I’m working on the next installment of The Well-Tempered Clavier, but in the meantime I thought I would share the little stories I thought up for John Scalzi’s Zoe’s Tale advanced reading copy contest, as a sort of sorry-that-I-missed-this-Sunday apology. The idea was to “explain the events of August 19, 1994″.

There are about 72,000 words of great stories at that link, by the way, all delectable. If you want to cut to the chase, the winning stories are here, but you’d be missing out on all the fun.

By the way, if John Scalzi of Great Wisdom is reading this post for some reason, I think a little website that showcased the stories would be awesome. Kind of like what was done for the John Scalvi entries, which wasn’t a contest per se, but extremely funny all the same. (Go read those too, for a good time.)

Here are my stories, untitled. I’ve never done short-shorts before (under 1000 words), so it was a first for me.

Note: the first one is slightly, ah, rough around the edges at the beginning, shall we say. But then again y’all don’t mind reading a serial where one of the main characters says “fuck” in every installment, so I figure it’s okay.

I was quietly fondling my manhood in what I thought was the safety of my Quansdayle, Kansas trailer, and for some reason I wondered what it would be like to be reborn as a woman.

About 30 seconds before I really got going, my psycho ex-girlfriend showed up, blasting through the door with some kind of enlarged magical cosmetic device, screaming something about how the moon will punish me. ¹

These days I think it was poetic justice. I thought differently back then, mind you, when I had to go shopping for bras and then that time of the month showed up.

There were benefits, however. Skirts, for instance. I’ll never wear slacks again.

I’m pretty well-adjusted these days; new friends, a new look on life, even if I do read a lot of yaoi manga and have a predilection towards pretty boys. And realizing that what I want is simply: pretty boys. That was a new one, six years ago.

But sometimes August 19th, 1994, comes back to haunt me. My girlfriends seek solace in ice cream; I can only seek it in bacon.

August 19, 1994 was the day that the Wild Hunt began to storm through New York City, until it realized that it was no match for the US Army with its tanks and fighter jets—and certainly not against General Tom “No Shanks” Bank, a ping pong ball, a piece of string, and more gas than was burnt by the WB dynasty in Kuwait all together.

Over a decade has passed. And we are sleeping sound, these years when Perchta has lain silent, buried by the ashes of brick and iron.

But soon, I warn you. They’ll be back. Yes, iron is their bane—but they are here, guilelessly leading us on with developments in nanotechnology. Miracles will happen in nano-graphite: stronger than iron, stronger than spells. Our doom is not spelt by atomic weapons or by ecological havoc wreaked by our own hand, but by endlessly reproducing nano-fairies, consuming the earth until all is but one gray land under the master of the Hunt.

Or, you know, I could just have taken my meds.

You know, I’m really sorry about that night.

It would have been a first, you know. I mean, the first time humanity realized it wasn’t alone in the universe, for better or worse. But instead you all thought it was one giant, impressive hoax.

They were tiny, and fuzzy, and looked like intelligent teddy bears.

They also smelled like tuna.

And I was hungry.

Look, I left you some, all right? It’s not my fault you thought they were mice.

Reason left us that morning like an escaping one-night stand, leaving us with nothing but the smell of his aftershave—a simple two-note blend: a base of burnt flesh and overtones of ash.

Justice left us soon after, like an enraged spouse who has had too much of our lying, cheating ways. Her perfume smelled of bitter grapes mixed with the final rotting stages of fall leaves turning into peat.

And we were left with War: the motorcycle boyfriend we thought was fun and different, the odor of axle grease and leather filling our noses and making us giddy like monkeys on nitrous oxide.

We had no one else.

So we made the best of it.

What happened? What happened? You ask me what happened?

More like what didn’t happen.

I really must drag out the cadaver and body part jars again. I’m itching to try it again, with commercial injectable nanites this time around.

I’ll miss the lightening, though…. but you wouldn’t believe my electricity bill after the storm machine burned through East London.

Ah, nostalgia.

Tags: flash fiction

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