The title of this post says it all.
I'm somewhat demoralized, and have been for most of the past month. Writing for a living hasn't felt so unlikely, so insurmountable, ever before. I'm just...I don't even know what I am. The ideas are flowing like crazy, but the words don't come. I have conceptualized at least half a dozen things in the past 20 days, and a few of them are probably deep enough to become novels. Guess what? No words (apart from barest reminders of what I was thinking) on any of them.
NaNoWriMo? EPIC FAIL! 2880 words, day 1. Since then, zilch.
Anyway, this is going to be my last post here, I think. It's too much trouble to go back and remove all the self-pity and bitching I've done. I know I sound like a complete whine-ass on here most of the time. I'll salvage the flash, at least, and probably keep the rest of the posts I don't already have on file, but I'm not going to try to clean this up so I don't look like a complete flake.
Nope, it's time to move on. I'll never stop writing, nor will I stop trying to break in to the business. But, this blog might just be disappearing soon.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Long Time
Sorry for the big gap between posts. Real life and all that. Most likely there will be another long pause before November due to National Novel Writing Month. I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the first time, and beginning five days late, so that basically doubles my normal production. Also, it's about one quarter more words than most everyone else has to write to meet the 50,000 word goal.
Anyway, wish me luck.
CL
Anyway, wish me luck.
CL
** Story ** Noodles's Revenge
This is a story I dashed off after speaking to one of my coworkers. That guy, also called Noodles, is very disgruntled, and speaking to him set my wheels turning. At any rate, this is one of my favorite stories so far. Thanks once again to John Barrett for his editing suggestions, and thanks also to my wife, Anne, for her input on the story as well. Obviously some names have not been changed to protect the guilty or the innocent.
By the way, I just noticed that some of the formatting was stripped when I pasted this. Perhaps I'll get back and fix it at some later date but not right this second.
Now I hope you'll enjoy...
Noodles’ Revenge
by Curtis Lee
“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” they sang, staggered voices off-key. The din echoed nauseatingly in the small office, not that perfect acoustics would help this crowd. Noodles was sure he would much rather listen to the noise of a dozen cats on the boil.
A jolly good fellow? Him? Howard Numeyer, whom they had called “Noodles” for so long that it just didn’t bother him much anymore; Noodles for so long he didn’t even recognize his own name sometimes. They didn’t really think him jolly or good, not behind their eyes. Their plastic smiles and hunched shoulders as he looked from face to face told him that much.
There was Ella. Almost-pretty, empty-headed Ella, who couldn’t be bothered to look at him with those glazed-over blue eyes. Instead, she toyed with her bleach-blonde hair, just like she always did behind the reception desk. Soon she would glance toward Josh and sigh while she smoothed her ghastly floral skirt over her just-too-wide hips. Just wait. Yes, there it was, like clockwork.
And Josh, everyone’s favorite guy. The office stud. He looked directly at Noodles and sang the loudest of all. Arrogant and obnoxious and falsefalsefalse. That was Josh. He had been in the meeting when they’d demoted Noodles back to Sales, when they had effectively taken away his life. He had smiled a fake sad smile and said fake comforting words and run his hands through his thick fake dark hair.
Why did they always want to remind Noodles that he was waning while they all waxed? His glasses got thicker every year, and had become trifocals while he hadn’t been paying attention. His face had a worn, slept-in look that got more wrinkly every day. His hair, lost to cancer, had never really come back, not even given it the old college try. Well, that, Noodles supposed, could be laid at his old manager Gyles’ feet. His incessant smoking in the office, it’s no wonder Noodles got cancer. But, Gyles was dead, and Noodles was the last of the old guard.
Speaking of the changing of the guard, there was Pat. Noodles’s teeth, so often repaired on the bottom and not his at all on top, hurt like fire as he ground them together. Pat the Rat. Pat the Brat. Pat, who made him want nothing more than to run out to his car and kick this birthday farce into a higher gear. Pat, with his trendy little glasses over his empty black eyes and his ridiculous spiky black hair. Pat, ink still wet on his stupid degree in business management, had taken Noodles’ job.
Didn’t they understand that there were nuances in this business that you just couldn’t learn from books? So what if the branch’s sales figures had not been stellar while he was managing it, he was a people person! He had managed the office through some hard times, and they’d survived. Wasn’t that enough for the wage-masters upstairs?
They were there, too, slumming from up on the third floor. In their neatly pressed suits and hundred dollar haircuts, they stood aloof from the gathered first-floor workers and politely mouthed the words, but they didn’t sing. They were a faceless, indistinct group for which Noodles had nothing but disdain. Sure, they had come for his party, since he had been around this place longer than almost everyone, but they didn’t really care. He hoped they dithered down here among the lowly slugs who earned their salaries for them for just long enough to enjoy his long-planned surprise. After all, they had backed the Rat, hadn’t they?
