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Love

March 24, 2011 in L

By Dave Bloustien


The old man shuffled into the apothecary, his entrance heralded with a jangle, creak and clatter. Powders and poultices jostled for shelf space with dried plants, live insects and animal parts, stacked in disorderly rows. The old man scanned them all, trailing his finger over the labels, squinting uncomprehendingly at the contents of every jar.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, the old man turned to the counter and forced a friendly smile.

“I rather think my problems are outside the purview of your store, sir.”

“You’d be surprised, mate,” the shop assistant shot back. He seemed young for an apothecary, with black, close-cropped hair and smooth chin that the old man doubted had yet to be nicked by a razor. “We have elixirs that will tame oceans and the souls of great men in powder form. That on the shelf behind you is Mulgar root, which only blossoms once every 400 years and which will extend your life by a century. It’s on special this week, for twenty bucks a decade.”

“Wonderful. That all sounds wonderful”, replied the old man, placing one hand on his crumpled heart, “And solutions to many problems, I’m sure. But mine is of a more, uh, sensitive nature”.

The shop assistant leaned forward conspiratorially. “Love potions are my specialty, mate. I have a little something that tastes just like malt. You can slip it in right into her Milo”.

“No, you misunderstand,” said the old man, with more than a hint of irritation. “my partner left me a few months ago. I don’t need a love potion. I need an antidote. I’m far too old and far too tired, I want you to cut out my heart and fill it with something warm and nourishing again.”

“Tsk. Sorry, fellah. You’re on your own” replied the shop assistant, and opened the door, to show the old man on his way with a creak and a jangle. And he stood and watched as the old man shuffled down the street, drawing his trenchcoat tighter.

“Freak”.

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Labyrinth

October 4, 2010 in L

By Dave Bloustien


It oughtn’t be possible to lose one’s car in a car park this empty. Sarah scanned the rows of empty spaces, her eyes tripping over the occasional Range Rover, but nothing was familiar. Could her car have been stolen?

A distant, dull scraping echoed off the concrete pillars, trailing into a low metal moan. Shit. Security, closing the gates, no doubt. She would be locked in here overnight.

The empty white lines fishboned back and forth across the bitumen. Did she park on P3 or P4? Did she even drive? The metal scraping sounded again, closer now, with hungry intent.

Striding purposefully, with a confidence she didn’t feel, Sarah headed back to the lift: her loud heels, clacking on the blackened ground. It must have been P4. Must have been. Shitshitshitshitshit. Not another soul left on this level, but all the same Sarah clutched at her handbag and looked nervously over her shoulder

Crack! Sarah’s right ankle shot out from underneath her, her shoe slipping on a patch of rusty motor oil, and snapping the shoe off at the heel. Only that wasn’t motor oil. And that soft purring motor breathing exhaust on her neck didn’t sound like that of any car she’d ever heard.

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Parallel

September 23, 2010 in P

By Dave Bloustein


“No, no. Getting caught is not the issue” countered Edgar, leaning forward in his seat and tapping his pipe on the ashtray. “The perfect crime is one where nobody is hurt, and there is no victim, where no one is any the wiser, for the crime in question never happened”.

I threw up my hands, exasperated. “Well, then it’s hardly a crime, dear boy. Talk sense.”

Edgar nodded. “You see that door at the back of the room? Imagine it leads to another smoking room identical to this one. And attached to that smoking room is another corridor, and another house, owned by another Edgar Graves.”

He folded his hands into a little tee-pee, resting his forehead on the tips, and exhaled softly. “Only that other Edgar Graves isn’t employed or married, or running for political office. He’s a rake, a free spirit, unencumbered by responsibility or expectation”.

Edgar stood, stretched, and gingerly picked up his hat and scarf. Tossing the latter over his shoulders, my oldest friend seemed suddenly so much older.

“A delightful folly”, I replied, “but if that were true, where is the crime?”

With a resigned air, Edgar wound his way through the clutter, towards the doorway at the back of the room. Pausing halfway through the portal, he turned and threw me the saddest smile I have ever seen. “As I said, Bobby: there isn’t one. There isn’t one”.

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Animation

August 27, 2010 in A

By Dave Bloustien


<click>

“finished admini — <khh> — the a — <KKHZZZZ> – ore temperature is risinggggg — <crackle> — stable and norma — <10101011101010> — Mr. Di — <khhhh> — Hello? Can you hear me?

“You’re probably a bit disoriente — crackle> — normal as far as we can tell — <miniminiminiminiminkey> — In accordance with your final wishes, we placed your head … I said, we placed your HEAD in a STATE of cryo — khhhh> — ension.

