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Monthly Archives: August 2010
Awake O’ Sleeper
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I’ve always enjoyed old spirituals with their rhythmic chants and call-and-respond style of lyrics. “Awake O’ Sleeper” strikes as me as something of a contemporary-style spiritual.
Awake O’Sleeper from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.
Golem
Rain lashed down on that ravaged plain in furious sheets. The broken earth drank it up through ragged cracks that went down forever.
At the center of the plain, a gaping maw of a hole sucked down water in great, sodden gulps. Perversely, gouts of flame licked up out of it, unnaturally green and purple. A lone figure stood at the edge of the pit, unaware or uncaring of the tremendous heat. Its lips moved, inaudible over the combined roar of rain and fire.
Smoke and steam heaved from the pit, and up rose a great clay monstrosity, towering dozens of feet over the figure below.
“What would have of me, my master?” it bellowed. The figure looked up at the beast, allowing her hood to fall back. Her features were fine and fair, hair so blonde as to be almost white.
Her voice was cold as ice. “Your time of sleep has come to an end, my dear. I have need of a titan.”
The golem pulled its massive bulk out of the pit. “Then let us be on our way,” it replied. It scooped its master up and lumbered out over the plain.
[Originally posted at Ficly.]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
30 Aug
NASA’s dizzying concept art imagines ribbons of farmland in space
NASA’s dizzying concept art imagines ribbons of farmland in space. I’d live in one of these habitats.
Clean Underwear
Didn’t your mother ever tell you, “Make sure you put on clean underwear because you never know when you might be in a car accident?” Mine sure did. I don’t really know why it matters, though. If you’re in a car accident, underwear is probably the last thing anyone’s going to be worrying about.
In fact, I know it is because, here I am, pinned under this damn truck, and my lower half looks like it’s been put through a bloody meat grinder.
Always put on clean underwear.
Oh, right, Mom. That’s just fucking hilarious.
[Originally posted at Ficly.]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Blood Rite
The albino stood on the platform and dragged the knife down his forearm. Blood ran in scarlet rivulets over his hand, his fingers. It dripped the sidereal pattern of his god onto the wooden planks around his feet.
Before him the air shimmered as it struggled to call forth his deity. The hot sun bore down full on his naked back, dampening the potency of the blood. Day was not the time for such magic, but there was no choice for it.
With each heartbeat, more of his life pulsed away, more of his power to prolong the spell ebbing. His was a complex gift, a dangerous magic. Each practice of the blood rites risked death, if the ritual could not be completed before last blood flowed.
The albino chanted, his voice barely a whisper, conserving energy, yet he felt his strength diminish.
He slashed again, savagely, desperately, hoping more blood would fuel the spell’s completion. Still it foundered, and he sagged to the platform.
The albino wept his final breaths. His failure meant that his people would die.
[Originally posted on Ficly.]
Clanks at Midnight
The place smelled like shit and piss.
“I thought these things didn’t have bodily excretions,” I called out to my partner.
“They’re not supposed to,” she replied. “For some reason this one does. Someone’s been hard at work making a clank that can process food the way humans do.”
The clank was a junker, alright, especially since someone had unloaded several rounds of buckshot into the thing. Oil and grease spattered the wall around where it was slumped, and a puddle of very human sewage was leaking onto the floor around the thing.
“Makes you wonder what happened here,” I said thoughtfully. No answer. I looked around. “Mel?”
I found her in the next room looking at a scrap of paper she’d found on the desk. I looked over her shoulder and read: Nobody loves a clank at midnight.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Hell if I know, Joe. Nothing about this makes sense. We still haven’t found Mr. Peabody.” She sighed. “Maybe when we find him, we’ll have our answers.”
Maybe, I thought, but I wouldn’t count on it.
[Originally posted at Ficly.]
20 Aug
Penny Arcade – Reformat the Planet, Part 1
Penny Arcade – Reformat the Planet, Part 1. This is an interesting look into a musical movement I didn’t even know existed — chip music. (74 minutes total.)
18 Aug
msnbc video: Olbermann: There is no ‘Ground Zero Mosque’
msnbc video: Olbermann: There is no ‘Ground Zero Mosque’. Well said, Keith. Well said.
Meat-Eater
In hindsight, Trista realized she probably shouldn’t have fallen asleep under that tree.
-
Pus dripped into Trista’s eyes from the multiple infected sores on her scalp. She wanted to wipe it away, but the tree held her fast, pinning her arms to her sides, arms she could no longer feel. Feverish and frequently delirious, Trista couldn’t struggle. She’d lost track of how long she’d been trapped here. Days? Hours? She couldn’t remember.
Her body was coming apart. She was covered in sores as the tree slowly digested her. Her skin was sloughing off in greasy sheets, exposing bone and muscle that had turned black from the tree’s corrosive sap. Strands of flesh and tissue were all that was holding her organs in and that not very well. Already thick coils of bowel stretched from her abdomen to the ground, where insects feasted on them.
In her rare moments of coherency, she longed for death. She had suffered for so long.
Her final thought was a wish – a wish that she had never ventured into this hateful forest.
[Originally posted on Ficly.]