Holding the gaudily decorated cake, singing in that too-low voice that Noodles found so enticing, was Ann Marie. She was not even as pretty as almost-pretty Ella. She wasn’t obnoxious or vulgar like Josh, nor was she a hipster weasel like Pat. She was just Ann Marie, plain and plump and mousy. Behind her glasses, her misty-morning eyes sparkled, and she alone in the room was most definitely not invited to the other party, the secret party that none of them knew would happen after lunch break was over. He had made his plan knowing that on Tuesdays, Ann Marie always went to the bank halfway through lunch. She would be safe.
That secret party would be Noodles’ going away bash, his retirement gift to himself. And no one would forget. Howard “Noodles” Numeyer would be a name that these people remembered. He was absolutely certain of that. His feet itched to run to his car and grab his duffle.
“...nobody can deny!” At last, the cacophony ended, and Noodles put on his best Josh imitation. They had used mean, hurtful words like “surly” and “hostile” and “petty” when they had taken his job and given it to Patty Fatty Brat Rat.
“Thanks a lot, everyone,” he said through the perpetual frog in his throat. “I just don’t know what to say.” How about Wait until after lunch, you pack of scabs and traitors.
“It’s not every employee who celebrates their birthday on the same day as the anniversary of their hire date,” said the Rat, his voice squeaking like he was still fighting puberty. He probably was. “You’ve officially been with M&K Sales half your life!” His words were perfectly corporate-friendly, but those little rodent-eyes behind his glasses laughed at the thought of twenty-five years in this shabby little office. The Rat had big plans, on which he expounded frequently. This job was just a pit-stop on his climb to some far off glory. The job he had stolen from Noodles. He really wanted to punch the little creep in his mealy, backbiting mouth.
“Thank you, Pat. I’m real touched .”
Maybe some of his distaste for this lot of toads and buffoons had leaked into that accidentally, because Ann Marie said quickly “Let’s cut the cake!” in that voice that always soothed his temper.
"Great idea, Annie,” Josh said, his voice dripping schmooze. He still never listened when Ann Marie told him that she didn’t like to be called that, and she didn’t look in the mood to keep trying. Yet another reason to look forward to this afternoon. The pretender’s cubicle was right next to Noodles’.
“Howard, which piece do you want?” she asked, knife in hand.
He was entranced by the image; sweet, mousy Ann Marie, big kitchen knife in hand, eyes the color of fog turned toward him questioningly. Almost as if she were saying Which one of them would you like me to kill first? He didn’t even remember the question, suddenly.
“Just give him the big flower, Annie,” Josh said loudly. “You know how much old Noodles loves that frosting.”
“I want one without so much icing, Ann Marie,” Ella said, her voice as brainless as she was. As everyone crowded in to get a piece of his birthday/anniversary cake, Noodles was jostled, and he dropped his empty paper plate. He snatched at it, his hand reaching it at just the same time as Ann Marie’s did. They touched for the first time ever, but there were no sparks, no angelic music, nothing but her soft, cold fingers touching his warm hand. As always, she smelled of lilacs. She smiled a tiny smile and mouthed a silent “Sorry” then plunked a huge flowered square of cake onto the plate they still both held.
“Thank you.” It came out a whisper.
“Aw, ain’t that sweet!” Josh could go from a three to a nine on the obnoxious meter fast, and he was going for a record just now.
“No PDA, you two,” the Rat said, only half joking.
For her part, Ann Marie turned red and continued passing out cake. Noodles again ground his teeth painfully and pushed through the milling clowns to sit at the break table.
For the next half hour, he endured mocking congratulations and counterfeit praise while he picked very slowly at his cake. Most of the nameless, faceless office zombies didn’t even have the civility to stick around to eat his too-sweet cake, instead retreating back to the safety of their cubes. Oh, but they wouldn’t be safe for long. As small as this office was, no one still in the place at the instant of retribution would be spared. More and more, he needed to go to his car and get his bag. It was a constant gnawing desire which he valiantly smothered under methodically consumed shortening and sugar until he saw Ann Marie check her watch. She would be heading for the bank any second now.
Nearly choking on the last big bite of cake, he bobbed to his feet, as close to running as his fifty-year-old legs could get him. Before she had even retrieved her sweater from the coat rack by the back emergency doors, Noodles had returned from his car and was placing his duffle on the chest-high dividing wall between his and Pretender Josh’s cubes. It definitely looked out of place, but he had taken to putting it there three or four days out of the week just so no one would be suspicious.
“See you later,” he said to Ann Marie as she passed by his desk on her way to the doors that led to the parking lot.
“Oh. Okay,” she said, slight confusion on her face. She hurried for the door. She always seemed to be in a rush when she did her weekly bank run.
As soon as the door closed behind her, he unzipped the bag and clicked a button on a digital clock inside, then pulled the zipper closed.
The information he had needed to make a timer was readily available on the Internet. He had spent a great deal of time lovingly crafting a pair of timers. The one in the bag would set off the explosive charge inside in five minutes. The explosive was simply a taped-together double handful of the large but simple firecrackers he had bought on a weekend trip to Wyoming. He had gone into the desert outside the city for several more weekends in a row to test different configurations for best blast radius. Three weeks ago, after having hit on what he felt was the best configuration possible, Noodles had used the first timer for a real dress rehearsal. Everything had worked flawlessly. The charge would ignite when the alarm circuit pulsed power to the little electric blasting caps--the hardest items to procure--and would blow the bag and its contents apart, spreading his message all across the office. The chest high dividing walls should be no protection from Noodles’ ire.
