Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Jimmy Olsen - By Ozog
I know what your thinking. Someone around here must have screwed up. I'm just some geeky redhead with a camera. I couldn't possibly have done this. Well screw you, all right; I'm not a coward. So turn that recorder on because I'm Jimmy Olsen, Pulitzer Prize wining photographer for the Daily Planet and I'm ready to make a full confession.
Yeah I hated him. No matter how many times he saved my life, no matter how many of my pictures of him were on the front page, no matter how much press I got or how well my books sold, I still hated him every minute of every day. I hated him for every girlfriend I had that only wanted to know what he was like and I hated him every time someone called me his little buddy. I just couldn't take it anymore. So that is why I tried to kill superman.
I just don't understand how you people took him seriously, for god's sake he wears red spandex underwear on the out side of his cloths. And that cape, who does he think he is Elvis? I've seen less flamboyant drag queens; Betsy Ross must be turning in her grave with this big goon walking around. With his perfect hair, his stock Arnold Schwarzenegger body, and his What-Would-Jesus-Do attitude.
You know he's an alien right? Not even born on this planet, and have you seen him with a green card? But does the department of immigration care? No, of course not. "We're willing to overlook it, considering how many times he's saved the planet." The rat bastards. At least he can never be president, you know that right, I looked it up. Article II section one of the Constitution, "Only a natural born citizen can be president." He might be able to leap over building and out run trains, but at least we wont have to listen to his campaign speeches. He's probably a socialist too, like Sweden in spandex.
I can't believe he's as popular has he is. Sure he can knock away asteroids that threaten us with extinction, or single handedly fight off an army of alien, mutant starfish but that just makes the rest of us look bad. Like that guy who surprises his girlfriend with flowers at the office. Sure he'll see some action but what about the rest of us? What do we get? Nagging. "Why aren't you romantic, why don't you do anything special for me, why didn't you go fight off the ten story fire breathing dragon?" You try to be a normal Joe with that always flying around over your shoulder. That's why I did it, for the little guy. For every Jimmy Olsen and every Clark Kent out there who will never have Lois because of him. For every small town nerd who would have the nerve to ask out the cheerleaders if only there weren't quarterbacks. For every working stiff that can't be Hugh Grant, Superman has to go.
It's not even like he fits the Nietzschen profile or anything, the name is just pure egotism. Nietzsche's real superman is transcendent guy, no longer affected by pity, suffering or moral corruption, and what do we have? Some wannabe flying Gandhi on steroids, hyping his fight for truth, justice and the American way, whatever the hell that means and telling us just what we want to hear so that people will always point to the sky and shout whenever they see a blur in the sky. I bet Freud would have a field day with anyone that wears something that tight.
But seriously, the guy has x-ray vision, now what would you be doing if you had x-ray vision? And people think video games are morally degrading, this guy has to be a perv. X-ray vision. Larry Flint has to be trying to option that. Do you really want your daughters saved by a guy who can make his own NC-17 film whenever he wants?
I don't know, I guess people just love the idealism and the illusion of safety he projects. I mean, if some guys says, don't worry I'll catch the plane before it hits the ground and then he does, you feel safe. It's like those flotation devises, sure they might actually help you float but what does it matter when the place crashes. Even the man of steel can't be everywhere at once. I think he's just building complacency. Metropolitans start thinking that Superman will always be there to save them, like three-year-olds with implicit trust in their parents before they realize that mom and dad are human. Not that Superman is human, but that's beside the point. He does have 'man' in his name, so he is at least trying to pretend. Maybe he should come down to our level, I mean the guy can't even stub his to right, and he think he knows what's right and wrong?
I think that's why everyone is so mad at me. No one likes to have their illusions shattered, like when you find out your favorite super model is a product of good lighting and an airbrush. It's not as if I killed the guy or anything. I just tried. Not that my plan wasn't brilliant. I got a hunk of Kryptonite from Lex, and just stuck it in my pocket. I knew he would never expect that kind of thing from me. But, in the end, he is superman, so he caught me. I just want everyone to know that I'm not insane, or being controlled by some hostile alien bent on revenge. I knew what I was doing every second. I was doing everyone a favor. Besides all the sexual frustration stuff, everyone is just to dependent on the guy, they need to look out for themselves, have a little pride in something other then a weirdo dressed in a painted-on flag prying into everyone's business. Just think of all the tax money we could save by stopping all those people who show up just to try and get a piece of the man of steel and end up wreaking half the city. And that's just the bottom line. That's why I did it. For those of us trapped on the ground, for Lois so she remembers what a real man is like, for the tax payer and the property owner, for the complacent slob to get a wake up call, for all the brain fried utopians to remember the real world, for me so I could have my own life and for all of you so maybe, just maybe, you can get noticed too.
