“I do it by feel, really. I bumble around, it’s inconsistent. Inconsistency, things resonating chaotically, organically – free! That’s the only way; that’s the way I feel it.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t tie it right, the parachute’s just gonna fly away.”
The dogsbody flipped and told us all to buy gloves for him; he got a lot of gloves that Christmas. He flipped back and the turkey got a stuffing. Blood, guts, everything hung on the barbed wire like the sun dying.
x: Yes, it was good. I liked it. But it did taste rather a lot… quite a lot like… coffee.
y: Oh, yes. We like our salmon with coffee. And Poison too. Did you not taste the Poison? Mmm! Poison!
x: Poison? (slightly alarmed)
y: Yes.
Veins
In a couple of million years (a pretty short time when you think about it), The New Dinosaurs will find some pretty excellent veins of aluminium ore on the sites of what The Middle Dinosaurs called “Landfill Sites”. Great towns will spring up around these most fruitful of veins, they’ll prosper, with all the New Dinosaur amenities, until the sources dry up and the towns begin to wither and die. There’ll be some real doldrums economically speaking before the service sector saves the day.
Aluminium will be shipped in while the residents write out receipts. It’s a pity there was no lightning back then, else they’d have had electric typewriters, Earth* willing.
*Steve, as they called her
“I wouldn’t… but I’m going to”
There’s none of what we (often quaintly) call rivalry among The New Dinosaurs; on the contrary, there’s a great communalism in their society, coupled inextricably with a pioneering spirit that would put our 18th and 19th Centuries to shame. It was quite by accident (with, of course, the requisite quotient of pure New Dinosaur Vigilance) that they (that’s they collectively) unlocked the secrets of Fusion. I shan’t bore you with detail, suffice it to say that it was most unfortunate, not to say ethically unwarranted, that the end came about; The New Dinosaurs cannot be blamed by any reasonable court of law. Natural curiosity can never be condemned, and it was and it was an unforeseeable happenstance that launched Steve into the Sun* while the rockets crept eventually into the orbit of the shoe factory where Mars used to be.
By this time aluminium could be synthesised quite easily and in an automated fashion.
*Croquet
Old Frank the fisherman was always brimming over with his tales of aquatic heroism. There was the time he wrestled an octopus that had hold of some damsel or another. Then there was the time he clobbered a hammer-head shark. Usually I’d just nod and smile, but there was one evening I felt a touch mischievous.
“Frank,” I said, “What I want to know is, have you ever been involved in a battle of any sort with a Great White?”
Frank looked startled, “Oh, Heavens!” he said, fingers twitching nervously at his pint, “Sure, I’d have more sense than that!”
“I see,” said I, “Well, I suppose it’s a different mettle of fish.”
Old Frank was crestfallen.
First they take your shoes and what’s left is a sandal consciousness but you don’t have any sandals. New wine but old glass and everything is gravy in the inch-by-inch liquid atlas. What bird caged? Coloured feathers, the joy of the exotic, caged. The bird has human skin, red, yellow, brown and green. Feet rock on sheep and the bass; I’m lulled into drunk. Lion-drenched by worry for the leopards and they’re shaky in their trees, many greens. It really takes it out of me. I was carded then I fouled. The stars had to wink to catch the past. The second part is always slow. Something happened while I was away. Police tape and the ground froze. No one loves you like I do, right or wrong.
What stabs at style, a deep breath, you daren’t wear stripes today, you breathe. Inconspicuousness is a must for any private investigator or timid soul. What’s the sphere of your existence? Can you cross a ring-road more than three lanes wide? You’re in the middle.