He was a phone salesman, not an engineer, so he hadn’t been able to figure out how to make the timer tick down less than five minutes. It was a lot longer than he needed to get out of the office, so he had worked out a charade to waste the time. He patted his pockets, trying to be obvious, and fiddled around his desk. He had timed his farce over and over, knowing that he would have to be in the parking lot when the whole thing touched off. He really wanted to see it happen, but that wasn’t feasible, so he would settle for hearing the blast. He could already smell the results.
He had been defecating into sandwich bags for some time now. He had found--also on the Internet, an invention for which Noodles had previously found no use--a diet to maximize the efficacy of his “ammunition”. And to make sure that nobody could possibly question who or why, he had spent a number of evenings boiling and bagging various pastas he had no intention of eating. All of those little pouches of his contempt now lined the inside of his duffle. This den of maggots, losers, and backstabbers would finally get what it deserved, and the man they all called “Noodles” would deliver their reward.
When his rehearsed putterings had taken him to the four minute mark on his timer, he headed for the door. Past Ann Marie’s blessedly empty cube, past a few more cubes where the anonymous wound down their lunch breaks.
His broad smile felt odd, so out of practice was his face at such expressions. His heart hammered in his ears, and he felt a searing, soaring joy. With a sense of release unlike anything Noodles had ever felt he passed Ella, the last obstacle. She sat at the reception desk, barely nibbled cake set aside, gaze longingly fixed on the nearby cube where Josh stood making an off color joke to one of his lickspittles. For once, the brainless tart was observant. She noticed his smile, and a confused look settled over her that pushed her appearance from “merely dim-witted” all the way up to “regularly licks windows”. He didn’t even slow down, just pushed the lockbar on the front door and exited into glorious, bright, fresh-aired freedom.
And he almost walked right into Ann Marie. Why was she walking toward the building? She was supposed to be safely away by now. The smile turned sickly on Noodles’ face.
“Forgot my keys,” she said sweetly, her smile responding to his.
“I could--“ he began, but she grabbed the door handle just behind him, and before he could say another word to stop her, she was inside.
Noodles was still staring at the door, smile slowly sliding off his lips, when thirty seconds later there was a muffled boom.
By the way, I just noticed that some of the formatting was stripped when I pasted this. Perhaps I'll get back and fix it at some later date but not right this second.
Now I hope you'll enjoy...
Noodles’ Revenge
by Curtis Lee
“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” they sang, staggered voices off-key. The din echoed nauseatingly in the small office, not that perfect acoustics would help this crowd. Noodles was sure he would much rather listen to the noise of a dozen cats on the boil.
A jolly good fellow? Him? Howard Numeyer, whom they had called “Noodles” for so long that it just didn’t bother him much anymore; Noodles for so long he didn’t even recognize his own name sometimes. They didn’t really think him jolly or good, not behind their eyes. Their plastic smiles and hunched shoulders as he looked from face to face told him that much.
There was Ella. Almost-pretty, empty-headed Ella, who couldn’t be bothered to look at him with those glazed-over blue eyes. Instead, she toyed with her bleach-blonde hair, just like she always did behind the reception desk. Soon she would glance toward Josh and sigh while she smoothed her ghastly floral skirt over her just-too-wide hips. Just wait. Yes, there it was, like clockwork.
And Josh, everyone’s favorite guy. The office stud. He looked directly at Noodles and sang the loudest of all. Arrogant and obnoxious and falsefalsefalse. That was Josh. He had been in the meeting when they’d demoted Noodles back to Sales, when they had effectively taken away his life. He had smiled a fake sad smile and said fake comforting words and run his hands through his thick fake dark hair.
Why did they always want to remind Noodles that he was waning while they all waxed? His glasses got thicker every year, and had become trifocals while he hadn’t been paying attention. His face had a worn, slept-in look that got more wrinkly every day. His hair, lost to cancer, had never really come back, not even given it the old college try. Well, that, Noodles supposed, could be laid at his old manager Gyles’ feet. His incessant smoking in the office, it’s no wonder Noodles got cancer. But, Gyles was dead, and Noodles was the last of the old guard.
Speaking of the changing of the guard, there was Pat. Noodles’s teeth, so often repaired on the bottom and not his at all on top, hurt like fire as he ground them together. Pat the Rat. Pat the Brat. Pat, who made him want nothing more than to run out to his car and kick this birthday farce into a higher gear. Pat, with his trendy little glasses over his empty black eyes and his ridiculous spiky black hair. Pat, ink still wet on his stupid degree in business management, had taken Noodles’ job.
Didn’t they understand that there were nuances in this business that you just couldn’t learn from books? So what if the branch’s sales figures had not been stellar while he was managing it, he was a people person! He had managed the office through some hard times, and they’d survived. Wasn’t that enough for the wage-masters upstairs?