“Can he hear me? I don’t think …

Anyway, Mr. Dis — <khhh> — the time designated in your will has arrived and so, here we ahhhhhhhhh — crackle> — Welcome to the future, Walter.

“How is the readout on his brain activity. Oh, dear.

“Mr. Di — <gstringmouseoilbanananxiety> — , I don’t know if you can hear me, but we’re getting a poor response — <shkksdnkslkdfg> — your MRI. I suspect it has something to do with the crude technology of your, uh, timecycle. If you think of a brain as an organic crystal dri — khhh>, did they have those in the mid 20th century? A hard drive, maybe? Well your file is corrupted, Walllllterrrrrrrrr.

“This is no good, we’re just going to have to turn him off. Absolutely no response. What a waste. Another one for the bin — remembrandtcloisterfarwitchwitchwitch> — ankyou Nurse Krrikichik. He wrote the Three Musketeers, you know.”

<Wai *** … I’m still heeeeeeerrrreeeeerrrrrreeeeerrrrr *** —>

<click>

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Unheimlich

June 24, 2010 in U

By Dave Bloustien


It had been eons. Entire star systems had bloomed and withered, alien civilizations had risen and crumbled to dust, all while the Great Old One slept. But now he stirred, awake and ravenous. His tentacled mouth pricked at the fabric of time and space, tearing a rift from his dimension into ours.

Cthulhu fhtagn!

Gingerly at first, then with a yawning hunger, Cthulhu prised the threads of reality apart, and pushed his cephalopoid head through the gap. The air on the far side was temperate, unpleasantly so, and stank of human contentment. The planet’s star had sunk beyond the horizon, and its moon flooded the beaches with a palild gloom that pleased Cthulhu greatly.

Cthulhu fhtagn!

Stretching, the Great Old One blanketed the village with the shadow of his wings, and set his monstrous intelligence adrift.

Every so often, one of the more sensitive human creatures might feel his probing consciousness, and pull her coat a little tighter, hurry a little faster down the cobbled Spanish street. But these transient lives were of no real interest to The Great Old One.

Cthulhu fhtagn!

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

Here was the local hub of their activity. An eating-house, of squawking chatter, dull music and rampant consumption. Slaves bearing plates of food, scurried between the tables. On the wall, chalk stone scrawlings marked out a archaic human liturgy.

‘TAPAS’, it read. And beneath: ‘pulpitos a la plancha’.

If those words had any import, their meaning was lost on The Great Old One. No doubt it was some sort of primitive chant, to ward off the inevitable darkness. But it wouldn’t save them. He would consume this dimension, and those who ate and shat and copulated in its reality stream would be but a passing footnote in its memory.

And then, the Great Old One’s mystical eye fell upon the contents of those plates.

The horror. The biting, tearing, terrible appetites of those who ate. And those severed tentacles and boneless bodies, blackened, glazed. Some devoured, some pushed to the side. The, unfathomable horror.

With that, the Great Old One slipped back through the rift, sealed it, and with a cosmic futility, willed himself back to sleep.

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Frustration

June 16, 2010 in F

By Dave Bloustien


You are standing in an empty room. There are no doors or windows.

> x room

You are standing in an empty room. There are no doors or windows.

> i

You are holding … nothing.

> x self

You are you. If only you had a mirror …

> x walls

You are standing in an empty room. There are no doors or windows.

> yell

Aaah! Nobody hears you.

> hit wall

Ouch! You hurt your hand.

> hit self

Ouch!

> kiss my arse

You do not know how to kiss.

> this game is a piece of shit

You do not know how to this.

> fuck you

You have died. 0 points.
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Longing

June 9, 2010 in L

By Dave Bloustien


Mshindi pawed at the ground, making idle trails in the dust with his hoof. It was approaching midday, and the heat clung to his back-and-white hide like ticks on a wildebeest. A tsetse fly buzzed lazily around his ear, but he flicked it away, with a great shake of his head.

His thirst was unbearable now, his lips dry and cracking. Across the road, built by those damnable apes, Mshindi could see the waterhole winking at him, mockingly in the noon sun. Oh, to drink from its waters, and lay in its cooling mud.

But for the highway, and its never-ending flow of metal death machines.

Another wild fowl lurched in the fray, the fifth in as many minutes. Halfway across, the chicken paused between the streams of traffic, one claw raised in defiance. Then spotting an opening, it buk buk bukked its way across to the other side.

How did they do that? WHY did they do that? Mshindi gave a ragged sigh, and traced another line in the dirt.

“If only somebody would put in a crossing”, he said, to no-one in particular.

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