Niki Aguirre
FLIGHT OF THE BLACKBIRD
One summer evening, in the middle of the night, Luis Alberto sent for his seven offspring and prepared to dispatch them to the hereafter with a Colt 45. This was their punishment, said my grandfather as he lined up the children by order of height, for the misfortune of having a harlot for a mother.
Luis was a neat and elegantly dressed man; a successful textile merchant with a penchant for pince-nez and pocket watches. His business took him out of town 22 days of the month, and though he spent the majority of his hours on the road, he enjoyed his work, for it afforded him ample time to contemplate his good fortune. He had a ravishing wife, a lovely house and 7 healthy children – 4 of them strong sons who would one day take over his textile empire.
“When you are older,” he promised the boys, “I will take you on the Condor Express.”
“What is the Condor father?”
“Only the most marvellous invention! A sleek bullet of technological perfection – you should see her – glimmers like a bird on silver wings, but she flies like a demon.”
“Luis,” warned grandmother.
“When you are older,” he continued, ignoring Ikela, “I will show you the demon in action.”
To his daughters he promised nothing, but now and then he brought them sweets.
On this fateful day – the day of this story – grandfather only pretended to leave for his trip. A few hours later, he slipped back in the house and found Ikela in the embrace of another man.
No one is quite sure what transpired between my grandparents. What is known is that Luis called for his progeny, lined them up in a row and threatened to kill them. Despite his accusations, my adulteress grandmother stood like a statue, while seven pairs of eyes burned into the back of her nightgown.
“What are you waiting for?” she said to her husband. “Go ahead and shoot me. But why are the children out of their beds? This is between us old fool.”
“They are here so they can see the whore they have for a mother!” he roared, the gun shaking in his hand.
“What’s the matter Luis, don’t you know how to use your pistol? Tell me you didn’t call your sons here so they can witness your incompetence? Now either kill me or release me so I can go back to bed.”
“The only place you are going is to hell, Blackbird,” spat my grandfather, his grip tightening around the Colt.
Ikela was only16 when first Luis first saw her as she shopped in the market. Her shiny blue-black hair shimmered in the sun like the feathers of an exquisite bird. He was so smitten he ran out of his store and followed her, trying to work up the courage to say hello. He knew then that if didn’t conquer his fear, the image of her blue hair would haunt him until he went mad with desire like St. Benedict in the legend where the devil took on the shape of a blackbird.
He flew into St. Benedict’s face causing him to be inflamed by an intense longing for a beautiful girl he’d seen only once. The saint was so tortured he tore off his clothes and jumped into a thorn bush to save himself.
Grandfather set about wooing Ikela, offering her chocolates, flowers and perfume. But she showed no interest. He tried music and silk scarves, all to no avail.
“Luis is a successful man who wants to marry you,” said her father. “Don’t you want a big house and servants?
But my grandmother wanted more. In fact she wanted so many things that sometimes her chest felt as if it would explode from wanting.
One day, Luis gave Ikela a pair of old castanets he found in the bottom of a trunk.
“Did you get those on your travels?” she asked, tracing the etchings gingerly with one finger.
“I acquired them in Sevilla,” said Luis, who had never been to Spain.
Legend has it that they were a gift to Dona Otilia from the finest Matador the world had ever seen – the valiant Juan Miguel de la Sierra.
On seeing the Bella Dona in the front row of the stadium, the Matador felt his heart rise up and overtake his chest. Her skin was smooth like honey, her lips like dewy rose petals.
Shielding his eyes against the harsh sun, Juan Miguel chanced another look toward the stands. At that precise moment she turned and he found himself staring into her almond eyes. His heart threatened mutiny. In an instant he was on down on his knees presenting her with the castanets he kept wrapped in a kerchief for luck. The castanets had belonged to his mother, the gypsy songstress Leonora Davilla.
“Accept these as my humble gift,” he said.
Otilia reached out with her white-gloved fingers but then shook her head.