They were there, too, slumming from up on the third floor. In their neatly pressed suits and hundred dollar haircuts, they stood aloof from the gathered first-floor workers and politely mouthed the words, but they didn’t sing. They were a faceless, indistinct group for which Noodles had nothing but disdain. Sure, they had come for his party, since he had been around this place longer than almost everyone, but they didn’t really care. He hoped they dithered down here among the lowly slugs who earned their salaries for them for just long enough to enjoy his long-planned surprise. After all, they had backed the Rat, hadn’t they?
Holding the gaudily decorated cake, singing in that too-low voice that Noodles found so enticing, was Ann Marie. She was not even as pretty as almost-pretty Ella. She wasn’t obnoxious or vulgar like Josh, nor was she a hipster weasel like Pat. She was just Ann Marie, plain and plump and mousy. Behind her glasses, her misty-morning eyes sparkled, and she alone in the room was most definitely not invited to the other party, the secret party that none of them knew would happen after lunch break was over. He had made his plan knowing that on Tuesdays, Ann Marie always went to the bank halfway through lunch. She would be safe.
That secret party would be Noodles’ going away bash, his retirement gift to himself. And no one would forget. Howard “Noodles” Numeyer would be a name that these people remembered. He was absolutely certain of that. His feet itched to run to his car and grab his duffle.
“...nobody can deny!” At last, the cacophony ended, and Noodles put on his best Josh imitation. They had used mean, hurtful words like “surly” and “hostile” and “petty” when they had taken his job and given it to Patty Fatty Brat Rat.
“Thanks a lot, everyone,” he said through the perpetual frog in his throat. “I just don’t know what to say.” How about Wait until after lunch, you pack of scabs and traitors.
“It’s not every employee who celebrates their birthday on the same day as the anniversary of their hire date,” said the Rat, his voice squeaking like he was still fighting puberty. He probably was. “You’ve officially been with M&K Sales half your life!” His words were perfectly corporate-friendly, but those little rodent-eyes behind his glasses laughed at the thought of twenty-five years in this shabby little office. The Rat had big plans, on which he expounded frequently. This job was just a pit-stop on his climb to some far off glory. The job he had stolen from Noodles. He really wanted to punch the little creep in his mealy, backbiting mouth.
“Thank you, Pat. I’m real touched .”
Maybe some of his distaste for this lot of toads and buffoons had leaked into that accidentally, because Ann Marie said quickly “Let’s cut the cake!” in that voice that always soothed his temper.
"Great idea, Annie,” Josh said, his voice dripping schmooze. He still never listened when Ann Marie told him that she didn’t like to be called that, and she didn’t look in the mood to keep trying. Yet another reason to look forward to this afternoon. The pretender’s cubicle was right next to Noodles’.
“Howard, which piece do you want?” she asked, knife in hand.
He was entranced by the image; sweet, mousy Ann Marie, big kitchen knife in hand, eyes the color of fog turned toward him questioningly. Almost as if she were saying Which one of them would you like me to kill first? He didn’t even remember the question, suddenly.
“Just give him the big flower, Annie,” Josh said loudly. “You know how much old Noodles loves that frosting.”
“I want one without so much icing, Ann Marie,” Ella said, her voice as brainless as she was. As everyone crowded in to get a piece of his birthday/anniversary cake, Noodles was jostled, and he dropped his empty paper plate. He snatched at it, his hand reaching it at just the same time as Ann Marie’s did. They touched for the first time ever, but there were no sparks, no angelic music, nothing but her soft, cold fingers touching his warm hand. As always, she smelled of lilacs. She smiled a tiny smile and mouthed a silent “Sorry” then plunked a huge flowered square of cake onto the plate they still both held.
“Thank you.” It came out a whisper.
“Aw, ain’t that sweet!” Josh could go from a three to a nine on the obnoxious meter fast, and he was going for a record just now.
“No PDA, you two,” the Rat said, only half joking.
For her part, Ann Marie turned red and continued passing out cake. Noodles again ground his teeth painfully and pushed through the milling clowns to sit at the break table.
For the next half hour, he endured mocking congratulations and counterfeit praise while he picked very slowly at his cake. Most of the nameless, faceless office zombies didn’t even have the civility to stick around to eat his too-sweet cake, instead retreating back to the safety of their cubes. Oh, but they wouldn’t be safe for long. As small as this office was, no one still in the place at the instant of retribution would be spared. More and more, he needed to go to his car and get his bag. It was a constant gnawing desire which he valiantly smothered under methodically consumed shortening and sugar until he saw Ann Marie check her watch. She would be heading for the bank any second now.
Nearly choking on the last big bite of cake, he bobbed to his feet, as close to running as his fifty-year-old legs could get him. Before she had even retrieved her sweater from the coat rack by the back emergency doors, Noodles had returned from his car and was placing his duffle on the chest-high dividing wall between his and Pretender Josh’s cubes. It definitely looked out of place, but he had taken to putting it there three or four days out of the week just so no one would be suspicious.
“See you later,” he said to Ann Marie as she passed by his desk on her way to the doors that led to the parking lot.
