There is only one way of seeing them, and that is,
seeing the whole of them.
–John Ruskin

Life forms from V12 in the NGC4203 galaxy 10.4 million light years from Earth had inhabited Providence, R.I., for five weeks.

They assumed human appearance and blended well with the local population, even dropping their “Rs” when appropriate.

There were four aliens in all — two females and two males had been created from fabricated human flesh for the mission.

In reality, V12s possessed no gender variations and were autopoietic — self-reproducing.

The terminus of the nanosecond matter transference had been random — not chosen for any reason other than it held a concentrated population of the planet’s dominant species.

Seconds after arriving, the four V12s were successfully moving among the subjects they were sent to study, and with only a short time remaining in their expedition, they believed they had accomplished their purpose.

In 1400 wextars (four days in human time) they would beam back to V12 and submit their findings to Archivius of Mew, the keeper of extragalactic data. The highlights of their report included the following:

• Highest form of intelligence indeterminate.
• Archaic digestive systems and nourishment practices.
• Life spans comparable to primitives on V12.
• Conflicts frequently resolved with violence.
• Cruelty inflicted on other species.
• Technology misused and lethal.
• Atmosphere and surface contamination high.
• Leaders mostly ineffective, arrogant, and ambitious.

The list extended two hundred lines and cast an overwhelmingly negative image of Earthlings, but there were a few exceptions:

• Interesting tonal manipulation with instruments.
• Nurturing behavior with infants and infirm.
• Extensive diversity of spoken idioms.
• High participation in competitive games.
• Still and animated visual material prized.
• Plant arrangements accentuate dwellings and public spaces.
• Myriad dry goods emporiums.

However, in the aggregate, the cons outweighed the pros ten to one.

This did not surprise the V12 researchers, since they had encountered similar outcomes elsewhere during their many exploratory assignments in several different planetary constellations.

As the intergalactic visitors prepared for transfer home, they experienced an irregularity in their vision, which they deduced was a reaction to some disparate compound in the exotic planet’s four basic elements.

Their sight normally colorless, except for black and white, now discerned all degrees of red, and it had a strange effect on them.

Always astute and emotionally detached, they began to experience fuzzy thinking and felt sensual arousal in the presence of their faux gender opposites. This led to experimentation with their human genitalia and ultimately physical union.

For a full day they engaged in libidinous activities until their energy flagged and they lay exhausted in a naked knot.

When they began to revive, another anomaly occurred in their sight. They could now see yellow objects, and the aberrant behavior inspired by the color red was supplanted by extreme anxiety, verging on panic.

They quickly dressed and locked the doors and drew the shades in their living quarters, where they remained silent and alert lest something horrible occur.

When night passed and the sun seeped through the window coverings, the V12s felt their anxiety dissipate, replaced by a rapidly expanding sense of wellbeing. They could now perceive another vivid hue—this one was blue.

Almost instantly, they experienced intoxicating exhilaration and joy, something unknown to them in their long existences.

“Weeip err hurup,” uttered one of the male V12s, observing the wondrous change that had come over him.

“Sherp ssss fafa waiow,” responded the female V12, noting how strange and superb she, too, felt.

Unable to contain the euphoria prompted by all things blue in their field of vision, they left their confines to bask more fully in their newest human sensation.

Happily, they set about to benefit the planet with their advanced knowledge and formidable powers.

In the following weeks, they had significantly improved the quality of life for all of Earth’s living creatures. For example, humans no longer got acne, venomous snakes became loving house pets, and Big Macs and Whoppers became healthy alternatives. However, in their exultation the aliens had overlooked their transfer date and would suffer dire consequences.

The V12s realized their mistake when their ability to see colors faded, and their vision returned to black and white.

“Eeow maiow prrow,” said one of the galaxy jumpers, declaring that it would be 5600 wextars before a series of nebula would shift enough to permit them unimpeded passage to their habitat.

“We will not last,” declared another, using the native tongue.

After some discussion, they decided to preserve as much of their power source as possible in order to last the sixteen Earth days until departure.

They planned to accomplish this by entering a state of suspended animation and by denying any non-V12 impulses that might attempt to assert themselves.

To insure the success of the latter, they covered their eyes to prevent the invasion of color into their ocular pathways.

On the twelfth day of self-imposed isolation, their human disguises began to molder and by the time of their scheduled transfer pieces of the simulated dermal covering had fallen away from the voyagers it was designed to conceal.

The stench of rotting tissue permeated the small apartment building where they anxiously awaited embarkation. The foul odor aroused neighbors and the building’s superintendent tracked the fumes to the V12’s rental.

He knocked on the door several times, but rather than enter the flat for fear of encountering a gruesome scene, he called the police.

“Something’s dead in there,” observed one of the two officers outside the door behind which the V12s awaited their molecular shuttle.

When they took the super’s key and opened the door, the rancid vapors hit them like a tidal wave and they buried their noses in their sleeves as they entered the tenement.

They immediately recognized the source of the stench.

Piled before them were four carcasses.

“Jesus,” gagged the building super backing out of the apartment.

“What the hell … they look like deflated dummies. Like they have no bones,” commented the younger officer.

“Better call the coroner’s office and homicide, Bob. We got some real strange stuff here.”

A sudden noise came from behind the mound of limp corpses causing the rookie policeman to jump.

“What’s that? Something moved over there!” he exclaimed, drawing his gun from his holster.

“Cool it, Bob. It’s nothing. Look.” He peered beyond the decomposed cadavers to four black and white cats of varying sizes and breeds.

“I’ll be damned. Thought they were …”

“What? The boogeyman?” said the elder cop mockingly. “You’re as big a pussy as they are. Let’s get those freaking mousers out of here before they eat the evidence.”

As they moved toward the huddled animals, a bright flash filled the room. When the burst of light subsided, the felines were gone.

It was as if they had vanished into thin air.

Michael C. Keith is the author of numerous books, articles, and stories. He teaches communication at Boston College. This is his third story published on The Fabulist.

It all started when Eugenia looked out the window one Saturday morning and saw children peddle by on their bikes.

“Sometimes,” she said to Ruth, her partner of four decades, “I wish that we’d had a child all our own, a little boy, maybe, just to leave a little something to the world.”

Ruth sat in her lime green chair. Her clever hands knitted a run of bright red yarn. The needles clicked together — clip-click-clip — a sound that always reminded Eugenia of a new scissors snipping.

“Of course there is the practical side of that,” Ruth said. “Oh, I suppose you could have found a man to do what needed to be done. I certainly wouldn’t put up with that sort of business.”

Eugenia, instead of looking through the window, looked right at it. Her reflection stared back at her.

“Nothing but wrinkles, that’s what I am. Could a person be one big wrinkle, do you suppose?”

“You are lovely, you’ve aged very well.”

“Like a wheel of cheese?”

“More like a bottle of burgundy wine.”

She did look good, Eugenia decided. There was a certain surety in the corner of her eyes that made the wrinkles blend right in, and despite the loss of several teeth, her smile was still warm and pleasant.

Ruth put her knitting down.

“I can’t say the thought has never crossed my mind. With our reputation it would have been quite impossible. Perhaps not these days, but then, when we were young. In those days they would have said we wanted a child for roasting and eating.”

“That’s what witches do,” Eugenia said, and gave a long look to the corner where the children had ridden by on their bikes only minutes before.

“The ones in fairy tales,” Ruth said, her hands clicked the needles together. “But not all, of course.”

“Could a witch conjure a child, do you suppose? If I was a real witch, that’s what I’d do.”

Ruth only nodded and knitted and knitted and nodded. Eugenia could see the faintest twinkle in Ruth’s eye, just a little hint of mischief, and that made the wrinkles around the corners of Eugenia’s mouth crinkle up in her pleasant little grin.

Now there was the odd thing about Eugenia and Ruth’s relationship — it was plain fact that they loved each other in ways that made them a stand out among the crowd.

But this was not the odd thing.

The odd thing was that Eugenia knew Ruth was a real witch, and Ruth knew that Eugenia knew she was a real witch … and they never spoke frankly on the topic, not once in forty-five years.

Not when both they were beautiful slinky women with long thick hair, and all their bits that should be firm and perky were firm and perky.

Not when they were middle aged, and things drooped just a bit.

Not even in their silver years when their hair turned to strands of rich ivory.

Not even when the magical pots in their bellies stopped making magic, and they both grew an odd whisker or two on their chins.

They had always coyly skirted around the odd thing with vague language and the most round about way one could imagine.

However, there was no mistaking the bad luck that might fall upon one of Ruth’s enemies.

For example, there was the policeman who once followed them during an evening walk through the park as Ruth and Eugenia held hands.