“Will you at least come tomorrow and see me?” he asked, but his words were lost in the noise of the crowd. When he looked up she was gone.
Otilia was at the corrida the following day again in the front row, her ivory hair combs catching the light.
Juan Miguel tried to concentrate, but he could only think about her eyes.
The second time he saw her, he imagined she was covered from head to toe in black lace, with only her delicate throat exposed.
The third day he felt he was drowning. He was the helpless sea and she was the voluptuous pull of the moon.
On the fourth day, he no longer cared about bullfighting, only in seeing her face.
On the fifth day, Otilia came accompanied by a handsome man. The Matador felt the stirrings of something primal in his scrotum. He watched as the stranger leaned in so closely close, he was practically touching Otilia’s lips through the mantilla.
His nemesis that day was none other than Negro Pablito, the fiercest bull in all of Spain. The crowd shouted its approval, but he heard only the blood in his own ears. Half-heartedly he waved the red cloth. Negro Pablito responded by snorting and kicking up his hooves.
Juan Miguel glanced toward the stands to see if she was watching, but Otilia was smiling at her companion, her teeth like little pearl daggers.
Temporary blinded by a mixture of hot tears and afternoon sun, the Matador stomped his black boots as hard as he could and took a horn to his already shattered heart.
There was little anyone could do. As Juan Miguel lay dying in the dirt of the bullring, he called over an assistant and placed the castanets in his hand.
Take these and give it to that woman you see there,” he whispered. “And tell her, tell her…
“What did he say Luis Alberto?” said Ikela the tears streaming down her face.
Here my devious grandfather smiled, refusing to divulge the dying words. “Marry me first,” he said. “Marry me and I will regale you a lifetime of stories.”
From that day on, everything changed between them. Instead of presents, Luis gave Ikela stories. There was something about a well-delivered tale that made her face come alive. When he talked of distant and exotic places, she took on a dreamy look. Sometimes like the virgin Theresa, she bordered on the ecstatic.
You see, my grandmother was possessed by a severe case of wanderlust. She was certain the grass was greener in other lands, and far more interesting than the same boring trees and rivers she saw every day. She was sick of the sight of the southern mountains that were as familiar to her as her own two hands.
Ikela wanted ice and snow and ladies with golden hair who lived in castles.
“If you marry me, I will show you these things,” Luis promised. “Our lives will be one adventure after another. We will have porters and monogrammed luggage. We will ride camels and elephants.”
“And where will we go?” said Ikela taking his hand.
“To Egypt, to the pyramids. To uncover the secrets of the Sphinx.”
“And after that?”
“The Taj Mahal where I will buy you rubies.”
“And then?”
“To Africa, for lions and bears and zebras. And after that my love, we will go home and make a baby. Don’t you want to make a baby with me Ikela?”
And the dreaming would stop for kisses.
So grandmother agreed to marry him.
Their wedding day was the happiest day of Luis’ life. He turned to look at his treasure, resplendent in a simple white gown with a wreath of delicate hyacinths on her dark hair and was so taken by his desire that his knees buckled.
Within two years, they had three children. Ikela tried to tell her husband that three was enough for anyone. If they didn’t stop, they would never be able to visit the places he’d promised.
But the children kept coming and Luis continued to woo her with stories.
After their fifth, Ikela began to lock her bedroom door. But it only made Luis more desperate to have her. He purchased atlases and maps, travel books and globes and scattered them around the corridors of their house.
After their seventh child, Ikela hired a builder to extend the nursery into a separate wing. It was here that she spent most of her time hiding from her husband; her days a flurry of children, nannies and activities, but, sadly for my grandmother, no adventures.
When Luis heard the whispers about his wife he couldn’t believe it. Not his darling Ikela. But just to be sure, he started spending more time at home. He noticed things he hadn’t before. Had she always worn a silver rosary? He didn’t remember her being religious.
“You lying viper, you harlot, you whore! How dare you!” said Luis, waving the Colt at her. “What kind of mother, what kind of woman are you?”