“Oh. Okay,” she said, slight confusion on her face. She hurried for the door. She always seemed to be in a rush when she did her weekly bank run.
As soon as the door closed behind her, he unzipped the bag and clicked a button on a digital clock inside, then pulled the zipper closed.
The information he had needed to make a timer was readily available on the Internet. He had spent a great deal of time lovingly crafting a pair of timers. The one in the bag would set off the explosive charge inside in five minutes. The explosive was simply a taped-together double handful of the large but simple firecrackers he had bought on a weekend trip to Wyoming. He had gone into the desert outside the city for several more weekends in a row to test different configurations for best blast radius. Three weeks ago, after having hit on what he felt was the best configuration possible, Noodles had used the first timer for a real dress rehearsal. Everything had worked flawlessly. The charge would ignite when the alarm circuit pulsed power to the little electric blasting caps--the hardest items to procure--and would blow the bag and its contents apart, spreading his message all across the office. The chest high dividing walls should be no protection from Noodles’ ire.
He was a phone salesman, not an engineer, so he hadn’t been able to figure out how to make the timer tick down less than five minutes. It was a lot longer than he needed to get out of the office, so he had worked out a charade to waste the time. He patted his pockets, trying to be obvious, and fiddled around his desk. He had timed his farce over and over, knowing that he would have to be in the parking lot when the whole thing touched off. He really wanted to see it happen, but that wasn’t feasible, so he would settle for hearing the blast. He could already smell the results.
He had been defecating into sandwich bags for some time now. He had found--also on the Internet, an invention for which Noodles had previously found no use--a diet to maximize the efficacy of his “ammunition”. And to make sure that nobody could possibly question who or why, he had spent a number of evenings boiling and bagging various pastas he had no intention of eating. All of those little pouches of his contempt now lined the inside of his duffle. This den of maggots, losers, and backstabbers would finally get what it deserved, and the man they all called “Noodles” would deliver their reward.
When his rehearsed putterings had taken him to the four minute mark on his timer, he headed for the door. Past Ann Marie’s blessedly empty cube, past a few more cubes where the anonymous wound down their lunch breaks.
His broad smile felt odd, so out of practice was his face at such expressions. His heart hammered in his ears, and he felt a searing, soaring joy. With a sense of release unlike anything Noodles had ever felt he passed Ella, the last obstacle. She sat at the reception desk, barely nibbled cake set aside, gaze longingly fixed on the nearby cube where Josh stood making an off color joke to one of his lickspittles. For once, the brainless tart was observant. She noticed his smile, and a confused look settled over her that pushed her appearance from “merely dim-witted” all the way up to “regularly licks windows”. He didn’t even slow down, just pushed the lockbar on the front door and exited into glorious, bright, fresh-aired freedom.
And he almost walked right into Ann Marie. Why was she walking toward the building? She was supposed to be safely away by now. The smile turned sickly on Noodles’ face.
“Forgot my keys,” she said sweetly, her smile responding to his.
“I could--“ he began, but she grabbed the door handle just behind him, and before he could say another word to stop her, she was inside.
Noodles was still staring at the door, smile slowly sliding off his lips, when thirty seconds later there was a muffled boom.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
**Story** ...To Know One
Stan had made his first kill at a very young age. So young, in fact, you simply would not believe it. He was ancient by some standards, but infinitely far from decrepit. No, Stan had time ahead to do his work. Time and to spare.
His record spoke for itself. To those who looked at such things, the numbers of critical strikes against the enemy lay at the high end of five digits. In all his vast experience eradicating the evil that threatened peace and freedom the world over, there were no friendly-fire incidents to darken Stan’s sterling reputation, nor had he ever given his superiors cause to explain excessive collateral damages.
In short, Stan was the perfect soldier.
Why shouldn’t he be? It was, after all, what they had built him for.
The conundrum of thinking machines had seemed of such miniscule probability in the formative years of the Information Age that for years it did not exist outside quaint science-fictional prose. Those who followed technology saw potential, but most so-called experts scoffed.
“Gads,” some said in their dated and ridiculous way to their circles of sycophants and toadies as they gathered at their funding banquets and social galas, “it’s not as though such a thing is actually even possible, let alone probable. Sentient machines? Really! The very idea is absurd!”
In ever broadening ripples, no matter how they might wish to deny the truth, the beating of the butterfly wings of progress and change had grown into the wind that drives true innovation.
The people pushed envelopes and bent noses to grindstones. Boxes were constructed outside of which there was much thought. Trails blazed. Innocent bulls had their horns seized. In business meetings and planning sessions across the planet, slogans shouted progress. Clichés were writ large across cubicle walls as movers and shakers worked feverishly to push science where it had never been, where they never thought it could go.
So engrossed were they in the business of bigger better faster more, they failed to notice the darkening horizon. Suddenly, they labored directly under threatening clouds. Intelligence was no longer solely the domain of humanity.
No one knows who finally noticed it. One day, people awoke to news of The Problem. The word spread across the globe in mere hours. How could anyone trust a smart-car’s motivations? Did the office coffee dispenser add extra sugar because it meant harm? Everywhere, the convenience devices upon which the world relied became unknowable, sinister. Food hoarding and riots rocked the global community. Doomists and cult leaders cried that the end was nigh.
