It Came From Airport Security

Announcing...

2007-08-22T15:34:00.000-04:00

The waiting is over! It's time to announce the grand prize winner of our call for stories.

The stories submitted were great, the competition was fierce, and our judges are pleased to announce that our grand prize winner is:

"Warm," by Victor Bornia!

Bornia's story will be marked as our grand prize winner in the final anthology, and he will receive the grand prize package.

Speaking of the anthology...

Now Available!

You can purchase your very own copy of It Came From Airport Security! It's available currently from Lulu.com. It's going into Bowker's Books In Print, and other online retailers should start listing it in the next 6-8 weeks. It is registered with ISBN 978-1-4303-1318-2

Author's copies are currently on order and will be shipped soon along with all of our fabulous prizes.

We had a great time running this contest, reading the entries, and preparing this book, and we'd like to thank everybody who submitted a story for their work! If your mailing address has changed recently, please let us know so we can ship your prizes to a place where you will actually receive them.

Quality control finished up on the book recently, and as a brief example I'd like to show you two things you've seen before.

The first image is the original cover design for the anthology, and the second is the design as it appears on the final product. One major change is obvious - the authors of the stories inside are now listed on the front cover. A minor change that might only be visible to the typographically minded has also occurred. In the original, there's an extra space between the words "It" and "Came." That's been corrected on the final product.

Of course, there were interior edits as well, but I thought a quick illustration of our quality control might be nice to see. We've worked hard to make this book look good, and we hope that you will all enjoy it!

Cheers!

-Glen

Thank you for your patience!

2007-08-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

The quality control process is underway with It Came From Airport Security. We're reviewing proofs, and the book should be available soon!

In the meantime, here's the updated cover artwork for the anthology!

It's on its way...

2007-07-21T17:00:00.000-04:00

The book has been sent to the publisher! We are currently awaiting a proof copy to review before approving it for publication.

A Brief Update

2007-07-01T16:51:00.001-04:00

To everybody who has been following this project - sorry for being out of touch for so long!

The project is still happening, the anthology is still on the way. We are preparing the book to be sent to the printers shortly. We're hoping within the next three weeks to have the book available, and to have our prizes shipped shortly after.

Thanks for your patience!

the Problem with Bess or Super Mutant Animals Fight Terrorism

2006-11-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

by Michael Orbach

http://www.qcknightnews.com/

I wasn’t that surprised when the cat grew wings. I mean I had seen that before in the airport, dogs growing flippers, birds growing hands, cats growing wings weren’t a new thing. It was old hat. After all, it was a tabby so the wings, the mottled brown variety you see on most common birds actually fit in rather nicely. Alright, I won’t lie. People weren’t happy about it flying all around the rafters and sometimes sitting atop the custom lines meowing at the security guards. It wasn’t actually a meow but some sort of strange sound, like a meow mixed with a power drill.

But me, I didn’t mind it at all. I guess I kinda even liked it. I had found the cat before it grew wings and I named it Bess. I suppose I have to explain something. Ever since those terrorists tried to blow up all those planes in England nobody’s allowed to bring any more things on to planes. I mean anything, not drinks, not clothes, not suitcases, even babies need to be cryogenically frozen until you get back. It’s pretty embarrassing but many times people need to get naked before they get on the plane. But hey, it’s all part of national security, so you gotta understand. So one more thing like a cat with wings pisses the hell out of them.

I’m a janitor at JFK airport in New York. I get there pretty early in the morning and I stay pretty late at night. I’ve been working here for so long that my boss lets me sleep in the airport. Well, not really in the airport, but in an abandoned air cabin in the back of the airport. I usually take a cart down there when I’m ready to go to sleep and I usually watch the sunrise through the panoramic view of the pilot’s seat. It’s a pretty good life.

People were friendly in the airport, even with all the warnings and the like. I liked my boss and I liked the cat. I liked watching the sunrise and I liked hearing the planes always taking off and landing; I liked the sound of the air traffic control tower sending out signals every minute of every day. There was only one person I didn’t like and he was my fellow janitor. Gerald.

I didn’t trust Gerald.

Gerald was a little skinny guy who lived somewhere out on Long Island. I don’t trust Long Island either for that matter. Gerald had these really little beedy eyes that I could never tell what he was really looking at. I also hate to judge appearances but Gerald looked slimy. I could never tell what he was up to and he always looked like he was up to something. For example, once I found him cleaning the men’s room in the duty-free area. I confronted him right there on the spot and said that that was my job. The first-floor men’s room was my sole responsibility, I told him.

“First come, first serve,” he had said with a mean look on his face.

And then to make things worse, when I opened the door to the men’s room the entire place sparkled. He’d been using a different type of cleaner, brighter that I’d ever seen. It could’ve been radiation. Someone could’ve sat down on the toilet and gotten cancer. That was a no-go, he was encroaching on my territory. But then after a few more incidents, our rivalry had been easing off. I’d been noticing something about Gerald. You see, some people kept on thinking they could still bring things on airplanes like clothing or Gatorade. Some people even thought about bringing oven cleaning fluid. The security guards would always stop them and make them dump them out in the waste-bin. It wasn’t a pretty site, you never knew what brand of clothing these people were wearing, Nautica and Ralph Lauren shirts were always catching fire.

But it wasn’t so bad, but it was really bad when the bins started glowing. That made me nervous. I’d always be called over and have to take them to the Central waste-bin a huge dumpster that the garbage men would pick up everyday.

So one night I was called in by the security. A heavy-set woman had brought an entire lot of Estee Lauder cosmetics with her, which was an obvious no-go. I put on my full-fledged HAZMAT uniform with the huge plastic helmet and walked to the Jet Blue terminal (since Americans were only allowed to fly domestically, it was the only air terminal in business). Some people gave me some looks as I stomped past the baggage check but everyone knew I had serious business. The woman was upset about her cosmetics and a wave of disgust passed through me as I saw how carelessly she handled them. Didn’t she understand national security, I wondered? Didn’t she know that Estee Lauder cosmetics at certain temperatures, combined with certain highly explosive chemicals, along with an electrical charge, could be a lethal weapon? I snatched them out of her hand and the rest of the people began cheering for me. I had a sacred duty. The security guard patted me on the back as I left. I made sure to remember to wash my HAZMAT suit where his hand touched me.

As I took the waste basket out to the Central waste-bin I noticed something.

The central-waste-bin was gone.

In its stead was a trace of glowing green spots. A trail! I thought. Someone is compromising out national security! I raced after it, following the trail is turned color, from green to orange, to red, my own national security colors raising as the colors changed. The Estee Lauder cosmetics spilled this way and that way, but my safety wasn’t a concern here, it was the entire world’s.

I followed the trail until the remains of the departure section of Terminal One. The departures section had been bulldozed years after the first terrorist attack. I never went there. I was always afraid of the ghosts of old passengers who never could arrive at the airport and had died circling endlessly around the airport. But my fears couldn’t get the best of me, not now, when so much was at stake. An eerie glow emerged from the terminal and I heard the sound of a cat’s meowing. I raced there. I threw down the waste-bin I was holding, I would need my hands and mind free, something was amiss.

And then I saw it.

Gerald was standing above the central waste bin, the bin, glowing and bubbling, filled with green liquid. The liquid burped and splattered over the concrete floor as Gerald, his eyes wide and demented, mixed the evil liquid with his company-owned mop.

“What in the lord’s name are you doing!” I yelled at him.

He didn’t answer me. Hovering right above him was Bess, her wings languidly pushing the air down. Even more horrifying was what was next to him, cages and cages of confiscated animals. From hamsters to golden Labradors all nervously crouching in their cage. Until then, I had never noticed how well his evil grin matched his yellow jumpsuit.

He suddenly seemed to realize that I was there.

"We must fight terrorism with super mutant animals,” he said, saliva hurtled from his mouth into the cauldron of the central waste-bin and my shoes.

“Is that what you’ve been doing this whole time?” I asked. “Was this whole janitor work just an excuse for you to conduct your mad experiments on confiscated animals and hair gels!” My voice was rising then, I was angry, but he didn’t seem to hear me. He only continued.

“Terrorism can only be stopped by super mutant animals. If we had an entire army of stupid mutant animals we could stop anyone!”

I saw Bess’s eyes, sad yellow eyes looking at me. Or maybe they weren’t sad, they looked pretty ambivalent, but I knew what I had to do and for once, one thing was entirely clear to me and I said it.

“You can’t stop terrorism by creating more and more super mutant animals, terrorism needs to be stopped by mutual understanding and common grounds as well as compromise and United Nations protocol.” It wasn’t really true though, I thought some terrorism could be stopped by super mutant animals but not all terrorism, the exact breakup I wasn’t so sure of.

But it didn’t matter, Gerald wasn’t listening. He had taken a gerbil and dumped him in the broth. The gerbil came out, half lizard, half gerbil, half nineteen forty-five television set, its lower half a mess of scales, its middle, fur, and its head, a black-and-white monitor. I knew that reason wouldn’t work with Gerald so I did the only thing I knew would stop him.

I walked over to Gerald and punched him. Really hard.

Bess let out a loud meow and landed on my shoulder. The hamster looked around for a minute before settling down on the rim of the lid and flicked on Leave it to Beaver.

