The townsfolk weren't sure what to make of the giant obelisk which Mr. Falketo was building in his yard. He had the proper permits, or so the police said when asked. Even half-completed, the black stone stump seemed ominous, but then Mr. Falketo had always been something of an eccentric, where lawn decorations were concerned.
His next-door neighbors, the Gormans, reported strange humming noises from the direction of his yard in the wee hours. Whenever they approached him about this, he claimed to have no idea what they were talking about. Since they couldn't prove that it was the obelisk itself which was making the humming noises, they couldn't call the police, who wouldn't have been much help anyway, since, as they said, he had the proper permits.
Mrs. Gorman's hair fell out and little Susy Gorman took all her toys and burned them, but that was viewed as natural selection by those in favor of the obelisk. Their numbers swelled daily, as more and more people arrived outside Mr. Falketo's front gate, staring wordlessly into the sky and mumbling softly. The news media interviewed them and found them surprisingly erudite on the subject of the obelisk and all the wonderful things it would bring to the community, though some intrepid newscasters did report that it was quite unnerving to interview people who wouldn't make eye contact. No one thought to mention that natural selection doesn't tend to cause children to go insane or people's hair to fall out.
Then Mr. Falketo's obelisk burned down mysteriously. Little Susy Gorman was the most likely suspect, but it turned out to have been a group of hobos who had mistaken it for a trash can. The townsfolk all agreed that it was an unfortunate accident, but the hobos were very apologetic and made everyone Brunswick Stew by way of compensation, and Mrs. Gorman's hair didn't grow back even after the obelisk was gone, so it seemed like maybe the tourist dollars were the only real casualty.
Mr. Falketo refused to press charges. He began work on a deck out back, and everyone in town forgot all about that brief period where they had been so foolish as to believe that an obelisk was something worth worrying about.
Little Susy Gorman grew up and married a local politician. And that's why the town has an ordinance banning black stone obelisks within city limits. They tried to repeal it last year, but there was something in there which gave tax credits to poultry farmers and the whole thing was just messy.
Camping
We were on Day Five of our camping trip when the first mysterious death occurred. It was Reginald, the butler. We figured he'd killed himself ironically and moved on. Frankly, I think we were all surprised the trip had gone five days without a mysterious death.
I was sharing a tent with Sir Nigel Simsbury, of an old family with no money but landed out the wazoo. They owned estates all over the countryside, all of which had been cursed. The northern ones had all been done in one go by a belligerent tribe of Picts sometime in the early centuries of the first millennium. No one knew why.
The southern estates were more varied. A great uncle of Sir Nigel's had angered a hedge wizard, who had in turn hexed Sir Nigel's ancestor, resulting in a patch of the estate where the anger had taken place being forever shrouded in gloom. The family rented it to thrill-seekers with migraines. Another estate was cursed by some divine being or other. Just what heresy or act of blasphemy had occurred was kept secret by the family, but the whole place was lousy with fleas.
At any rate, all of the Simsbury estates were cursed, and Sir Nigel didn't like to spend time in or on them, hence the camping trip. When Lord Warman Viscount De Moline invited him, he'd jumped at the chance. And we all figured he'd be the one to die mysteriously. No one bet on Reginald in the pool.
After that, people kept dying off. The cook bought it falling down a flight of stairs, and as you may be aware, stairs are in pretty short supply in the woods on camping trips. Lord Warman Viscount De Moline accidentally cut off his own head with a tent stake. Our guide, Peter, a pleasant peasant, was brutally disemboweled by a bar of soap while bathing in a stream. At that point, we would have gone home but we were totally lost.
Soon enough it was just me and Sir Nigel, and I was getting pretty tired of his stories about estate curses. When he died in a parachuting accident one afternoon as he was coming out of the tent, I knew I was for it. Alone in the wilderness, no food (it had all been burned when Matron spontaneously combusted), no map (ditto), and no hope at all. I sat down in the tent and waited for the inevitable.
I had made my peace with my maker and was right with the world when I was rescued in the nick of time by a party of wood cutters from a nearby estate who had heard my frantic pleas for mercy from the divine as part of my maker-peace-making. I'm sad to say that when I exploded competely unexpectedly, some of them may have been injured.
