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June 14, 2005
Volume 2, Issue 14
More book-bound randomness:
"It occurred to him that he might see scenes now that would shatter him forever. No matter: he had to know."Ooh...
Laurence - Meesa think start of mooi bootyful friendship, no?
George was free. No more of the space crap. The endless reworking and tweaking of the movies had finally come to an end. Besides, all futzing ever did was annoy fans and make the stack of hate mail grow faster.
Done. Finished.
He could hand the remaining video games and TV series to subordinates.
Just independent films for George.
But still, after everyone was gone... he enjoyed making his little alternations.
What harm could that be?
He clicked on the "Jar Jar" file, dragged it over the "Casablanca" icon, and selected "Render."
The credits came up.
And then, his lunch.
Tanya: True evil
He didn't want to see it, he insisted to himself. Yet he was strangely... compelled. Others survived, though admittedly, not all of them had retained their sanity in the aftermath.
In the same way that he could never resist taking a sip from a carton of spoiled milk, just to see how bad it actually was, he couldn't stop now.
It occurred to him that he might see scenes now that would shatter him forever. No matter: he had to know. He googled until he found it, and began the download. The Rosie O'Donnell Honeymoon Video. The horror. The horror.
Andy: Requiem
He awoke, sought to regain the bearings lost in dreams. He turned to the space beside him and caressed the pillow like a widower would the firm cheek of his beloved. He rose to wake his children; it was his ritual, one he was not willing to relinquish. Not yet.
In the wan light and bracing wind of a November morning, he walked to the edge of town, beyond the first stand of trees, to that place spoken of now only in whispers. He dropped to his knees, sobbing, and began digging in the cold, turned soil.
He already knew.
Michele: Regrets, I Have a Few
Huge, hulking men in full gear push him into the chair. They strap him, dose him and kill the lights.
Panic sets in. Breath, breathe damn you. In with the good, out with the bad. He sucks in a breath through his nostrils, heaves it out his mouth as they tape his eyes shut.
He feels the sharp sting of the probe on his temple and his heart begins a hammering, stuttering symphony. Breathe. The backs of his eyelids becomes a makeshift monitor and the slaughter his creation carried out plays upon it.
Technology, he thinks, is a bitch.
From the Comments: Jim Parkinson
Soft swirling snowflakes caught the sunrise, becoming pink and orange dancers before settling onto the ground and mixing into the bloody slush. The bodies of fallen soldiers were being retrieved for shipment back to Mother Russia. Good men had died but the camp was finally liberated.
“Now I come to get you out, Papa,” Aleksei slung his rifle over his shoulder and trudged past the gates.
A few gangly men in prison stripes cried in the courtyard, barefoot in the January cold. Aleksei went to the first building of Auschwitz prison, bracing for the horror and praying for his father.
Stacy: Bump in the Night
It occurred to him that he might see scenes now that would shatter him forever. That what lay beyond those massive doors would burn into his brain, causing the night terrors until the end of his days.
Did anything still live? Or were the noises he heard every night just in his imagination?
If not his imagination, were the noises human-made, or coming from something horrible, unimaginably old and terrifying. Something that should not be there.If he went away now, could he forget? If he stayed, and opened the door, would he survive?
No matter: he had to know.
Ted: The Cleaner
She spent the day scrubbing, ceiling to floor like she had learned in the Marines. She had left the worst for last. The kitchen.
The former tenants had survived for most of a decade in this apartment, so she hadn't been surprised at the collection of odd stains and gunk she found in odd corners. But the murder had occurred here. She used special enzymes to dissolve the pools of blood. The worst part of the job was the smell. Finally she was down to the last. Dread filled her as she pulled out the crisper drawer of the fridge.