the box maker

The hero had to retart the quest with the more inconvenient sword. When the box maker saw him again he sneered and said perhaps this time you’ll jot down which river is to be overflowed. shut up old man, the quester retorted. you’re the one in chains. the box maker was cowed but enraged; he choked on the answers he was forced to give, and after the hero was gone he wept in his self-hatred.

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summer projects

tertirary colors started to bleed out of the neighboring reserve, however. after a while it got boring. we debated what kind of fish would thrive in a nuclear winter. we devised an imaginary game with heteronomous crystals, which grew according to direction given to them. we listed everything we could think of that was shaped like a nipple. we read the obituaries of a different foreign city every day

cutting edge

A group of neanderthals and humans merge for a while during one winter. the humans leave the neanderthals with some sewn clothing and with a woven net. when the neanderthals find another group of their own to join the clothing makes them suspicious but the net wins over their new companions when use it like gladiators in their close-quarters ambush hunting of big game.

sympathy

the queen had declared decades ago that those reported by their former lovers as being jilters should live apart in a district where all of the trees were kept stunted to less than three meters tall and no flowers were allowed to bloom. at first only men lived there, but after persistent lobbying by certain mens’ groups the queen’s ministers convinced her that women could do just as much damage. two new residents of the district hit it off and start dating. part of their chemistry with each other is their mutual discontent with the policy, and with each other’s encouragement they vow to work to change it. there enthusiasm for the cause however fades as their interest in each other fades.

whir

He ambled down the block, spinning a children’s toy that he had just purchased on a whim from a street vendor. The whir of the toy was his fanfare, celebrating his re-instatement as commissar. his exile as head of the recycling plant was ended. the first thing he was going to do once he was back in his old job was upgrade the air conditioning in his office. then start de-boning his old enemies.

earwigging

during breaks we were required to don protective clothing – i couldn’t tell if it was for our protection from the breakroom staff or their protection from us. my co-worker kept up a steady stream of talk denigrating the break room staff and in fact all the locals. i started to plan his murder – i knew i wanted to push him into one of the vats. and i thought i might be able to make it look like one of the locals did it, but i didnt want to implicate anyone specific.

harbor pilot

the fact that her husband ws ravelling all the time as a pilot wasn’t easy but it was doable. they had kids right away and she was kept very busy. now that they are off to school and her husband is traelling, the empty nest syndrom is starting to hit her pretty hard, and she’s starting to think about having an affair. at least, that’s what her husband suspects and explains to his mistress of several years in one of the cities he regularly flies to. he seeks the mistress’ advice on how to keep his wife from having an affair.

love life of the exterminator

through the vision panel the floor gleamed after the disinfestation. the exterminator had codified the discouraging, self-reulating serenade. even when he had to clean up the corpses of rats, he felt the change of the place from dirty to clean, from a clutter inhabited with the specific and the conditional to a sterility open to all possibilities. he felt it on level larger than he could touch, but he felt a great desire to touch it, to caress it in a way which would allow him to inhabit the possibilities without collapsing them to a contingency. He brought this need to caress home to his wife.

blood drive

Sam and Mary met and fell in love at the blood drive. they started seeking out blood drives in the area to try and meet again

uncanny

a world where everyone lives inside a computer simulation – people are punished by being put into a mode in whihc everyone else they interact with falls is depicted as only 96% realistic, and thus fall into the uncanny valley.