Mechy McMecherson

"Antique" was the first story of mine featured on 365tomorrows. I haven't changed anything except for adding one adjective. (Hint: the word has a double-C in it.) It is the last reprint you'll see here at 512 Words or Fewer.

Who doesn't love giant robots? Well, except me while watching the Michael Bay bastardization version of Transformers.

<RANT>

I have many problems with that movie, but chief among them is something I've said about much better shows: it is insufficiently rigorous. I remember reading a Wired article about the visual effects, in which the filmmakers go on and on about how they wanted their robots to be more "transform in a believable way," and to that end required the art designers to use actual car parts in the humanoid forms and change Optimus Prime's distinctive shape. I still prefer the old-school anime robot designs, with blocky limbs and smooth edges, but at the time, I was willing to give them the benefit of a doubt.

And then I actually saw the movie, in which (SPOILER ALERT) not only does Bumblebee transmute his physical structure from a 1976 Camaro to the 2009 model, but the magical Allspark gives life to inanimate technological objects--which, by the way, also allows them to sprout guns and rockets whose manufacture would require materials not present in the original object, such as chemical propellants and explosives.

Now, I suppose you could argue that transforming from car to robot is a merely mechanical action, while the aforementioned subatomic transmutation of fucking matter requires more energy (or Energon, as the case may be) and happens only rarely. But in that case, why wouldn't the folks who captured Megatron and the Borg Allspark cube be working like crazy to figure out how to turn lead to gold, instead of just reverse-engineering cell phones with bad reception?

Let's not even talk about John Turturro getting peed on. Just... no.

I mean, if you want to see unapologetic giant robot phallic imagery, go rent Robot Jox. I'm not going to say it's a good movie, but it was co-written by actual science fiction writer Joe Haldeman and correctly depicted the silent vacuum of space (as did 2001: A Space Odyssey and Firefly).

</RANT>

Temporal Mechanics

As you may have noticed, I schedule each week's trifecta of 512 Words posts (story, podcast, and notes) to publish right after midnight. It just occurred to me that, since posts appear on the home page (and many RSS feed aggregators) in reverse chronological order, the notes will show up at the top of the page for most readers.

So, in the interest of not burying the lead, I'm going to reverse the order of the posts every Friday, starting tomorrow. Which means that the notes will actually get published first, chronologically; but when you read this blog, they'll show up under the actual story on the home page, and the story will get top billing. I'm hoping this will be an improvement. Let me know if you disagree.

Thanksgiving

It seemed appropriate to write a story about food this week. Hope you had a nice meal yesterday!

The original germ for this week's 512 Words didn't make it into the final piece, but I'm including that text here to give insight into my process:

Nobody calls him by his name. It just feels wrong, you know? He's too important to have such a dumb-ass name.

Some people call him The Clown. But that feels disrespectful, too. And you don't want to disrespect him. For a while, a few called him The Redhead. But then that girl showed up, and things got confusing. When most men say "redhead," they're talking about a woman--usually someone they'd like to screw. And he is as far from sex as anything can get.

Most people these days call him Shoes. It used to be Big Shoes, because that's what you were probably staring at when you were in his presence, if you were lucky enough to be granted an audience. You don't look at his face. And you really don't look into his eyes. It's not that he cares. But there's something there, something in his soul, it's overpowering. Some are said to have gone mad from a mere glance.

Anyway, Shoes. That's what people say when they talk about him. You heard about Shoes' new dollar menu? Hey, want to grab a Shoes milkshake?

Never call him by name. The name is dangerous.

And here is the video that inspired the final draft:



When I was in high school, my friend Gavin and I rented and watched Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I promise you, we were not under the influence of any controlled substances at the time, but we found the line "They're dead. Everybody's dead" hilarious in late-night context.

That's not really relevant, except to point out that sometimes things seem funny that really aren't. Like clowns. And nobody knows why.

Audio: "American McGod"

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Music: "In the Waiting Room (during Cancer Surgery)" by Gurdonark, licensed under Creative Commons from ccMixter.

That's right, it's another monologue. You're welcome.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"American McGod"

AMERICAN McGOD
By Curtis C. Chen

Pay attention, son. This is important.

You call him "Shoes." Do you even know his real name? That's right, you don't say it out loud. Fear or respect or something. I can't blame you. There is something terrible about him, that bright red hair, that dead white skin. Those eyes that look like crucifixes. They say people have gone mad just from looking at his face for too long.

I'm old. I remember the way the world used to be, when we knew what was real and what wasn't. You don't understand that. It's all real to you, isn't you? You can't see the edges. That's okay. I'll be gone soon, and it won't bother me anymore.

This is what I wanted to show you. Here. Looks like nothing special, right? Crappy old beat-up plastic cafeteria tray? Watch this.

"Quarter Pounder With Cheese."

Yeah, it's real. As real as anything is these days. Go ahead, eat it while it's hot. What? You don't trust your old man? Fine, I'll split it with you. There you go.

Jesus, now I remember why I don't eat this crap.

I know what you're thinking. What's a geezer like me doing with an amazing thing like this? Where did it come from?

Here's the funny thing about making unreal things into reality. The fictions that humans create are inconsistent. We forget what story we're telling halfway through and make up something that contradicts what we said at the beginning. But when it all has to be real, the universe will twist itself around to prevent a paradox.