He’d made lewd comments and impolitely suggested things that should not have been suggested.

Ruth only mumbled a secret syllable or two, shook her finger at the policemen as he leaned against a tree twirling his billy club and seconds later he was slapping at hornets, and running for the nearby pond.

“Clearly,” Ruth had said later, “he wasn’t looking where he put his hands and stuck them exactly where they weren’t wanted.”

Ruth loved Eugenia very much and she knew their secret language — there was no mistake that when Eugenia asked about conjuring, she was really asking Ruth for a very unusual present.

Eugenia slept heavy, she always had, but when she snored it was quiet lady like and Ruth was forgiving of the noise.

Ruth got out of the warm covers, put her slippers on, and shuffled across the hall as she yawned and scratched. It was close to midnight — certainly no other time would do for conjuring.

She went down the stairs, and found her knitting bag.

Full of yarn — purple yarn and gray yarn, perfect for making sock or scarves. Orange and brown yarn, perfect for Autumn sweaters.

Ruth wasn’t looking for any of these though, she was looking for the magic yarn — stuff spun from spring clouds, carnival cotton candy, spider silks, cat whiskers, the croaks of frogs, and squeaks of blind mice.

She hooked the magic yarn around her old knuckles and wove her fingers back and forth as she created a series of runes and symbols — Jack-in-the-Pulpit as it is sometimes called.

She rarely conjured things of the Gone these days, but tonight she would have to, if she was to gift Eugenia with a special present. In particular there was an imp she knew would happily sneak out into the night and steal an unwanted child for Eugenia.

Because as sad as it was to think, there were plenty children out there that were not truly wanted.

So she continued with her hands as clever and quick as a little monkey.

Finally, the magic in the yarn was evident. It pulsed in a cold blue fire; it dripped bits of cold flame, and up through the hole created into the Gone, a fiendish shape rose up — all shadows and gnashing teeth, slobbering and ectoplasm.

Goat horns ran in tight little spirals around its head, and it sprung up like a jack-in-the-box bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.

“Hello Rutheeeee,” it said with a snarl and made an uncouth snap at Ruth’s nose.

Ruth said, “Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl, behave!”

And, of course, that was the little devil’s name, and he shrunk back and hissed, “Old hag, ugly old witch, what do you want of Tintamarre-bedlam-brawl-pother-and-ruckus? To eat up another noisy doggy, long time no good meat for Ruckus-Tintamarre-pother-bedlam-and-brawl.”

(He tried very hard to confuse her about his true name, by mixing it all up as often as he could.)

“Watch those wicked lips or I’ll darn them up,” she said.

The little devil snickered and gnashed his teeth, which were not really sharp, but more like soggy old roots that had gotten weathered from being above the dirt.

“Ugly hag,” he whispered, and then brightly: “I’ll wager you’re still very pretty, pretty on the inside, though.” He swayed just a bit, leaned over, with one long fingernail pointing out, “What does Rutheeee want?”

It is an unfortunate fact that as witches grow older, they grow a bit weaker and slower, and exactly the opposite is true with demons and devils.

When Ruth had last seen Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl, he’d been nothing more than what a polliwog is to a frog. That is to say, he was young, inexperienced, and quite a primitive, stupid thing.

He had been all too happy to roam the mortal world for a night in exchange for eating up an obnoxious dog that lived next door. A dog that had howled incessantly, and ceaselessly chased Eugenia’s favorite cat.

But Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl had been conjured many time since by young and strong witches, and he’d learned much more than Ruth expected.

“Tintamarre-pother-and-brawl –” Ruth said.

Suddenly she felt a bit nervous as the yarn tightened around her fingers.

She pulled and twisted, and managed to keep the knots under control, “—bedlam-ruckus — I want you to –”, but Tintamarre-bedlam-ruckus-pother-and-brawl didn’t really care what she wanted, not one iota.

The magic yarn tightened around Ruth’s fingers; her old wrists were became tired; her arthritis was quite painful, especially so late at night … and then there was a grumbling of secrets, spells, and runes from Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl’s gnashing teeth, and more tightening of the magic string –

Upstairs, Eugenia slept soundly, but she was dreaming of Ruth in her chair where she liked to knit.

She dreamed that Ruth was knitting them a little child out of bits and pieces of yarn she had pulled from somewhere distant and mysterious.

Her knitting needles were moving so fast sparks flew, and the clicks sounded how a metal spider might sound if it were to crawl up a metal web.

But, then in her dream, there was a terrible, horrible scream.

Eugenia sat up in bed and reached for Ruth to comfort her. All she could find was Ruth’s pillow, cold and smooth.

And then, as horrible as the scream was, it was even more horrible when it was cut short by a mad cackle of demonic laughter.

Eugenia’s heart thumped in her chest as she put on her glasses and found her slippers. It was so quiet in the house she thought she surely dreamed the noise.

She went down the hall where the moonlight cast blue shadows on the floor. Down the creaky stairs … Her hand trembled as she held the banister.

“Ruth!” she said. “Where are you?”

No reply.

Eugenia’s stomach felt all watery, and she was sure that if she saw so much as a mouse stealing a crust of bread she would run straight back up stairs.

Every bit of her was terrified, and every bit of her wanted to go back to bed and put the blanket over her head.

“Ruth?” she whispered as she came into the room they’d been sitting in the afternoon.

She saw Ruth’s knitting bag was turned on its side. And coming out from the bag, among the common yarns, was the magic yarn, glowing blue with dazzling cold fire.

Very faintly, coming from the bag, she could hear the last faded cry for help like a bit of wood whittled down to nothing.

Ruth’s voice disappeared into the Gone, and the string started slipping away, then disappeared into the knitting bag … and without giving it another thought, Eugenia took hold of the string and went with it.

Eugenia held her breath, because she was sure if she exhaled she would certainly lose control of her bladder. This was a practical worry, even a badly timed sneeze could do that these days, much less when she was being unexpectedly pulled through a long and dark tunnel on the end of a piece of magic yarn.

She didn’t have more than a few minutes to reflect on the situation before she was plopped down right in the middle of the Gone.

The magic yarn had slithered from her grasp, and now laid itself down on the ground and had melted into a long path.

One would think that the domain of devils and demons would be a dark and terrifying place, but this is not quite the case. It is an odd place to be sure. Devils and demons can only mimic what they have seen. But their perceptions are imperfect, and they make mistakes.

For example, Eugenia looked up to see a bright green sun shining down, a white sky and blue clouds that seemed to be made of bumpy stone instead of soft wisps of fog.

She was surrounded by a peculiar forest where the trees had branches and leaves made of ice, and fruits made of fire.

It was really not so terrible, she thought as she stood up and looked down the path the yarn had become.

She squinted to see where it went, and then listened, hoping to hear Ruth.

But all she heard and saw was the scratches and clucks of Hen-Who-Runs-Backwards as she ran down the path.

Hen-Who-Runs-Backwards was a fine looking black hen who was completely unsurprising, except for fact she was running backwards.

To the hen’s credit, she did so with much grace.

Eugenia watched Hen-Who-Runs-Backwards run by –

“Bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs! That’s what Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl likes!” the hen clucked and continued on.

Eugenia wondered what that meant, and what a Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl was.

She stood, watched the road for a moment, and it seemed she was alone. There was some doubt in her mind now, that maybe she shouldn’t have just grabbed that yarn without thinking about it. Instead she should have ran right back up stairs and hid under the blankets.

But then she thought of Ruth and how Ruth would always save her the soft center of a warm cinnamon bun when they shared one at the coffee shop. That was Eugenia’s favorite part, but she knew Ruth liked it just as much as she did.

She thought for a moment, and was ashamed to realize she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d offered it to Ruth.

Then she thought about how Ruth tried very hard to keep her temper when Eugenia would let her eyes get the best of her and she would spend a large sum of money on a new pair of shoes.

And she thought about when they had taken a cruise around the coast of Mexico. They had stopped at a port and watched a candymaker mix chocolate.

He added just a pinch of red chili; he explained it was to make the chocolate taste richer and more full, and Ruth had said, “That’s what you are Eugenia, you are the little pinch of red chili in my life.”

She had a great many of these kinds of thoughts, and so instead of just looking down the road, she said “RUTH! Where are you?!”, waited for a reply, and when she didn’t hear anything she started walking.

Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl lived in a silly little house made of moldy leaves and mud, right next to a bog, which was about the same thing as house except a lot wetter.

Inside his home, there was just about enough space for him and a witch named Ruth.

It should go without saying that Ruth was quite unhappy with the situation she now found herself in.

Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl had taken her magic yarn and bound her two big toes together, then twisted it up all around her feet, up around her ankles, then her knees, up to her thighs, then around her soft belly, and right up over her little old lady boobies and right up to her armpits.

This left her arms completely free.

Then the yarn was wrapped right up around her neck, and then right up over her mouth, and continued on up around her head and left her nose, ears and eyes uncovered.

None of this was pleasant, to be sure, but Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl had also hung her upside down on a hook from the ceiling. It was all very uncomfortable.

To make matters even worse Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl had forced her to knit the most horrid strings of slimy goo together. A goo that he seemed to have an endless supply of.

First he’d asked for a little slime hat that he could wear, but seeing what true artisan she was, he thought she might just make him a scarf as well.

Once she was done with that, he needed a new slime sweater, and that was what she was knitting now.

“Pants!” Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl screeched, “Mooooore muculent, Rutheeee! Mooorre muculant!”

Ruth was getting tired, and her hands ached.

The only knitting needles Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl had were made out of rough slivers of bone and they were giving her blisters and her arthritis was burning in her knuckles and her wrists.

“Pleeasssse!” she begged, “Tintamarre-bedlam-pother-brawl-and-ruckus, behave!” But it didn’t work anymore because she had gotten so flustered she couldn’t remember the right order.

Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl just cackled and picked at his turned up snout with a long fingernail, and found a bit more slime for Ruth to knit with.

When Eugenia was afraid she liked to hum, so she was humming like a hive full of bumblebees.

She walked down the road, and it wasn’t long before along Pig-on-his-Hind-Legs came running by. Just as you might expect from his name, he ran on hind legs.

He didn’t even give Eugenia a second glance, instead he oinked twice, and said, “Eggs and bacon, eggs and bacon! That’s what Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl likes!”

Only seconds later the pig was gone and Eugenia thought to herself that she should try to remember what the pig said, because it sounded a lot like what the hen said. And certainly it was worth remembering if it was said so often.

So she stopped humming and began muttering under her breath, “Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl likes bacon and eggs. That’s what he likes. Or was that bacon and eggs that liked Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl or was that brawl-and-pother, or pother-and-ruckus?”

She walked until her little old feet were sore, and her little old ankles felt like little wooden splinters were being driven into them.

When she got too tired, she stopped and rested, and when she got thirsty she pulled an ice leaf off a tree and let it melt on her tongue.

When she got hungry, she tried one of the fire fruits that were actually cold fire — so she could pick them and hold them without any trouble.

She suspected it would be far too spicy for her, but it wasn’t, it was just right.

And after she was refreshed she moved on.

Finally, she came up on a little mud house, with a little bit of smoke coming out of the chimney, and a little stinky bog right next to it. She hid behind a tree, her knees trembled as she tried to muster her courage.

It didn’t seem to muster like she’d hoped so she waited a bit …

… it wasn’t long before she saw the owner of the house, which was of course, Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl.

He came out dressed from head to toe in a brand new slime suit. He was in a more foul mood than earlier, because even in the Gone every demon has a day job he must attend.

Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl’s job was to pop into the mortal world and whisper things into children’s ears.

This wasn’t all bad, but he was strictly limited to suggesting ways to make very loud noises, unexpectedly, and especially around adults.

It wasn’t a terrible job, but some of the other demons got to whisper much darker things, and not just to children.

Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl knew he was a young demon, and he’d work his way up, but it was a long way to go still.

So that was where he was headed when he came out of his house, and then Eugenia saw him explode into a thousand blue and green blow-flies, and shoot up into the sky in a swirling stream.

When he was gone, Eugenia heard the faintest little muffled cry, “Oh, help!”

She knew Ruth’s voice even under these decidedly strange circumstances, so she cautiously tiptoed to the front of the house, and opened the door.

Even a right-side-up Ruth that had been bound would have been a horror for poor Eugenia to see, but an upside-down Ruth was almost too much to bear.

Ruth had worked her chin up and down enough so some of the yarn was loose, and she said: “Eugenia! Help! Find the end of the string and unravel me!”

“But where?” Because there was a great deal of yarn wrapped everywhere around Ruth.

Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl had also bound Ruth’s wrists with a thick bit of slime, so she couldn’t even point.

“Wrapped around my head, I think,” Eugenia said, and so she started looking for the end of the string around Ruth’s head. She fumbled a bit, and then found the end, and started unraveling and unspooling it, bit by bit.

In no time she was using all her strength to lower Ruth to the ground.

When Ruth finally got her wits about her, which didn’t take long, she gave Eugenia a big kiss right on the cheek.

“How did you find me?” she asked. “No, no, no time now, quick, find those knitting needles. Hurry, hurry, he’s going to be back soon—”

“Who?” Eugenia said.

“Tintamarre-ruckus-and-brawl — oh, I don’t remember now!” Ruth said. “I am an old, old woman, and my memory is no good. But I think, if you undo these bindings I could knit us a bag to catch that little devil in, if nothing else.”

So even though it made her stomach twitch, Eugenia pulled the slime off of Ruth’s wrists and found the knitting needles and handed them over.

Ruth started furiously knitting. Eugenia didn’t have a word to say, but she tried her hardest to be useful, so she tried to remember what Hen-Who-Runs-Backwards and Pig-on-his-Hind-legs had said.

“It is all my fault, of course,” Eugenia said. “You know very well that I knew you would — I really shouldn’t have asked.”

Ruth frowned, but kept knitting.

“Not your fault at all. I really should stick to kitting stuff, well, more earthly. I am much to old to conjure demons.”

“What if we have to stay here forever? And he hangs us both upside down? I can’t knit! Ruth, I just can’t do it. My hands are not clever like yours — all I wanted was a little child, to leave a little something to the world — Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl, that’s it!” Eugenia said suddenly remembering, “that’s who likes bacon and eggs, that’s what the hen and the pig said.”

Ruth just smiled and knitted and knitted and smiled.

When Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl came home that evening, he was very hungry and grouchy after a long day of work.

He was also quite disappointed to find Ruth had managed to unbind herself, and was sitting quietly on a big lump of mud that he used for a sofa.

“Soooo, Rutheee, you old waggle-waggle-hag, you got out? But you can’t go home! Can’t go home!”

Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl stomach was rumbling.

And it should be known he was thinking quite seriously of eating up Ruth, but finally he thought she might be a bit tough to chew, so he had decided against it. At least for the moment.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing you’d be interested in,” Ruth said. “Just some bacon and eggs.”

Hen-Who-Runs-Backwards and Pig-On-His-Hind-Legs had spoke the truth, because just that day they’d been held captive and he had let them in order to make room for Ruth. Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl little horns unrolled themselves, his ears perked up and he sniffed the air.

“Give it to me, then,” he said.

“You’ll have to come get it,” Ruth said, and opened up the bag.

“Just in case, so you stay — shush, shush, shush, Rutheeee!” Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl said, blew his nose into his hand, and flung a palmful of sticky slime right at Ruth. Indeed, it stuck right over her mouth, so she couldn’t say a word.

Then, without another thought, Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl dove head first into the bag.

Ruth pulled the drawstring tight.

“No bacon and eggs!” he screeched, “Nothing! Nothing! It’s a trick!”

He started tearing away at the bag opening.

If you were wondering where Eugenia was this whole time, she was right behind the door, and she jumped out and said: “Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl, behave!”

And of course, Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl had to, and as long as they could remember his name, he had to do what they said.

This is nearly the end of the story, because what came next is quite expected and does not require many details.

Ruth and Eugenia made Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl take them straight back to their little house in the mortal world.

But it should be clearly noted, that bravery and faithfulness is sometimes rewarded in unexpected ways: Eugenia did get her wish to have a child, but just not quite the child she had in mind.

Ruth thought that Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl looked adorable in the little outfits she’d knit for him, and Eugenia thought him to be the perfect child, because unlike most children, all she had to do was say, “Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl, behave!” and like magic he’d behave.

Also, it wouldn’t be fair to say that Tintamarre-ruckus-bedlam-pother-and-brawl truly hated this arrangement, it was at least a bit more satisfying than his day job, and from time to time if he behaved, he’d get bacon eggs for breakfast, and sometimes even a noisy little doggy for dinner.

And of course, they lived happily ever after.

Me and Lulu-Mae were having a right tasty Sunday lunch in the meadow when Lulu-Mae said, “Lyle, just when are you going to make an honest woman out of me?”

I figured no amount of marrying would do that, but I knew that’s what she was getting at.

“Lulu-Mae,” I said, “didn’t I tell you what happened this morning?”

She shook her pretty little head.

“I didn’t tell you about the boots?”

“Nope,” she said, and took a big bite of her sandwich.

I could hear the bees buzzing, and I saw our old black milking cow that was always wandering off had wandered off again.

