Author: R.

• Lizzie
• Richard
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Jared
• Planet Z

RICHARD

The Date

Don’t you just hate this bit? The whole ‘getting to know you’ nonsense?

Yet, social convention dictates that we go through the wearisome business of awkward smalltalk, embarrassed half-smiles and long silences. A weird mixture of nervous excitement and barely-disguised reluctance.

We play with our food and wonder why we’re here, then smile sheepishly and plough on, negotiating the minefield of our fledgling relationship.

If only it could be easier…

Skip the smalltalk and get straight to the point.

After all, that’s really why we’re both here, isn’t it?

Can’t we just fast-forward straight to the sex?

LIZZIE

Small talk is such an effective way of getting to know people, he thought. The event was promoted as an informal get-together to meet your soulmate. He needed a soulmate, desperately. After the usual introductions and polite smiles, the whole conversation took an unexpected turn when one of the ladies said she enjoyed being tossed in the river. At first, he didn’t understand what she meant. He laughed nervously and he noticed she did have a strange color. “It’s the river,” she said. “Too much pollution.” He nodded. Let’s just say he didn’t find his soulmate. He wasn’t that desperate.

SERENDIPIDY

Smalltalk: Because what else is there to do while you wait?

At first, it was the embarrassing silence, feet shuffling, staring into the middle distance; then as seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours, the need to talk became overwhelming.

We talked about the weather, our jobs and families, the state of the economy – anything really – just to fill the time.

And, eventually, the allotted hour came… And went.

I gave it a little longer: More smalltalk. And honestly, I’ve enjoyed getting to know you.

But really, we were only killing time.

And now, it’s time to kill you.

TOM

Pathologically Auditorial

I would like to say I don’t do small talk, but the truth is I will talk to anyone about anything. The least important the better. God knows the weight of the world’s problems are heavy enough to pitch one into a blackhole death-sprial of ennui. The key to quatlity small talks is raising or lowering the scope of ones replies. Best when in counter point to the direction of the conversation. Just enough to cause a gap, but not so much to cause a gasp. And remember to be galactically unforgettable, with a comely smile. Have a nice day.

NORVAL JOE

Sitting with his parents in the diner, Billbert thought about making small talk. After the catastrophe of their house burning down random talking seemed, trite.
“Mom. Dad,” Billbert began. When they stopped eating and looked at him, he continued. “Are you two in shock? Our house just burned down, and you don’t seem that upset.”
His mother nodded. “I’d forgotten how young you were the last time something like this happened. Don’t worry. Everything important, pictures, documents, and that, were all just copies. The originals are stored in a secure location. It takes a little time, but, we’ll start over.”

RICK THOMAS

Ears Wide Open

Jimmy Alvarez had a gift, early on everyone thought it was ADD, and they weren’t entirely wrong, but, what it was … was a gift … More like a superpower.

Jimmy had an amazing sense of hearing!

He could hear whispers at incredible distances.
He could listen to conversations through walls, doors, and glass …
And he could focus in on one conversation out of 20 he could hear at will.

None of that mattered much until he started keeping a notebook.

Combinations to locks
Hidden keys
Criminal confessions
Shameful secrets

There was power … and opportunity in such things.

Jimmy’s future looked promising!

JARED

Chit Chat
“Hi. I’m James.”
“Hello, James. I’m Natalie.”
“Nice to meet you, Natalie. How do you know The Taylors?”
“I work with Michael. You?”
“I used to be their brother-in-law.”
“…Used to be… How does that work?”
“I used to be married to Lonni’s sister Lisa.”
“Why don’t you say you’re her sister’s ex-husband?”
Two reasons: I like Mike & Lonni. Saying it my way keeps the relationship focused on them.”
“OK. And the second?”
“If I had said ‘I’m Lonni’s sister’s ex-husband’, odds are you wouldn’t have been interested in much conversation beyond that. I wanted to increase my odds.”

PLANET Z

When midgets talk to each other, is it all smalltalk?
Not in the Department of Midget Science at MIT, the Midget Institute of Technology.
It’s all big talk. Cosmic-level stuff.
Even the talk about sub-atomic particles is big talk.
They get a lot of stuff done, and they do it so efficiently.
Not needing big offices and big blackboards and big laboratories.
Even their supercolliding supercollider takes up just a parking lot’s space.
They smash particles and discover the secrets of the universe.
Then they all get ice cream at the commissary and publish their papers and cheer big cheers.