It was one of my favorite episodes.

After that things went back to normal. My boss was pretty happy with me, we had figured out where all the mutated animals and where the waste was going; he had actually been worried that terrorists were taking the waste to make more and more bombs, but once he found out that it was Gerald trying to create an army of super mutant animals he was quite relieved. Gerald was put on indefinite leave and I nearly got a medal from the State Department. And I thought things were over by then. But there still was Bess.

The problem with Bess was that she didn’t stop growing. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but she had been growing steadily. When this whole mess with Gerald ended she was about two feet long, which while big for a cat, wasn’t that noticeable. But the next day she was bigger, at least another foot in length and height. Now this never happened before. And a cat with wings is an okay thing at four feet, but by twenty feet the people starting the getting antsy. It actually flew after an airplane once. My boss says that was a big PR mess for the airport. It also ended up sleeping on the runways and once it even tried to scratch itself and nearly knocked over a control tower.

Eventually they had to call in the National Guard but that didn’t really do anything. They fired off some rounds and attempted some combat maneuvers but the cat yawned and swatted them off. Bess did the same to the Marines. Finally they called in the air force and took the battle to the skies. My boss was pretty apologetic.

“I’m sorry, she has to be stopped. It’s a matter of national security,” he said.

I couldn’t really argue with him, but all the same I was going to miss Bess. She was still playful even at three stories. She’d usually take off in the morning and knocked over a Tuscan milk truck for breakfast.

The airfight was a mess. F-16’s and tigerhawks were swirling all around trying to hit her. They kept on launching missiles that went off course and hit other F-16s. Gerald even tried to go up in an old WW2 plane he had bought years ago. He even asked me to help spin the propeller. Bess gave as good as she got though, she took down a number of those planes and even ate some of the pilots. Eventually though one missile hit Bess in the leg, I saw her hurl up in pain, shocked as to how this all happened, forget to flap her wings and fall to the ground crushing some jets under her. She landed on the runway all curled up cute like she was going to sleep. I was the first one there and she looked at me sleepily with one eye open. I guess she wasn’t in that much pain. She looked at me once, her big yellow eye wide open and then she closed it for the last time. I was told that the marines eventually came back in tanks to make sure she was dead but I had gone back to my airplane by then. I had said goodbye.

Things were really quiet after that. Gerald was back on the force and my boss was right sorry about the whole mess, he kept on apologizing to me but I told him it was alright. Gerald felt pretty bad also. He bought me a small kitten on his first day of work and promised to never step on my toes and take my bathrooms again. He even had his wife make small basket for the kitten to sleep in. I named her Sam and I keep her in the cockpit of my airplane and I make sure she doesn’t go out when I can’t watch her. Sometimes she curls up on my lap when I sit in the pilot’s seat. But other than that, things are pretty much the same.

Sometimes I dream about Bess, her shadow a giant shape falling over the airport as she flies up farther and farther her wings beating to her own drum. I hear her meowing loud and I finally know what she’s saying. She’s saying “so long suckers!” And up she flies.
_____________

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Al-Zombie

2006-11-12T22:06:00.000-05:00

Al-Zombie
By William Coker

Tony looked at his wife Selena and was sickened.She was six feet away from him at the other end of a shabby rectangular wooden table.Her hands were cuffed to her chair much like her husband’s were to his.Her eyes had gone from their normally vibrant green to a discomforting, more sinister, hue of red.An acrid mixture of blood and foam dripped from one corner of her mouth.Smooth, white skin now looked like a graying map made from centuries-old parchment, varicose veins forming lines which may have depicted a world discovered long ago.A quiet growl crept from her lips.She reeked of eggs.The smell alone was enough to have made Tony vomit twice in the ten minutes they had spent in the office.

The door behind Tony swung open and hit the wall.A deep, gravelly voice bounded across the walls, threatening to punch holes in the drywall.“And you would be Mr. Sardo.”

“Y-yes?”The disembodied voice caused Tony to gulp with trepidation.

“I’m Lieutenant General Ian Rockwell, Homeland Security.”The voice moved in front of Tony.He saw that it belonged to a tall, broad man with gray crew-cut hair.He was dressed in military fatigues, complete with tall black combat boots.The huge man motioned towards Selena. “This is your wife, I take it?”

“Yes.”

Rockwell took a seat in an empty chair on the broad side of the table, next to Tony, and looked towards the doorway.“Talbert, come on in and shut the door.”He motioned towards the slender, black-haired TSA officer, who came inside the office just enough to be in Tony’s field of vision.“You remember Officer Talbert, right?”Tony recognized Talbert’s middle-aged face as one that he saw for a brief moment before being tackled to the ground and handcuffed.

“Yeah, I remember him.”Talbert scoffed with what sounded to Tony like arrogance and stood against the wall.

“Good.”Rockwell pulled an ashtray closer to him and took a cigar out of his chest pocket.“Now, can you tell me what happened out there?”

“Well, you see, my wife and I were here to catch a flight to LA so we could fly out to Hawaii.”

“Hawaii’s beautiful, you know.Ever been?”Rockwell’s voice held a slight edge that was lost on Tony.He put the cigar in his mouth and lit it, his careful puffs quickly filling the air with smoke.

“No sir.We were both going out there for the first time to celebrate our five-year wedding anniversary.”

“You and,” Rockwell pointed at Selena, “this zombie bitch?”

Tony stammered at the sudden insult to his wife.“W-watch what you say about my wife.”

Rockwell steadily rose from his seat, cigar in mouth, and leaned towards Tony, who was slowly moving his head away.“Listen, son.I don’t give a damn about your wedding anniversary.I don’t care where you’re going, what you had for breakfast on the way to the airport or why it sounds like you’re shitting yourself right now.”He pointed again at Selena.“All I want to know is what happened to her.”

“Well, my wife was having her bag searched and the TSA person told her to empty her shampoo in one of those big blue bins out there.”Tony felt beads of sweat begin to run down his face.

“Mmm-hmm?”

“She was squeezing out the bottle and this fat guy came charging from behind her and bumped her.”Tony leaned to his side suddenly and vomited again.

Rockwell took a long drag from his cigar and blew it in Tony’s face.“She wasn’t pushed or anything?”

“No,” Tony coughed from the smoke, “no, sir.”

“And didn’t you empty something into the same bin right before she got to it?”

“Yes,” Tony said.“I was told to empty my water bottle.”

“Water?Officer Talbert here told me that you had a clear bottle with a blue liquid in it.”

“Ok, it wasn’t water.”Tony grew more nervous as Rockwell’s gaze tore through him.“It was a sports drink.”

“You know,” Rockwell took another drag from his cigar and, again, blew the smoke in Tony’s face, “I think you’re lying.”

“Lying?”

“Yeah, I think the two of you are involved in some plot to get zombies in--infiltrate our airways and spread your disease at an accelerated rate.”Rockwell stood up to get a good look at Tony’s body language.

“Wait, what?Accelerated rate?”Tony felt a growing pit churn in his gut.

“Yeah, it all makes sense.You infect people at the airport, get them onto planes going all these different places and, BOOM!, planes full of zombies landing at every major airport in the nation.”

“Why the hell would I turn my own wife into a zombie?”

“Son, if I understood the terrorist mind that well, I’d have exterminated the lot of you already.”

Tony continued, disbelief filling his speech.“And besides, even if we were terrorists, how could we have hatched such a so-called brilliant plan?The liquid ban was just put into effect four hours ago.”

“Crafty little bastards, aren’t you?”

“You’re completely insane!”He felt himself screaming at the general.

“Listen, son.Yelling’s only going to make things worse for you.”

“Look, if you people didn’t have all that stuff going into those trash cans in the first place we wouldn’t be in here!I mean, who ever heard of putting so many apparently dangerous substances all in the same container anyway?”Rockwell pulled a 9mm pistol from his side holster and carefully screwed on a silencer.Tony’s eyes grew wide with horror.“I’m sorry!I didn’t mean to shout.”

“You know, they soundproof the hell out of these rooms, but you can never be too careful.”Rockwell’s gaze met Tony’s, and then he looked towards Selena.

“No, you can’t shoot her.”

“My boy, I’m here to make sure we win this war.”His arm rose up to Selena.A finger squeezed the trigger, sending a round piercing through her forehead.The force of the blast knocked her head back, causing her neck to snap in two.Blood sprayed up in a weak fountain, and then slowed to a trickle.Her head lay dangling behind her shoulders.“Hmmm, I’ve never seen bones that brittle.”

“You asshole!”

Rockwell turned to Tony and fired a second round that went right between his eyes.Tony’s head slumped to the side.Blood poured from the hole onto the floor.Talbert, still standing against the wall, made a slight choking noise.

“Look, Talbert, the only way we’re going to win this thing is if we hit them before they hit us.”

“B-but sir,” Talbert swallowed hard, “was it necessary to kill both of them?”

“Think for just a second what would happen if a zombie got on to a plane out there.Do you want that on your conscience?”

“No, sir.” “Well, you get this cleaned up and call me if you have any more problems.”Rockwell opened the door and lumbered out of the room.Talbert looked at the two lifeless figures in front of him, leaned over suddenly and threw up the egg and cheese bagel he ate for breakfast.

“Goddamned war on terror.”