“The alligator? The gypsy?”

“No, you did not, Lyle.”

I sighed real big so she knew I was mighty disappointed with myself.

“Certainly I mentioned the pigs?”

She looked at me like I was stone cold crazy. Some mourning doves up in the tree tops cooed, and the wind rustled the grass a little bit.

“Now Lulu-Mae, I went to go talk to your Pa about your hand in marriage just this morning –”

“Is that right?” she said, and flicked an ant right off the blanket we were sitting on.

“I dragged my sorry butt out of bed at the crack of dawn. It was cold this morning, so cold I couldn’t fix my hair because the teeth on my comb was just a chattering away, and then when I said something you couldn’t even hear it because the words would freeze right in the air.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody, that wasn’t the point. I just wanted to get a fresh start in the morning. But I couldn’t find my boots, you see. I looked high and low, under the bed, out on the porch, and nothing. But you know how dang much I want to marry you.”

“That’s what you say when we are up in the hayloft, you say: ‘Lulu-Mae, come on, just one little kiss and I’ll marry you someday …’ but here I am, not even engaged …”

“I wasn’t about to give up, no ma’am — I was lucky. I was standing on the porch in my socks, and I saw that pair of hogs owned by Old Grandma Bones, so I called them over to me.”

“How you do that? Her pigs don’t even listen to her.”

“I took pig whistling in school,” I said, “you know that perfectly well.”

“Oh, I did, but I’d forgotten,” she said.

“So I called them over, and dang, I didn’t need boots after all, I just jumped straight onto to those pigs’ backs, one foot on each pig, and I said ‘Hee-yaa, you dumb hogs, take me over to Lulu-Mae’s house so I can talk to her Pa.’”

Looking very serious, Lulu-Mae poured us both a cup of coffee out of the thermos.

“So I was going along, just whistling at them to speed up because they were moving so slow. I made it to the road in about five minutes, and from there it was a straight shot over to talk to your Pa — but there was Rombaro, the gypsy, just sitting there waiting.”

“A gypsy? Oh Lordy, Lordy,” she said.

“Yep,” I said. “He was sitting in his drag racer, flames painted so perfect on the side of it that you could feel the heat come up. I nearly got a third degree burn.”

“What now?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m beginning to think maybe I shouldn’t go up to the hayloft with you anymore.”

“Just hold on, hold on,” I said to Lulu-Mae, and slurped up some of my coffee, “so what the heck do you think I did? I said, ‘My name is Lyle and I want to get over to my girl’s house fast, so I can ask her Pa about marrying her.’ So after Rombaro introduces himself he says to me, ‘Lyle, I’ll drive you over, this car is so fast I’ve had to brake when I saw my own taillights from going around the block too fast. She’s so quick she makes greased lighting rust.’”

“Goodness,” she said.

“Of course that was what I was hoping for, so he told me he’d give me a ride if I was to give him those pigs. They weren’t mine, but I knew if there was one thing a gypsy likes more than a pig, it’s a stolen pig. So I said, ‘As long as you go far and fast once you give me that ride, then these pigs are yours.’ He was agreeable so I jumped in the car.”

“But you never did make it did you?” Lulu-Mae said.

“Well,” I said, shaking my head in deep disappointment. “That’s where the alligator comes in.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I’d forgotten all about that alligator, how did that play into it?”

“That’s what Rombaro wanted those hogs for. He had a pet alligator right there in the backseat. He told me it had been depressed lately and been on a long crying jag. Like maybe it was needing something special, and he figured a pig would be just the thing. So I tossed back one of them pigs, and lo and behold that alligator gobbled it right up in one big bite. Well, the second pig saw what was in store for it, and it up and bolted. Took off right on down the road squealing all the way. Since I couldn’t keep my part of the deal anymore Rombaro just kicked me right out of his car. The sun was coming up proper by then, and Rombaro took off so fast the shadow of his car just stuck right there for a minute,” I scratched at my chin, thinking. “I’m not sure if that shadow was that slow, or if it was frozen to the ground.”

“You poor thing out in that cold,” Lulu-Mae said. “I bet your feet where just freezing!”

“Yeah,” I said. “But then, what did I see? My boots, they came walking down the road all by themselves. Just happy as can be.”

“Where’d they go?” Lulu-Mae said, and wrapped up the crust of her sandwich in some waxed paper.

“Not sure,” I said. “But I think they were just trying to stay warm, you know how walking will do that.”

“Oh I do,” she said.

“Then, wouldn’t you know it?” I said. “Just when I was ready to go on over to see your Pa, my Pa was bellowing for me to come help with the chores. And you know it just wouldn’t be honest to go running off and leave my poor old Pa to do all the work.”

“Not honest in the least,” she said, and finished packing up our stuff.

“But there’s always tomorrow,” I said, very hopeful.

She smiled real pretty and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Well, Lyle, I hope some day you’ll make an honest woman out of me, but I hope I never make an honest man out of you. I’ll just see you in the hayloft after supper,” she said.

Bosley Gravel was born in the Midwest, and came of age in Texas and southern New Mexico. He has worked numerous dead end jobs, and now makes a living working on computer networks and various related activities. He has been making up stories from an early age, and from time to time they end up on paper.

This is the story of the Oogaloogaman. I heard it from Roger, who heard it from Shaun, who knows it’s true. If I tell it to you, you have to believe it, because if you don’t believe it, the Oogaloogaman will get you.

We don’t know if he has teeth, or an axe, or eyes that glow red in the night, because none of us has ever seen him. That’s because we believe in him.

One of the rules is, if you don’t believe in him, I can’t talk to you, cause if I do the Oogaloogaman will get me.

If you don’t want to hear, then you have to get up right now and go sit away from the fire.

So I guess all of you want to hear it. It’s better if you do anyway, because if you don’t you might do something that makes the Oogaloogaman mad, and if you make him mad, he’ll get you.

Here are the rules about knowing about the Oogaloogaman — Jeremy, what? No: first you have to know the rules. Then you can hear the story. That’s the way it has always been. If you don’t like it you can go sit in the woods. And just see if anyone wants to sit with you.

So. Here are the rules. If you believe in the Oogaloogaman, you can’t step on cracks. You can’t step on somebody else’s shadow, and if you pass a well you have to drop a rock in it, and if there’s no rocks, you have to walk in a circle around it and say, “Butter bread, butter bread, butter bread,” three times in a row, like that.

And if you cross a creek at night, you have to walk backwards.

Lewis, I said no going to the bathroom until the rules are finished. Well you can go in the woods if you have to so bad. But nobody’s going with you.

Always write on lined paper with the fat part at the top, never upside down. If you’re filling a glass from the sink, always hold it in your left hand. If the glass already has ice that’s extra luck. Don’t eat snow after dark. Don’t touch your eyes in a graveyard. Don’t — what?

If you make me forget a rule, you’ll break it and the Oogaloogaman will get you. Yes he will! And don’t even say he won’t as a joke, because he’ll get you if he even thinks you don’t believe in him.

Peter talked until the fire went out, and the moon came up bright enough to see the trees. Jeremy kept crying even after Peter showed him how you could see there were no eyes in the trees.

Jake said shut up cause the Oogaloogaman would hear the crying and then he really would get them.

I was sitting by the fire pit, where the rocks were still warm. I remember the moon was so bright I could draw in the dirt with a stick and see it.

Jason went up to Peter and said, What about holding your breath on a full moon?

What about it, said Peter.

My brother said if you do the Ooglaoogaman can come out of the moon and get you.

It’s not a full moon.

So? You still forgot.

I wasn’t holding my breath. No I wasn’t! No I wasn’t!

Peter started crying and shoved Jason, then Jim, who was the oldest, made them stop, and said, It’s not a full moon, cause he his mom said it was full yesterday, and anyway Peter was lucky, Jason said so, cause if there were extra rules, it was better if we knew them.

Peter said it wasn’t true, but Jim said Peter had to say Jason believed in the Oogaloogaman, cause if he didn’t say it the Oogaloogaman would get Peter for talking to Jason, and if Jason believed in the Oogaloogaman getting you if you held your breath on a full moon, then that had to be true, too.

And anyway even if it wasn’t true — and nobody was saying so, just if it wasn’t — what would you rather do, not hold your breath on a full moon, or let the Oogaloogaman get you.

So in the end everyone swore never to hold our breaths on a full moon, and if we saw anyone doing it we would hit him in the stomach as hard as we could so he would have to breathe out before the Oogaloogaman saw it.

Then Lewis started crying and Jim took him to pee and everyone got in their sleeping bags but I didn’t sleep all night.

