realignment

A woman believes that in order for time-travel to be possible, the causality paradox must somehow be neutralized. To do this she devises quantum-mechanical experiments to realign causality – to produce the same effects but due to different causes. An accident during one of her experiments makes her experience time more quickly – he appears to move more slowly to everyone else. She trains herself to move with more speed, but she cannot talk more quickly. She is diagnosed with bradyphasia and a neurologist tries ti teat her.

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hanami

A prisoner is kept in almost total darkness. He begins to hallucinate blossoming cherry trees. His mind is grounded by conversation with his jailer, with whom he grows friendly. The darkness doesn’t bother he jailer, who is blind. The prisoner tries to explain cherry blossom viewing to his blind jailer. He is a bit stumped by the question, “What do they feel like when you touch them?”

imprint

For years he had let his hair grow enough to cover it, but one day he decided to shave it and to keep it shaved to display his mark. He was abducted at eight by an estranged ex-step-father who tattooed it into the side of his head with an auger.

scold rhyme

Here’s an idea for a special episode of NCIS, starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. A naval investigation into the murder of a merman. The navy has been using their help since the submarine warfare of WW II. At first the investigation centers around disaffection among the merpeople about overuse of sonar, but it turns out to be an unbalanced sailor assigned to work with them. He could get used to the gray skin, the ropy hair, the lidless eyes. What he could not get over was the way they always talked in rhyme.

purple and green

Purple and green was the color of their heraldry – draped on their horses, painted on their spaceships and dropped in gobs of paste and oil on their to be conquered worlds. P sees the sky fill with ships, sees them drop the coloring on certain houses, including his own. These houses are marked for support of the colonial administration is set up. P must billet an officer and an administrator and devote one of his rooms to the administrator’s office. He sees a steady stream of his neighbors go through his house to visit the administrator as supplicants or suspects. He tries to think of what he can do in defiance – something with these colors.

third class

R was worried and harried. He had to take the train to Delhi to see about a debt incurred by his late brother. He had got to Lahore station early and fought his way in to get an upper bunk. Just as the train was rolling into motion a man was pulled in. He gave the porter twelve annas. He stood with his face looking in at R’s bunk.

“Hey why don’t you sit down?” R asked.

“I would like to but there is no room,” the man said.

“You should make room,” said R, but the man refused. R argued with the man off and on for a few hours. Having that face inches from him was very annoying. The man was very apologetic but continually maintained that he could not sit down because there was no room.

Finally R asked his name. “Mohandas Gandhi.” Ashamed, R made room for him on his bunk.

lunch

A couple have been dating for a couple months and decide to take a weekend trip together to a large city. On their first day walking downtown she invites a homeless man to lunch with them. Or rather, she offers to buy him lunch. The guy can’t help but view it as inviting him to lunch with them. Afterward he argues with her about it. He can’t figure out a way to argue it that doesn’t make him look like a creep.

diary

A girl’s favorite neighbor moved away to join the diplomatic corps and she suffered abandonment anxiety. Her other neighbors took pity on her and gave her a doll made from the mummified remains of a dog. She keeps her diary in its hollow insides. She loses the doll on a family drive. A young boy finds it and turns it into the police, where a detective reads the diary. It sets him thinking.

drifting eye

Kunstlerroman of a young woman who comes from Albania to study at an art school in Cincinnati. Her first year is spent in some dissolution with soft drugs and pop culture. She has an epiphany while walking a downtown street scratching her cheek of how lost she must look. She refocuses on he work, focusing on portraiture. One of her teachers challenges her depict her country’s history in a local model’s eye.

purring

Every time I hear my cat purr it triggers something in my chest, and I enter into one of my coughing fits that covers my handkerchiefs with blood. I will have to give it away.