So slap some cuffs on me and throw away the key, because I'm not sorry and I'd do it again. You'll see someday that I'm right. If history can forgive Nixon it will forgive me too. But I'm sure you'll go on with your lives, content to point and laugh with your friends at the kid who just "had a nervous break down or something." Someday you'll see, and then they'll be chanting my name at the walls. Call me crazy if you want, but when I need a hero I'm calling Batman.
submitted at 11:52 AM
Thursday, October 20, 2005
The Pendant - By Abigail Coover
Prologue
".....And so it shall be, that a representative will be chosen, one of admirable quality and rare spirit, selected out of anywhere in space and time, and on whom shall rest the fate of this world...."
Chapter 1
The Minister of Krackenbarry
The town of Krackenbarry was well suited to its unusual name. It was a small, tranquil community two hours from anywhere, a storybook place nestled among woodsy foothills and fields with meandering fences. Those who came upon it usually did so by accident. Its residents were retired folk, elderly but cheerful people who had become weathered by time and were now perfectly content to tuck themselves away into the back drawer of society. The homes were built in a dignified New England style, aproned grandmothers of houses with sprawling front porches and temperamental floorboards. The placidity of the place was untouchable, so that even a funeral was unable to achieve an entirely melancholy atmosphere.
For Carissa Wallen, Krackenbarry had always been synonymous with "grandma's house," and it was the weekend destination for holiday vacations and summer visits. This time, however, she was there for what everyone in the town oddly referred to as "the final parting".
In her opinion, her grandmother had already left. The body that lay in the casket had no essence of her grandmother in it, only the lifeless appearance of a once soul-bearing vessel that was now empty. Even her grandma's hands, clasped neatly atop her stomach, seemed more made of wax than anything real.
Carissa felt conspicuous. At fourteen, she was at least half the age of anyone else in the room, and being of the deceased's immediate family, was seated in the very front row. Directly behind her were two rows of curly white and gray heads, some with tiny hats and some without, and knee-length wool skirts with stockings and a variety of low-heeled shoes. She understood that they were her grandmother's closest friends. Beyond them were seated more town locals, most of whom were younger than that gray-haired bunch, but all still upwards of fifty years. The one exception to this was the man who stood before them, at the speaker's stand beside the casket. He was minister of Krackenbarry's only church, and was certainly no older than twenty-eight. He was Italian and with his curly black hair and eyebrows, his coal eyes, his dark suit and sun-kissed skin, he was a splash of intrigue amidst a sea of seemingly ordinary people. He attracted Carissa's attention simply because he was the one individual who was more conspicuous than she. He had an enjoyably peculiar manner, which may or may not have been a result of his foreign background.
The minister solemnly began the ceremony, expressing his deep respect for "Ms. Mabel Wallen" and adding his personal condolences before yielding the floor to others. Carissa's mother spoke, and several of her grandmother’s friends followed with their own tributes. Carissa listened distractedly while trying to keep her gaze away from the lifeless body, which seemed to hold an eerie presence in the room. By the end of the proceedings she had firmly decided that her own funeral would not have an open casket.
Once the ceremony was over, the entire gathering reconvened at the town banquet hall for dinner. There, the funeral attendees sat and ate and rehashed their favorite stories of Grandmother Wallen. The gloomy cloud that had hovered over them earlier dissipated now that they had moved out of the funeral parlor. Thanks to the townspeople's cheery attitudes, and the fact that the woman's death had not been painful or untimely, a light atmosphere was easy to achieve.
Carissa still felt out of place surrounded by the adult chitchat. She gradually migrated over to the punch bowl and lingered there, gingerly sipping a cup of fizzy red juice. She felt lonely, and it wasn't simply because she was standing in an empty corner of the room with only a punch bowl for company. Her grandmother had been the only relative, aside from her parents, with whom she had any familiar acquaintance. None of their other relatives lived even remotely close by, and of those, the relations were distant and vague. In essence, her mother and father were now her only family. It left her feeling bleak, like the last stone on a seashore with all the other stones swept away, and only a matter of time before the waves overcame her as well.
She had been standing there several minutes thinking these things when the curly-haired minister appeared and helped himself to the punch. With one hand resting in his pocket and the other holding the cup while he sipped casually, he looked out at the cheerful gathering and regarded them with an appreciative smile.