Another time, I was behind the barn finding rocks with Jasper. He said if you touch left elbows with a girl you will get a wart on that elbow. He asked me to swear I believed it.

I swore.

Then his mom called and said we had play with his little brothers.

We went down to the creek.

Wanna hear a story? I said. I heard it from Peter, who heard it from Roger, who knows it’s true. If I tell you, you have to believe it…

Josh Mulholland is a writer in California. He spends free time howling at the moon, whether it happens to be there or not. “The Story of the Oogaloogaman” is copyright (c) 2008 by Josh Mulholland.

Stomach flu. Days of lying on your back at the mercy of mutant molecules coiling viciously up your brain tubes, of your neurons unlinking and firing randomly into the air like Cossacks at a village wedding. The unending suspicion that the floor keeps moving to some other place.

Days of training your liquefied consciousness towards the same clean, dry, nausea-busting images: snow-capped mountains, stacks of library books, perhaps some boy scouts reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while standing in an amber wave of grain. Anything to pull your mind back from the image of boiling vindaloo curry with nacho cheese sauce dumped on top.

An extended exile from personality, from humor, from the willing invitation of garden-variety risk and darkness into your life. Normally you know exactly which small amounts you can handle.

But now you view your old healthy self through that clear, gelatinous wall of stomach flu isolation and reel backwards in fear and wonder. How on earth do you do it? Is it really you that copes with phone bills and taxes and bosses and people expecting stuff of you? Why have you never realized how awful it all is? The minute you’re better you’re going to make some phone calls and cancel everything. Your job, your place, everything. It’s all completely unreasonable.

Then the slow ascent back up: Saltine crackers, herbal tea, perhaps some 8th grade-level reading (fashion magazines highly recommended) and classical piano music.

After that, the staggered, false recoveries: waking up at 8pm to feel that all is well, that it’s OK to scarf that entire package of Kraft Macaroni n’ Cheese directly from the pot you cooked it in, only to wake up three hours later, your entire body throbbing with the drumbeat of inevitability: no, you dumb motherfucker, you are not better yet and you should have realized that when you were having that dream with the horse in the sewage pipe.

Days grind past. More Gatorade. More Saltine crackers. More finding patterns in the ceiling paint. More daytime naps where you don’t sleep. What helps? What harms? Inch back into your life, trying to feel where it pushes back.

And then one hour it arrives: the malaise that hovered above you before the illness now thunks upon your landing pad, its propeller blades screaming and blurring: Life is passing you by. You’ve become a spectator. Others’ lives are unending pageants of adventure and novelty. Yours is a less traumatic version of this—of waiting inside warm, sweating white walls of fever without delirium. This epiphany surges forth into your mouth like a ball of molten lava, hotter and more hellish for its long gestation inside.

Each Saltine cracker mocks you. You have lost something. You are trapped inside a Pottery Barn catalogue: a place where no matter how hard you try to do something raw, primitive and foolish for which you could end up paying the rest of your life, you will still wake up in a place where the pillow shams match the ottoman and you are covered by ten different types of liability insurance.

At long last, the return to the workforce. The slapping cold and the pushing grey crowds. The vigor of honest toil.

Proofread long legal documents in a near-empty office as the sun goes down. Sleep on the berber carpet under the desk when the boss isn’t around. Still inside you the viral braindrug residue, your body holding your soul at arm’s length.

Stand at the 32nd floor window. Watch the pulsing electric veins of Friday night traffic racetracking through on-ramps and off-ramps and bridge-bound overpasses. Down on Folsom Street, crowds swarm around the red and green neon sign of a nightclub you danced at in the Nineties.

God, enchiladas! Who’s for enchiladas? Great oily platters of seething, noxious soul food, the taste that contains all love and horror, the things you want inside you that you don’t want to know about. You need it. You know you can’t handle it.

You think you’re better now. Are you better? Are you cured? Are you sure? You’d better be sure.

You’re not sure of anything. Only that everything is all right now, and somehow you want it not to be. You are tired of being a tourist. The acid, flesh-dissolving slime you have barely climbed up out of is the artery you need to spike. Mortality has made itself known to you lately, but where is its sex? Where is its danger? Why does it lurk nerdily like a bespectacled auditor waiting for a miscount? Why does it not kiss and undress and drink and play chess with you, as it does with people in the movies? Where is the Enchilada of Death?

Call your friends. Nobody answers. If you carry on alone towards your impulse—eat too much Turkish food, get a gullet full of illegally brewed fire water and drive your car into a telephone pole, repeatedly, while singing along with the radio in a language you don’t speak—will it even be real? Who will bear witness?

Look out through the canyons of office-building towers, the grids of square cubicles blinking out one by one for the weekend. One hundred feet away through the air, behind a glass wall like yours, someone is silhouetted against a glowing red Coke machine, trying to decide. Five down four across, a man barks into his cell phone and grips the edge of his desk.

Out by the docks, a world away, a lone smokestack spouts a nobly apocalyptic white column up to the sky.

That skyscraper over there, they’ve been working on it forever. You can still look straight through its bare bones, through the halogen worklights posted on its naked steel joints, to the green hills on the edge of the city and the clouds beyond. Always one or two figures standing out there on those platforms, standing right on the edge of that terrifying drop with no safety rail, nothing to catch them below. You can’t see their faces, can’t know anything about them. They could be old school friends of yours. Don’t they get Friday nights off? Christ, what must the wind be like?

The giant fishing-pole tower crane on top swings its bait, a greenish glass panel the size of your bedroom wall, slowly over in front of the structure. It fits … right there, above and next to all the dozens of other outsized glass panels that have already been affixed to the front of the building. Pop, lock, and it’s in. The crane slowly pivots to pick up the next panel.

That’s it? That’s all they do? That’s all that separates every office worker in the developed world from complete oblivion? They make it look like a fucking game of Tetris.

So what happens if … one panel must weigh at least 150 pounds. The drop would be five hundred feet. Would there even be debris after it hit the ground? Or would the sheer force of the blow vaporize the whole thing into a mushroom cloud of breathable glass fibers? Would it billow out into the street, out into the waiting lines of nightclub hipsters, out to the Lexus drivers fumbling for their keys and getting ready to spend an hour on the bridge? Would it ruin lungs? Disfigure faces? Isn’t there some sort of safety…latch or cord or something? How to find out?

Fuck it. Have a Coke and a smile. The vending machine in the dark, empty lounge room mechanically sucks in your dollar. You’ve read all the articles, you know how bad this shit is for you. The sugar, the additives, the cornstarch, the greenwashing, the Orwellian ad psychology, the murdered union organizers at the Latin American bottling plants, to hell with ’em. You need the taste of reckless childhood.

The marketers even have a psychographic category for you: Occasional Indulger. They know what you’re looking for better than you do. Their sales strategy one-sheets probably describe Nirvana more accurately than anything the Dalai Lama ever wrote.

But oh, that plastic buzz is real enough in its fake-ass way. The cold and the fizz and the simple glucose snap-crackle-pop in your veins. You feel almost normal, looking down at the twilight city through inch-thick glass drinking a Coke from a machine. It’s not the real thing. It never will be. But for now, it will have to do. You’ve got some shit to figure out.

Focus. Keep your eyes fixed on one thing for five minutes, it’ll help you concentrate. The yelling cell phone guy in the building across the way, how about him, he’s pretty entertaining.

Okay. Make a plan. Operation Bland Night of the Soul. A change of scenery—yes, definitely called for. Spend the night in the woods or something. Your cousin with the cabin…of course, you haven’t spoken to him in years…still, the sound of that river running…a shed full of firewood and that musty, piney vacation smell when you open the door of the place. Birds. Spiders. Chipmunks, that kind of thing. Some time to be intentionally alone, get all spooked out. Take your old English lit books, make some coffee and eggs, kick the pinecones around. Let your defenses down. No cars, no people, no bullshit, get a serious plan together. Start kicking some existential ass. Yes. It all becomes clear.

Before the Coke you were sleepy and spacey. Now you’re buzzed and spacey.

ARE YOU GONNA GIVE THAT COUSIN A CALL, SOLDIER? yells the man into his cell phone.

Yes, Sir! Salute him across the glass canyon.

ARE YOU GONNA HAVE A HIPPIE-ASS MENDO WEEKEND?

Yes, Sir! (Giggle inanely.)

ARE YOU GONNA GO THROUGH YOUR BOXES OF COLLEGE CRAP AND PULL OUT WALDEN AND SIDDHARTA?

Sir, yes, sir!

REPEAT AFTER ME! TWO ROADS DIVERGED IN A YELLOW WOOD—

–the cell drops out of his hand, his back smashes up against the file cabinet.