The Beginning of the End...

2006-10-31T10:11:00.000-05:00

And today is the last call for entries! We're looking forward to putting this anthology together, and it's been great reading the entries so far - but if you still have a story waiting to be submitted, now's the time!

We'll Teach You to Drink Deep

2006-09-16T22:29:00.000-04:00

by Kevin Hayes

http://randominnyc.blogspot.com/

This is how it happened the first time:

"Do it." We were all saying it, taunting Charles, and Charles was wondering how he'd gotten himself into this. "Do it." An empty airport. Or as empty as LaGuardia gets. The break room. The three of us looking at him.

"The money's down. You gotta do it."

That was true. One hundred and twenty dollars on the scratched vinyl tabletop. How had he managed this? Charles Philips. Thirty-one, old enough to know better. Tired at the end of his shift, tired of throwing out perfectly good cups of coffee and bottles of Diet Coke, he'd said, "I bet there's nothing bad in there."

"I bet you 20 bucks you won't drink it." Marl had said it first, but the two of us jumped on it. Three kids taunting the old man. Kids who thought it was all up, up and away from there. Kids who didn't have a wife and baby at home waiting for them, and two buses to take to get there. Not one of us three had a wife who'd be pissed off to holy hell if he lost his job again.

"Ho-ho, I didn't say I'd drink it." Twenty turned into sixty like nothing. Then doubled like it was a magic trick. One of us, Jayce, had gotten iffy when he had to put the extra twenty up, and for a minute Charles had seen his escape route. Turn it into a joke. The notion flashed by. Let Jayce walk away, then just go home. But he didn't turn it into a joke. He'd seen six portraits of Andrew Jackson all saying, "Be nice to go out to a good dinner, wouldn't it?" And so he'd said it.

"You're on."

And so, there he was. There the four of us were. The break room right off the locker room. Fifteen minutes past the end of our shift. Five minutes till the bus Charles usually took. Thirty-five minutes till the one he'd catch that night. Right there next to the twenties was the cup he'd have to drink. It looked nasty under the fluorescents in the break room, but what didn't? A liquid with a thin, indistinct color sat inside a clear plastic cup. It was closest to brown, but it wasn't brown. Not quite. It was a pale, limpid thing. It was brown's elderly aunt. In some way that was worse. If it had glowed like a deep sea fish, it would make a certain sense. What it looked like most was a cup of East River.

"Do it." Marl again.

"All of it?"

"There is a hundred and twenty dollars sitting there. Hell yes, all of it." Charles looked at Marl. It was a look that said, "I've got ten years and a ten thousand miles on you." I'd gotten that look a couple times on shift. It wasn't pleasant. Do it. All of it. Do it. We were practically chanting. We were definitely laughing.

Charles picked up the cup and took a sniff.

"Bottoms up." He tipped the cup and his head in one motion, and shot it back like a glass of the kind of something he hadn't touched in years. Belatedly, he wondered whether there was any booze in the glass. If there was, he wondered if there'd be enough to unwire his brain just the wrong way.

All of it. He did it.

He did it.

money the money's gone how do I tell her gone said business but went to Atlantic City why the fuck did I do that I was due why the...this guy big black dude's gonna tell me what to do gonna tell me throw this out what if he pulls me off the line god I hate the airport I hate...the plane the plane the plane it's safe nothing to worry about safer than cars safer than cars but they don't x-ray your stuff when you get into one...find out what will I do the kids he'll get the kids that's the way it works that's the way it goes he'd get them he'd leave me and he'd get them and he'd be right...a faggot mom dad you raised a faggot I like dick that's right sorry to tell you this thought you'd like to know in person...did I send out the cable bill it was right there on the table and I know I brought it out to the car but did I...calm remain calm tests are on their way back and she'll be fine the doctor said that this stuff is usually nothing just bad cramps or something nothing don't worry don't worry don't worry about it

I'm not going to pretend that's exactly what passed through Charles's mind. But, it was stuff like that. It's always stuff like that.

"We should leave. Just leave, man." I admit it, I said it. I wanted to run away from the miracle I'd just witnessed. But it wasn't a miracle to me. It was the old guy passed out on the floor.

"We can't leave. Can't leave him on the floor."

The light was shining right into Charles's eyes. He heard us before he saw us. He blinked and saw outlines. The back of his head hurt.

"What--?" he coughed.

"He's awake!"

"Oh, thank God."

"What did you put in there?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You put something in there. What did you put in there? Ecstasy or some shit."

"Nothing. Jayce grabbed it outta the bin." Me again, quick to run, quick to play innocent. Quick to push the blame around. Thing is, I was supposed to have grabbed it out of the bin, but I punked out and made Jayce do it.

"Yeah, I just pulled it straight out. Dipped the cup in, that's all."

Charles tried to do a sit up to right himself, but couldn't make it before he felt carsick. He slid back down, his back flat on the ground.

"Shit."

"Need help?"

"Yeah, but give me a minute."

They say it feels like getting drunk. Or getting stoned. Or losing your mind. Or something. They say all that shit and it's all wrong. They say that doing it too much can make you go crazy, but that one time is enough for most people to get hooked. That a drop'll make you go crazy and turn you into an addict. That's wrong, too. Or rather, it's right for all the wrong reasons. Just about too much of anything can make a man crazy. Fame. Money. Power. Alcohol. But they're kind of right: most people use it one time and never need to do it again. Charles, himself, has only done it three times. That first time. And then with his wife to show her it was safe. Then a few nights later when he got us to try it.

Anyway, after they say it'll make you crazy, they usually start going on about the side effects. I actually heard a news report say that it lowered inhibitions. And said it like it was a bad thing. What're inhibitions except fears with a longer name? So yeah, drinking deep takes those away.

Or, it doesn't take them away. It doesn't make you fearless -- that's another lie they want you to believe. It makes you aware of your fears. And others'. It shows you other people's fears, it teaches you to recognize what it's like to be afraid. And when it does that, eventually you can figure out when you're afraid. And you can figure out when being afraid is what's motivating you instead of every good and honest thing inside of you. It winds up that you've been afraid most of your life. You find that out pretty quick.

Charles got arrested last night. They picked him up, and walked him by the cameras and microphones. The news people ate it up. He walked with his back straight, and his hands cuffed behind his back, and I heard one of them call him "a defiant Charles Philips." They're -- the news, the government, the cops -- they're all calling him a cult leader, and I guess that's true enough. True enough for them. Fear. All fear. You can feel it off them. They're scared of a clear-eyed population. They're scared of a population that hasn't been cowed, that can clearly see what the real problems in the world are. I'm just repeating what Charles has said a hundred times, now. And they're right to be afraid. A population that drinks deep isn't going to be theirs anymore. Charles doesn't usually mention that. He likes to talk about a return to American values. He likes to say the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. He thought, I think, that it would keep him free to preach for a while longer.

When we got back to New York, they were waiting for him. They picked him up at the house in Queens that a stock broker guy from Westchester rents for him and Mary. Not sure how they found out about it. They didn't arrest Mary, but I'm worried they're gonna pick me, Jayce, and Marl up. Right now, though, the news is still calling us three unnamed accomplices. We've been interrogated by the police, before, so it's likely they'll pick us up again. I don't think it really matters at this point. I think there are too many people who've drunk deep. That's what it seems like, anyway.

The last meeting we held was in a basement -- a nice, finished basement -- in Alexandria, Indiana. It was the end of our third trip through the Midwest. I never realized there were so many small places in this country. Alexandria's one of them. It looked more like a Tupperware party than anything else. Some nice, white, middle-aged woman had hooked up with a guy from Indianapolis International, a pilot, I think, and had drunk deep.

The pilot talked to Charles's wife. She talked to the woman. Next thing, we're talking to a bunch of housewives and divorcees out in the middle of nowhere. The four of us, twenty nice, white ladies, and cornfields. We rode in at night, 'cos some of these places aren't exactly happy to see four black guys roll into town. Maybe they'd think there's about to be a robbery and decide to chase us out of town. If they knew what we were really up to, there'd be a good chance of a lynching, I think. We passed a sign into town that said, "Home of the world's largest ball of paint," and we started cracking up. We're sitting there dead serious, eyes open, and the headlights hit that sign. One by one, a chuckle, then full on laughter.

Charles gave his usual speech -- pretty much what I wrote out before and a little bit on how we don't know why drinking deep works the way it does -- and we gave them drops of it. We started out doing drops to conserve it, but now we don't have to. When we come into a town, someone's already stashed jugs of the stuff. Doesn't matter, a drop is as good as a glass. We kept them seated so they didn't fall down and the four of us wound our way through knees and fold-out chairs to get it to everyone. The host, the nice lady, stood off to the side and watched, so happy to see her friends drink deep.

That was probably the last meeting we'll ever have with Charles, and it was hardly different than a hundred we'd held before. They're all so similar that I can't really tell most of them apart now that I think about it. I'd like to, though.

Charles got stabbed in prison. He's dead. Charles is dead. He made it three weeks in prison. The TV is saying that some Aryan Brotherhood guy did it. Said it was racial, and that he called Charles a devil worshipper and spat on him after he did it. It's almost certainly true. I really do think that's what happened. The community is already whispering about a conspiracy. About the government killing him and covering it up. I don't think that's right, but whether or not it is, they're still responsible for his death. They're responsible for putting him in prison, and responsible for getting everyone worked up to the point where stabbing him seemed like a good idea.

