if he should answer. He heard gentle sobbing outside. When he opened the door he saw an elderly man sitting where his dog lay, in front of the porch. The old man looked up, his face soaked in tears.

“He’s gone.”

”You killed him.” The old man snorted, and the man didn’t blame him, even he didn’t believe his front of anger. After a moment he drew closer, peering at the dog, and nodded. Sadly, eyes watering. “You’re right. He’s gone for good. He was so good to me. I never did anything for him.”

The old man laughed quietly. “You fed him three times a day. Relationships aren’t complicated, even if we like to think they are.” The man stared at the old man for a moment, wanting to shout at him.

“Who are you?”

“Does it really matter?”

“No. No, I guess it doesn’t.” Behind them, the house burst into flames, but to the man it was the most natural thing in the world. He was supposed to be crying as he held his dead dog in front of his burning house, which, he realized, looked almost exactly like the rising of the Sun.

The man lives in an apartment complex now, and his room is next to a beautiful young woman's. She reminds him of somebody and it makes him nervous. He still thinks of the house sometimes. He still thinks of his house, of the pictures on his dresser, of the dog, of his Navy stories. He thinks, and he keeps on living.