“The kind who needs a real man not a desiccated dinosaur.”
“Like the parasite I found you with? That low-life, scum-bucket, bible salesman? I should have listened to my mother. She always said you were common.”
“Ignacio is not a bible salesman Luis. He is an organist from the church and as I told you before… we were praying!”
“If you were both praying, my darling wife, why were you the only one on your knees?
The terrible accusation hung in the silence for what seemed like an eternity. No one uttered a single word: not a protest or a plea. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.
Then my father, Diego started to cry.
“Stop your hysterics this instant,” shouted Luis turning towards him. “Or I’ll shoot you first.”
At that moment, the Colt leapt out of his hand and as if by its own accord, fired a bullet.
At precisely the same time the gun went off (grandfather was later to say it was the hand of God) my father fell to the floor, just missing the bullet’s trajectory. It lodged itself instead in the clock inches from where he had been standing, stopping time precisely at 12:42.
“Dios Mio!” cried Luis, finding himself entangled in Ikela’s hair. “Release me woman! Don’t you see I’ve killed our son?”
In an amazing feat of cooperation that was never again to be repeated Oslo, Orlando and Otterdam, the three eldest boys, ran toward their father and wrestled him to the ground. Oslo yanked his hair, while Orlando took swipes at the old man’s knees. Trembling and foaming at the mouth, Luis muttered blasphemy after blasphemy, threatening to shoot his progeny in quick succession if they did not release him.
Quick as anything Otterdam stole the gun away and flung it out the window. It fired a round into the portico, narrowly missing the cook who was eavesdropping, her ear pressed against the patio door.
Meanwhile, my father was prematurely pronounced dead by his sisters, who raised-up such cacophony that it awoke Ikela from her stupor. She found the children weeping and holding hands in a circle, while her husband lay on the floor; her sons like Lilliputians sitting on his chest.
Ikela’s curses were almost a relief after the silence, the words like incantations, each one growing louder and louder until the walls themselves shook from the power of her rage.
It was then that my father chose to make his re-entry into the world. Sitting up, the bewildered tot rubbed his eyes.
The family stopped mourning and turned to stare at my father, uncertain if he was a dream, a ghost or a demon.
“I’m hungry,” he announced fluttering his eyelashes. “Why are you all crying?”
The death and resurrection of her youngest proved too much for my grandmother’s nerves. They say she never fully recuperated.
The next day, Luis rounded up the children and the servants and gave a speech about compassion, forgiveness and most importantly, of the need to maintain secrets. This was a family matter, he told them and they should never mention the incident with the pistol to anyone, not even amongst themselves. The servants were to stop whispering in the hallways and the children had to stop tiptoeing around the house like it was Sunday.
Grandfather hired a team of builders to erect a brick fence around the perimeter of his property and had the doors and windows barred, so the lakes, purple mountains and green grass that Ikela detested her entire life, were now permanently obstructed by wrought iron crosses.
People said that overnight the world lost a beauty and gained a monster. All that remained of her were her tresses, although no one was allowed to see her crowning glory. It lived permanently on top of her head like a snake, coiffed and coiled and ready to strike at a moment’s notice. She even began to take on asp like characteristics, her eyes cold and her cheekbones angular. A doting mother before, she now delighted in the retribution and humiliation of her loved ones, hoarding their shortcomings like poisonous ammunition to use later.
One night, grandmother threw wide the only French doors in the house that weren’t barred and stepped out onto the ledge.
Those who saw said she stood like a magnificent bird, the winds picking up her hair and raising it behind her like gossamer wings.
My grandmother stretched out her arms and took flight, a flock of blackbirds pulling her through the night sky, until she disappeared into the darkness; only in death, taking that great adventure that was her one desire.
© Niki Aguirre, 2007. Niki Aguirre is a London-based fiction writer. A longer version of this story appears in her collection Twenty Nine Ways to Drown (Lubin & Kleyner, 25 Oct 2007), which is available now from good bookshops and Amazon.co.uk.