The news is also suggesting that Mary was the one who turned in Charles. They're turning it into a whole, "He ran off to start a cult, and she sat at home worrying." It's bullshit. Mary drank deep before any of us. She took the phone calls. She dispatched us half the time.

The three of us took off last night. I don't know when we'll be able to come back to New York. New York doesn't need us, though, the community is strong here. We decided to split up. We're going wherever we're needed. Word reaches you if you're listening for it, and there are a lot of people ready to drink deep. There are a lot of people who need to be told that it's okay. That things are better than they've been led to believe, and that they don't have to be scared anymore if they don't want to be. Since none of us are as good a speaker as Charles is, we decided we'd write something out, and say it each time we spoke to a group. I called Mary and read it to her over the phone to see if she thought Charles would have liked it. She started crying and said that he would have. So, it's got her blessing. Here it is, and you can feel free to use it if you want:

Welcome. I assume you are here because you don't want to be afraid anymore. You've been told that the world is dangerous and that you should be scared of it. The world is dangerous, but you shouldn't be scared of it. Life has always been dangerous. It's always been full of risks. Some people want you to run away from life. We want you to live fully and freely. I'm not going to force you to do drink deep. If you want to leave, you can do so whenever you wish. But if you leave, in a few weeks make sure you take a look at your friends who stayed. You may change your mind then, and that's okay.
We don't know why drinking deep works. We don't know what it does or how it does it. We don't think it's harmful, but there's a chance it's bad for you, and you should be aware of that. But we believe that the way you live now is, itself, definitely harmful. We believe you can live better than you are right now.
Drinking deep won't give you any superpowers. It won't make you go insane either. Both of those things are lies. Drinking deep won't even take away your fears. What it will do is show how much you -- and everyone else -- are ruled by fear. It will show you how often we all say "no" to life instead of joyfully saying "yes." If you are afraid now, that's okay. Being afraid is okay. But if you can deal with your fear right now and drink deep with me, you'll know how to deal with your fears forever. And that's the closest thing to freedom I've ever known.

Blunt Weapon

2006-09-15T13:58:00.000-04:00

by Steven F. Lott

s_lott@yahoo. com

I met her at the Best Market. Not the best -- like the best in the world -- but the one on the corner of Best street. She was a total hottie, and I couldn't figure what she was doing in the Best Market at 4:30 AM. I go out then because the guy behind the counter doesn't scare easily, and I can say "hi" to him and chat a little bit. The bars are closed, and the morning crowd hasn't started yet.

I was getting some groceries, considering the Best Market is mostly just chips and snacks and stuff. I didn't hear a car pull up, so I didn't have time to duck out through the stockroom. She came in flashing a big smile and a huge rack, and didn't even blink when she saw me.

I turned away, but she runs over to me anyway, and asks if I can help. She just needs a tire changed. I looked at the counter guy, and he shrugs. I looked out the window for the car, since I didn't hear it, and she points at this brand new black Blazer parked out of the lights, almost behind the dumpster.

I didn't know what she was doing, parking like that by Best Market. It's a sketchy neighborhood. The cops usually park right on the corner and get like two or three calls a night. I can see them from my place, the condo at the top of the new Shoreline Apartments. Because of the settlement, I got a great place where I can be near the action.

She says she can't change it herself, and doesn't want to wake anybody up or be a bother to anyone. So I said, "Sure," since I really wasn't doing anything. I never do anything. I sort of can't do anything, since I'm in a kind of witness protection program, so I don't know anybody, and I can't really get a job.

The tire was totally flat, but I didn't want to look stupid doing it. And the settlement and the witness protection thing meant that I had to be careful what I did. But she couldn't get the tools out because the back was filled with stuff, and she didn't want to unpack it all just to get the tools out of the bin under the floor mats, so, I sort of had to. I didn't mean to, but I couldn't really do anything else, could I? She needed help, I could do the job, and it was really important to her to get going without waiting for a tow truck or anything.

So I just undid the lug nuts with my left hand, lifted the back-end up with my right, swapped out the tire and spun the nuts down finger tight. It only took a second because it only takes me a second.

She gave me this big hug. Not like a little shoulder hug or anything, but a full-tit press. She also asked if I hung around there a lot, and I said I did, even though I didn't, but I said it in case she might come back or something. She said she had to run, but she'd be back, and maybe buy me a six-pack or something.

So I went there four nights in a row, until she was back. It was a Friday, and I didn't want to go out because the bars are usually busier, and there's always more cars around. But by 4:30 AM it was quiet and when I went down to the market, her blazer was there, hidden behind the dumpster again. This time the tire wasn't flat.

She wasn't in the car; she was inside talking with the cashier. I could hear everything and she was asking stuff about me: when I came in, what I bought, who else saw me there, that kind of thing. I didn't want her talking with him because I did the tire change. But it was cool if she talked to him about me. From listening, I did figure out that her name was Karla, with a "K".

Karla bought me a six pack of something cheap, like Keystone. I thanked her, because it's polite, but I don't really drink that anymore. Now that I have the settlement, I can have Grey Goose and Dalwhinnie delivered, and I don't have to drink cheap stuff like I did before, when I had a shit job and had to bust ass 10 hours a day to afford a car and rent for a dump off Ferry Street and a case for the weekend.

She said that we should go outside and maybe sit in the truck and talk. But I can't really sit inside cars very easily anymore. I'm a lot bigger than before the accident, and my knees just kill me all the time. Standing hurts, but sitting hurts even more. The lawyer told me that the doctor says it was arthritis from the progeria and I just needed to take asprin, but like everything coming from a lawyer, that's a crock of shit, too.

She was a secretary or something at an employment agency, and she knew people who found jobs for people. Since I knew cars, she could get me a job working like nights or part-time or something. I couldn't say much, except that I didn't want to work. She thought that was bad because I was just living off society. I had to work to make myself valuable, and help others, and give something back, she said. But I couldn't really tell her about the case, and the settlement and the trials and stuff, because they told me I'd lose everything if I talked, so I just said that I couldn't work because of my condition and all.

She said that I wanted to help people, and I told her that of course I would help people. I wasn't any criminal or anything. The settlement was all mine, and I earned it -- in a way -- through my suffering. But really, I worked hard for everything, and was willing to help anyone who needed help. I gave a ton of money to charities, and burn units, and hospitals and stuff. One of the lawyers helped me pick some out. And I helped Karla with her flat tire.

And she asked if I'd be interested in helping other people who had problems, and I said sure. I'd help anyone who needed it and couldn't help themselves. Victims and stuff, people who'd been hurt, but it wasn't any fault of theirs; people who got hurt because of something someone else had done.

After we talked, I saw that I really had become a grandpa. After two beers, I had to pee like a racehorse. Maybe the scotch had cut down my capacity for beer. Or maybe I was just getting old. But I wasn't really that old. I was like twenty-six when the accident occurred, and there was a year or so in the hospital, and then the witness protection in houses out in the country, and then the trials ran for like three years until last year, when we won my first settlement, so I wasn't really that old. I think there's still another trial going on, but it's another one of the secret trials, and I don't have to go to it. Although, one of the lawyers says that's it unconstitutional to have a trial for me where I'm not there, but I guess that's what they're having the trial about, and then, after that, it'll be decided whether I have to go or not go.

When I left to go home to go to the bathroom, she asked me when I'd be back. I wanted to say "anytime you're here," but I didn't think of it. So I just said "whenever" and she told me that Tuesday would be good for her, and maybe I could buy. But I didn't want to carry around a bottle of Grey Goose, that's like a wino thing to do, sneaking a bottle around in a paper bag. And I have to bring ice and glasses, and I got these great shot glasses from a catalog that sit in this ice bath to keep them really ice cold, and it works. It's not like some plastic thing you buy that doesn't really work. It's like real glass, and really nice, maybe the nicest thing I bought that didn't come with the condo.

On Tuesday, I went down at 4:30 AM to meet Karla, and brought an empty Grey Goose Vanilla to show her what I had. She was already there, again, waiting in her truck. I can't believe I never figured it out, but at the time, I never figured it out. You could tell that she didn't wear a bra because she didn't really need one, and had dresses that fit perfectly and showed everything and makes it hard to think.

I wasn't sure how it would go. I had the empty bottle, but I didn't know if she'd want to go back to my place. It turned out that she didn't want to, she liked to be outdoors.

I bought a couple of Stellas, and we sat on the tailgate and talked some more. I don't know how we got to this, but suddenly we were talking about politics and terrorism and stuff. I have to watch myself, because I can't mention the TSA or the accident, and it comes up a lot. It's still on the news sometimes, and they get it wrong, but I can't mention it. I just tell people I got burned and swelled up a lot.

She told me about this whole situation in North Korea, and how they had nuclear weapons; not bullshit weapons like Iraq, but the real deal. She knew some guys who wanted to make a clear statement that North Koreans weren't wanted around here.

She told me the Korea General Company was responsible for making parts of bombs. She told me that they were exporting their twisted message all around the world. She said that they advocated a lifestyle that was just evil, with fake elections, and people starving, and random searching of people, and no one allowed to travel, and all kinds of restrictions on freedom.