Now I'm in little pieces, spread out through the foliage and seeping slowly into the loam. I think you could probably get an estate from Sir Nigel's heirs at a bargain-basement price. I'd recommend the northern ones. Ancient Picts were fierce warriors, but they didn't curse land terribly effectively. For that, you've really got to use human viscera.
I was sharing a tent with Sir Nigel Simsbury, of an old family with no money but landed out the wazoo. They owned estates all over the countryside, all of which had been cursed. The northern ones had all been done in one go by a belligerent tribe of Picts sometime in the early centuries of the first millennium. No one knew why.
The southern estates were more varied. A great uncle of Sir Nigel's had angered a hedge wizard, who had in turn hexed Sir Nigel's ancestor, resulting in a patch of the estate where the anger had taken place being forever shrouded in gloom. The family rented it to thrill-seekers with migraines. Another estate was cursed by some divine being or other. Just what heresy or act of blasphemy had occurred was kept secret by the family, but the whole place was lousy with fleas.
At any rate, all of the Simsbury estates were cursed, and Sir Nigel didn't like to spend time in or on them, hence the camping trip. When Lord Warman Viscount De Moline invited him, he'd jumped at the chance. And we all figured he'd be the one to die mysteriously. No one bet on Reginald in the pool.
After that, people kept dying off. The cook bought it falling down a flight of stairs, and as you may be aware, stairs are in pretty short supply in the woods on camping trips. Lord Warman Viscount De Moline accidentally cut off his own head with a tent stake. Our guide, Peter, a pleasant peasant, was brutally disemboweled by a bar of soap while bathing in a stream. At that point, we would have gone home but we were totally lost.
Soon enough it was just me and Sir Nigel, and I was getting pretty tired of his stories about estate curses. When he died in a parachuting accident one afternoon as he was coming out of the tent, I knew I was for it. Alone in the wilderness, no food (it had all been burned when Matron spontaneously combusted), no map (ditto), and no hope at all. I sat down in the tent and waited for the inevitable.
I had made my peace with my maker and was right with the world when I was rescued in the nick of time by a party of wood cutters from a nearby estate who had heard my frantic pleas for mercy from the divine as part of my maker-peace-making. I'm sad to say that when I exploded competely unexpectedly, some of them may have been injured.
Now I'm in little pieces, spread out through the foliage and seeping slowly into the loam. I think you could probably get an estate from Sir Nigel's heirs at a bargain-basement price. I'd recommend the northern ones. Ancient Picts were fierce warriors, but they didn't curse land terribly effectively. For that, you've really got to use human viscera.
Emergency Response
I called 911 about an existential crisis. It went about as well as you'd expect. The upshot was that they told me my ego was fabricating my existence as a ploy to seize control from my id, and then they sent the Philosophy Police around to arrest my consciousness. I let them lead me away while still remaining in my kitchen. I don't believe in the duality of mental constructs.
I called 911 because I thought my grandfather's ghost was going to burn my house down. He'd never liked the curtains and threatened to set them on fire in numerous occasions when he was alive. They sent an exorcist who informed my grandfather's restless spirit that he was not welcome here and told him to leave open flames alone. Then I ran out of holy water during a particularly hard winter and was glad when the curtains caught fire. He was right. They were ugly.
I called 911 because my phone was trying to kill me. It hadn't planned for that eventuality, had it? Foolish phone. The cops showed up and smashed it with a sledge hammer, and I got a free phone courtesy of the government. Try it sometime.
I called 911 because I thought I smelled gas. Then I had to wait on my underwear on the front lawn in full view of my neighbors while the utilities people investigated and determined that my house was situated over the richest deposit of natural gas in the county. They could never figure out how I'd smelled it though, given that natural gas is naturally odorless. But with the money I made I bought myself a new nose, and now I smell urine everywhere.
I called 911 because I had a headache. They weren't thrilled. Then my head exploded and thousands of winged monsters issued forth from it and rained terror on the countryside, so who's laughing now?
I called 911 because I thought my grandfather's ghost was going to burn my house down. He'd never liked the curtains and threatened to set them on fire in numerous occasions when he was alive. They sent an exorcist who informed my grandfather's restless spirit that he was not welcome here and told him to leave open flames alone. Then I ran out of holy water during a particularly hard winter and was glad when the curtains caught fire. He was right. They were ugly.