Roy Bacon
GOOD KENNETH
The garden party was well under way when Mrs Southern arrived with Kenneth. They crossed the lawn in full view of the terrace, the man on the end of the dog leash obviously finding the clipped grass easier going than the gravel of the lane: his knees and palms were bloody.
“I couldn’t leave him at home,” Mrs Southern called out as they approached the ladies at the drinks table. “He won’t be any trouble, I promise.” She nudged Kenneth in the ribs with her foot, and he lay obediently in the shade of a ceanothus bush.
It was a hot day, and Mrs Southern wore a cotton dress that flattered her full figure. Her husband wore nothing, but now that he had stopped moving, his genitals were decently hidden beneath his body. For a man in late middle age, he wasn’t in bad condition, although the tight collar had chafed his neck badly, and a long scratch on one thigh suggested an encounter with a neighbouring feline. He rested his chin on his wrists and gazed wearily at the ankles of the party guests.
Kenneth’s wife was one of the world’s minglers, and for most of that summer afternoon he only glimpsed fragments of her long and complex orbit through the party. He himself was more or less ignored – it wasn’t so different from many other social events he had attended during his married life. Every so often a hand reached down to pat him on the rump or shoulder. When he was addressed it was generally clear that no reply was expected.
He dozed, twitching occasionally to keep the flies off. He dreamed he was visiting his tailor’s in search of a summer-weight suit. He nosed among the racks looking for something in his size, but all the sleeves came down below his knuckles, and the material, which from a distance looked like linen, always turned out to be fur. When Kenneth woke he was on his back, displaying a half-erect cock.
He wished he’d brought a book.
At half-past three he unhooked his leash, stood up, and walked to the centre of the sun-filled lawn. He squatted and after a moment’s effort deposited a large turd on the greensward. There was a murmur of disapproval from the terrace, before his wife hurried over with a plastic bag. Her technique was swift and prophylactic, and Kenneth’s warm creation was soon swinging neatly from her wrist. He couldn’t meet her eye as she led him back to the ceanothus.
It was much later, and only a few diehards were left gnawing on dry bones of conversation, when a pair of Liberty-print thighs swelled into Kenneth’s line of vision, followed by a face made up with a thick application of sympathy. He had seen the woman somewhere before, behind a charity cake-stall, or getting up a petition to prevent common people spoiling some aspect of local niceness.
“I’ve been watching you all afternoon,” she said. “I keep telling myself it’s not my business to interfere, but I can’t bear to see you suffer any longer.”
She touched Kenneth gently, smoothing his receding hair and rubbing her cool fingers pleasantly behind his ears. Her head was on one side as though she really was trying to see inside his mind. Finally she asked, “Can I get you a bowl of water?”
© Roy Bacon, 2007. Roy Bacon works in government communications – a great training for anyone with an interest in writing fiction. Short stories, long noses.
Jo Horsman
CAR PARKED
Today, I tried again to find my car. It was parked next to a blue one which has gone, I’m pretty sure.
I know the stairs to the airport were mainly grey, smelt a bit of wee and had a yellow line running along them. I now know they are all like this.
The car park seems to be full all the time, spinning around. I am dizzy.
The light doesn’t get through at all really. My husband thinks I’m looking a bit peaky.
I have just had a phone call to say my car is in a field. I definitely didn’t put it there.
© Jo Horsman, 2007. Jo lives by the sea. She likes to write about the people who get left behind. She spends much of her time online with The Fiction Workhouse.
David Gaffney
CELIA'S MUM'S RAT
I was alone, away from home, and bored, so I lay on the hotel bed and scrolled through the names in my mobile phone. It was then I came across the strange entry. Celia’s mum’s rat.