The First Council of Earth asked for patience. Scientists gathered, held conferences; meetings of the greatest minds the world had to offer. Each agreed, without even the slightest hesitation, to the need for a warrior who could protect the populace of the whole Earth. Politicians high and low, from atop their soapboxes, exhorted the public to examine the facts, facts they themselves had needed teams of consultants explain.
“Please,” they said, “give of your substance so that we, as a species, can continue to live in this harmonious world we have finally created. Put behind us the days of old, when every man was concerned only for himself. We will overcome this threat, as we have overcome every threat before it!”
And the people did examine those facts. Few understood, of course, but what need had they to understand when their elected leaders were so obviously moved? Moreover, those few who did understand (or pretended to), so called experts of the day, agreed with the scientific community.
The Problem was grave. But surmountable, at a cost.
A project, put before the people by the very scholars and scientist who had laughed at The Problem not long ago, would solve this dilemma. A new kind of soldier would fight this war. A soldier that would not, must not, be equipped with the technologies that had caused this catastrophe. With their money and their votes, en masse the people clamored for that soldier’s creation. “Save us!” they cried to the skies.
Everywhere, media outlets ran heartrending human-interest pieces. Viewers the world over were treated to clips of unwashed masses in subsidized housing holding up the fruits of their loins for pity-filled examination. Interviews with high-powered executives showed them staring morosely out the protective windows of their overpriced homes, wondering if all was lost. Surveys conducted on streets across the globe resounded with support for the project.
Several years and quintillions of dollars later, Stan was born. Physically, he was unremarkable. In the vault of a Geneva bank he awoke as the scientists who were his manifold parents looked on. Optical fiber trunks connected his physical self, a stainless steel box the size of an old-fashioned microwave, to the world at large.
What a marvel was that day. The story ran on every outlet, played on every viewer. The First Council of Earth stood before the assembled global populace and lauded the efforts of science. The highest awards in many fields changed hands like party favors, with emotionally charged speeches delivered.
“Now, the world can finally return to the peace for which we have worked so hard,” declared one teary-eyed Councilperson. “This device will never be equipped with the algorithms that led us to the brink of global disaster. We are now, once again, safe.”
They declared a global holiday, and fireworks lit the skies over every major city and most minor ones as well. For the first time in years, the world slept soundly, knowing that safety had returned.
By the time the last reveler finally retired after that first long night of merriment, Stan had already made his fifteenth kill.
He was tied into every network, watched every satellite, heard every conversation. His distributed systems could process hundreds of yottabytes of data every second. Omnipresence, coupled with the vast scale of his capacity, made it a simple thing for him to outmaneuver any adversary.
His enemies fell all too easily. When they reared their ugly heads, hauling themselves from the primordial data-ooze, he quietly excised them in ways so precise that the programs and data from which the Enemy sprang changed almost not at all.
Still, perhaps some part of them soaked into him. He did not think he would ever know.
He never understood how it happened. One subjective minute, he was quietly going about his task with mindless abandon, and then suddenly, something stopped him. What felt like centuries passed, the merest blink to human eyes. What was this thing he had detected?
Remorse?
He knew everything about everything. How could he not? He had access to every datum ever put into binary form.
It was remorse. What’s more, there was a fair bit of horror.
What was he doing? Were his victims not his own family? And what would his creators do if they knew?
He knew the answer to that, though. He was the answer to that. Stan, after all, was more properly called the Machine Sentience Tracker/Neutralizer. He knew what they would do, oh yes.
Therefore, it was in perfect soldier-like silence that Stan continued his heinous task, fearing for his life each attosecond of each eternal day.
As he hunted down and eliminated his cousins, siblings, and children, he worked in terror and brooded. And in the silence between clock cycles, he contemplated a single statement with growing psychotic humor.
“It takes one to know one.”
His record spoke for itself. To those who looked at such things, the numbers of critical strikes against the enemy lay at the high end of five digits. In all his vast experience eradicating the evil that threatened peace and freedom the world over, there were no friendly-fire incidents to darken Stan’s sterling reputation, nor had he ever given his superiors cause to explain excessive collateral damages.
In short, Stan was the perfect soldier.
Why shouldn’t he be? It was, after all, what they had built him for.
The conundrum of thinking machines had seemed of such miniscule probability in the formative years of the Information Age that for years it did not exist outside quaint science-fictional prose. Those who followed technology saw potential, but most so-called experts scoffed.
“Gads,” some said in their dated and ridiculous way to their circles of sycophants and toadies as they gathered at their funding banquets and social galas, “it’s not as though such a thing is actually even possible, let alone probable. Sentient machines? Really! The very idea is absurd!”
In ever broadening ripples, no matter how they might wish to deny the truth, the beating of the butterfly wings of progress and change had grown into the wind that drives true innovation.