• Lizzie
• Richard
• SusuandUs
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Tura
• Jared
• Planet Z

LIZZIE

The train was too cramped. But she had no other option than to take this one.
A man was playing with a rope.
Too cramped, too awkward.
She wanted to get there quickly. The boat was ready and she was ready. Sailing around the world was her dream, and that dream was so close. She only needed to survive this bloody crowded train.
Suddenly, the train hiccuped, startling everyone.
When she woke up, a rope tied her to a pipe on the wall and the police were knocking at the door.
She wanted to scream. Horrified, she realized she couldn’t…

RICHARD

The big question?

It’s out there, lurking in the darkness. Watching and waiting, hoping for an unguarded moment and the opportunity to strike.

Prowling silently: You know it’s there, but where and when that moment will come remains unknown.

It’s waiting for you.

Biding its time.

Which leaves the question, what do you do now?

Do you hide away?

Do you run?

Or stand and fight?

Are you prepared to take the risk and sit tight in the hope that it will go away?

Or risk all, and face the challenge, head on?

Well, how about it, what are you going to do?

SUSUANDUS

Everything, risk

I don’t feel very creative right now. I wish I had an inner impatient writer yearning to burst forth an utterance as the acorn seed waits to push out an Oak.
“You’re a discovery writer” someone once told me. At times I’m like a young child whose overloaded paintbrush hits the paper and a fat line of liquid aubergine appears and shocks, threatening and promising to bring presence to everything. At that young age I was attuned to the risk and ecstacy of self expression… one finger scratching my chin purple as watery orange rivulets dribble at will.

TURA

Prowling; Canon
—-
While prowling through the canon of great literature, the celebrated Shakespeare scholar Bagnold P. Bagnold chanced upon a curious work bound with a rare 18th century edition of Shakespeare. It purported to tell that playwright’s life, but its sordid and implausible detail suggested it might have been penned by the Marquis de Sade.

He discreetly consulted with some specialists in old manuscripts, who pronounced that the pages were certainly contemporaneous with the rest of the volume.

But the detail that dissuaded him from revealing it to the world was the author’s name. He identified himself only by the initials B.P.B.

SERENDIPITY

I was a good kid. Never got into trouble, always behaved perfectly, and was the very model of good behaviour.

As a teenager, whilst my peers might well be described as juvenile delinquents, I bucked the trend. Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth.

But now, I’m all grown up, and with the maturity that comes from adulthood I’ve decided that my time has come.

It’s time I became an adult delinquent.

All that pent up anger; the rage; the disobedience and bad behaviour I never let out as a youngster is all about to be released…

All of it.

Everything!

TOM

First we kill the Writer

Everything around here is fuckn Canon. The producers got a bigger bible then the King James, and hell of a lot less poetic. The main character is british, but rasied by wolvies on the russian steeps. They want a wolf russian hip-hop delievery. I say buddie this. It turns out the money behind the money, is a guy so damn close to Putin. So I repeat everything around here is fuckn Canon. I suggested, suggested possiblely the love interest was from …. say Ukraine. Found a dead horse’s head in my bed. Really funny, you fucks. Now, its Putin’s niece, Fuck.

NORVAL JOE

“Dad. I didn’t know you played chess in high school,” Billbert said.
His father laughed. “You don’t know everything about my past, Son. I wasn’t a juvenal delinquent, but I was a bit of a loose cannon. Your mother settled me down a lot.”
They pulled into an all night diner and went inside, unaware of the woman prowling the parking lot.
When the waitress came to Billbert, he said, “I’d like to order the All Day Two Egg breakfast, too.”
Outside, Nuclear Fission didn’t risk standing beneath parking lot lights knowing her spray tan disguise wouldn’t fool the Blanketmakers.

JARED

Pursuit

They lurked behind the corner of Jaden’s house, barely stifling their giggles, unable to manage the adrenaline flooding their systems. Braxton peered out, checking if the coast was clear.
“Can you see her?” Jaden hissed, too loudly.
Braxton could easily see their target, but they both knew if Emmy spotted them before they reached paydirt, they would be caught.
“No,” Braxton whispered back, keeping his volume low. “On three,” he commanded. “One… Two…”
“Three!” they gasped in unison, simultaneously sprinting from cover.
As they barreled toward the base, Braxton spotted Emmy breaking from her cover, determined to cut them off.

PLANET Z

Nobody ever saw Mindy Bakersfield’s face.
She wore a full diving suit with air tanks.
A note from her parents allowed her to skip Gym class.
Eating her lunch all by herself in a special room, and a special bathroom set aside, too.
Kids dared each other to try to pull her helmet off.
Bobby Watkins managed to attach a mini-camera to the helmet.
But when Mindy took it off for lunch, the camera faced the wall and it never caught her face.
The next day, Bobby wasn’t there.
His family suddenly moved away.
And Mindy sat in his seat.