She said that Iraq and Iran both got their bombs and stuff from North Korea, but that was just icing on the donut. Sure, it would be good to help out our country, but it was more important to help the people of North Korea. I didn't like that part, because everyone knows Iraq had nothing.

She told me that I could help the North Koreans by destroying the KGC offices. If their offices were destroyed, it would make them look like the crap they are. Pictures of their stuff all smashed into a pile of glass and concrete would really show people that the North Koreans can't build anything, and can't be trusted. It would show the world that taking away people's freedoms just doesn't work.

She looked at me for a while. If I thought I could help, she said she would get me to where they were in San Francisco. She told me that I'd be a hero for helping stop North Korean from spreading their evil and their nuclear bombs.

I told her that it would have to be fast because I couldn't stay away too long. I had a lot of things going on with some charity stuff, the other trial. I had calls from my lawyers all the time. It had been quiet for the last few months, but you never know, maybe the other trial would be done, and I'd have to go back to court, again.

She really turned up the heat next Tuesday. She brought a bottle of Grey Goose Lemon, and we had a couple of shots. She told me that things were only getting worse, and I needed to do something to help the people in North Korea.

So I told her that I would go to San Francisco as long as nobody saw me and we were back the next day. She laughed and said that it would be tough to do in one night, because of the flight times and all, but we could do it over a few days. I felt like a dumb-shit not knowing how long it took to fly to San Francisco, but I never flew on a jet, except once when I was a kid and we went to Disney.

And, she said, we could forward my condo phone to a cell phone. I told her I didn't like cell phones because they hurt my head. Actually, a bunch of things hurt my head, like microwave ovens, computers, cops, and some building loading docks. I knew which ones, but I didn't know why some hurt and some don't.

The place they put me up in San Francisco was a dump. I told her that, too. It was just an old office space with the cubicles removed and some curtains hung up. The air conditioner filters hadn't been changed and the place had that empty-building funk. They told me we'd hang out for a few days and meet up with some guys who'd fill me in on the details.

But it didn't work out like that.

The second day in San Francisco, the guy who delivered the pizza beat the door in. I mean seriously, beat the door in. No one else was there. I was watching TV in the back of the office. I left him the envelope with the huge tip and the instructions to buzz twice, but he didn't buzz, he bashed open the door with one of those giant crowbars that firemen carry.

I heard the smash and looked around for something to beat him down with. Old habits die hard. I wanted a baseball bat like I kept behind my door at home. I could probably crush him with my bare hands, but I still looked around. He rushed into the office, hands up, like someone's holding a gun on him.

He says my name, my real name, not my witness protection name. I couldn't believe it: here's this guy who breaks in, stands there with his hands up, and knows my real name. I guess I just stood there looking like a dumb-shit for so long he put his hands down, and asked if he could take a seat.

I looked at him and asked about the pizza."Oh yeah," he says and comes back with a two double pies, 60 wings, and a two cold subs, my exact order. And the giant crowbar.

I didn't know what to do. Call the cops? Call Karla? I couldn't call any of my lawyers; I wasn't supposed to be here, so that would put my money at risk. I had to keep it all quiet, so I figured I should just be nice to him and he'd go away.

Besides, he had some kind of little radio that felt like someone was drilling in my head. I could barely hear anything else.

"What is this?" I asked, not knowing what else to do.

"I should ask you that," he says, but tells me that I don't really know what's going on. I dig into the pies, and he tells me a little bit about what I'm doing here. He doesn't have everything right, but the North Korean nuclear bomb story is top dead center. And he knew Karla, and the whole Best Market thing, like he was there, too.

I tell him that he's half right, but I don't tell him which half. He doesn't seem to care.

"Here's the deal," he says."You're working for the North Koreans. For the North Koreans." Twice like that and then he sits back and looks at me. I can't figure out what he's talking about, and I tell him he's full of it.

He leans forward."How do we know? Easy," he says."Who's paying for all this? Who's that girl, Karla, working for? We traced the money. We traced the money."

Why? I asked him. Why would the North Koreans ask me to smash up their company? It didn't make sense.

"Anger," he said."Anger at the Americans, and their South Korean friends. Anger at everyone who did this to them." Then he jumped up. I heard a little speaker buzz something but didn't catch it all."Don't be pushy. Keep your eyes and ears open. You watch, this is a bigger game, and you're being played by them. Played," he said, turning to look out the window.

He started heading toward the door."Wait," I said."Tell me how they found me. How'd you find me? I'm supposed to be hidden so no one gets back at me."

"No one gets back at you?" he says, mocking me."Seriously, who'd get back at you? You were a victim, champ. Victim. Listen, this is important: someone sold you. You're being played. A lawyer, a Federal Marshall, someone at TSA, someone burned you. We don't know exactly who, but we're trying to find out. What does matter is that you're being played, you're doing their dirty work. You have to quit, walk off the job, find a way out."

He ran out the door, across the parking lot. I heard a car door open and shut and a car ease around the building. I heard Karla's car come screeching into the lot. I heard a pile of guys get out of the car and scramble all over the place. I was halfway through the wings when Karla came into the back where I was, asking me what happened.

"I went out to get the pizza," I said.

"Weren't you supposed to leave the money?" she asked.

"I was bored. I went out into the hallway to get the pizza. You know, check the guy out after he dropped it off."

"We're here with you," she said, like I didn't need anyone else. But she was never around.

"Yeah," I said."But the door locked behind me," I said. She didn't want to hear that. You could see her get really, seriously angry when I said that."Yep," I said, "I didn't know I was locked in here, but I was." She looked pissed, and then suddenly looked happy again.

"It's for your own safety," she said."You don't want anyone to know you're here."

"Yeah," I said. I wanted to ask about the Koreans and the building and who was playing who, but you'd have to be a moron not to say that everything was okay and what we were doing was good. Really, she could say anything and I couldn't tell one way or the other if it was true or not.

The next day we moved to an empty condo somewhere else. It smelled like drying paint. Everything about this was starting to suck.

Once we were in the condo, Karla asked me how I liked the place, was it better than the other place? I said it was okay, but there was no decent TV. She said they'd look into that.

"I got money," I told her."I don't want to order one if we're going to get going." I asked her what the deal was; when were we going to get this moving? I told her, "I'm in trouble here. People know."

Karla looked really pissed for a second. "People know? Who's people? Who knows?"

I'd slipped up on the pizza guy. I told her that no one specifically knew, but that it was all taking too long and someone might know I was gone and start asking questions. Like if I ordered a TV from Best Buy, they might wonder why I'd moved, or something.

She told me not to worry, that things were going great, and she'd have the guys who knew the building come by tomorrow and they'd show me what to do that would knock it down and make the biggest mess. That would let everyone know the North Korean government was taking away people's freedoms and making their life suck, and making everyone in North Korea poor except a few wealthy businessmen.

She could really turn on the heat when she wanted to. It was hard to disagree with her. She kept asking me if I wanted help the starving North Koreans get freedom from the piece of shit government. Of course I wanted to help, everyone wants to help. And it wasn't like I knew a lot of Koreans; I had Korean take-out once and didn't like it.

I was watching some WWE on the little crap-ola TV when it finally hit me. The Koreans were in a can't lose situation.

If someone smacks you, you're a loser unless you fight back. But you can't just beat someone down for no reason. What better way to pick a fight with someone than to say they're a friggin' moron and wait for them to hit you? Then you get to fight back with everything you've got. Drop the bomb. Start the war. It happens in WWE all the time: someone trash-talks someone else, there's an incident, and the fight is on.

And the details don't matter. In WWE, you can't tell who insulted who sometimes. It just comes down to what happens in the ring that night.

Is that what these Koreans were doing? They'd called someone a moron, someone didn't hit back, so I was supposed to hit back for them? Was that the deal? When I hit back, the fight is on.

I felt sick. Really, sick to my stomach sick. The progeria left me feeling crappy sometimes, but this was worse because it was all nerves. I was being played. I wasn't helping anyone in North Korea, or the US or anywhere. I was just going to start world war three when the Koreans started bombing god-knows-who that they called a moron and busted up their Korea General Company.

Did it matter who the Koreans called a moron? The pizza guy had said something, but I forgot which countries. Someone was going to get a beating for something, whether they deserved it or not.

And why tell me? Why break in to tell me? Why not just stop me? Or, why not stop Karla? Couldn't they arrest her for something and let me out of this? All I could figure was that arresting Karla was the same as me knocking a building down: the North Koreans would claim they'd been attacked and start shooting at whatever country is near North Korea. Or, get another moron like me to do their dirty work.

I hit the road that afternoon. There wasn't any other way out. If I kept up with Karla, I was going to get found, and my settlement was gone anyway. I had everything to lose, and I wasn't getting squat out of the deal.

I hated being played. That was just crappy. But what's worse was the whole witness protection line. I was a victim not a rat on the run from people I burned. The damn thing blew up in my face, burned me like a friggin' cheese steak with Velveeta dripping out of me all over the place. I lay on that loading dock for hours while they pissed around, and they said that I needed protection. I didn't need protection; the TSA morons that poured the bomb stuff into the trash barrel needed protection. They needed protection from me.

