21: Time is a Liar

Now wait a minute, Sylvia. I'm wearing lipstick, and you ask me if there's some special name I'd like to be called? I don't ask you that when you put on lipstick. Though I might think of you as some special name or another. With peach you are more a "Janice," with brick you are more an "Audry," and with the bluer tones, "Wendy."

They were at Ted's working on their letter-writing campaign. They felt that the Audubon Society, among many others, should know about the creature they'd been glimpsing hopping from gate to gate or just standing dumbly alongside the canals. It shared many of the characteristics of the Reddish Egret, except that those areas which would have been covered with feathers, and in the same colors, seemed to be tiled or even armored in a very hearty as well as irridescent, metallic plating. The Mthyah Preservation Society website had been down for weeks, and they weren't sure how, if at all, their reports and samples had been processed during previous migratory guest anomalies.

Envelope stuffing had allowed their conversation to drift.

Gee, you know I ran into Lourdi Spires the other day in Career Center, and it's like sometimes there's a limit before you just have to let these holier-than-thou types know that they could really go ahead and act more Christian!

Well there's remember Hoolie? Maintenance? Went around acting just like Christ and wasn't afraid to tell you so. What a dirty freak. Heretic. Stank.

God you know he could have been a shooter. Good thing that cancer he had got him off our campus at least.

Tom and Sylvia make contact.

Then they did the torture where they spin you around very fast in an office chair-like contraption, then stop you suddenly and spin you even faster the other way. How can I be so important? she murmured, bloody spittle strung across her cheeks and hair. Then she realized: she wasn't that important at all. The torture was completely automated. This was sort of like a car wash whereas before it would have taken an entire team of ensemble actors. Soon it would spit her out on a lawn behind a post office or a school. Not soon enough... she was going to faint... not soon...

What? What was that? A tiny package, a vial... by her foot. She thought she had hallucinated it, but no. It had come rolling across the floor and under--into--mother's shoe. No-Shiv. The red box.

Tom and Sylvia stood holding one another in the parking lot.

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY / WILL VAWTER

Just to be good—
This is enough—enough!
O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,
Do we not feel how more than any gold
Would be the blameless life we led of old
While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!

It is enough—
Enough—just to be good!
To lift our hearts where they are understood;
To let the thirst for worldly power and place
Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!

See What Happens?

Tough Peggy

Mum's pleated wool skirt was soft and absorbent. Her thighs were not so bony as to be scary or uncomfortable against the cheek, and not so big as to be mottled or odorous. Her knees were a wholesome cushion of responsive and supporting tension, a blood-water-fat balance that seemed custom made for Peggy's face. She cried and cried.

If you could step back from that scene, you would see the projector above the door behind Peggy and that her mother's image was a hologram.

Dear Peggy

Peggy Smith?

Fuck you. Get out of my face.

That's your attitude. But we have taken control of your will chemically. You will answer our questions with the utmost sincerity.

Suck my ass.

Peggy Smith, why do your parents anger you so?

My parents anger me so, asshole, because they disrespected my intelligence enough to give me nothing to get by in life with except some shitty fairy tale about a volcano goddess. So fuck off.

We know that you'd like nothing more than to put your head in your mother's lap and weep.

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU!! SUCK MY DICK!!

So we've asked your mother to come in.

I don't know who you are. I don't know if you are a person and that's your real voice or if you are a recording of a real voice or if you are a machine with a synthetic voice, but I swear to Mthyuh I will find you and destroy you or die gratefully trying.

Your mother is waiting in the next cavern. You may proceed through the hanging beads to your left.

You don't know me at all.

In Search of a Paradigm

If they were all the same price, what did it matter?

Tom and Sylvia sat in the waiting room at Pharm-Supply browsing through old catalogues. Way beyond lipsticks, the most curious pages were the symptom and scripting breakdowns for the shivtropics. Their real reason was to see about breaking Peggy out or smuggling a box of No-Shiv in to her.

CLXXIV. Blyway
Neurodigm. You have many interests which you focus on intensely. You are never happy because you are never satisfied with what you are focused on or else why would you be so focused on it. And why focus on anything anyway. In the big picture, you are a rat sniffing from flower to flower for no reason. Are you a victim of neurodigm?

XXVIII. Same-E
Hopinaskipina. Everything seems fine until all the sudden you have to break your healthy rthyum and engage in uncharacteristic behavior. Consequences include loss of productivity and increased stress factor for coworshippers. Signs of disease-specific denial: "had to let my hair down," "just needed to get away," "fuck you; get out of my face." Ask your shiv priest about your doctor. Then, stop your hopinaskipina.