From "Tell It To A Hound Dog, Pedro"
Jack may have countenanced in his consciousness the onions and their quantity, indeed, he may even have been amused by them. The dirty water, however, for it was nothing if not dirty, leapt to his mind’s forefront, shoving aside any notion of onions, or anything else, vegetable or otherwise or indeed the swabbing of decks, for that matter, following Fat Pete’s addition, and in spite of Clancy’s reiteration. Gladly such states of single-mindedness didn’t tend to linger too long in Jack’s well-defined skull, but, perhaps even more gladly, major realisations reached during these states, as we shall call them, were moderately frequently remembered. Little Jack the scullion reached the following realisation: “The water acquired in Penitence at Pig Gantry’s insistence, and I couldn’t be more certain that coincidence isn’t so much as a shadow of a factor in this matter, is so dirty as to be, at very best, infected, but quite possibly poisoned in addition” Jack, wide-eyed to allow as much light as could be harnessed in the gloom of the galley to assist in thought processes pertaining to survival, reached the following conclusion: “By all possible means, I shall avoid drinking the water in question.”
This would prove to be more complicated than Jack might have hoped it would, but until he felt particularly thirsty he continued in his conversation with the other galley-folk without mentioning the seemingly fetid water.
Those demons up there, the head office heads, have long since developed a means of control so pure and so very simple, a transplant patient could quite contentedly eat her dinner off it. Truth be told, it almost had me, of all people, flummoxed. That could never have lasted, though. Their method is as follows:
Multiple organisations (at time of writing, these number seven), ostensibly rivals, enter into a wretched, underhand agreement regarding espionage and counter-espionage policy. Their first move is to insinuate, semi-publicly, that sensitive information has been leaked/acquired nefariously from their respective organisations. Next, over a period of, say, two months, they institute, in seeming reaction to each other, variants on the following policy:
“Any person/persons, be they employees or visitors, whether authorised or not, found in a situation deemed by Security to compromise the integrity and/or property (intellectual or otherwise) of the organisation, will be brought before a tribunal selected by the board of directors, and may be liable to prosecution under applicable laws in the jurisdiction governing head office.”
Needless to say, the combined clout of the various organisations in the aforementioned jurisdiction is more than sufficient to draw out legal proceedings for protracted lengths of time, indeed, indefinitely. This is the key to their control, when coupled with the following nugget of secret policy:
“As a member of this organisation, you accept that, should you be caught by a rival organisation in a situation that would seem to compromise the integrity of your intentions towards them, and by extension the integrity of this organisation, it is our policy to deny knowledge and involvement, as all and any infiltration of rival organisations is contrary to policy. You must therefore expect no assistance should charges be brought. Since all and any infiltration is contrary to policy, it will be assumed, should you be found in such a situation, that you are acting on behalf of a third party, and you may consequently be liable to disciplinary action before a tribunal selected by the board of directors.”
That’s right, people; the only aspect of the demon means to control that lies beyond their sphere of control is the assumption that orders, specifically orders to spy, will be followed by employees, or colleagues, as head office prefer to call them. This, however, is a safe assumption; we all know that. I got wise, though, and forewent the auld job security thing. I last ate seven days ago, and that was three beans in a salty sauce, but at least I’m free from litigation, and from paying attention, and from ever having to think about it, really. In fact, the above was never written.
John and Sally, Roger and Christine took their places at the table. It was a surprisingly well-orchestrated affair; Christine had all the cooking done and dusted, and sat at the south-western end of the room, next to the kitchen door, ready to fetch in the various courses as and when necessary. The tone and general ambience were sombre, as befitted the occasion. Talk was vapid and perfunctory, drinking slow but steady. All were reasonably at ease.
Four or so hours into the evening, Roger noticed that John was without his customary chrome-plated glasses. He made a polite enquiry on the matter. John’s face fell visibly from its already neutral countenance. He related the following short tale, as Sally rested her chin on her fist, her eyes on a place mat;
“It was last Monday, just out in the garden reading a book – Madame Bovary, you know – minding my own business, when this… thing descended from I don’t know where. It was a bird, a big bloody crow. Went off with my glasses, of all things,” John let out an exasperated wheeze, “They were… well you know how… they were custom made and… Christ! I watched the godforsaken thing fly off, most satisfied, I shouldn’t wonder. And I’ll tell you what, it’s the same blasted bird I’ve given crumbs and what have you every day – every day – for I don’t know how long. And have I seen the bloody fiend since? I most certainly have not! It was biding its time no doubt…”
“Well,” interjected a nonchalant Roger, “You might say it’s become a scarce crow.”
Sally spat.