I called 911 because my phone was trying to kill me. It hadn't planned for that eventuality, had it? Foolish phone. The cops showed up and smashed it with a sledge hammer, and I got a free phone courtesy of the government. Try it sometime.
I called 911 because I thought I smelled gas. Then I had to wait on my underwear on the front lawn in full view of my neighbors while the utilities people investigated and determined that my house was situated over the richest deposit of natural gas in the county. They could never figure out how I'd smelled it though, given that natural gas is naturally odorless. But with the money I made I bought myself a new nose, and now I smell urine everywhere.
I called 911 because I had a headache. They weren't thrilled. Then my head exploded and thousands of winged monsters issued forth from it and rained terror on the countryside, so who's laughing now?
The Great Explorer
Science said that faster-than-light travel was impossible, but Professor Gideon Sphinx found a way. It involved artificial sweetener and lasers, but he wouldn't reveal exactly how.
Thus it was that on July 10th, the first man on Mars was Professor Gideon Sphinx. He covered the remaining locations in the Solar System where one could actually land pretty quickly, and he even became the first man to throw a rock from Mars at the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, though he conceded that this was slightly less impressive than landing. Way out in the Oort Cloud he discovered three new planets and landed on those too.
Everyone was in awe of Professor Gideon Sphinx. Everyone wanted to be him, and many people wanted to have his children. It was to be expected.
The only problem was that Professor Gideon Sphinx was really a figment of everyone's imagination. The collective imagination of the world's population, including some of the smarter primates, had caused him to spring forth into existence from nothingness.
We found out about it from the dolphins after Professor Gideon Sphinx invented a machine which could translate their speech. "Look, we've been trying to tell you this for years, but you couldn't understand us," said the dolphin ambassador on her first meeting with the President. "He's not real. Complete fiction."
The President ordered all dolphin translation devices to be destroyed on the advice of his new Chief of Science, Professor Gideon Sphinx. But one of the reporters who had been there at the historic meeting was having doubts, and word got out anyway.
Now we're stuck with an imaginary dictator. And the dolphins laugh at us all the time. But the uranium mines on Sphinxia II won't dig themselves, so we've learned to pretend.
Thus it was that on July 10th, the first man on Mars was Professor Gideon Sphinx. He covered the remaining locations in the Solar System where one could actually land pretty quickly, and he even became the first man to throw a rock from Mars at the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, though he conceded that this was slightly less impressive than landing. Way out in the Oort Cloud he discovered three new planets and landed on those too.
Everyone was in awe of Professor Gideon Sphinx. Everyone wanted to be him, and many people wanted to have his children. It was to be expected.
The only problem was that Professor Gideon Sphinx was really a figment of everyone's imagination. The collective imagination of the world's population, including some of the smarter primates, had caused him to spring forth into existence from nothingness.
We found out about it from the dolphins after Professor Gideon Sphinx invented a machine which could translate their speech. "Look, we've been trying to tell you this for years, but you couldn't understand us," said the dolphin ambassador on her first meeting with the President. "He's not real. Complete fiction."
The President ordered all dolphin translation devices to be destroyed on the advice of his new Chief of Science, Professor Gideon Sphinx. But one of the reporters who had been there at the historic meeting was having doubts, and word got out anyway.
Now we're stuck with an imaginary dictator. And the dolphins laugh at us all the time. But the uranium mines on Sphinxia II won't dig themselves, so we've learned to pretend.
Scathing Social Commentary
I interviewed a man who ate disused orphanages for the government.
"So, what's your favorite part to eat?" I asked him, after the initial pleasantries were concluded.
He looked at me like I had just asked him whether I could insert my finger into his nose. "It's a job, man," he said, like this was self-evident.
After that, I tried to get assigned to fewer puff pieces, but I was the newest hire so I got stuck with them. My editor told me I was good at it. "They really open up to you," he said. "You get good quotes and no one has mauled you yet."
I didn't have to ask what he meant. Everyone remembered Trevor.