CC. Rock o' Mthyuh
Blight. Something in the air. You're not the only one who's being affected. But not everyone has the nut to do something about it. You stay right in the head because you owe it to your family, for the safety of whom you are like a lioness. You take your Pro-Labique Pharmashiv whenever and wherever you need it: for protection, for peace of mind. You are not a sick one trying to get well; you are a potentially deadly protector of children. Keep taking Pro-Labique. Don't let them down ever again. If you do, do you really deserve to live?

"Mexican Bean Beetle"

The most likely explanation seems that by jumping, the bean will move itself into a safe place where the larva can relax, pupate and undergo the miracle of metamorphosis ready to continue the life cycle.

Please remember to kill and/or capture and report any new, mutated, or previously extinct species to the Mthyuh Guardian Society, especially if aggressive.

http://www.insectlore.com/xlorepedia_stuff/jumpingbeanmoth.html

Peggy's Incarceration at Pharm-Supply, Day 4

http://www.jbsawid.com/art.htm

Drunk Man Rides Horse into Bank

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=46457&in_page_id=2

Lucky 7's

i, an ex-pro ball player,
slump in my plush armchair.

alls i did was got it rol-
ling and now i get purple

velvet flock on the mouldings
and blue wallpaper. i'm feel-

ing under-plussed now i got
no trade power nor value

it's all overtime now on
a pitiless avenue

and a sorry ride home, too
and except to me, I may

as well be an ohio-
an from hawa-ii-ki-ki.

Duck Gun Rockers, Longhairs and Pinstripe Freaks

It was quite a sight seeing their sons in tight bellbottom jeans, red patent leather platform boots and dago-t's, all their hair long as Peggy Lipton's, holding and aiming those duck guns. Their hair curled down to the tits, wadded up behind the ears where they'd pushed it back to get the earplugs in. At night they'd wander out to the garage with a beer and slug the bag or jam on their Fenders. That night Jay burst in after church and stated that he'd never be seeing Charlotte again and he felt like driving the "goat" off a cliff, and there would be others. Jay: in the exhaust, in somebody else's headlights, walking across a street, always busy setting up a scam or a bust. When the quake swarms would start, he'd seem super with it like how we's gonna go about it now is-- huh?-- we gonna save the world. You gave Jay a tallboy and a mic and you get skinny flesh and bones, flailing in the blacklight and moving and singing till he is soaking wet. He was of legal age.

Torino, however, being his father, didn't like to turn him out. He imagined the blinding golden hair coming off like butter. Rolling a young gentleman's future out before him like a colorful rubber: that anticipation made his ankles feel weak. And now it was the time.

na, junge frau ;>)

Sylvia's next breakthrough: powdered sugar really gave citrus a run for its money without the total blanket of sweetening effect you got with corn syrup.

TROG

Peggy finally had to be hospitalized when she began seeing everyone as a weird creature. The slick, spongy facial covering with the gaping red-rimmed cavern and watery bluish or brown slits, the protruding blow holes. The crown of bristly tendrils, bone-filled appendages like ineffective wings. She questioned every being, object, behavior or event around her and could only see their strangeness. She herself was the most shocking: the brazen, raw persistence of her life form was inexplicable. The materials that had coalesced to form her flesh, and their variations, amazed and disgusted her.

For the first few days, her only comfort was knowing that she had lived inside her mother's body. She began an architectural project which would enclose residents with rib, spinal, and pelvic structures in forged metals across and deeply into a cliff's face.

Chang K. Chang

OK everyone. We're gonna have a drill on what happens if we for some reason lose access to the pollsticks. I know it's hard to imagine a scenario where we would both lose access to the pollsticks and be compelled to continue on with a class session because would there be power anyway and would people be too upset but here we are.

Instead of thumbing the red button, you are going to have to turn your head left, then right repeatedly until I've been able to visually record everyone's primitive answer.

Instead of knuckling the green button, just lift and then lower the head-- again, please don't stop until I have made what we'll call "eye contact" so that both you and I know that I have manually registered your primitive answer.

First question. Should they stop Shiv Sack Week just because we liked Chang K. Chang and she got sacrificed this WD. Instead of intensified gender expression, we can only think of Chang K. Chang and how she brightened our lives and how Mthyah already had many Hell Daughters to milk her. Yes or no. Respond now please.

Blind Skier Follows Voice To Slope's Bottom

Blind Skier Follows Voice To Slope's Bottom

County Coyote Encounters Explode for Shivweek

Unusually high number of attacks during and around Shivweek is giving locals in the Olde Mthyah and Cliff Estates homelands the "shivers."