- END -

A Note for All Writers...

2006-09-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

Our call for entries with all the trimmings can be found here.

Exercise caution when flying with your manuscripts. The TSA just tried to confiscate the latest Harry Potter.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said that she won an argument with airport security officials in New York to carry the manuscript of the final Potter book as carryon baggage on her flight back to London, the Associated Press reported. Had security agents not relented, she said on her Web site on Sept. 13, she might not have flown. "I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't—sailed home probably," she wrote. [link via BoingBoing]

Out Of The Trash Bin

2006-09-14T21:29:00.000-04:00

by Jack Cleary

Josh hung up the phone as he swung his feet down to the floor.The clock read 4:15 am.Kathy rolled over.

“It’s early”, she said, “What’s going on?”

“Some kind of alert. Gotta go keep the world safe for democracy.”

***

A twelve year-old boy stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a bottle of cola.

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

The boy looked down at his roll of Mentos and sighed.

A fourteen year-old boy stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a Listerine bottle.

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

The boy was horrified. The Listerine bottle contained 24 ounces of his father’s best scotch. His class trip had just gotten much less interesting.

A thirty-seven year-old woman stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a tube of KY jelly.

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

The woman sighed.Her flight, and the flights of at least two unchosen (and now, never to be chosen) fellow passengers, had just gotten much less interesting. However, restroom availability had just significantly increased for all other passengers.

A twenty-two year-old woman stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a tube of spermicide .

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

The woman never noticed. She was too busy playing grab-ass with man standing next to her. Nine months later…

A forty-three year-old industrial spy stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a cough syrup bottle..

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

The spy sighed. The bottle contained the secret ingredient in the formula for Coca-Cola. Well, he thought, look’s like another meeting in Atlanta before I can go home to Bangalore.

A fifty-one year-old engineer stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a bottle of sunscreen.

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

Later that day, while standing on the construction site of the next 3000 room hotel/casino in Las Vegas (Amazon theme), the engineer would receive the dose of UV radiation that would eventually lead to skin lesions and, ultimately, the partial amputation of her nose.

A twenty-four year-old graduate student stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a box of twelve yellow peeps.

“What are these for?”, Josh asked.

“They’re for science.”, the student replied, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’m experimenting with the reaction of certain hydrocarbon substances to various levels of exposure to microwaves.”

Josh placed the peeps back into the carry-on.

A twenty-seven year-old screenwriter stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a bottle containing an anti-psychotic medication.

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

Seven hours later, over the Pacific Ocean, the screenwriter would notice that his fellow passengers had begun to morph in a strangely Voldemortian way.

“SNAKES ON THE PLANE!” he would scream, “SNAKES ON THE PLANE!”

A seven year-old boy stepped up to the table. Josh reached into the carry on and pulled out a mayonnaise jar.

“Sorry, I have to confiscate this”. He tossed it into the trash bin.

He did not notice the holes punched in the top.

I hope my frog will be alright, thought the boy.

That night, at the bottom of a dumpster, the frog would lay her eggs in a soup of soda, coffee, juice, bottled water, scotch, gin, beer, spermicide, contact lens solution, toothpaste, heroin, breast milk, peroxide, blood, urine, and anti-psychotic medication. Two weeks later a parade of small amphibians would leave the dumpster for the wetlands adjoining the airport. Upon closer inspection, it would be observed that the amphibians were not of uniform pigmentation, and would have various numbers of eyes, legs and toes. Less observable were the variations in number of vertebrae, number and size of internal organs, and brain structure. Some of the amphibians would die under the wheels of a taxiing 737. Most of the rest would, within a few days, become contributors to the food chain. One would bob contentedly in a pool among the cattails and marsh grass, snagging prey with what he thought of as his tongue.

The following summer local residents would be pleasantly surprised by the dearth of flying insects. The next summer would see a dramatic decline in the local bird population. The next, a series of unexplained small plane accidents.

Meanwhile, an urban legend would arise of an alligator in the wetlands, one that was particularly broad, with wide-set eyes and a short snout. Poor quality photos would appear in supermarket tabloids. As with most legends, with each passing year this one would grow larger and more fantastic.

***

Josh walked into the kitchen.

“How was your day?”, Kathy asked, “Did you keep the country safe for democracy?”

Josh smiled as he opened a beer. “Mission accomplished.”, he said.

Sombrero Fallout, by Peter Wild

2006-08-21T20:23:00.000-04:00

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Sombrero Fallout

By Peter Wild

http://www.peterwild.com

The English writer was killing time in an airport waiting for his long-delayed flight to be announced. Of all the days for an international terror plot. Man o man. His first ever trip to the States. He’d had it all planned. There was an entire goddamn itinerary. Two weeks travelling around the US. All expenses footed by The Man. The English writer had long thought it was too good to be true. Yeah. Go to America. Write a long article about legendary Beat humorist Richard Brautigan. We’ll foot the bill. Just make sure you keep a-hold of your receipts.It was plainly too good to be true. Now they were saying all flights were grounded for the duration and, worse, they mentioned maybe he’d miss his slot. Maybe he wouldn’t get another flight to the US for a week or longer. The English writer was sick as a parrot.

And he wasn’t alone. A formerly jubilant family group was busy stripping off their pre-emptive holiday baubles, dumping buckets and spades and all manner of holiday apparel – sunglasses, flip-flops, sombreros – in the trashcan right by where the English writer sat. Everywhere you looked, ugly, pissed-off people stewed. A thick, soupy atmosphere of virulent pissed-offness settled upon the airport lounge. The English writer felt it too. So, as he was a glass is half full kind of a guy, he decided to try and write a story in which only good things happened to nice people. Once upon a time (he wrote, figuring that a note of fairytale goodwill couldn’t harm him) there was a magical island called Noway in which people lived in happiness and tranquillity all the days of their lives.

Across the way, by the check-in, a very large man and woman started shouting at the top of their voices. It was the same-old, same-old. I have to be… somewhere. I can’t be late. Don’t you know who I am? I’m gonna have your job for this! The English writer sighed. He couldn’t create a magical land of happiness and tranquillity in this environment. Not no way, not no how. So he tore the page out of his notebook, screwed it up into a ball and dropped it in the bin where it landed snugly upon the brim of the sombrero.

They gave all the shitty jobs to the menial staff. Actually, not staff. It wasn’t staff. Staff was so impersonal. Colleagues. They gave all the shitty jobs to their colleagues. Only the menial staff were not their colleagues. Colleagues suggested equality. Colleagues said, hey friend, I know this particular job is somewhat onerous but, believe me, I’d do it myself if I had the time, if I wasn’t busy saving the free world from terrorist insurgency. Pedro took it all, too. Pedro took it like a bitch. That was how he felt. Every day was the same. His colleague, the pinch-lipped tight-ass Whitehead, gave him instructions for the day. You could bet your ass those instructions included shit Whitehead wouldn’t dream of performing himself in a hundred million years. For instructions read shit list. Pedro’s shit list. So Whitehead gave Pedro his shit list and nine times out of ten there was a toilet bowl that needed unblocking manually or some fucking tramp sick or a piss flood or Something. The shit list was a gigantic life-draining suck hole. And today was no different. Yeah, the airport was on high alert. Yeah. He knew all that. But the same shit different day remained. We have confiscated liquid, Whitehead told him, his mouth barely moving, looking like some huge officious ventriloquist’s dummy. I need you to get rid of it. Doesn’t matter where. Just dump the liquid. Okay? Pedro wanted to parrot: Okay? Okay? Just about the only kick Pedro got was ripping shit out of Whitehead. Pedro had Whitehead’s voice down pat. But Pedro didn’t say Okay? Okay? Pedro took the huge cart of confiscated liquid and headed out onto the airport concourse. He wasn’t in the mood. He couldn’t be bothered. So. He figured. Empty the liquid into the bins. Let someone else take care of it.

Meanwhile, inside the bin, on the lip of a sombrero, the English writer’s story refused to die an ignoble death.

Once upon a time there was a magical island called Noway in which people lived in happiness and tranquillity all the days of their lives. There was no pain and no hunger and no want. People were born in a spirit of harmony and accord, grew, developing their minds and their bodies, and lived lives of fulfilment, satisfaction and joy. Whatever the people wanted grew upon the island in abundance. The people merely had to think of something and it was so. If you wanted an apple, you closed your eyes and there it was. If you wanted to smoke a cigarette, you closed your eyes and it was there. If you wanted to hear some swinging old time rock’n’roll ditto. And the same went for all the other hip thrills life can offer. If you wanted love, it was there. If you wanted sex, that was there too. Drugs. Cars. Fame. Whatever it was you wanted, you could get it on the island. And nobody frowned on you or made judgements or refused to welcome you to the Bridge Club as a result of your third drink driving conviction. Life in No Way was good. Life in No Way was the best ever. Similarly, if you didn’t want to eat meat, that was fine. If you wanted to go to church, that was fine too. Everybody believed what they believed and let the other man or woman be. It didn’t matter what you did. Everybody lived their lives in a state of love and encouragement. There were no wars, there was no violence, nobody was ever murdered. Mostly people died of old age, but that was fine. Everyone agreed, you had to die sometime. That was life. And life was be-yoo-ti-full.