I had no idea Celia’s mother owned a rat. And if Celia’s mother owned a rat, why had she felt the need to buy it a mobile phone? And why had I at some point needed the rat’s number, and needed it frequently enough to enter it into the phone’s memory? Or, rather, felt a need to know that if the rat called, I would know who it was. Maybe at some point I had decided to avoid the rat’s calls or at least wanted time to prepare an excuse as to why I wouldn’t be able to assist the rat. Yet surely, if Celia’s mum’s rat were important enough to own its own phone, the rat would have a name? After all, we didn’t call Celia’s mum’s boyfriend, Celia’s mum’s boyfriend. We called him Raymond.
I imagined the sleek, smug-faced rodent lying on a miniature chaise longue, the mobile clamped to its ear, squeaking away to other rats with similar luxurious accessories. Budgies have mirrors, hamster have wheels, what do rats have? Phones. Was there a computerised system to translate the rat’s squeaks into rudimentary requests? Like food, bedding, water? Handling maybe?
I looked about me at the bleak hotel room. The clock said 11.30. Celia’s mum’s rat might feel a sudden desire to be handled at any time. Celia’s mum and Raymond might be out. My phone would ring and the robot voice would say I WANT YOU TO HANDLE ME NOW, PLEASE.
It was a chilling thought. I turned off my phone and tried to sleep, but the idea of the rat was adhesive. The phone would ring, the demand would be made, and I would drop everything. To assist Celia’s mum’s rat was my purpose in life.
© David Gaffney, 2007. David Gaffney’s collections of short fiction Sawn Off Tales and Aromabingo are available now.
Anonymous
ROBERT AND JOHN
One fine May morning, Robert and John were told by their mamma to go to school. So they put on their caps, and having kissed their mamma, were soon on their way. Now, first they had to pass through a pleasant lane, with tall elm trees on one side, and a hawthorn hedge on the other; then across two fields; then through a churchyard, and then up a little grove, at the end of which was the school-house. But they had not gone more than half the way down the lane, when John began to loiter behind, to gather wild flowers, and to pick up smooth little pebbles which had been washed clean by the rain, while Robert walked on reading his book. At last, John, calling after his brother, said, “I do not see what is the use of going to school this fine morning; let us play truant.”
“No,” replied Robert; “I will not take pleasure, for which I know I must suffer in after hours.”
“Nonsense about that,” said John; “I will enjoy myself while I can.”
“And so will I,” replied Robert; “and I shall best enjoy myself by keeping a good conscience, and so I will go to school.”
“Very well, Robert, then tell the master that I am ill and cannot come,” said John.
“I shall do no such thing, John,” replied Robert; “I shall simply tell the truth, if I am asked why you are not with me.”
“Then I say you are very unkind, Robert,” said John.
“You will not go with me, then?” asked Robert, with a tear in his sweet blue eye.
“I shall go up into this tree,” said John; “and so good morning to you.”
Poor Robert gave one long look at his brother, heaved a deep sigh, and went on his way. And naughty John sat in the tree and watched him, after he had crossed the stile, walk along the smooth broad pathway that led through the field, then enter the church-yard, and stoop to read a verse on a tomb-stone; then take out his kerchief, wipe a tear from his eye, look upward to the cloudless heaven, and then he was gone. And John sat still in the tree, and he said to himself, “Oh! that I were as good as my brother; but I will go down and follow him.”
So he went down from the tree, leapt over the stile, ran along the fields, and did not stay to gather one cowslip, though each one made him a golden bow as he passed. And when he went into the school-room, though he was only five minutes later than his brother, he told his master the whole truth, and how naughty he would have been, had it not been for a kind little thought, which came into his mind, and bade him try to be as good as his brother.
From Child’s New Story Book; or Tales and Dialogues for Little Folks (Published by S. Babcock. 1849).
Tracey Fuller
THE BOOTLEG NUN
I went to a church school, girls only, with nuns. One of the nuns was different, she seemed to shine. She was young but wore a beige skirt and jumper with those tan tights you can’t believe are still in the shops. We only saw her fringe; the rest of her hair was trapped under a veil.