"They are very content, eh?" he remarked at length, his words rolling together like a tumbling handful of marbles.
Carissa glanced at him warily. "Yes. They do."
"It is a good thing," he went on. "That is how your grandmother would have wanted it. She was a remarkable woman, you know. We'll miss her, of course, but it's the mentality of these people to laugh over the good memories rather than be made gloomy with their end. That is what I love about them."
Carissa looked at him wordlessly, wondering why he was sharing all of this with her. Perhaps he thought she needed consolation.
"Mabel... she was a person who was sure of her purpose," the minister continued, as his voice took on a mysterious tone. He absently swirled the punch in his cup and gazed at the rows of tables, directing his words to the air and seeming to speak to no one in particular. "She knew. She was certain that everyone had some kind of purpose or another. She always had her mind open to each day's possibilities. Always made me think. Who knows, after all. Who knows what type of purpose we may find ourselves able to serve. Who truly knows..."
Carissa stared at him curiously, watching him get lost in his thoughts, and concluded that he was a strange young man indeed.
* * *
It was a long drive home, and Carissa said little for the duration. She listened halfheartedly to her parents' conversation concerning the funeral and Grandma Wallen, while her own thoughts kept returning to her unusual exchange with the minister. His words disturbed her somehow, perhaps because she felt that she was one individual to whom they did not apply. She was as average as a school day, and sometimes felt like little more than a shadow, a puff of wind that came unseen, was barely felt, and passed away without so much as an imprint or echo. Many times she felt hollow - entirely hollow.
Night had settled by the time they pulled up to their home, a white townhouse with black shutters and brick-colored window boxes. It stood hemmed in by larger brick buildings, law offices grouped on the left, an old apartment building behind, and a noisy boarding house on the right. An alleyway ran between their home and the boarding house, and circled around to their back door. Once, Carissa had been sitting on her back stoop when a fat, potato-faced man had opened the boarding house side door and tossed a scrawny Siamese kitten into the alley, while a small boy in the background wailed protests. Evidently the kitten was a stray and had done something to aggravate the potato-faced man. Despite the boy's pleas, he slammed the door and left the kitten there mewing. Carissa had wanted to take it, but her mother had a contempt for household animals, especially strays, and so Carissa had only sat and watched it stagger down the alley. Two days later she had seen it lying in the street down the block, and now she was never able to cross the back steps without the episode coming to mind.
After she and her parents entered the house, her father, Kenneth Wallen, retreated to his desk in the living room’s far corner. A few years ago he had helped to start a new company, and it had flourished rapidly. Carissa wasn't sure exactly what he did, but she knew it had something to do with researching alternative energy sources, and making current ones more efficient. At any rate, tonight was the final evening of a long weekend, there would be last-minute work to do. Her mother, Celia Wallen, took two thick binders filled with notes concerning the biology class which she taught, and became occupied in the kitchen. Carissa lingered at the bottom of the staircase, watching them, and felt - hollow. Even more exhilarating, she thought dismally, tomorrow was another day of school. She breathed a heavy sigh, trying to brush away her agitation, and tromped up the stairs to her bedroom.
submitted at 12:45 PM
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Angel - By Richie Dusett
The rain trickles on the window pane outside
The dark room, the musty smell inside
Pen in hand, he doesn't know where to start
How to put in words, something so perfect
He scratches something down, but has no place to begin.
Crosses out, starts again; nothing seems to convey what he wants to say.
There are no words to explain how he feels
He looks at her, she smiles back,
The faint I love you's becoming clearer.
At this moment he is happy, the whole world around him stops
He picks up his pen, he knows what to write
"To my dear angel, you are forever mine tonight."
- Richie Dusett
submitted at 4:12 PM
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Dreaming Blind - By Ielle Palmer
He's staring at me.
I feel this.
The long pause.
The constant scrapping of his dish rag against the pint glass. He's waiting for an answer and frankly, he can just spin. I didn't come her to satisfy his morose curiosities. I'm not sitting here braving a room full of wanna-has-been-never-will-bes to speak to the likes of him. And yet here we are having a stare off (I think). I should be thinking about Mazzi and how it's his last night. But here I am.
All I wanted was a screwdriver and a wild turkey. How hard is that? A little orange juice, a shitload of vodka, some bourbon. A minor hangover. Something to remember Maz by while I'm being detained by the cops. But the Old Spice laden tit across the counter has jumped in and messed it all up. You can't imagine how much the question comes up during the course of an evening out. It doesn't matter how long someone has known me, or if it's completely irrelevant to the topic. At some point someone, somewhere, mentions it and then I have to come up with an answer.
