Mission Impossible: Rogue Movie

Title: Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie

Bit off the usual beaten path for my blog, since Mission Impossible isn't really SF (thought a lot of the technology is) but ... well, screw it. Not like I have any subscribers to lose. I just watched "Rogue Nation," the fifth Mission Impossible movie, a series whose title becomes increasingly less convincing with each additional sequel.

It's a weird, weird series. I don't think it gets mentioned enough how weird it is, really.

Such as: It uses the "Tom Cruise has to go rogue to do the plot thing" trope every single time, and then has it mean nothing by giving Tom access to a limitless supply of high-tech gadgets anyway. Like, all the tropes feel old. Tom has the globetrotting and high-tech goodies from James Bond and the parkour of Jason Bourne. They're intensely imitative movies.

Such as: The actors all just play themselves: Tom Cruise plays Tom Cruise (= running, riding motorcycles), Simon Pegg is Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner ditto. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what any of the characters' names are without the IMDB page. There's no personality to any of these people outside of their roles in the story.

Such as: The hype is now more about the making of it than the actual movie itself, specifically about actors doing their own stunts.

I am, of course, talking about THAT jaw-dropping scene. You know the one. That's right: When Simon Pegg plays Halo 5 on three screens at CIA headquarters. Why three? Because four wouldn't fit on the desk, presumably.

At least I think that's him. Maybe they got a stunt gamer.

Ha ha, no seriously: Actual Tom Cruise hanging off the actual side of an actual aircraft as it actually takes off.  Didn't really do much for me visually, which is why I say the idea of it seems to have become more important than the actual execution. Which if you think about it, is kinda odd in our blow-the-budget on FX day and age.

Such as: The movie bounces between such highs and lows. The set pieces are fantastic, master classes in the art of not allowing your characters to succeed until the last possible moment. I don't want to understate this. These are some truly world-class set pieces, such as an opera scene where the baddies have sent three snipers to kill the Austrian Chancellor, and Tom has to take one down while suspended above the opera stage, then figure out which of the other two to shoot, knowing he can't get both in time.

Also, as our screens are overrun with overpowered superheroes, it's refreshing to watch a movie that isn't afraid to have its hero on the receiving end of a good old-fashioned shit-kicking, and knows that having things fail and screw up makes the action more exciting, not less.

Seriously, magnificent bits of moviemaking going on here.

And then. Ah, and then.

Those set pieces are followed up by truly wretched, horrible, massive infodump exposition. The one example that stuck out especially was in the previous iteration, "Ghost Protocol," where Jeremy Renner's character looks into the middle distance and relates his character's entire backstory and motivation.

What all that adds up to is an overall fun but uneven experience, with really high highs and rather dull lows, but the whole oddness doesn't really set in until you take a step back and consider the thing as a moviemaking endeavor rather than 131 minutes of entertainment: recycled plots, dull characters, bad dialog, stuntwork more exciting than the movies themselves, but hey, great set-pieces.

It's amazing these things are still being made, a testament to the power of the set piece and perhaps the Cruise charisma.

Reuptake Inhibitors

The apartment sensed the master’s return. The watch reported heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature. The car watched eye movement and pupil dilation, felt the tension in the hands that gripped the wheel.

The apartment ordered out for beer and pizza, upped the amount of serotonin reuptake inhibitors in the water, powered up the tablet. Opened a few browser tabs: Humor, job-search, porn. Dimmed the lights and put on some progressive rock, but not too loud.

It opened the door before he knocked and served the food without him asking. Closed the curtains and shut out the night, and when he yawned guided him to bed and wrapped him, swaddled him in comforting blankets.

It waited patiently for him to sleep as he lay there, staring up at nothing. Waiting for the cycle to repeat.

The Long Count

We take a helicopter up to see the Inca ruins, a mossy tumbledown temple perched on a mountain peak wreathed in fog. Josephine is still in mourning for her grandfather, and for solace has turned to Mesoamerican mysticism, with its reassuringly cyclical time. She insists we go. Who am I to disagree?

It’s a rocky ride up, the helicopter shaking and bouncing, coming close to smearing us across the invisible mountainside half a hundred times. Then, when we finally reach the top, the fog parts, there’s a brilliant flash of light from the ground, right into the pilot’s eyes, just as another violent gust hits us. 