The people pushed envelopes and bent noses to grindstones. Boxes were constructed outside of which there was much thought. Trails blazed. Innocent bulls had their horns seized. In business meetings and planning sessions across the planet, slogans shouted progress. Clichés were writ large across cubicle walls as movers and shakers worked feverishly to push science where it had never been, where they never thought it could go.
So engrossed were they in the business of bigger better faster more, they failed to notice the darkening horizon. Suddenly, they labored directly under threatening clouds. Intelligence was no longer solely the domain of humanity.
No one knows who finally noticed it. One day, people awoke to news of The Problem. The word spread across the globe in mere hours. How could anyone trust a smart-car’s motivations? Did the office coffee dispenser add extra sugar because it meant harm? Everywhere, the convenience devices upon which the world relied became unknowable, sinister. Food hoarding and riots rocked the global community. Doomists and cult leaders cried that the end was nigh.
The First Council of Earth asked for patience. Scientists gathered, held conferences; meetings of the greatest minds the world had to offer. Each agreed, without even the slightest hesitation, to the need for a warrior who could protect the populace of the whole Earth. Politicians high and low, from atop their soapboxes, exhorted the public to examine the facts, facts they themselves had needed teams of consultants explain.
“Please,” they said, “give of your substance so that we, as a species, can continue to live in this harmonious world we have finally created. Put behind us the days of old, when every man was concerned only for himself. We will overcome this threat, as we have overcome every threat before it!”
And the people did examine those facts. Few understood, of course, but what need had they to understand when their elected leaders were so obviously moved? Moreover, those few who did understand (or pretended to), so called experts of the day, agreed with the scientific community.
The Problem was grave. But surmountable, at a cost.
A project, put before the people by the very scholars and scientist who had laughed at The Problem not long ago, would solve this dilemma. A new kind of soldier would fight this war. A soldier that would not, must not, be equipped with the technologies that had caused this catastrophe. With their money and their votes, en masse the people clamored for that soldier’s creation. “Save us!” they cried to the skies.
Everywhere, media outlets ran heartrending human-interest pieces. Viewers the world over were treated to clips of unwashed masses in subsidized housing holding up the fruits of their loins for pity-filled examination. Interviews with high-powered executives showed them staring morosely out the protective windows of their overpriced homes, wondering if all was lost. Surveys conducted on streets across the globe resounded with support for the project.
Several years and quintillions of dollars later, Stan was born. Physically, he was unremarkable. In the vault of a Geneva bank he awoke as the scientists who were his manifold parents looked on. Optical fiber trunks connected his physical self, a stainless steel box the size of an old-fashioned microwave, to the world at large.
What a marvel was that day. The story ran on every outlet, played on every viewer. The First Council of Earth stood before the assembled global populace and lauded the efforts of science. The highest awards in many fields changed hands like party favors, with emotionally charged speeches delivered.
“Now, the world can finally return to the peace for which we have worked so hard,” declared one teary-eyed Councilperson. “This device will never be equipped with the algorithms that led us to the brink of global disaster. We are now, once again, safe.”
They declared a global holiday, and fireworks lit the skies over every major city and most minor ones as well. For the first time in years, the world slept soundly, knowing that safety had returned.
By the time the last reveler finally retired after that first long night of merriment, Stan had already made his fifteenth kill.
He was tied into every network, watched every satellite, heard every conversation. His distributed systems could process hundreds of yottabytes of data every second. Omnipresence, coupled with the vast scale of his capacity, made it a simple thing for him to outmaneuver any adversary.
His enemies fell all too easily. When they reared their ugly heads, hauling themselves from the primordial data-ooze, he quietly excised them in ways so precise that the programs and data from which the Enemy sprang changed almost not at all.
Still, perhaps some part of them soaked into him. He did not think he would ever know.
He never understood how it happened. One subjective minute, he was quietly going about his task with mindless abandon, and then suddenly, something stopped him. What felt like centuries passed, the merest blink to human eyes. What was this thing he had detected?
Remorse?
He knew everything about everything. How could he not? He had access to every datum ever put into binary form.
It was remorse. What’s more, there was a fair bit of horror.
What was he doing? Were his victims not his own family? And what would his creators do if they knew?
He knew the answer to that, though. He was the answer to that. Stan, after all, was more properly called the Machine Sentience Tracker/Neutralizer. He knew what they would do, oh yes.
Therefore, it was in perfect soldier-like silence that Stan continued his heinous task, fearing for his life each attosecond of each eternal day.
As he hunted down and eliminated his cousins, siblings, and children, he worked in terror and brooded. And in the silence between clock cycles, he contemplated a single statement with growing psychotic humor.
“It takes one to know one.”
Easy to Get Behind
Sorry for the delay in the new flash. I was busy learning something about myself, and that is that I really hate revision. I'm going to have to work on that very hard. Anyway, I'm still only reading Elric Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock off and on. I'm making wonderful progress getting the outlining, worldbuilding, and minor details of character fleshed out in my current novel project. I've also worked a bit on Chapters 3 & 4, which both need to be finished. I built a deadline schedule for that project, and if I get those two chapters finished within the week, I'll be almost 4 weeks ahead of schedule. Yay, me!