The establishment's doorbell lets out a tinkle. Another patron has slipped into this Bob Marley-ized world of fruity drinks and umbrellas. Two beats pass and a cheer goes up from the corner. Apparently the party is over there. I don't bother to look... what would be the point?
Old Spice squeaks the glass again. He's closer now. The garlic must be trapped between his teeth. I feel the stench blowing past my cheek. Beside me Mazzi takes a swig from his beer, but his mouth stays shut. He's helpful like that. "Seriously," Old Spice says, "Whas'it like?"
To mess with him or not to mess with him... this is a question. My change flips over and over within my palm. What to do? Pros and cons violently edge their way closer. I sigh and slide the money across the counter, my fingers feeling along for my glass. I refuse to smile when simply answering, "black". Facing his voice, I give him my best fuck off glare (I think). Someone moves the glass to my hand. Whas'it like... how the hell should I know? Not like I have anything to compare it to. What is black?
SSSCK POP. Another cap to another beer is pried loosed by my companion. I feel him moving away. "Don't start" I say, but no one replies. I wait a breath and try to listen over the racket. Nothing. "he asked." I add. No answer. He's still there though. I can smell the cheap hotel soap he stole from work. And if thes themed pub disaster when we had planted ourselves in wasn't blaring such Christ-awlful music, I'd be able to hear his lungs lifting upward. His rock star rail of a body moving raising an inch, only to call back onto his barstool. Running a finger over the lip of my shot glass, I judge the distance to my face and kick my head back, snapping my wrist a bit for added effect. I slap the glass back upside down onto the counter. Not really sure why I do this. I'm told it looks cool. Maz mutters something in German. He's not German and I certainly don't speak the language, which is why he does. Says it gives him a leg up on me. As if the power of sight weren't enough of a head start.
Old Spice has returned.
The garlic now replaced by peppermint schnapps. I can't decide if this is an improvement. "Look, I didn't mean nuffin'"
"Nobody ever does." I say. My angel sighs. Old Spice is quiet. Best guess? He's sizing up my wiry escort. After another second of silence he tries again.
"It's just," he leans closer. Apparently I'm deaf too. "Well, we ain't never seen eyes like yers."
"I'll have to take your word on that."
"They're almost white!" Mazzi lifts my drink from my hands and pours it directly onto the counter. I feel the cold liquid strike my skin, the smell of 80 proof rising up around me. A gasp, and something snaps. Heat snakes its way towards my arm. Someone knocks me aside and the shouting begins. Apparently the counter is ablaze. Old Spice isn't pleased, either. Hands wrap around my shoulder and side. They lift me forward and speed me across the hardwood floor. Falling out onto the front sidewalk, I begin to laugh. It's times like these that I'm going to miss. How will I ever live without him?
Boredom, the great motivator. It was how we found ourselves in the shithole Caribbean themed bar in the east end tonight. It was how we met, how we moved in together and how he claimed to have come up with the idea for lighting Old Spice's bar up. I get up and begin to dust myself off. When tagging along with a man like Maz, it's important to know the basics of the duck and roll. It's the difference between a fun story or a night in the ER.
Away from the Beatles and Clapton regalia occurring inside, I'm suddenly able to pick things out again. Leaves scraping their edges along cement. A plastic bag dancing its away across the empty evening asphalt. Maz muttering under his breath in German. He's playing with the patch I put on his old black sports coat. It's crooked, so he says. What didja expect, I told him. You want it better, learn to sew. He doesn't mention it anymore, but I can hear his nails pick away.
Footsteps with voices drift close by. A young couple, from the sounds of it. He hushes her, stepping their shoes up a beat. Yes, run away. Run away from the little decrepit girl and her crazy Injun escort. Look out we don't scalp you! I wonder if Maz is wearing his "Sitting Bull got f#*ked" t-shirt. Now that would be a laugh. Certainly his clashing pistols inspired wardrobe helped quicken their pace. He's wearing a padlock and a chain, James! Did you see her hair! Oh hurry ma, he's coming closer!
I smile.
"What'da you grinnin' at?" my native guide asks.
"Life." This answer seems to please. He walks a few steps away, thinks better of it and spins about his soles, rounding back to take my arm. My seeing-eye man. They'll give me a cigarette when the time comes. I don't even like the damn things, but I'll probably take it. I'll be needing one.
... TO BE CONT'D
submitted at 3:06 PM