The English writer felt like kicking things over. Or shouting at people. But he couldn’t be bothered. And people who shout at other people in airports were almost always total arses. So he got up, walked across the concourse to a coffee concession and bought a cardboard cup of molten java. By the time he sat back down, he didn’t want it. He was just killing time. But time was like some horror movie bogeyman that refused to stay the fuck down. The coffee sat there in the cup like a reprimand written in a language he didn’t understand. The coffee was making the English writer feel bad. He drank too much coffee. His wife was always saying. You drink too much coffee. The English writer could hear her, his wife, in his ears, despite the fact that she was all the way back home and more than likely asleep. Now he didn’t want the coffee more than ever. So he removed the cancerous lid and tipped the scalding mud into the bin at his side.

The coffee hit the sombrero and bounced, causing a shower of red-hot coffee to fall upon the English writer’s scrunched-up ball of aborted story.

The people of Noway did not know what hit them. There they were, a peaceable, fun-loving race of peace-nik fun-lovers, suddenly decimated by what came to be known among the survivors as the Tsunami of Fire. The surfers disappeared beneath the crud brown waves, the skin boiling off of their faces, their screams a signal of greater screams to come. Entire families fled the beaches – or tried to. The Tsunami of Fire, the terrible Tsunami of Fire, swept away all in its path. Blistering rain fell, too, among the hills and mountains of Noway. Who was immune? The cave-dwellers, those backward types given to brewing moonshine by the light of the silvery moon. And the rich folk, those high-falutin’ wheelers and dealers who lived in the centre of town. They lived too. Everyone else? Everyone else was swept away. Noway didn’t know what hit it. And Noway was changed forever. But worse was to come.

The wheel on Pedro’s cart whistled, and the progress of the whistling wheel on the floor of the concourse elicited a squeak. So, as Pedro made his way across the concourse, dumping cartons of orange juice and bottles of Diet Coke and bottles of water and baby milk and tubs of jelly and creams and potions and unguents into each of the bins he found, gradually, the squeaking and the whistling started to do his head in. Every step he took. Squeak, whistle, squeak, whistle, squeak, whistle. And that was without taking into account the lolloping swash of the various bottles and cartons in his cart. Pedro hated his life. Each and every day at some point in his travels, he thought: I hate my life. Today was no exception. But for some reason today felt worse. Maybe it was all the shouting. Maybe it was all the paranoia. Maybe it was all the shouting and the paranoia.

Pedro, unbeknownst, approached the English writer and started to empty bottles and cartons into the bin. The English writer asked him what he was doing. Pedro said, I have been told to empty all of the confiscated liquids in the bins throughout the airport. The English writer laughed, involuntarily, in a somewhat smarmy way that he had. You’ve been told to empty all of the confiscated liquid? Pedro said, Si. The English writer stopped chuckling in that smarmy way he had. Isn’t that dangerous? Pedro shrugged. But that wasn’t all. Pedro felt mildly annoyed by the manner in which the English writer addressed him. And so he removed a carton of orange juice from the cart, crunched off the lid and emptied the juice into the bin. It didn’t matter to Pedro. He wouldn’t have to clean it up, after all. The orange glug-galug-galugged into the bin, onto the sombrero, onto the island of Noway. But Pedro didn’t stop there. Pedro took up a couple of water bottles, what he thought were water bottles, cracked the lids and emptied the water in the bin as well. The English writer was smiling again, but the smile was nervy, tempered by the fact that the English writer was wondering whether the man with the bottles and the cartons was an insane person. What neither of them knew was that the water wasn’t water but petrol. And Pedro didn’t stop there. As well as petrol and orange juice, Pedro added milk from a lady’s breast, hand wash, magnesium palmitates and white phosphorate. The English writer stood when Pedro started kicking the bin and cursing, although he didn’t move away. Not even when the bin started to fizz and exude a sickly sweet white cloud.

The remaining inhabitants of Noway started to change. Acid rain fell from the sky. Noxious gases started to rise from the ground. This meant people no longer stepped out as much as they had done once. People stayed home and watched TV. The TV told them how dangerous the world was becoming. The TV said maybe they should start to think about home security. And not just home security either. The TV recommended guns. You should buy guns, the TV said. Don’t just buy one gun. Buy a whole arsenal. You don’t want to get caught short. The TV also said that there were people in the world who didn’t see things the way that you did. This was not okay, the TV said. The TV said maybe you should start to think about the fact that people in the world see things in a whole bunch of different ways. Didn’t it make sense, the TV said, for us all to agree? And – if there were people in the world who didn’t agree with us – weren’t we right to teach them the error of their ways? And, if they wouldn’t listen to reason, weren’t we right to bomb them? And, once we bombed them, as a result of our being right and their being wrong, weren’t we then allowed – hell, weren’t were then compelled – to take the things that they had that we wanted? Because we were right? And they were wrong? The people of Noway started to shout things like Yeah! and Hell yeah! at their TV screens.

The liquid started to fill the bottom of the bin. The various liquids started to mix. Relatively quickly, the liquid became a liquid not dissimilar to napalm. But it didn’t stay napalm for long. A dirty nappy left there earlier that morning helped contribute a particularly nasty slather of baby shit. A ketchup-smeared burger wrapper and a banana skin rubbed each other up the wrong way. Wet newspapers, yoghurt pots and a forgotten bleach-stained mop head conspired with the fizz and pop of the smoking formerly napalm now something else cloud. Pedro and the English writer paused in their relation to one another and drew close to the lip of the bin. On the island of Noway, an electrical surge made the TVs fritz. The hill dwellers drew close to the mouth of their caves. The well-to-do folk paused in their endless perambulations. Was this the apocalypse that the TV spoke of? The brim of the sombrero twitched. A curlicue of white smoke twisted itself about the hat. The English writer’s ball of paper made a noise like an autumnal orange leaf when crushed underfoot. A sound, akin to the library shusssssssssssssh of a firework fuse, brought a hurried halt to the airport concourse.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssh.

The contents of the bin went SNAP. The contents of the bin went CRACKLE. The contents of the bin went POP.

Later, of course, nobody told the same story twice. There was an explosion. This much we’re clear about. The bin burst open like a cheap joke shop comedy cigar. There was an eardrum-smashing roar. Fire leapt forth. One woman compared it to the gaping maw of Hell. And, of course, there was screaming. People running this way, and that. Breaking glass. Whistles. The usual signs and signifiers of a general melee. But that wasn’t all. A small group of people who were close to the bin made a strange and unusual claim. They said strange people came out of the bin. One minute there was a guy and a cleaning guy. The guy and the cleaning guy were leaning over the bin. There was an explosion and then, suddenly, there were dozens of people streaming out of the blasted hole in the ground. It was almost as if the bin had contained multitudes. Or maybe there were a bunch of immigrants living beneath the bin and the hole set them free or something. Weirder stories appeared on the Internet. Stories that told of a man, an aggrieved man who went by the name of Pedro, a man who was drenched in strange and noxious chemicals, who was given strange and unfamiliar powers, a man who left the airport that day hell bent on wreaking a terrible violence upon the world. A quick thinking teenage girl managed to snap – something, a shape, a vast shape, some great hulk – emerging from the lolling waves of ash and smoke. But no-one took it or her seriously. And yet, there was a death that day. A fatality. A junior manager nobody liked, a guy called Whitehead, was found with his head snapped clear off his neck. Whitehead was nowhere near the explosion so his death was one of those great unexplainables. And a cleaning guy, Pedro, did go missing that day. As did an English writer.

But nobody missed the English writer. Not even his wife.

And Noway? Who can say what happened to Noway. At best, the island of Noway incinerated. At worst? At worst, perhaps a world of happiness and tranquillity was done away with forever. What a sad thing. Nobody lived happily ever after.

Warm, by Victor Bornia

2006-08-21T18:31:00.000-04:00

Warm

by Victor Bornia

http://www.bornia.com

My adventure with Angela began at 6:46AM, when she pulled me out of bed and towed me into the back yard. It was times like these that I was glad I slept in my boxer shorts, not nude like Angela's mommy. Can you imagine?

I had already awakened and was staring at the plastic clock on the nightstand, wondering what kind of creature it was supposed to look like. A panda bear? A skunk?

The grass out back needed mowing. Weeding, too. Angela's daddy wasn't here anymore, she'd told me, and it showed. Angela's mommy had also mentioned working double shifts, occasionally, to make ends meet. So it was understandable.

Where the garage used to be was an enormous cylindrical object with a mirror finish. It was, I estimated, at least fifty yards high. I know this because in high school I'd nearly run myself to death while competing in the fifty yard dash. Ever since then, "fifty yards" had been my baseline measurement whenever estimating anything of significant size. So it was at least that tall. I'd never seen anything like it.

I yawned, despite my lack of anything approaching boredom, at this point. It was just that Angela's mommy had kept me up quite late, had seemed determined to consummate our nascent relationship in as many different ways as possible, including one in particular that honestly had never occurred to me, and that I frankly didn't find particularly enjoyable, at least at first.

I knew that the large, shiny cylinder was exactly where the garage should be, because that was where I had parked my Toyota the night before. Angela's mommy had told me that street parking was impossible, to go ahead and park in the garage, next to her Honda. Her name was Patricia. She was a big woman, with bright eyes and large eyeteeth that made her look like a vampire when she laughed, which was often, and easy to bring about. We'd met at a traffic signal.