She held these amazing lessons. Sex Education. Lord knows what she knew about sex. The class knew quite enough, we didn’t need any educating. She pushed back the furniture and we’d lie on the floor. You’d think there’d have been a riot but everyone just lay there. She pulled the curtains, played soft music and led what she called a meditation. I closed my eyes and this beautiful voice washed over me. She said we were loved and I loved her back. Jesus loved us. For some of us it was the first time we’d heard we were loved, and girls often sobbed quietly in the half-light.
I visited her classroom after school once. She was inside getting changed. I knew I shouldn’t watch but I couldn’t move. She wriggled out of her skirt and underneath she was wearing jeans, ones like I’d wear, bootleg, and they crinkled over her stomach like they do when it’s really flat. She turned and I walked away quickly in case she caught me staring. A moment later she rushed past me, a raincoat clutched around her shoulders, and outside to a waiting car. Leaping into the passenger seat, she pushed off the coat, grabbed her veil and hurled it behind her, throwing back her long hair.
As I walked home blossom blew from the trees like confetti.
© Tracey Fuller, 2007. Tracey Fuller’s novel The Silver Vessel has a lifeboat crew, a vintage car, a daring diving show and the Great War. What more do you want?
Morgan Omotoye
IN 2007 THE POET’S FRIEND
Said, there are no cymbals in you, no soar, no juju, no breathy burr of electric sugar, no wolf ticket, soft machine or porno lollipop; in short you’re no poet.
The poet did not know how to reply. He felt words that were from the beginning turn to ash on the ciliations of his tongue.
The poet stopped writing. Starts to die. One morning he wakes up with a spider-web in his ear. He’s dying inside, he knows. He knows what he must do.
The poet’s favourite writer was shot in the back of the head in Poland. There was a so-called ‘wild action’ and the local Gestapo went hunting. The poet’s favourite writer was shot in the back of the head in 1942.
The poet decides to save him.
He is going to build a time machine.
The ink came from an octopus. The octopus could talk like you or me, and when she saw the poet with his harpoon, she said one word, ‘Finally.’
The paper was the blue skin of a randy Jinn, which the poet strangled in its sleep.
Then there was a sword that was actually a beautiful black woman with a Pam Grier Afro. She was young and she had a family. When the poet saw her she was hanging clothes on a line, and she was so beautiful the poet nearly cried and it was the sadness in his eyes that made the woman say, ‘I understand, let me make dinner before you take me.’ So she cooked and hummed while she cooked and the poet sat in her happy kitchen and stared at his hands and when she was finished the poet did what had to be done. And she was a sword. And as he carried her away the poet heard her children walking home from school. How did he know they were her children? How could he not?
The ink, had to be mixed with his blood, the paper had to soak up his blood, and the sword spilled his blood, and the wound was deep, some say he died that day, but I know he was building a time machine. To save his favourite writer, who made him want to be a poet.
Years, getting the right words to fit the wrong ones, and blood, lots of his blood and the words wouldn’t stick to the Jinn-skin unless they were true. Finally its done. He gets down to the salvia bubble bursting from the cracked lips of his favourite writer, the ore-shine on the epaulets of the Gestapo, who move like one beast and there is only one gun one scream as the bullet cracks the cosmos open. The poet writes it all down. He takes his time.
He sends the poem to his friend, second class. The poet’s friends is bemused and annoyed to receive a poem from his friend who should no longer be a poet, the cheek.
The poet’s friend lets the poem collect dust, then one day, he picks it up, he reads, he reads, and he is there. In Poland in 1942 in a small town called Drohobycz and he is that one gaunt face turning in horror at his name being called, and it is his brains that fall while I stand here, telling you this story, about the poet and the poet’s friend who rescued me.
© Morgan Omotoye, 2007. See LITRO issues 53 and 68 for more stories by Morgan Omotoye.