So I interviewed the woman who lived in a giant shoe because a witch told her it would cure her infertility. She was nice. Offered me tea, told me all about her bunions. She seemed a little old to be worried about infertility, but I'm not a witch so I try not to judge.
What convinced me to quit the journalism racket was when I was sent out to interview a bear. My editor called me Trevor by mistake in the email. I grabbed my "World's Best Figure Skater" coffee mug and my copy of Robert's Rules and got the hell out.
The bear had some very cogent views on the energy crisis, according to the next week's paper. But I didn't read them. Print is dead anyway.
"So, what's your favorite part to eat?" I asked him, after the initial pleasantries were concluded.
He looked at me like I had just asked him whether I could insert my finger into his nose. "It's a job, man," he said, like this was self-evident.
After that, I tried to get assigned to fewer puff pieces, but I was the newest hire so I got stuck with them. My editor told me I was good at it. "They really open up to you," he said. "You get good quotes and no one has mauled you yet."
I didn't have to ask what he meant. Everyone remembered Trevor.
So I interviewed the woman who lived in a giant shoe because a witch told her it would cure her infertility. She was nice. Offered me tea, told me all about her bunions. She seemed a little old to be worried about infertility, but I'm not a witch so I try not to judge.
What convinced me to quit the journalism racket was when I was sent out to interview a bear. My editor called me Trevor by mistake in the email. I grabbed my "World's Best Figure Skater" coffee mug and my copy of Robert's Rules and got the hell out.
The bear had some very cogent views on the energy crisis, according to the next week's paper. But I didn't read them. Print is dead anyway.
A Happy Story
We met in an alley, and she was nice, and I was nice, and things went about as well as one could expect from a meeting in a random alley behind a shop which sold beads. We exchanged numbers. Had a conversation about geckos. That kind of thing.
When I called her several days later, nervous and slightly incoherent, she invited me to a picnic at what she called her church, which turned out to be a cult worshipping an ancient god of plumbing. The whole building was done up with Schedule 40 pipe, with charming figurines made of copper tube soldered together. Very tasteful. All the priests had long-handled plungers.
We wound up getting married there. The service was nice. I didn't convert, but she didn't care, as long as I agreed that the kids would be taught her faith as well as mine. Since I had been raised by wolves, there was a lot of howling. The neighbor's dogs were confused for a while, but they got over it.
We're very happy. Sorry you can't be here.
Love,
Andrea
When I called her several days later, nervous and slightly incoherent, she invited me to a picnic at what she called her church, which turned out to be a cult worshipping an ancient god of plumbing. The whole building was done up with Schedule 40 pipe, with charming figurines made of copper tube soldered together. Very tasteful. All the priests had long-handled plungers.
We wound up getting married there. The service was nice. I didn't convert, but she didn't care, as long as I agreed that the kids would be taught her faith as well as mine. Since I had been raised by wolves, there was a lot of howling. The neighbor's dogs were confused for a while, but they got over it.
We're very happy. Sorry you can't be here.
Love,
Andrea
From the Sky
They came from the sky, just as they'd said they would, and everyone was impressed because of course you would be if someone arrived from outer space in a brightly-colored rocket ship covered in messages of peace and hope.
They'd said they would several days prior, via text message to the mayor. "Coming from the sky on Thursday, weather permitting. Please assemble in the town square to witness." At any rate, that's what the PR flack from city hall said the text said. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that it had mostly been emojis, or that the, "weather permitting," part had been standard CYA by the mayor's office in case they didn't show up and we all had to stand there in the rain looking stupid and getting wet.
But as it happened, the weather was lovely, a bit cool for that time of year but clear and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. If I'd been the mayor and I'd had something inserted about, "weather permitting," I would have been sweating as the minutes ticked by, wondering if there was any hope of convincing people that good weather interfered with the operation of brightly-colored rocket ships.
We all came. It wasn't every day you got to see them come from the sky. Sure, it wasn't exactly news, not anymore, after the big reveal in the capital with the governor and all, but still, it was unlikely to happen again in our town. And they were heroic, in their own way. So we wanted to see them arrive, even if arrival wasn't exactly the right word. It was an arrival for us.