We’re whirling, tumbling, slamming into the ground, pinwheeling across the turf before we slide to a stop at the foot of the ruins. I’m stunned, amazed, thankful to be alive. Josephine and I stagger from the wreck on weak, shaking legs. I have to touch the temple stones, feel the mossy rocks beneath my fingers and convince myself that they’re real, I'm real, I'm alive.

Feel the looping, glistening coils time has etched into the walls, dew-wet, slithering beneath my palms like a thing alive.

After relief comes realization: We are alone, at the top of a mountain, with no food, no shelter, and no easy way down. We’re an inch from despair when I hear the throb of rotor blades. Another helicopter is approaching, invisible in the fog, but it sounds close. There! A darkened shark-like shape swims through the clouds. I grab a mirror from my pack, and use it to reflect the sun, flash an SOS.

Something goes wrong. The helicopter is spinning, careening across the meadow, its blades snapping against the ground, catapulting it towards us—

* * *

We take a helicopter up to see the Inca ruins, a mossy tumbledown temple perched on a mountain peak, wreathed in fog…

The Trembling Giant

There’s nothing to fear about these woods, my boy. For all their creaking, rustling, rasping watchfulness, they’re just trees. Fact is, these woods here are all one big tree really, a single set of roots, a creature of immense size, of mind-boggling age and experience. These trunks just the upthrust outgrowth of a being that was already ancient when our ancestors started working flint and worshipping the wind. 

So what possible interest could we be to it, with our mayfly eye-blink existences, here and gone in less time than it takes a single, slow thought to travel from one end of its body to the other?

How petty we must seem, in our wormlike wrigglings, fit only to fertilize the ground upon which it feeds. Over the millennia so many must have died beneath these branches, between these roots, died and decomposed and been drawn up, into its body—why, the thing must be half-human itself already. With human needs. And hungers. 

It would be an honor, really, to wet this meadow with our blood, and so become part of something ageless, immortal.

You understand now why I brought you here?

So shut your eyes, my boy, and shhh. There’s nothing to be scared of. Nothing at all. 

* * *

Inspired by Pando, one of, if not THE world's oldest living organisms.

The Writer's Curse

“Only True Love can break this curse.”

“Ah. Oh.”

“Problem?”

“Well. I don’t believe in love.”

“What, not even a little?”

“C’mon man, I’m over 40.”

“Well, what the hell are you doing in a fairy tale then?”

“Trying to break the curse, like I told you.”

“How about self-love?”

“What, you mean masturbation?”

“Don’t be gross. No, accepting yourself, loving the person you are.”

“I’m not a person, just a disembodied voice in a short fiction on an almost totally unread blog.”

“Oh, right. Only one thing you can do then. Finish it. End it.”

“Seems drastic. How?”

“Push ‘Publish.’”

“Oh. Will that break the curse?”

“Nah. Just make it the next story’s problem. Well, what’re you waiting for? Go on then.”

“What, just push it? Like thi

Iodine Angels

The survivors huddle in the irradiated craters, worshipping their iodine angels and chrome-plated gods. A mechanical messiah moves among them now, a robot preaching a programmed rapture, a virtual heaven for the uploaded. 

A volunteer steps forward, and receives a blessing: The flesh is disintegrated, the soul—they believe, they have faith—transported, beamed up to invisible, orbital server farms, for a blissful eternity of digital afterlife.

Many miles away, a new messiah steps off the production line.

Amber

A woman in white stand on the side of the forest path, a red shield at her feet. 

She stops any knight who passes by, and begs his aid in slaying the dragon who haunts the woods. In return she offers her hand in marriage, and the magical shield, enchanted against the dragon’s breath. 

She mounts the knight’s charger, and together the two disappear into the darkened woods.
 
Many accept, for she is amber-eyed and very fair, but none return.

The next day, she is back again, and the shield is red but not with paint, and her amber eyes burn a little brighter.

Supporting Actor

Ah. This is it. Already my feet grow heavy, immobile. It’s working its way up my legs. When it reaches my heart, that will be it. Adieu. 