* Man bitten by coyote while sleeping on lawn (2:45 PM)

* Man bitten by coyote while sleeping on lawn (4 PM)

* Man was stalked, then attacked by two coyotes, and bitten on ankle (Early evening, daylight)

* Coyote attacked and killed pet dog in man’s presence; coyote would not leave (Morning)

* 54-year-old woman fought, using an axe handle, with a large coyote that had attacked small poodle in back yard. Received bite on leg, and despite her efforts, the coyote killed the poodle and jumped over fence carrying the carcass (4:30 PM)

* Man walking encountered 4 coyotes, which crouched, circling him, attempting to attack. Fought off with walking stick, hitting one square across the face (Morning)

* Coyote on golf course ran up to woman, jumped on her back, and bit her on right forearm (Daytime)

* Woman walking 2 large dogs accosted by 3 coyotes; fell backward and fended coyotes off.

* Coyote came into residence to attack small pet dogs.

If you see a coyote stalking your pet, yell and throw rocks at the coyote. Take your pet indoors.

Remember to report any signs of rabid animal activity or steam rising from open ventricles in the desert floor to Mthyuh Guardian Society, especially after a temblor.

http://www.laalmanac.com/environment/ev15c.htm

I Feel You Mthyuh

Ted has returned to the laboratory of Dr. Donna Thong, who has become his regular interlocutor.

"You know I stopped being afraid of wild dogs when I was in France. Aix en Provence. They would come after you circling, instinctively, not even looking at one another, only at you. Perhaps because it was not a conscious strategy, but rather an externalized brain operation of some deeply-tucked, pea-shaped descendant of the jellyfish that has forever been able to interface directly with the outer world without having to go through the conscience, the thus-organic and seamless nature of their movements had a lulling quality that seemed to hypnotize both hunter and prey, dragging them into an even wider and remoter scheme, neither with nor against their wills."

"...Ted, isn't it? Uh huh. Wasn't that a comma splice?"

"One night I was really scared when we took a walk on this country road? We were camping out on this guy's farmland? And these dogs started running toward us. They looked like big, black and white Dobermans."

"Oh," said Donna. "Did they start circling you? Did you throw a rock?"

"How did you know? That's what happened. That's all you have to do..."

"Is throw is rock, yes, I know-- that used to happen to me and my friends a lot when we'd cousin up all summer and hang out behind the bottling plant in Greensborough. It was green there."

"Yes, of course it was. And that is my point-- there were probably plenty of rocks. Yes. Well you see, when I was out near Olde Mthyuh this week after work just clearing my head? There were no rocks at all. Just very fine sand. These were coyotes; they're small, but there were more of their voices than I had ever imagined to hear from a canine species at one time, even in a recording. It was way more than if you go to a kennel, for example. It was a flurry of cries much closer to the squalling of the migratory bird nurseries in the very next section of the marsh."

"Mr. Azir, you are giving me goosebumps now! I think of my little nursry babies before they grew old."

"When I was back in the car I could still hardly dare to draw breath. Without rocks, I was completely without a plan or a defense should they attack. I was traumatized, and nothing even happened."

"It will, darlin." Dr. Thong's voice and smile created a curiously and chillingly reassuring tone of response.

Sunset is Black

coyotes: 100 or more?
In the designated ground,
Who is being hunted, just?

I said you must stand still
watching this rare desert view
man-made wetlands
with so many high reeds and
hundreds of shrill chicks bleating.

You can hear a dozen kinds
of birds and some amphibi-
ans, but mammal?
Apart from the hounds I've brought here,
Wait. Oh my God.

There are
hundreds may scores maybe
OMG coyotes, excited
numerous as birds
against me and my two

exactly
who is being hunted here
end of dusk
dogs stay closer because

only ten minutes from home
the sunset is black
and nature herself
has a hungry sound.

W.A.S.T.E.

Kug was busy trying to beat himself into a slumber chemically. He had full pharmashiv, so he was well stocked. What he really wanted was to just talk to someone, but he'd have to sign a Waiver and Acceptance of Social Toxicity Estimate to get the vouchers, and it just wasn't worth it. But when would they all be able to relax. There was always something coming at them. The funny stuff, then some spooked attention, and then the dereliction.

Three beautiful dogs lounged all around him. One was fluffy and soft, with a crazy look in her eyes and a very high pain threshold. Another was gingery, spotted, danced for chicken. Finally, Juniper was just naughty. Half of one eye was blue, the other a quicksand of sentiment. La La's toe had been taken by a gopher, yet she hadn't flinched. M'Lady's passion was birding, and they sometimes called her Dog Bird or Pickles.

He hid his watch in a drawer when he realized the ticking had been driving him mad. He stared at the glass of water serving its second night on his bedstone. Dust, including a hair, lolled on the surface tension. "My own story twists like a question mark on the skin of my tomorrow," murmured Ted. "I cannot rest while I want so badly to act, to pierce that membrane. I want to tell the story so that I do not end up in prison," he wrote in the themebook next to his water glass. There'd be plenty of time the next day, though, to tell the story. He'd have a cement mine to tell it to. All day long.