I pinned the latest of my twin brother’s postcards on the corkboard above the desk our father never used. This one showed the famous bridge that I’d seen in books and on TV. Finally made it. Wayne used the same blotchy pen to scribble Mom and Dad’s address. It was my address too, but I rarely got mail.
In May 1726 Voltaire sailed up the Thames, London-bound. He was thirty-two at the time, a scrawny Frenchman with a big mouth. Everyone was after his ass. Back in France he’d had a run-in with someone called the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot, got himself arrested, and was graciously allowed to leave the country in lieu of becoming a full-time resident of the Bastille. It was a fine day and it made him fall in love with England. The King was out on his barge, a thousand little boats were in his wake, and some music was being played. Was it Handel’s “Water Music”? Let’s say it was so that you can understand what Voltaire felt that day. Later he saw some fat merchants in town and thought he was in paradise.
I watch her walking down the middle of the street. She stands tall and defiant against them.
Two minutes have passed since I saw her running out of the entrance to the recently renovated Government Center station, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s crown jewel of glass and stainless steel. I cannot fathom why she fled the relative safety of the underground, to appear here in the bright summer sunlight. To challenge them. To stand directly in harm’s way.
The little turd, Niles, clearly had it out for Lipschitz.
“Did you hear about Milton?”
“No, what happened?”
“He’s not here anymore.”
“No way.”
“Have you seen him around?”
“No but he’s probably just on vacation or something.”
“Out, out!” roared the unfolding supernova, its end birthing one last litter of photons into the universe. Out these photons flew, alongside their elemental brethren, into every direction of this breathless third dimension. Out they flew, these fairies of light, into the stunning dark.
They vanished. One by one. The first to disappear was Pedro Nogales. Jaime Morales said he couldn’t imagine why his cousin Pedro had taken off like that. Without a word to anyone. Even more puzzling, everything that mattered to Pedro, including his favorite wide-brimmed straw hat, a black leather-look jacket he’d saved months to purchase and a shiny red polyester shirt he wore to birthday parties and dances, had been left behind.
Day #16
The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook—Rule #1: Once you have arrived at your assigned location, hunker down and wait for ancillary instructions from your Assignment Coach.
4 a.m.
The crows quarrel over dead rat scraps in the gutter.
CNN, I haven’t turned it off for two weeks. Images of desert proxy-wars, percolate through the cable; ISIS driving US Iraq-abandoned Humvees and armoured vehicles; teenage recruits firing AK-47s into the Mosul sky; American Republican Party candidates debating penis size.
The assignment is to instigate a shakeup, by diverting the ginger haired sociopath’s motorcade down the street below my window. I have his picture taped to the wall, a smug man orbiting himself. He’s been granted Secret Service protection. That may complicate things. There’ll probably be revolution if I accomplish my assignment. A master class in failed democracy, for all those who care to attend.
Continue reading “The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook by dm gillis”
Our resident Statsmeister, Nik Eveleigh — as he doesn’t give a fig feel free to mangle the pronunciation of his fine family name any which way you like for instance try Evil-Eye, Evel-Eeee or in Afrikaans I am reliably informed, Ever-LICCCCHHHHHHH — has been busy tweaking his spreadsheet.
Cape Town this time of year is a trifle warm I understand, so we mustn’t judge. However, for once Mr. Ever-LICCCCHHHHHHH’s obsession with figures — I mean extremely useful hobby — has produced a stat worth dwelling on for more than 0.37 seconds.
A submission we received at Literally Stories in the past couple of days tipped the total word count for all said submissions over the one million mark.
Yeah. I know. I should have warned you to sit down first.
Folk as far afield as Reykjavik and Rotherham, Berlin and Barnsley are reeling in the face of this earth-shattering revelation and no doubt wondering if in fact it was their story that triggered this sensational milestone and what exactly this means to them.
In an ideal world a pop-up box should have appeared on the ‘lucky’ author’s screen informing them that as the writer of the one millionth word to be read by the Literally Stories Editors they had won a holiday for two to the Seychelles.
Sadly, Pop-Up blockers being what they are these days thrills such as that are a thing of the past.
What hasn’t changed is Monday’s promptness at the beginning of our literary week…
Continue reading “Literally Stories – Week 58 – One million words”
Stuttering lights crossed the night sky as the drones floated above the spidery criss-cross of network cables, just a few inches above my head. I kept thinking about the cameras pointed at my house, wondering if I would get to see the recording of that moment when my life changed. I followed the movement of the hovering four-armed machines until my eyes stung.
3 AM. Time to eat. I went back inside my house and ate a dozen cold chicken nuggets from a box lying on the counter. My appointment with the filing officer was at 7 AM. I couldn’t sleep, even after dinner.
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