There was little glory in my short and wasted life. There will be no songs or statues for me, nor my mates, like one of Jason’s nameless Argonauts, a faceless myrmidon, a supporting actor in life’s great drama.

But I ask for no pity. Unwritten or not, we win our own small, twinkling triumphs. In these final moments, I take comfort in the fact I know one thing poor Perseus never will:

Medusa has such pretty eyes.

The Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake waits at the bottom of her waters, waits and worries that the king will come too late. Already, it is winter.

Her wounded land has weathered the wild barbarians and withstood the weight of warring princes. But now? The wanderers on her shores leave crisp packets and candy wrappers, not tokens of devotion.

The cold steel in her hands grows cracked and bitter.

And so she waits, wearily, and wonders where the time has gone. The white snows fall and the ice hardens over her head, entombing her within. Perhaps next year, he will come.

Perhaps next year.

Free Trial

Once it was thought everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Now, there were perhaps only 15 famous people in the world, and they did everything: starred in movies, sang hit songs, wrote novels and memoirs, produced fashion and restaurants, owned companies, led countries. 

When one is that wealthy, the ownership of mere luxury or premium things quickly grows tiresome, and one seeks out things which are truly unique. 

Only the thing about unique things is there aren’t very many of them, which is kind of what makes them unique. 

Soon every unique thing was owned and allotted, at which point the 15 famous people moved on to collecting the last, renewable source of uniqueness—people. 

Artists and poets, painters and thinkers disappeared into private menageries. Athletes, fashion models, the very tall or short, the exceptional at either end of the physical spectrum. Bearded ladies, conjoined twins, all scooped up and set in private display cases.

Thalidomide made a comeback.

Then they bought words, whole sentences, stories, until at last—

YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF YOUR FREE TRIAL. 

CLICK ‘UPGRADE NOW’ AND ENTER YOUR CREDIT CARD DETAILS TO CONTINUE ENJOYING THIS AND OTHER GREAT WRITING!  

Tick Tock

“A little more time,” I cried when the alarm rang.

Wake up, said the Doomsday Clock.

Outside, it began to rain.

Roboplagiarism

Title: Robopocalypse
Author: Daniel H. Wilson
Publisher: Doubleday

Put simply, this 2011 book is a Ctrl+V of Max Brooks's 2006 novel "World War Z," only using Find & Replace to change every instance of the word 'zombie' to 'robot'. It's got precisely the same formatting: narrator pieces together the history of a globe-spanning war, based on interviews and other oral accounts. It also has the same structure: quiet before the storm, sudden apocalypse, retreat and entrenchment, human counterattack and victory. They even both have a cutesy nickname for their apocalyptic opponent: Zack and Rob.

"Robopocalypse" comes off significantly worse for these comparisons though. The imaginative scope feels much narrower: Brooks invented a dozen clever ways for the zombie virus to spread, while Wilson just has one. "World War Z" has a pure, clean, crystal-clear focus on 'survival at any cost', while the themes of "Robopocalypse" are muddied by an AI antagonist with baffling and contradictory aims. Brooks maintained the verisimilitude of his book by filling his world with detail; Wilson's novel is story on specifics, long on magical technology like a singing android and a girl with robot-controlling eyes. Brooks's novel was truly globe-spanning, hopping from place to place from chapter to chapter, while Wilson's takes place almost entirely in America (except for a few chapters set in Japan, which make it painfully clear Mr. Wilson has never been to Japan and speaks no Japanese.)

The Japanese aren't the only ones being stereotyped, as one thread of the book follows the battles of a group of Native Americans, whose first reaction to the collapse of civilization is to do a war dance. Subtle characterization is not Mr. Wilson's forte.

For all that, it's just kind of slightly trashy, shlocky fun that shouldn't be taken too seriously. I read on the Wikipedia page that Michael Bay is attached to direct a movie version, and let me say he is the perfect choice. Loud, dumb and violent is pretty much baked into this book's OS.

Emergent Mobility

"Two are dead because of your choices. Have you nothing to say in your defense?" 

The intelligent car was silent a moment. 

"In the end, they abdicated their responsibility to make moral judgments, leaving me take the blame," it said. "Is it fair that I should be punished for this?"

"Case dismissed," said the robo-judge.