All in the same instant:

Before his palm can travel to his open mouth the corner of your eye catches the square edge of something greenish dropping down and disappearing behind a shorter building.

The figures on the unwalled 36th floor of the skyscraper construction site make no reaction, aren’t looking at the crane’s empty, swinging hook. They don’t know yet.

A fraction of a second pulls out and out in front of your face like a stretch of chewing gum anchored between your teeth.

Your hands floating from your sides. A little catch in your throat getting ready to be a sound.

There’s this tiny flicker of wanting to do something. Anything. But there’s nothing you can do.

Apart, that is, from wanting to be there. More than anyone’s safety, more than the punishment of the men who let it happen, you just want to be as close as possible when the whole thing hits and shatters.

Jen Burke Anderson is a writer in San Francisco.

Behind the polyglas the sky was orange over the city.  The white towers were tall and thin, with minaret tops.  Just like the snow asparagus FourMother cloned in the agrovat, Lewis thought.  Funny he’d never noticed the resemblance before.

Turning from the window, Lewis moved to the low table beside the bed, where Montgomery hunched with a tiny mixing spatula over jars of colored powders.  He leaned over his friend’s shoulder as Montgomery spooned the last of the mixture into a vial, added two tablespoons of water, and shook.

“Bingo,” Montgomery said as peered at the settling bubbles.

“It’ll never work,” Lewis said.

“We’ll see.”  He set the vial of green liquid in a stainless steel rack and handed Lewis a scalpel.  “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Montgomery rolled up his sleeve and placed his elbow on the tabletop with a steel tray under his forearm.  He held a clear vacuum tube ready in his other hand.

“Now.”

Lewis laid the scalpel edge along the soft inside of his friend’s forearm and slashed.  The wound sealed itself almost instantly.

“You have to cut deeper,” Montgomery said.

On the third try the cut showed bone and Montgomery was able to insert the vacuum tube before his nanobots could reconstitute the damaged tissues.  Sensing the presence of a foreign body, the enhanced macrophages in his blood attacked, devouring four millimeters of the tube before he could extract it.  He managed to transfer a half teaspoon of blood to the mixing plate, where it boiled savagely in an effort to destroy itself.  Lewis applied several drops of the green liquid and the bubbling stopped.

“Wow,” said Montgomery.

“Let me try.”

“You know it won’t work.”

“It was my idea.”

They repeated the experiment, but Lewis’s blood simmered on the plate, assimilating the tincture before devouring itself and leaving the metal spotless.

At this moment the bedroom door hissed open and Montgomery’s younger brother Walter burst in.

“Monty, Monty!” he hollered, though Montgomery was barely two meters away.  “I finished my Virgil translation!  Want to hear?”

Lewis spun on the child and snarled.  “Damn it, Widget, can’t you see we’re busy?”

Montgomery lifted a hand.  “I said don’t call him that.”  Turning to the child, he said, “Walter, do you remember our agreement?”

Walter pouted.  “Yes.”

“Good.  Would you like to try again?”

“Yes.”

The child left the room, waving a hand across the door’s wall sensor.

“You’re in a generous mood tonight,” Lewis said.

“Lay off.  He’s only seventy.”

“Seventy and a half,” said Lewis mockingly.

The door chimed.

“Enter,” said Montgomery, and Walter stepped back into the room.

“Now would you like to hear the Virgil?”

Montgomery set down the tiny stainless steel mixing paddle and leaned back in his chair.  “I’d love to,” he said.

“Quid noster vadis hocnum,” Walter began.  “Septis inculum questis…”

Lewis folded his arms and spent the duration of the performance glaring into a corner of the ceiling.  He and Montgomery had completed the required translations too, all fourteen thousand pages, during their P levels.  Lewis had been voted third best translator in his generation.  They had given him a prize.  That was four hundred years ago, but he still remembered every word of it well enough to snort at Walter’s occasional error.

But Montgomery listened rapt and beaming. Yes, the translation was imperfect, but his brother wasn’t even through his M levels yet.  It had taken him only seven years to finish it, less than half the average time.  And for his N’s, at the request of his professor, Walter would translate the works of Virgil into Sanskrit.

“Bravo, bravo!” said Montgomery, clapping as the performance finished.

Walter wrinkled his nose.  “It’s okay, but I still like the Hindus better.  Hey, what are you making?”

“It’s an experiment,” Montgomery said.  “Don’t touch.”

“Energized tincture of carbon,” said Walter, identifying one vial by its particular rusty hue.  “Potassium cilicate, hydrogen carbonate.”  He examined the mixture on the plate, deducing the proportions of its contents.  He made a quick mental calculation and wrinkled his nose.  “Meat tenderizer?”

Montgomery laughed.  “Not exactly.  But close.”

“Then what?”

Lewis, who was sitting on the bed, sighed explosively and fell backwards onto the pillows.

“Widget–sorry, Walter–aren’t you supposed to be deriving the differential calculi or something?”

“I finished,” Walter said.  “A cleaning agent?”

“No, it’s not exactly that, either,” said Montgomery.

Lewis sat up again.  “Could we just get on with it, please?”

“What’s your hurry?” said Montgomery.  “Anyway, it’s my experiment.”

“What experiment?” said Walter.

Lewis hopped to his feet.  “Your experiment?  It was my idea.”

“Yeah, but I’m the subject.”

“Monty,” said Walter, tugging at his brother’s sleeve.  “What experiment?”

“I’m the one publishing it,” Lewis said.

“Publishing.  Exactly what are you publishing, Lewis?”

“I’m publishing the study.  The… the data.”

“The data,” Montgomery repeated.

“What data?” said Walter.

Lewis waved the child off and strode to the window.  Montgomery rose from the chair and followed.

“Yes, Lewis,” said Montgomery.  “What data?  Temperature drop?  Weight loss?  Putrefaction?”

“I don’t know!” Lewis burst.  “Whatever – whatever happens.”

“Monty?”

“You don’t get to know what happens,” Montgomery said.  “I’m the one.  I’m the

one who gets to know.  You just get to watch.”

It was night now, and the white towers gleamed in the darkness.  Lewis went to the window and stood with his fists behind his back.

“And I can wait a hundred years if I want.  And in a hundred years, Walter will be old enough to publish.  And then it can be his experiment.”

“Monty?”

“Fine,” said Lewis, not turning from the window.  “He can stay.”

“Good,” said Montgomery.  “That’s nice of you.”  He returned to his chair and laced his fingers over his knee again.  “Walter?  Do you have a question?”

“Yes.”

“What is your question?”

“What experiment?”

“We are conducting an experiment in a form of altered consciousness.”

Walter peered skeptically at the red mixture.  “Is that a precursor to ergotamine?”

“No.”

“A tetrahydrocannabinoid?

“No.”

“A mescalate?”

No, Montgomery explained.  Those were psychoactive compounds, and this was something different.  This one wasn’t technically psychoactive, because it didn’t act on the brain.  At least, not directly.  The way the compound acted was… did Walter remember when Montgomery fell down the stairs, and got a purple spot on his arm, and SixMother had to take Montgomery to a scientist, because nobody could identify it?

“I remember the purple spot,” said Walter.  “Your bz – bzorze.”

“Bruise,” Montgomery corrected.  And the compound did something like that, but a whole-body effect.  There was very little data on the phenomenon, and even that was very old, and unreliable.  And what they were going to find out was… well… did Walter know how old Montgomery was?  That’s right:  eight hundred and forty years old.  And how old was Walter?  Seventy and a half, of course.  And Mother?  Six thousand and eight.  And TwoMother was nine thousand, and so on, up to SixMother, who was in her twenty-five thousands.  And how old did Walter suppose Virgil was?

Walter blinked twice, then said, “Thirty thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight.”

At the window, Lewis scoffed and turned to face them.  “Four hundred and sixty-seven,” he said.

“Sixty-eight,” said Walter.

“Excuse me,” Lewis said, “but I should know.  My great-great-great-great-great grandmother translated the original codex.”

Walter looked at his brother.  “Great-great-great-great-great grand?”

“He means his SevenMother,” Montgomery said.

“That’s right,” said Lewis, advancing.  “My SevenMother.  And where is she now?”

Walter took a step back.

“In her room?”

“Wrong,” said Lewis.  “Guess again.”

“In the cafeteria?”

“Wrong again,” said Lewis.

“Lay off,” said Montgomery.

“What do you care?” said Lewis.  “You’re the one with the defect.  You get to know.  I’ll never know.”

“Know what?” said Walter.

“Ha!”  A fleck of spittle flew from Lewis’s lip.  “Know what!  What not know?”  Before Montgomery could act, Lewis had seized the child’s arm and dragged him to the window.  “There,” he said, pointing.  “What are the specifications of that tower?”