The rocket ship touched down and they got out and shook hands with the mayor and posed for a few photos next to the podium which had looked brightly-colored until their rocket ship showed up and made it seem rather dingy by comparison. And we cheered and tried to take our own photos and, in the case of a few heartier citizens, tried to force our way through the throng and the barrier of police to touch them as they passed on their way to city hall. A few lucky and wealthy citizens got to join the mayor and get their own handshakes and pictures.
At that point no one knew what the visitors ate, so the appetizers and drinks were nixed by someone in the chain of command. The visitors hadn't eaten anything at any of their other appearances, and anyway they were wearing those bubble helmets which would make eating difficult. So, while I didn't see it, I like to imagine the mayor and his rich, lucky guests entertaining the visitors while secretly wishing they had something, anything to eat or drink. Imagine a fancy party with no booze or finger food.
After precisely two hours, the visitors politely excused themselves. They had another engagement and had to dash. They were very polite. And the assembled crowd, smaller at this point because of attrition due to their own hunger or thirst, got to cheer again as the visitors returned to their brightly-colored rocket ship, waving as they went, and then sealed the hatch and departed. And we all stood for a moment staring at the sky and thinking grand things about the promise of a new age, of friendship between worlds, of a brighter tomorrow when maybe one day we too could come from the sky to other places, in our own brightly-colored rocket ships covered with messages of peace and hope.
And we never saw them again. And life remained basically the same for a while, and then got steadily worse, until we all had bigger problems to worry about than visitors coming from the sky. And in the end, we all forgot about them, mostly, and stopped looking up and wondering when they'd be back. And the sky remained empty of brightly-colored rocket ships, just as the world remained empty of peace and hope.
They'd said they would several days prior, via text message to the mayor. "Coming from the sky on Thursday, weather permitting. Please assemble in the town square to witness." At any rate, that's what the PR flack from city hall said the text said. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that it had mostly been emojis, or that the, "weather permitting," part had been standard CYA by the mayor's office in case they didn't show up and we all had to stand there in the rain looking stupid and getting wet.
But as it happened, the weather was lovely, a bit cool for that time of year but clear and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. If I'd been the mayor and I'd had something inserted about, "weather permitting," I would have been sweating as the minutes ticked by, wondering if there was any hope of convincing people that good weather interfered with the operation of brightly-colored rocket ships.
We all came. It wasn't every day you got to see them come from the sky. Sure, it wasn't exactly news, not anymore, after the big reveal in the capital with the governor and all, but still, it was unlikely to happen again in our town. And they were heroic, in their own way. So we wanted to see them arrive, even if arrival wasn't exactly the right word. It was an arrival for us.
The rocket ship touched down and they got out and shook hands with the mayor and posed for a few photos next to the podium which had looked brightly-colored until their rocket ship showed up and made it seem rather dingy by comparison. And we cheered and tried to take our own photos and, in the case of a few heartier citizens, tried to force our way through the throng and the barrier of police to touch them as they passed on their way to city hall. A few lucky and wealthy citizens got to join the mayor and get their own handshakes and pictures.
At that point no one knew what the visitors ate, so the appetizers and drinks were nixed by someone in the chain of command. The visitors hadn't eaten anything at any of their other appearances, and anyway they were wearing those bubble helmets which would make eating difficult. So, while I didn't see it, I like to imagine the mayor and his rich, lucky guests entertaining the visitors while secretly wishing they had something, anything to eat or drink. Imagine a fancy party with no booze or finger food.
After precisely two hours, the visitors politely excused themselves. They had another engagement and had to dash. They were very polite. And the assembled crowd, smaller at this point because of attrition due to their own hunger or thirst, got to cheer again as the visitors returned to their brightly-colored rocket ship, waving as they went, and then sealed the hatch and departed. And we all stood for a moment staring at the sky and thinking grand things about the promise of a new age, of friendship between worlds, of a brighter tomorrow when maybe one day we too could come from the sky to other places, in our own brightly-colored rocket ships covered with messages of peace and hope.
And we never saw them again. And life remained basically the same for a while, and then got steadily worse, until we all had bigger problems to worry about than visitors coming from the sky. And in the end, we all forgot about them, mostly, and stopped looking up and wondering when they'd be back. And the sky remained empty of brightly-colored rocket ships, just as the world remained empty of peace and hope.
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