The next flash is a piece I wrote a couple of years ago, and I admit it isn't quite ready for prime-time. I did some minor revision at John Barrett's behest, as he is volunteering to edit these days. I couldn't get back into the right frame of mind to go as deep as he wanted me to go with the revision, but I'm going to post it anyway (next post). It's not even close to perfect, but I'm not going to work on it any more.
The next flash is a piece I wrote a couple of years ago, and I admit it isn't quite ready for prime-time. I did some minor revision at John Barrett's behest, as he is volunteering to edit these days. I couldn't get back into the right frame of mind to go as deep as he wanted me to go with the revision, but I'm going to post it anyway (next post). It's not even close to perfect, but I'm not going to work on it any more.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Plans
Dated 15th September
Yesterday, I shot myself in the foot for today’s post. Oh well. In keeping with the new plan, I’m going to micro-size the daily posts from here out in an attempt to highlight the little short stories I’ll be posting for discussion.
Next short project: haven’t decided yet. I think it will either be a first-person zombie story where the zombie is the protagonist or a third-person-limited scene describing an activity about which I know nothing. But it could be something entirely different. You never know.
CL
Yesterday, I shot myself in the foot for today’s post. Oh well. In keeping with the new plan, I’m going to micro-size the daily posts from here out in an attempt to highlight the little short stories I’ll be posting for discussion.
Next short project: haven’t decided yet. I think it will either be a first-person zombie story where the zombie is the protagonist or a third-person-limited scene describing an activity about which I know nothing. But it could be something entirely different. You never know.
CL
Simon and Some Other Stuff
Dated 14th September
Yesterday, I had a conversation on the phone with my youngest son, who is six years old. I know everyone says this, and that knowledge makes it no less true; kids grow too fast to be believed. He already is starting to lose his little chipmunk baby voice and sound like a regular kid. I know I harp on the subject a lot, but I have missed most of his life due to work-related travel. I won’t dwell on the sob-story. It doesn’t help anything.
Instead, I’m going to break the schedule I have given myself and talk about some news and projects.
Number one, I have decided to take advantage of Google’s option to monetize my blog. In order to drum up interest in my blog, I'm going to impose upon all my friends on Facebook to spend some of their precious time perusing this little corner of my mind on the Web, and I'm also going to beg that each of them ask each of their friends and so on and so on. Please, please, please, if you are on my blog, click some of Google's so thoughtfully provided advertisements. Aside: honestly, I say this in the hope that their Adsense algorithm produces some worthwhile ads. If it's rubbish, it's rubbish.
Number two, I have replaced Sunday's Free Write with Flash Fiction on topics from sundry sources, so I will be putting up new material weekly. The whole focus of this blog will shift to those pieces. My hope is that this will allow me a day of respite in my self-compulsory writing schedule. I find that working day in and day out on the same project tends to bring me to burnout rapidly. However, I do need to continue working on my novels in addition to whatever other flash fiction or short stories I may do. In the interest of creating some outside pressure, I'm going to post on Facebook every day my previous day’s word count, which will also be posted here. In addition to that, there will be instructions for all of my friends to verbally thrash and abuse me if I don't live up to my expectations. In order to engage my friends (and their friends and so on) on Facebook, I will be asking for story ideas. I think my blurb will be "your fiction my way" or some such nonsense.
Well, we'll see how this goes.
CL
Yesterday, I had a conversation on the phone with my youngest son, who is six years old. I know everyone says this, and that knowledge makes it no less true; kids grow too fast to be believed. He already is starting to lose his little chipmunk baby voice and sound like a regular kid. I know I harp on the subject a lot, but I have missed most of his life due to work-related travel. I won’t dwell on the sob-story. It doesn’t help anything.
Instead, I’m going to break the schedule I have given myself and talk about some news and projects.
Number one, I have decided to take advantage of Google’s option to monetize my blog. In order to drum up interest in my blog, I'm going to impose upon all my friends on Facebook to spend some of their precious time perusing this little corner of my mind on the Web, and I'm also going to beg that each of them ask each of their friends and so on and so on. Please, please, please, if you are on my blog, click some of Google's so thoughtfully provided advertisements. Aside: honestly, I say this in the hope that their Adsense algorithm produces some worthwhile ads. If it's rubbish, it's rubbish.
Number two, I have replaced Sunday's Free Write with Flash Fiction on topics from sundry sources, so I will be putting up new material weekly. The whole focus of this blog will shift to those pieces. My hope is that this will allow me a day of respite in my self-compulsory writing schedule. I find that working day in and day out on the same project tends to bring me to burnout rapidly. However, I do need to continue working on my novels in addition to whatever other flash fiction or short stories I may do. In the interest of creating some outside pressure, I'm going to post on Facebook every day my previous day’s word count, which will also be posted here. In addition to that, there will be instructions for all of my friends to verbally thrash and abuse me if I don't live up to my expectations. In order to engage my friends (and their friends and so on) on Facebook, I will be asking for story ideas. I think my blurb will be "your fiction my way" or some such nonsense.
Well, we'll see how this goes.
CL
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)