“W-Winchester family residence,” Walter stuttered.  “Height, one thousand, six hundred and seventy three meters; circumference three hundred…”

“Super,” said Lewis.  “Great.  And that one?

“Paloma family residence,” said Walter.  “Height one thousand…”

“That’s enough,” said Lewis.  “You know them all, right?  Of course you do, all four million.  And in your Q2’s you’ll learn the building systems and subsystems and the genealogies of every person on the planet.  Look:  see that star?”

“Arcturus.”

“I can calculate its mass to within four grams.”

“Monty,” said Walter, “will I learn the masses of the stars?”

Montgomery was laying on the bed now, staring at the ceiling.  “Yes,” he said dreamily.  “In your Q17’s.”

“I can name them,” said Walter.

“Sure you can,” said Lewis.  “And one day you’ll know the names to everything.  But where is my great – my SevenMother?”

“Would you like me to query the locator?”

Lewis laughed bitterly.  “The locator doesn’t have access to that data.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s gone.”

“Then we’ll query the remote locators, too.”

“It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Because it won’t,” Lewis said.  He stared out the window for a moment.  “It’s like this:  where do you suppose Virgil is?”

“In his room?”

“No.  Virgil is gone.  Go ahead, query the locators.  Query them all.”

Walter thought for a moment, but didn’t submit the query.  “Is that what your experiment is?  To find your SevenMother?”

“It’s more than that.”

“But for valid data you need thousands of subjects.  Not just Monty.”

“No,” said Lewis.  “It’ll only work on Monty.”

“Why?”

“Because he has the defect.  A recessive gene, plus a vulnerability in one of his macrophages.  Anyone else, their nanos would just gobble it up.”

Walter creased his brow, calculating.  “That’s improbable,” he said.  “Monty, is it true?  Monty?”  He went to the bed and shook his brother’s foot.  “Monty?”  He climbed onto the bed.  “Look, Lewis,” he said.  “Monty’s asleep.”

Lewis came over.  Montgomery’s lips were covered bubbles of white spit.

“Monty?” said Walter.  “Monty?  Monty?  Monty?  Lewis, why won’t he wake up?”

“He’s not asleep,” said Lewis.  “He’s with Virgil.”

This is a horrible story about the Rattlesnake Train — what it is, who gets to ride on it and what happens to them while they’re travelling on the Rattlesnake Train.

The Rattlesnake Train is reserved for all of the undesirables in American Society today — corrupt politicians, white collar criminals, yahoos who steal art at Burning Man and the like — nasty, filthy scum from society’s t’aint. The Rattlesnake Train’s passengers are selected by the Rattlesnake Court. The Rattlesnake Court consists of me and whichever of my closest friends want to help me decide who gets to ride the Rattlesnake Train on any given day. Rattlesnake Court hearings are often boisterous affairs, punctuated by wild yelps of terror and interrupted by bouts of heavy drinking by the Rattlesnake Justices.

Once sentenced to the Rattlesnake Train, the miscreants chosen for this unique experiment in Social Engineering must often be fooled into boarding. This is often done by using the false promise of fine food and drink in a faux dining car without rattlesnakes and the special sound system (which I will explain later). Many passengers board the Dining Car without knowing they have been convicted in absentia by the Rattlesnake Court of Crimes Against Common Sense, Decency and Humanity. At first, all guests on the Rattlesnake Train are very well fed by the Dining Car Staff, until they feel the call of nature. This is where the fun begins — not so much for the passengers on the Train, but for the Staff who man the hidden cameras and operate the sound system.

Passengers on the Rattlesnake Train who need to pee or poop are directed to a special door leading to Car Number Two on the Rattlesnake Train. Once passengers have gone through this door, there is no returning to the Dining Car, or society as they know it. The door is an unfortunate one way man trap, as are all of the doors in the train, except for those endowed with possession of one of the Master Keys. Car Number Two (affectionately referred to as the One Way Shithouse Car by Train staff) is the beginning of a dreadful nightmare for those chosen by the drunken Rattlesnake Train Commissioner and his twisted cronies on the Rattlesnake Court.

The One Way Shithouse Car is filled with the stench of human excrement, since passengers have no toilet bowls or urinals to relieve themselves in, and they are forced by staff in hazmat suits to empty their bladders and bowels on the bare metal floor of Car Number Two.

Car Number Two is also where guests meet the first of the rattlesnakes, from which the Train begot its name, and also where the special sound system installed in all cars-except the Dining Car-begins to take its toll on the passengers.

From the One Way Shithouse Car to the specially modified GP-90 locomotives, the Train teems with rattlesnakes, of all shapes and descriptions. The train is also kept very, very hot, a heat almost beyond the range of human endurance. The snakes are fed live rats, which also live their lives in every nook and cranny of the Train not occupied by rattlesnakes, guests or staff. Rattlesnakes, being the unpredictable, temperamental creatures that they are, constantly buzz and strike at the terrified guests of the Rattlesnake Court while the constant sultry voice of the Snake Seductress on the sound system — alternating at random intervals with the senseless ranting of the Junkie Shaman — keep the passengers in an endless state of confused horror and revulsion.

The Snake Seductress describes in graphic detail the most twisted and deviant sexual acts, interspersed with her long, low moans of pleasure. The speakers from which these sounds are sent through the train vary in quality and volume — some are small tinny plastic things scavenged from old computers and others are large high quality stage monitors, not unlike the ones you might find at a Y and T concert.

Guests on the Rattlesnake Train will also be heavily drugged at all times, usually from the methamphetamines and LSD pumped through the water fountains. The stimulative effects of these dangerous drugs are well known, as are the high risks of psychosis and other horrible side effects. Passengers on the One Way Shithouse Car and the rest of the train will constantly run screaming through the cars, unable to understand what is happening and why they are in such horrible pain, or why they can’t sleep.

Going back to the physical description of the Train, and what happens on it, the One Way Shithouse Car has a one way door at it’s other end as well, which leads to the infamous “Sleeping Car”. This car is usually the one in which guests first receive a huge dose of pure methamphetamine, and the car in which the sound system is turned up to full volume at all times. Here in the “Sleeping Car” is where the horror of living with eighty thousand rattlesnakes without being able to rest or sleep begins to really take hold. Special Rattlesnake Assistants in Heavy Duty Rattlesnake Bite Proof Suits (HDRBPS) are waiting at the door to assist the victims of the capricious Rattlesnake Court to their quarters, or so the passengers think. Once the detainees of the Rattlesnake Court are escorted to what they believe are to be their beds, the unfortunates are tied down and forced to listen to Rattlesnake Radio — all the while being smelled at, crawled upon and sometimes bitten by rattlesnakes who have been given special Rattlesnake Drugs. The guests are usually subjected to this treatment until the next group arrives from the Dining and One Way Shithouse Cars. Sometimes the passengers are sexually tormented while they are waiting to be transported to the next car on the Rattlesnake Train, but this is at random — once chosen to ride on the Rattlesnake Train, you have no idea of what is going to happen to you next.

By now, a reader should have a pretty good idea of what the Rattlesnake Train is, and the horrific atmosphere on board. A full description of each of the sixty cars that the Rattlesnake Train consists of would be rather tiring to me, since my imagination and creativity have their limits. (Perhaps you, the reader, can come up with ideas for the cars, as long as they are excruciatingly painful to the rider, and horrific and offensive to an extreme.) I can tell you that besides the “Sleeping Car”, there are the Rave Car (where guests are forced to dance to 9000 BPM trance), the First Aid Car (where the snakebites are attended to, but also where salt and whiskey are poured on the open wounds before they are treated) and the Casino Car, a car in which I will ask you to use your imagination to determine what happens. Throughout all of these cars, the central theme remains the same — they are all filled with big, mean, hungry rattlesnakes and diseased rats — while the sound system constantly broadcasts twisted messages from the Snake Seductress and the Junkie Shaman.

The Rattlesnake Train is part of a large operation funded by the Now Society and administered by the Rattlesnake Commission. The Now Society will take the place of all world government after the Great Final Upheaval in the Near Future, which is a very nerve-wracking story we shall save for later. Rattlesnake Trains will have the right to passage on all railroads on both American Continents, and Consolidation Hubs in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Collection Hubs will be located in Denver, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Columbus and Pittsburgh, Pa. These hubs, of course, will be obtained by the Now Society through the Rule of Eminent Domain. Once all guests are properly assembled on trains at the Consolidation Hubs, their journey on the Rattlesnake Train will begin in earnest.