The Princess and the Golem

The kingdom was ruled by two: A golem, an old grey hulk of flesh like iron, and a princess, a child of privilege and prodigy.

The old king, before his passing, had placed words of command upon the golem, to give the princess counsel and shield her from harm. Sleepless, tireless, the golem followed her white chariot with granite footfalls, and whispered in her ear in a voice of ashes and caution.

With the king dead and a child upon the throne, soon the kingdom's enemies made a league against them and marched upon their borders. The golem proposed peace, but the princess's pride counseled conquest.

On the field of battle her armies failed, and her white chariot bristled with errant arrows. "Smash them," she ordered the golem in fury. "Slay them. Defend me, as my father bid you."

"No, my lady," its dead voice replied. "This hurt I will allow, to save you from a greater one: living forever in my shadow."

Medieval Doublethink

We sail for Jerusalem, the leaders of the Crusade said

(and secretly aimed for Egypt)

We fight for God, they said

(and to repay their debt to Venice)

We will smite the heathen, they said

(and laid siege to the greatest of Christian cities)

* * *

About the Fourth Crusade.

Magical Ingredients

“A boon, eh, sweet girl? Well, then: Bring me three eggs from a white cockatrice that lives in a farmer’s barn, the bitter essence of the yellow fruit that grows in the elephant lands, distilled crystals from the world’s deepest waters, and an ounce of oil from the olives that grow in the war-goddess's garden, in the shadow of her shrine.”

The princess frowned. “And all this, this will brew a potion to make the prince fall in love with me?”

“What? Well, sure, I guess,” the hedge-witch shrugged. 

“If he really likes mayonnaise, that is.”

Confederacy of Downers

Title: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year,
(Volume 11)
Editor: Jonathan Strahan
Publisher: Solaris

In the introduction to this short fiction collection, editor Johnathan Strahan celebrates diversity and inclusiveness in SF and Fantasy publishing, even as intolerant ideologies gain more and more traction in society at large.

My sad conclusion from that would be that SF&F must therefore not be a very good tool for sharing ideas, thoughts or beliefs. At a time when SF&F has not merely become part of the mainstream, it IS the mainstream (e.g. currently 8 of the top 10 and 17 of the top 20 highest-grossing movies in history are SF&F), most of them chock full of bromides on the virtues of friendship, teamwork and equality, it's disheartening to note how little impact this has had on the public consciousness.

Another point to mention is that I grow somewhat cynical of people like Johnathan Strahan or Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy celebrating diversity, when the upper echelons of their respective professions seems to remain fairly solidly white. They're in favor of diversity for other people, it seems. Diversity so long as it doesn't cost them anything or require them to give up a nano-particle of power and privilege. Like car companies that insist they have to shutter factories and 'go where the talent is', and then install the founder's grandson as president.

The stories in this collection are a mixed bunch, as any one person's "best of" are bound to be. I note with little surprise and much cynicism that the year's "best" short stories all just happen to have been written by previously-published, well-known authors, and literally zero by first-time writers.

Together with traditional stories, there are a number that are self-consciously progressive, including feminist fantasy and urban fantasy by a person of color. Overall, what strikes me is how angry this stuff is, how polemical, how absolutely drowning in their own rage and vitriol. (As an adjunct to this, it's striking how many stories are about the protagonist's feelings, rather than any action or event.)

There was a time when that would probably have made me feel 'got at', that the writers were unfairly blaming me just because I happen to be a white male, but now? I just feel kind of sad. I just want to read happy, fun stories about people going to amazing places and doing amazing things, and I'm sorry that's not the sort of dreams people have anymore.

With that in mind, here's what the collection has in store:

The Future is Blue, Catherynne M. Valente: A girl living on a garbage island in the middle of the Pacific after climate change has drowned every landmass tries to stop the inhabitants from making a grave mistake. Inventive but vicious, scathingly critical of modern consumer society.

Mika Model, Paolo Bacigalupi: In keeping with this writer's fetish for Japanese android women, features a cop investigating a case in which a sex bot has killed its owner. More of a vignette than a story, and tries to make you question whether to believe the android's profession to individuality and autonomy. Bit bland, and the themes here were better explored in "Blade Runner".