Nobody remembers television commercials. But the university preserved a whole bunch, and transferred them from tape to digital a few years ago. Guess who got to update the catalog for the archives? Let me show you what I found.

Isn't that a hoot? "Hamburger-eating-est clown." Doesn't even look like Shoes. And that ridiculous hat! But it's all there, recorded, watchable, so it's got to be real. Even the magic tray.

Yeah, finding it was a royal bitch. But that's another story.

Now you know why we didn't starve during the war. And you know why we kept this a secret. It'll only give you stuff from the menu, only things with names. We had to take the food apart, separate the ingredients and cook them into other things. We couldn't be greedy, couldn't ever ask for too much, in case people got suspicious. But we kept our family alive.

Do you understand? Do you know what it means, this tray, what it can do? The magic isn't in him. It's not Shoes. He's just a conduit. Same as this piece of plastic. The magic is outside of him. And if an object can channel it, maybe a human can, too.

This is yours now. Go on, take it. You've got your whole life to figure it out. You've got years. I trust you to do what's right. So does your mother, God rest her soul.

Oh, wait. One more thing.

"You Deserve A Break Today."

On Titles

I would have come up with a wittier title for this week's story, but not a lot of English words rhyme with "Zenda," and none of them means "orbit."

I grudgingly admit that this idea was inspired by the end of the otherwise craptastic X-Men 3: The Last Stand. (If you haven't seen it yet, Spoiler Alert: IT SUCKS.) During the climax, when Wolverine staggers toward Dark Phoenix to kill her, you can briefly see his adamantium skeleton as his flesh is burned away and then regenerated by his mutant healing factor. Very little else works in the scene, but that one image is pretty powerful.

And yes, I basically stole the fourth paragraph from Con Air. Sue me. Cusack really sells it in the trailer, even though the movie itself is bloated and nonsensical.

Finally, as you may have guessed, I am a huge fan of The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan. I'm not sure why AMC thinks it's a good idea to remake it. I'll reserve judgment until I see the finished product, but why not come up with a new idea? Or, as shown above, remix some existing pieces to create something that at least seems fresh?

D and I will be at OryCon this weekend. If you're in the Portland area, feel free to give us a call:

Audio: "Prisoner"

Music: "Decaying Orbit" by Fireproof_Babies, licensed under Creative Commons from ccMixter.

Hey kids, it's a monologue!

I remember back in high school, when I really fell in love with drama, I found a used copy of a book containing monologues by famous playwrights. Some of them were pretty odd--like the priest counseling a married couple who breaks into an impersonation of sizzling bacon--but they all challenged me to understand and interpret different personalities. And, on the other side of the coin, it helped me start to see how a writer could create a character through carefully chosen words.

http://512words.blogspot.com

"Prisoner"

PRISONER
By Curtis C. Chen

Here comes the sun.

For a few seconds, as the blinding light thaws my body, it's bearable. Almost comfortable. Then I'm on fire for the next forty-five minutes, boiling hot until I fall back into the shadow of the planet.

I don't even know the name of this world. I was already drunk when I stumbled off my freighter, celebrating the end of a long cargo haul. I don't know the name of the bar. I don't remember the woman's name.

I do remember the name of her jealous boyfriend, the guy who couldn't throw a punch, the man I killed without even trying. I heard his name plenty during the trial. His father, the Planetary Defense Minister, publicly called for my head. He got what he wanted.

I wish I could forget what they did to me. First they replaced my blood with healer nanites. Then they cut out my lungs and stomach. They didn't use anesthetic. I felt every cut and slice and staple into my flesh. That I remember too clearly.

There are no prisons here. All the convicts get thrown into space. They turn us into cyborgs, able to survive on sunlight alone, and they put us in stable, isolated, high orbits. Every ninety minutes we circle the planet, alternately burning and freezing, all the time wishing they'd just kill us.

I can feel every pinprick of cold and blister of heat on my skin. The nanites work fast, repairing my nerve endings first so I'll feel the stinging as they regenerate tissue. They also collect the solar energy that powers my body, now that I don't breathe or eat. I don't know where the water comes from. A lot of it probably gets recycled inside my mechanical belly.

I tried to enjoy the view for the first few months. I've never spacewalked, and it was breathtaking despite the pain. But it just added to the torture.

It took me a long time to figure out how to turn around. There's nothing to push against up here. But what am I now, if not a man-sized spacecraft? And how do spacecraft maneuver in vacuum?

I rotated myself by spitting to one side. Now I'm facing away from that beautiful planet, looking out into the black.

My body's basic functions haven't changed. It's now using sunlight instead of food, but what it does with that energy is the same as before.

When my nails grow long enough, I chew them off and spit the ends out into the infinite darkness. The rest of the time, I just spit. It's not a lot of reaction mass, but it'll add up.

Sometimes I imagine I can feel friction heat on my back, but it's just sunlight. It'll take years for these tiny bits of fingernail and saliva to push me down into the atmosphere. I don't know if the nanites will keep me alive through re-entry. Probably not.

What's the saying? The first duty of every prisoner is to escape.

Besides, I don't have anything better to do.