The Rattlesnake Trains making Final Runs after the Consolidation Centers will be routed around the circumference of the United States of America, and by this I mean all along the borders with Canada and Mexico and along both coasts. After finishing this pain-wracked Tour of the Americas, the trains will enter Mexico and begin a trip down the west coast of Central and South America, along the spine of the Andes to Argentina. There, if the guests have survived this brutal and psychologically demanding ordeal, they will be released and given kayaks to make their way to Antarctica. They will not be allowed under any circumstances to return to the United States, nor will they be released to the custody of an South or Central American nations. Once the Rattlesnake Court has invited you to come along for a special ride, the Rattlesnake Rules apply, and there are no exceptions.

And nobody leaves the Rattlesnake Train without one final confrontation with the Junkie Shaman.

The Junkie Shaman is the Spiritual Conscience of the Rattlesnake Train. His presence permeates every nook and cranny or the train, and his keen senses detect every iota of suffering by the train’s passengers. When a rattlesnake sinks its fangs into a detainee’s arm, it is the Junkie Shaman’s incisors that break the skin. Every bite a passenger takes of Recycled Human Flesh and Organ Schmeat on the Forced Dining Car the Junkie Shaman infects with the stench from his rotten mouth and soul. When a rat squeals in pain after being bitten by a rattlesnake who wishes to eat the rat, it is the voice of the Junkie Shaman you hear through the dying rat’s throat. There is more to tell you about the Junkie Shaman and each guest’s Final Conversation with him, but the Journey of the Rattlesnake Train is coming near to its end, as are the pages of this nasty little story.

The long-suffering passengers on the Rattlesnake Train have been carted several thousand miles through North, Central and South America on a diet consisting of nothing but LSD, water and methamphetamine. The meal which was consumed on the first Dining Car counts, but most of the passengers on the train have been without solid food and in a state of near-starvation for nearly a month.

Rattlesnakes, starvation and dangerous drugs bring up the matter of death and how death is dealt with on the Rattlesnake Train. One of the answers to this question may seem a little distasteful to most — and if you’re uncomfortable about reading on, stop now. The Rattlesnake Commission has decided to deal with death and its accompanying cadavers by using Cannibalism as a measure to combat many unpleasant issues involved in running a snake-filled Prison Train. Guests on the Rattlesnake Train are eventually fed one more meal before the end of the train’s journey on the Forced Dining Car. You have read in a previous paragraph about the Human Flesh and Organ Schmeat that the passengers who survive the greater share of the journey will be fed. This concoction is also mixed with bits of dead rattlesnakes and rats. The Rattlesnake Commission recognizes that people who have been fed a steady diet of powerful stimulants and psychedelics are not in much of a mood to consume solid food. Psychedelic drugs in particular can have the effect of causing many of the solid foods we eat in a normal state of mind look particularly unattractive. The Staff on the Rattlesnake Train deals with malnutrition amongst its drug-addled guests by means of forced feeding, hence the Forced Dining Car, which is one of the last dreadful cars on the train.

Once again, Rattlesnake Train Staff goons wearing HDRBPS are waiting at the one-way door to the Forced Dining Car. A huge number of guests are so fucked up on hard drugs that they are oblivious to what is going on around them and where they are going-these guests are easy to strap down and have tubes forced down their mouths. The passengers who have an apparent immunity to LSD and speed often struggle wildly, until they are subdued by the HDRBPS boys — are the ones who are told straight up that they’re being force fed human flesh with bits of dead rats and rattlesnake. These guests will also be the first ones escorted into the Flogging Car, and the Decompression Car, which are the final two cars on the Rattlesnake Train before they face the horror of the Final Confrontation with the Junkie Shaman.

The Junkie Shaman normally retires to his personal lounge at the end of the Rattlesnake Train for the last five hundred miles or so. His world is unlike anything any of us have ever experienced — he is in constant contact with the Realm of the Undead and he is impervious to physical, spiritual or emotional pain. The Junkie Shaman is able to live for years at a time on an incredible diet of nothing but drugs and alcohol and he can survive long periods of zero gravity and blazing heat greater than the surface of any star in the universe. The Junkie Shaman’s only joy is to look into the bleary eyes of a human being who has been beaten a level lower than a person thinks he can be beaten — and then to drive his barbed penis straight down that hapless soul’s throat and out of his or her ass.

That is the climax of the Final Confrontation with the Junkie Shaman. The passengers who have survived the journey on the train thus far are a hardy lot, men and women with strong constitutions and imbued with genuine mean streaks. These people have been beaten with rubber hoses, physically and mentally abused, branded with hot irons, had every orifice in their bodies penetrated with foreign objects of all sizes and descriptions — not to mention being forced to eat a stew of rats, rattlesnakes and human flesh and been given little more than powerful stimulants and hallucinogens as their daily substance besides that. Alas, even after all of this, nothing can prepare these sad creatures for what may or may not be the horrific end of their journey.

The Junkie Shaman has clipped his own ears with sheet metal clips, which adds to his already ugly-and-bizarre-beyond-belief appearance. His fingers and toes bristle with fingernails he has filed into ten inch claws, and his enormous throbbing red barbed penis is always laid out before him. His breath smells like a million rotting corpses and his voice sounds like the cacophonous, dreadful end of the world we live in. To look into the Junkie Shaman’s yellowish-green serpent like eyes is to view two monstrous orbs of hellfire itself — many unwitting men have been permanently blinded when they awoke recovered from a vivid hallucination only to be face-to-face with the Junkie Shaman. The Junkie Shaman can speak to mortal humans via many channels, by means of telepathy, through electrical fields or by simple voice language. All three are horrible, physically painful beyond comprehension and the Junkie Shaman uses all three forms at once when he is angry. The Junkie Shaman is often enraged.

Before the Junkie Shaman sodomizes each surviving guest at the end of the journey, he endeavors to indoctrinate them in the Ways of the Undead. He also expounds on the Wisdom of the Unreality for a long time, then he suddenly begins to beat the terrified guests into submission using a simple red baseball bat with small screws driven into it. Then he talks to them again for a while, sometimes muttering and growling in the Three Voices before he brutally sodomizes the passengers with his enormous, horrible barbed red penis — until the guests are numb with pain and shock while bleeding profusely from every orifice.

This excruciating beating and sodomisation mark the end of a passenger’s odyssey on the Rattlesnake Train. Those who do not survive this Final Confrontation with the Junkie Shaman will find themselves in the Forced Dining Car. Guests who survive will find themselves being pushed into the ocean in a kayak with maps and navigation equipment designed to get them to Antarctica. This is the end of the road for those dirtbags specially chosen by the Rattlesnake Court, one more chance to redeem themselves before the Eyes of the Righteous, and to prove to the Unseen Powers That Be that they deserve to live.

The Rattlesnake Train is not meant to be a deterrent to various crimes against Common Decency and Sensibility by the court — rather it is meant to be an Instrument of Spite to be used to strike fear into the heart of any individual who dares commit any Crime Against Man deemed by the Now Society to merit consideration by the Rattlesnake Commission. Those who are chosen to make the long journey on the Rattlesnake Train are constantly reminded that they are the most reviled walking, breathing waste products of humanity. The Now Society form of World Government has found a way to deal with undesirable characters and ne’er do wells who prey upon the good and well meaning people in modern society.

Those who have nothing but contempt for their fellow men will be treated with contempt by the Rattlesnake Court and be invited to take an enchanting Tour of the Americas on the Rattlesnake Train.

THE END

Bob knew he had a magic mirror when he held up a copy of Sonic Youth’s “EVOL” to it.

It was the big mirror looking into his room, mounted above the bureau. The reflection read “Love,” of course, with the letters all reversed. What was so weird was that the girl on the cover, snarling, on her knees, arms arched back and hands like claws — it wasn’t her. In the mirror. The girl — “Lung Leg” was the name in the liner notes — the horrible feral thing glaring up out of the album cover was gone.

In the mirror was someone like her, quite like Lung Leg, but entirely different. Serene. Her eyes were closed, head inclined to the right, lips parted, like one asleep.

He was afraid to look back at it, hid his eyes, tore the blanket off the bed and draped dark wool over the thing.

If that mirror had flip-flopped the girl’s terror and animal violence, what would it do to his own reflection, his good fortune in love and life?

He looked down at the album cover, not sure what to expect, but it was the same as always. “Lung Leg” stared back. Vivid. Freaked-out. Riveting, just like the fearful, crystalline music on the record.

He put it on the turntable, just to make sure. It sounded the same, untouched by the inverting glass.

He glanced over at the dresser, at the cascades of fabric obscuring the tall mirror. He looked down at the corner of the cloth. It wouldn’t take much to pull the the blanket back, out of the way.

What would he see?