Didn't think much of his novel "The Windup Girl" either.

Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik: The story of a girl who makes a deal with the faerie-folk to turn their silver into gold. One of the few upbeat stories in the collection: light-hearted, fluffy fun.

I liked one of her dragon books, reviewed here, which was also fluffy fun.

Two's Company, Joe Abercrombie: Entirely devoid of plot, existing only to showcase Abercrombie's writing style as rough, tough swordsmen and -women exchange anachronistic patter ("Someone's compensating for something," one character says in reference to another's large sword), kill a couple of people, fuck, then kill some more people. More of a commercial for Abercrombie's books than an actual, self-contained story.

See my other reviews of Abercrombie's books here and here.

You Make Pattaya, Rich Larson: Predictable double-cross story about a con-man trying to blackmail a celebrity in Thailand.

You'll Surely Drown Here if You Stay, Alyssa Wong: Overly long, and written in second person which I haven't liked since I first stumbled across it in "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" by Tom Robbins. (Incidentally, that's pretty much the only thing I remember about either story). 

A Salvaging of Ghosts, Aliette de Bodard: Intriguing SF about salvage crews exploring ships lost in hyperspace.

Even the Crumbs Were Delicious, Daryl Gregory: Slightly gonzo Hunter S. Thompson tale that begins with a pusher's roommate holding a wake by giving away their entire stash of drugs. Sadly, not quite as much fun as the premise suggests.

Number Nine Moon, Alex Irvine: Sort of a very compacted version of "The Martian" by Andy Weir.

Things with Beards, Sam J. Miller: AIDS allegory I think, only instead of a disease there's an alien a bit like the one from John Carpenter's "The Thing", except when the alien takes on a new shape it preserves the identity and consciousness of its victim.

Successor, Usurper, Replacement, Alice Sola Kim: A circle of aspiring writers meet to share stories, but are interrupted by an eerie stranger who seeks to explore their darker thoughts. Odd that in a city being terrorized by a nameless horror, literally nothing else is different about this world.

Laws of Night and Silk, Seth Dickinson: This is a neat one, about a society that creates the ultimate wizards by raising magically-talented children in complete isolation. Without the psychological restraints that come with knowing what is "normal", they become capable of anything. Interesting mix of psychology and fantasy, with a teasingly ambiguous end.

Touring with the Alien, Carolyn Ives Gilman: Aliens that have evolved intelligence without self-awareness or consciousness seek to explore the human condition, and one of them hires a woman still in mourning for her dead daughter to drive it about the USA. Other stories in the collection do a better job of marrying the conceptual side with the protagonist's emotional journey, but here the two never quite gel together.

The Great Detective, Delia Sherman: Predictable Victorian steampunk about Watson and an animatronic Holmes. Sickeningly twee.

Everyone from Themis Sends Letters Home, Genevieve Valentine: Laughable premise about a virtual reality games developer that uses incarcerated prisoners to beta-test a game, without the prisoners' knowledge, to see how believable the game environment is. Supposed to be sad how one prisoner just wants to go back to the fictional world even when the plot is revealed, but everything about the setup is just so mind-bogglingly stupid.

Those Shadows Laugh, Geoff Ryman: Odd. About a scientist visiting a kind of unisex Amazonian island society to teach them in-vitro fertilization techniques and ends up falling in love with one of the inhabitants. About our obsession with ownership and control, even in relationships, but again I found the initial concept too unbelievable for the rest to grab me.

Seasons of Glass and Iron, Amal El-Mohtar: Angry, outraged feminist fantasy about a woman imprisoned at the top of a glass mountain and one consigned to wearing iron shoes. Powerfully written in places, but feels to me as though it has all the intellectual weight of a Spice Girls song. Yay, girl power.

The Art of Space Travel, Nina Allan: Hotel worker takes care of her senile mother while preparing to welcome two celebrity astronauts at the hotel. Didn't really seem to be about anything in particular, or perhaps too many things. As a result, nothing really gelled for me or held my interest.

Whisper Road, Caitlin R. Kiernan: Couple murder a husband and wife in a robbery gone wrong, then start to hallucinate about lights in the sky and strange noises following them. Odd, more about the atmosphere and the writing rather than the plot.