"Make it stop," Angela said, giving my hand a tug. Angela was, I estimated, seven years old, and was easily the most beautiful child I'd seen in my entire life. We'd met the night before, in the hallway outside the bathroom.

"Please." Angela added, remembering her manners.

Stop what, I thought, and then I heard it. A hiss of static, white noise with a high-pitched hum accompanying it. Not especially aggravating, to my dulled, middle-aged ears (I hadn't even noticed it, at first), but I could imagine a child might find it quite irritating.

"Wait... Was this here, before?" I asked, trying to prioritize. I could have been mistaken. After all, I had been in a bit of a hurry, knowing what was in store for me once I got inside the house. Patricia hadn't minced words. We'd flirted, I'd made her laugh, and she'd invited me home, just like that. When I'd found my way from the garage to the rear sliding glass doors, Patricia had greeted me naked. She didn't mention having a daughter, but why would she?

"Well, it wasn't here before, necessarily," Angela answered, having given it some thought.

"What? Wait, how...?" I looked around, increasingly alarmed. Angela squeezed my hand, brought me back.

"I mean yes, it was here. But so was the garage," she explained, then finished with a sad, amused gesture that acknowledged the uselessness of the statement. She shrugged, and absently pulled a leg up, behind her, an astonishing dancer's stretch.

"Where's the garage, then?" I asked, and looked around some more, hoping I'd find it. There's the patio, there's the sliding glass doors... Yes, it was right here last night, I was sure of it now.

"You're absolutely right," Angela assured me. By the time I could turn to give her a puzzled look, we were airborne.

It was chilly, even though it was still summer. I was wearing nothing more than my boxers, mind you, so the crisp morning air gave me goosebumps. My eyes were locked onto Angela's, and I hadn't noticed the ground dropping away until it already had. There was a breeze, higher up, and then it was still again. Warmer, when we were exposed to the early morning sun. I could feel it heating my skin.

Angela's face lit up, and she wiggled my hand. "You did it!" she whispered, and seemed quite pleased.

I wondered what she meant: Achieved loft? Or, stopped the noise? For it had indeed stopped. I shrugged, modest. I knew I hadn't done anything, really, but I'd learned long ago to never reject appreciation of any kind. I knew it was tough to come by. I turned and marveled at our fat, circus-mirror reflections on the curved surface of the gigantic cylinder. Angela and I, holding hands, against a backdrop of hazy morning sky.

Angela caught my eye, in the reflection, and I felt a surge of elation, suddenly wished that I was Angela's daddy, imagined a life together with the two of them, Patricia and Angela, a happy little family in a future no less likely than any other I'd imagined for myself, and decided that this was the future I wanted, over any other.

"She's not my mommy," Angela said. Or didn't say, exactly, but let me know, somehow.

"Oh. I'd just assumed," I replied aloud, and remembered finding the rear sliding glass doors open, last night, after Angela and I had met, outside the bathroom. I'd apologized for waking her, but Angela had assured me that I hadn't, that there was nothing to apologize for. "Not ever," she'd added, which stuck with me. Afterward, I'd closed the patio doors, and gone back to bed. Patricia woke when I returned, and started in again. It'd been quite a while, she explained, and I tried to keep things quiet, for Angela's sake.

Angela smiled and squeezed my hand, and suddenly I was quite curious about, well, pretty much everything.

And just as suddenly, I understood that there was a homeless man who had wandered into the alleyway behind Patricia's house, that he had taken advantage of the fact that Patricia didn't always close her garage door, or lock her Honda, and had taken shelter in her car.

I saw, too, that the man was Angela's father.

"But you told me last night that your daddy wasn't here, anymore," I said.

"He isn't," Angela replied, and we descended.

And I knew what Angela meant, that her father was from somewhere very far away, had somehow been stranded here. Angela had finally been able to come, to rescue him, because someone or something had suddenly made it possible. There was a chemical compound, something her father had been unable to replicate using earthly ingredients, but he'd finally found it, thanks to Patricia. There were traces of what he needed on the steering wheel of Patricia's Honda, and that was enough.

When I had arrived, last night, and pressed into Patricia's smooth, welcoming flesh, I'd asked her what that amazing scent was, coming from her. There was something extraordinary about it, difficult to describe. She'd laughed, embarrassed, and told me about a "tub of goop" they had, at the airport, how she'd accidentally lost a bracelet in it. It was an old family heirloom, Patricia said, and she'd been forced to dig for it, immersing her arms to the elbows to retrieve it. She'd washed immediately, and showered since, but no amount of scrubbing seemed to entirely eliminate it.

"No, I like it," I'd assured her.

"I know," She'd whispered, between kisses, while walking me to her bedroom. "Everybody does."

For a large woman, Patricia was extremely flexible. And those eyes, and those great big eyeteeth. I was suddenly quite positive that I loved Patricia, profoundly and completely.

And just then, I noticed that Angela was gone.

I was standing once again, near the garage. I opened the side door and checked inside. There was Patricia's Honda, and my Toyota. Just as I'd left them.

"What are you doing out there, silly?" asked Patricia, from the sliding glass doors.

I turned and there she was, big, naked and smiling.

"Marry me," I demanded.

Patricia laughed, then hugged herself against the chill. "Well maybe I will, cutie, maybe I will. Get back in here, I have to get ready for work. C'mon!"

I hurried back inside, and held her close.

"Mm, you're warm!" Patricia murmured, pressing my skin with her cool little hands. "How'd you get so warm?"

She huddled against me, and we continued right where we'd left off a few hours ago, only now right there on the carpet, next to her sliding glass doors.

Deadline Announcement and An Additional Prize

2006-08-16T22:39:00.000-04:00

As always, the original call for submissions is listed here. We will be updating it soon with all of the clarifications that have come out of the comments and our additions to the prizes.

Speaking of changes, the first thing we would like to announce is that we now have a deadline. After consulting with all of the editors, we have decided to set October 31 as the deadline for all submissions to be in.

And thanks go to Pete of PeteLit, who has contributed a prize to the round-up! Thanks to Pete, the author of the top story will also receive a hardbound copy of Wade Rubenstein's debut novel, Gullboy.

Stories have started coming in - so it's time to get writing! More news as it arrives...

2006-08-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

The original call for submissions can be found here.

We're adding a few prizes to the bin - nothing too big, but it's a start. And we hope we'll have more of these announcements as we go!

In addition to the previously-mentioned prizes,

The authors of the top 10 stories will receive a free autographed copy of C. Glen Williams' CD, "Post-Millennial Heebie-Jeebies."
The author of the top story will also receive an autographed, hardbound copy of C. Glen Williams' award-winning play, The Mouser's Tales.

As I said, we hope we'll have more of these announcements soon. We're always looking for more to throw into the bin o' prizes.

Call For Submissions

2006-08-12T19:47:00.000-04:00

Note: The call for submissions has been updated with additional prizes, some clarifications, and the announcement of our deadline.

By now we've all heard the reports. And we've seen the pictures. The FAA is concerned that passengers may try to smuggle liquid and gel components onto airplanes disguised as drinks, toothpaste, or other personal items and then mix them to produce deadly explosives. So what do they do with these potentially disastrous items? Why, dump them all together into plastic waste bins in the middle of the airport, of course! What could possibly go wrong?

Why don't you tell us?

It Came From Airport Security is an upcoming anthology of short stories, and we need your submissions! How can you participate?

Write a story of no more than 4,000 words in any genre on the subject of what happens when someone (or something) is exposed to the substances mixed in an airport security waste bin.
License your story under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. (This blog and the resulting anthology will be licensed the same)
Prepare the story for electronic submission (ASCII Text, RTF, and DOC files are fine, no PDF files, please).
Pay the $5 token entry fee using the link in the sidebar.
Submit your story! Note that when you pay your fee, you will be asked to provide the author's name and the title of the story. A submission must match an entry fee to be accepted.
Submissions must be received by October 31. Other important dates to be announced. Start writing and submitting now!

Of course, there will be prizes!

All submissions will be considered for publication on the blog (with a link to the author's webpage, of course!).
The top 10 stories will be included in the anthology in addition to being published on the blog.
Authors of stories selected for the anthology will receive a free contributor's copy and a significant discount on up to 20 additional copies.
The authors of the top 10 stories will also receive an autographed copy of C. Glen William's CD, Post-Millennial Heebie-Jeebies.
The author of the top story will receive an autographed, hardbound copy of C. Glen Williams' award-winning play, The Mouser's Tales.
The author of the top story will also receive a hardbound copy of Wade Rubenstein's debut novel, Gullboy (courtesy of Pete).
The author of the story selected as our grand prize winner will also receive a $10 gift certificate to be used toward the purchase of any liquid or gel products you want (Or, really, anything you want - we're not going to police that).
Any old thing we come across to throw into the bin.

All the usual legal hoopla applies. Namely: All submissions must be the original work of persons who submit them, all submissions must be previously unpublished (publication to your own blog is all right, as long as the work is licensed as stated above), all judges' decision are final, contest is open to English-language international entries, and the editors reserve the right not to publish any submission.