Dave Curtain
IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE
Inside the ant farm, a senior colonel alternately flexed and relaxed each of his three pairs of legs as he waited nervously for an audience with the queen. She was nearly 10 years old, a time frame almost beyond the colonel’s comprehension. He gazed out into the blurry heavens outside the farm, wondering what empyreal machinations might be transpiring that he also could not comprehend.
One of the queen’s assistants clicked his corrugated mandibles together, signalling that the queen was ready to grant the colonel an audience. Obediently, the colonel followed the assistant into the dimly lit main chamber. The segments of the queen’s reclined body rippled as she folded her wings in silence. Dusk rays illuminated the silvery goo dripping from the tip of her bulbous gaster. She looked tired. The colonel waited for the inevitable question.
“Colonel”, she squeaked, rubbing her forelegs across the washboard-like set of ridges on her chest, “Have you discerned any semblance of a solution to our predicament?”
The sinewed muscles lining her trunk glistened in the half light.
“No, ma’am. Nothing new that is.” The colonel’s antennae waved about anxiously.
The queen’s own hair-like sensors bristled visibly at their tips. “Still no demands?”
“No ma’am.”
“Does anyone have any idea why we are being kept here?”
“I’m afraid we do not, ma’am.” The colonel’s small head dropped in shame.
“They are clearly capable of some kind of social organisation, perhaps you could even call it intelligence. For crying out loud, they’ve got us trapped in this, this…” she trailed off, almost wordless with rage, “…thing!”
“Indeed, your majesty, although it’s difficult to fathom any sophisticated level of interaction with their own environment”.
The queen glared out of the farm, fuming. Her cocoa brown abdomen seemed to darken further with her anger.
“There must be some way of ascertaining what causes them to act as they do,” she mused.
“If anything, your majesty,” the colonel stroked his copper head nervously as he spoke, “I’d say that their actions are becoming increasingly random.”
The queen nodded, stroking her chin. “Go on.”
“We think the increased temperatures may be impairing whatever basic faculty of reason might underlie their incomprehensible behaviour...”
© Dave Curtain, 2007. Dave is an emerging writer from Melbourne, writing quirky short stories and working on a novel.
Three tales by Bruce Holland Rogers
STRING THEORY
The Eleventh Dimension
No-one had direct experience of the extra dimensions, so learning about them at age six was difficult even for genetically enhanced superchildren. Child-friendly names were devised. This helped. Children learned that the eleven dimensions were Length, Width, Height, Time, Happy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sleepy, Doc, and...
Even with the new names, one dimension was hard to remember. Even for genetically enhanced superchildren, the universe was not without mystery.
Recipe for a Theory of Everything
Start with a figurine of turtles stacked one on top of another and an excellent hammer. Smash the turtles. Smash the pieces, and keep smashing. Pound the dust into atoms. Smash the atoms into protons. Keep smashing down to quarks and gluons. You’re close to the theory of everything. Pound everything into strings. Keep pounding. After strings, turtles. Pound, pound, pound. Smaller and smaller turtles, all the way down.
But Maybe She Just Couldn’t Knit
Wanda had been about to defend her superstring dissertation when the universe gave its answer. Broken strings littered the floors of physics departments everywhere. “But they were so pretty!” she cried.
She drank.
Later, she picked herself up. She went to AA meetings. She spun her old strings into yarn, knitted the yarn into a sweater and wore it to a meeting. Everyone who saw it started drinking again.
© Bruce Holland Rogers, 2007. Bruce Holland Rogers is an American writer living in London. More of his stories are available at www.shortshortshort.com.
Mike Fell
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR
OK, I lied, this one is seasonal. All the team at LITRO would like to wish you a merry one of the former, and a happy one of the latter – thanks for reading!
Mike Fell is editor of LITRO.
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LITRO is published every fortnight and distributed for free near to London Underground stations, and in bookshops, bars and elsewhere around the UK and beyond. To get in touch please email litro.fiction@gmail.com or visit www.litro.co.uk.