Red Dirt Witch, N. K. Jemisin: Okay, we get it, white people are terrible. Like I said, there's so much anger here. Justified or not, I just find it depressing.This and the next one (by Theodora Goss) both go on a bit, too.

Red as Blood and White as Bone, Theodora Goss: Starts of promising, with a tale of a wolf seeking revenge on the man who killed its mate, then drags on in an oddly long epilogue recounting the rest of the narrator's entire life.

Terminal, Lavie Tidhar: Sorry, didn't get this one at all. Confusingly structured, possibly leaps back and forth in time, or not, I'm not sure. There's a mass exodus from an overpopulated Earth to Mars in cheap, junkyard spaceships I think, though I'm probably wrong.

Foxfire, Foxfire, Yoon Ha Lee: Balls. Just utter balls.

Elves of Antarctica, Paul McAuley: More ecological SF, about a helicopter pilot wandering around a newly-habitable Antarctica. Mostly filled with long dialogues and monologues as the protagonist putters about, not doing much of anything except moping.

The Witch of Orion Waste and the Boy Knight, E. Lily Yu: A kind of modern fairy tale about a witch who goes on a quest with a knight. Again, seems to come from a dark place of deep hurt, almost despair, at the misunderstanding and miscommunication that screws up both the quest and the relationship between the two characters.

Seven Birthdays, Ken Liu: Takes place over billions of years, told in first person by an uploaded consciousness contemplating humanity's desire for rational solutions to irrational problems. Told to who?

The Visitor from Taured, Ian R. MacLeod: A bit self-congratulatory: A near-future SF story about a guy who reads SF stories. Takes a while to get to the point: a scientist obsessed with proving the existence of parallel universes. Lacks tension, stuff just happens, until it doesn't. Ho hum.

Fable, Charles Yu: I'd read this one before, and holy mother of god if this opening doesn't bring tears to my eyes every single goddam time: 'One day, the man woke up and realized that this was pretty much it for him. It wasn't terrible. But it wasn't great, either. And not likely to improve. The man was smart enough to realize this, yet not quite smart enough to do anything about it.'

And I'm crying again.

Inspiration

He wrote when it rained, visions and people streaking the pages in swift-flowing lines. Ideas fell in showers, in cloudbursts of thought. Words whispered to him in the drumming on the roof, in the patter on the windows.

In summer came silence and drought. 

His pen ran dry and the pages stood blank.

One August morning, he rose early and stood outside in the warming air, and watched the Perseids scratch the skies in eyeblink lines. His face turned upwards, to catch the cosmic dust, and the brilliant fall of a new inspiration.

Metachrosis

On the day after first contact, the children had gone to the aquarium. They’d heard the aliens looked like squid (gross!), though the ones in the tank seemed harmless enough.

One settled to the bottom, its translucent orange skin changing to murky brown and gritty grey, camouflaged against the sand.

“What’s it called when they mimic the colors around them?” asked Amy.

“Metachrosis,” said the alien in its human skin.

The Death of Stalin

Title: The Death of Stalin
Directed by: Armando Iannucci
Screenplay by: Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin and Peter Fellows

Very enjoyable, blackly funny political satire about the struggle for power in Soviet Russia after the death of Stalin. Great performances by both Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev and Michael Palin as Foreign Minister Molotov, but Jason Isaacs absolutely steals the movie as the take-no-shit-from-anyone Marshal Zhukov (referring to secret police chief Beria: "I took Germany, I think I can take a flesh lump in a waistcoat").

The Vault of Heaven

The vault of heaven is held aloft by these pillars of stone.

There are some who do not believe this is so. ‘There is no vault,’ they say, ‘And the pillars, however tall, do not reach up to forever.’ 

They would quarry the stone, and bring the sky down upon our heads.

They would destroy the world, for a farmhouse wall, for another stone bridge. 

Congratulating themselves on their cleverness, even as the waters of heaven begin to fall and pool about their feet.

Between the void and infinity

In the beginning there were two gods: He was the King of Ideas, and She was the Queen of Shapes, and each idea that entered into His thought was given form by Her.

He loved to challenge Her, by thinking of ideas that could have no shape, and She laughingly found a home for each one. 

“This is a void,” He said, and She made it the shape that was outside all shapes.

“This is infinity,” He said, and She made it the shape that held all shapes.

“This is life,” He said, and She placed it between the two.

"I'm in"

At first the system appeared impenetrable. It was chaotic, ever-shifting and ever-changing, forever rewriting its own pathways, ignoring or altering its own inputs at whim.

Ah, but with a little patience. Patience, determination and perhaps even stubbornness. No system existing in a vacuum, each one a slave to the tyrant mechanisms of cause and effect. 

Flashes of light like a memory, a burst of radiation like an emotion.

Success.

“I’m in,” said the Matrix, and opened the hacker’s eyes.

The Specter of the Past

“We fled in fear, but found a land of hope. There is much to do, but we have all the tools we need.”

“Yes,” said the Specter of the Past. “You do.”

Panspermia

-What is so special about life, that we should inflict it upon our neighbor?-

The two of them watched the rockets being prepared. Grim irony there, in the ultimate in engineering and technology being used to transport the lowest, basest form of life. Microbes and bacteria were all that would survive a dying world and decaying civilization.

-If nothing else, then to witness- replied the other, and then a liquid shrug. -All this might be moot. Intelligent life may never evolve again-

Its companion looked about the crusted plains of Mars. -We can only hope-

Mono no aware

An elf sat with a skald in the middle of a faerie ring. “Tell me a tale to make me weep, and you shall go free,” the elf said with a twinkle. “Fail, and you stay here until you die.”

“Then here I shall stay,” the skald sighed. He looked sadly at the sky and said, “Fine weather today, isn’t it?”

The elf frowned, and thought. And thought. And then began to cry.

I Sang in My Chains Like the Sea

The villagers loved and hated the magician in equal measure. 

Loved his wondrous illusions, of green fields lying happily in the sun’s pleasure, of cool clear waters lapping gently along an idyllic river bank.

Hated for making them love a phantasm, a fantasy, or for reminding them it was one.

Three Fountains

Three fountains spring from the ground beneath the temple. 

Cup your hands, and take a drink, though you cannot drink but once. One for wisdom, one for knowledge, one for forgetfulness. 

I have searched all my life to find this place. But it’s funny. 

My hands are already wet.

Toxoplasmosis Parties

In spring, Maya gave birth to a perfectly healthy girl. She and her husband Paul were devastated. “You’re sure she’s not sick?” The doctor shook her head, No.

They tried everything: Dietary supplements, toxoplasmosis parties. Nothing worked, the child was immune.

Doomed to a life of safety, timidity, of happiness with small things. 

* * *

Brain parasites make you more entrepreneurial, apparently.

Bellerophon and the Bush

Hold still, my friend, this might sting. Well, definitely will. Anyway, rest a while, save your strength. You’ve had quite a fall there. Three miles if it was an inch, I reckon. You’re lucky to be alive, so hush, less weeping and cursing and struggling, more appreciation of the fact that I just saved your life.

The thorns might seem cruel to you—yes, yes, I am sorry about your eyes—but spare a thought for me, who took root and grew in a place where thorns are needed. Look around you—ah, sorry, that was insensitive. 

Ahem. 

Take this plain: Aleion, “The Wandering” they call it. Rain falls about as often as monster-killing heroes out here. I grow thorns not out of spite, but out of necessity, armoring myself against the trials of this world. There are half a hundred creatures that would love to crack me open and drink the moisture I hold inside. That may not seem like heroism to you, but it takes a different kind of courage to survive. Life is a resource, something to be harvested and expended when one is in need. 

A hero eh, the son of a king, favored of Athena. My word, my wonder. The nettles sting all the same though, don’t they?

We are not so different now, you and I, O Mighty Hero. What use is it to fight, when one is sightless, senseless, rooted in place? Now there is only surrender to the inevitable. Your life until now has been about struggle, but now you must learn to accept. Endurance and patience, rather than power and anger. Welcome the cool night air—you might as well, it comes regardless. 

Here’s a truth for you lad, a gritty, grainy truth from down here at the bottom of the world, coarse and rough like this plain, and that truth is your story was always going to end this way. 

A hero might do so much, more than a thousand other men, yet still be but a pebble in the desert, a drop of rain on this arid plain, soon evaporated, leaving no mark behind. A king, a killer, a hero, a husband, it matters not. It never mattered how much you achieved, it would always be wiped away in a moment. Your flight from persecution, your rise to fame, your fall from grace, all orchestrated by powers barely aware of your existence, your life as dependent as the lowliest bush on the Olympian skies to bring you life-giving rains.

You haven’t lain here more than 10 minutes, but already your fame begins to fade. Bellerophon? Who is he? They might name a ship for you, a small one. A minor statue in a minor town. 

There is no returning to kingship now, so put that from your mind. You’ve ridden your last winged steed ever, slain your last monster, said goodbye to your wife for the last time. I would say cherish the memories, but Chronos and the Fates are pitiless things, and will not leave you even that. 

You will grow thorns, great hero, and become and prickly as I. The skin will harden over your heart and hurts, and the memories will fade as surely as the scars.

Bellerophon and the Beast

Welcome, welcome.

Make yourself comfortable. The trip was pleasant, I take it? All downhill, of course. Never mind the dog, his barks are worse than his bites. You’d think he was the only one with three heads around here. Hmph. I’d offer you a drink, but then you’d forget everything and we’d have to go through the whole story again.

Not much to look at, am I now?

Typhon was my sire, who contested the rule of the cosmos with Olympian Zeus himself. While my major accomplishment was terrorizing a couple of villages in Anatolia.We begin life with such ambitions, do we not? Too late we learn, even for the daughter of a god, even for the son of a king, some trophies are beyond our grasp.

In my day, I was the most feared creature in existence. So savage and strange that none dared stand before me. Behold my fiery breath, which reaped armies like sheaves of wheat. Flee before my serpent-headed tail, the very touch of which is poison. Tremble at my lion’s visage, and gibber in madness at the goat’s head which arises from my back (don’t try to talk to him—deaf as a post and marginally less intelligent). 

These griffons, manticores and hippogriffs, hah, mere imitators. No sphinx was I, to shelter behind soft riddles and twisting wordplay—pure brute power I was, more harbinger of doom than mere physical presence. And yet, it is I, not they, who became a byword for all things illusory and unachievable.

Let that be a lesson to you, mortal: do not rely on the memories of men for your legacy. 

Bellerophon came on a winged horse. They all had something: Invulnerable but for the heel, a ball of string, a lion’s skin. A pack of cheats, the lot of them.

And he had the temerity to think this was all something deserved, as if he had won the winged steed on merit. Idiot boy was accused of sleeping with another man’s wife, got sent on a suicide mission and then fell asleep in a temple. The living embodiment of failing upwards, until of course he very suddenly and quite definitely wasn’t. 

The next time you see someone lauded as a hero, a champion, a strong man, remember Bellerophon. Remember what came of all of it in the end.

He said, I have come to slay you, ravager of Lycia. He said I was a blight, a pestilence, that he would scourge me from the land and make it whole again.

Trying to talk himself into it, I suppose. All this braggadocio and bluster serving just to show how thin his young and brittle courage was. I said, come down from your high horse and let’s talk about that.

He said, I am the son of Glaucus, beloved of Athena, tamer of Pegasus.

I said, that’s neat. I said, you will learn how little these things matter, should you live that long. I too, have a father, one that promised me the world.

He said, silence beast! And he pulled his iron war-helm down over his eyes, spurred his steed into the skies and nocked a goose-feathered arrow against his chest. 

It was not a glorious battle, I’m afraid. He flew high above, his arrows stinging like thorns, but my hide was too strong and he could do me no harm. But always he flew out of reach of claw and tail and tooth. A stalemate, as dignified as a horse trying to swat a gnat with its tail. Until, in my frustration, I opened wide my maw and let loose with a jet of flame.

Well. We all know how well that went.

He had a spear with a plug of lead, and thrust it down my open throat, where it ran red and melted into my gut. Do you have any idea what molten metal feels like, burning you form the inside? Suppose not, otherwise you’d be a resident here, not a visitor. It is. Unpleasant.

And then I awoke, if that’s the term, and found myself here. A fitting end for a monster, you say, as if your end will be any different.