31 July 2013

Room Without a View

(Originally: Zik and the Salad Lesbians Rent a House)

In case you don't know, there is a weird city called Stin.

Stin is proud to be weird.

There are not too many rules in Stin, but one rule is that names have to be monosyllabic. (The irony is not lost on anyone.)

One day in Stin three Mexster friends decided to set up housekeeping.

Ha ha ha! Stin is in Texas, not Merrie Oulde England. People in Texas do not set up housekeeping. They just find a house and move in.

Dee was a barista and had been away from home the longest. She had a small dog. She also had a roommate with a dog bigger than Dee's car. This dog might as well have been a factory. All day long it manufactured hair, which it faithfully delivered onto every surface of the apartment, including Dee's coffee cups. Even the full ones. Oddly enough, Dee wanted a change.

Lo, the youngest, had only been on her own a short time. She taught dance. She loved to dance. She even danced while she vacuumed. Often nude. Lo liked the music really loud while she did this. Her favorite time for vacuum dancing was in the middle of the day.

Zik was the oldest but had never lived on his own. He threw boxes around for a living. No one knows why but this pays pretty well. Zik felt if he was old enough to get paid to throw boxes and to buy a Harley he was old enough to move out. Zik worked at night and slept during the day. He suggested Lo invest in a pair of ear buds, and wear clothes while dance vacuuming.

 

Lo found the perfect house. Apparently she was a good salesperson because she convinced Dee and Zik to sign the contract before seeing the house.

Lo explained the house to her friends. "It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It has a back yard. It has room for dogs... and a garden... and cars and a motorcycle. It's perfect!"

"How big are the bedrooms?" Dee asked.

"Huge!" said Lo. "Well, one is a wee bit smaller. I think Zik should take that because he doesn't have as many clothes."

"How much smaller?" Zik wondered.

Lo laughed. "Only a smidgen. You'll hardly notice."

The big day came, and they met at their new home. Lo showed Dee and Zik the house, and where she would dance and vacuum ("with ear buds," she laughed) and where they would park, and the yard, and where they would have a garden, and where Dee's dog could chase birds and squirrels.

"Ear buds good," Zik smiled. "Clothes good, too."

"Clothes good, too!" Lo laughed back.

Zik stopped abruptly in the middle of where the dog would chase things, wearing a confused expression.

"Wait. I only saw two bedrooms. One was yours and one was yours. Where is mine?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Lo took his hand and pulled him toward the house.

"It's not a closet under the stairs like Harry Potter's? With spiders?"

"Of course not, silly. We don't have stairs."

"What about spiders?"

"No spiders."

"Oh. OK."

They stopped in the kitchen. Lo pointed. "It's in there."

"Where? Under the sink?" Zik laughed.

Lo opened a cabinet door. "Exactly!"

"That's not a bedroom! It's a cabinet! Under a sink!"

"But I put a pillow and blanket in for you!"

Dee stooped and looked in. "It's a lot more room than Kreacher had."

Zik crossed his arms. "That's silly."

There was a brief scuffle. Doors slammed. Dee and Lo stood panting against the cabinets. A muffled cry came from the sink. "Let me out! Spiders!"

 

Eventually Zik got used to his new room.

But he always refused to pay more than 10% of the rent, and every morning he looked hopefully toward the mail slot. Sadly, not a single owl ever came through.

Months later, Zik moved back in with his parents. At least there he had half a linen closet. THE END

27 July 2013

X

Author's forward: this was written when I first started getting really down and dirty with X. R2 was just out, there was very little documentation, I was working way too late...

Dedicated to Tyler Stevens (tyler@tigger.colorado.edu) who said, 'Actually, you are permitted to call X "poetry".'

(metzo forte. with feeling)

   You can call X "poetry".
   But I have seen the X held high
   and bright as a symbol of pride
   and arrogance.

   And you may call it "lines",
   for lines it is, twain lines,
   criss-crossing about their navels,
   a lewd romance.

   But I call X 11
   as does its creator, the vast
   and sprawling complex known as MIT,
   that makes the windows dance.

(metzo spaghetti. droning.)

   So oft have I watched your glowing
   (radioactive) cursors flowing,
   blowing, snowing
   across the grey'd out background of a thousand
   clients dead,
   or asleep, perchance, adreaming they are going,
   watching the mice crowing,
   slowing, throwing
   their electronic tails capriciously across my desk
   with dread.
(With apologies to Carl Sandburg, and the X Development folk.)

 

Copyright 1989, 2013 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

25 July 2013

Dem Ol' Newbie Blues

dedicated to talk.bizarre
(written in Atlanta, GA)

Newbie is a state of mind,
Newbie is a friend of mine
Newbie he be feelin' fine
Newbie is a state of mine.

Newbie, he lost in the mine
Newbie, he lost in his mind
Newbie stepped on the land mine
Newbie's jes' a state of mind

Oh Newbie, whar you done gone, boy
You done blowed up yo'self, little homeboy
Oh Newbie, Leo Fender cast aspersions on yo grave,
In the land of the buffalo and home of the Braves

Newbie now bout six feet down
Like the baseball in this town
Newbie no more nettin' round
Newbie might as well jes' drown

Newbie is a state of mind,
Newbie is a friend of mine
Newbie he be feelin' fine
Newbie is a state of mine.

 

When We Were Very Young-- or at least when the internet was-- there were things called newsgroups. They were effectively public forums. Each group had a purpose. There was a general set of rules, and some groups had their own rules. Always there was net etiquette, or netiquette.

And inevitably, no matter where you turned, there was a newbie diving in where angels refused to tread. In September, especially, there were vast herds of newbies, outnumbering all the buffalo that ever roamed the Great Plains, doing as much damage as a rampaging stampede. Virtually, anyway.

This was an ode (and a mockery with a side of pathetic, pathological poetry (or at least alliteration)) to newbies in a newsfroup created as a black hole for things and people the rest of the net didn't want to deal with, a newsfroup where various cabals (There Is No Cabal[tm]) and individuals (those we had in spades) were wont to engage in newbie baiting, mockery, pinking, plinking, and scatting.

And of course, Berke Breathed figured prominently in my thoughts as I wrote this. You should be able to see (and hear!) Binkley, Opus, and the rest as you read. If not, you need a good dose of Bloom County. Go read. Now.

 

Copyright 1989, 2013 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

23 July 2013

Brazen Shore

On a brazen shore
 In southern Alabama
  Thousands of years ago
   Where false idols fell

In a barren waste
 By a rocky cairn
  By a boat's dried ruins
   By a sun-bleached skull

There washed the waves
 Of a long dead storm
  Which spilt the blood
   Of a kinder soul

Than any now walked
 That wilted beach
  With greasy kelp
   And slimy fishheads

When a ray of sun
 Broke the clouds' dark pallor
  And a child walked free
   For a moment.

It was a start.
 Beginning of the end.
  End of the beginning.
   The death of death.

 

Copyright 1989, 1994, 2013 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

22 July 2013

Greeting Postcard Blues

The proof of this poem is not nj-complete.

I sailed the cambrian seas
In a boat of greenish spam
Fishing for new jersey
With bait named Sam-I-Am.

When Greasy Jane keels potes
Armadas spawn and die
While naugas in their saucers
Split the mesmosaic sky.

Oh! Waisted youth on pancakes,
Whose syrupy poems we read,
While conquering the Inca Spots
With records by Lou reed,

Canst nae thee, sir, hae naught
For burt, and gentle ernie too?
The sesame hae hae all baen squasht
By a bird as big as two.

 

Please don't ask about this. I have no idea, really, other than the title--a play on words, subbing a rather brilliant talk.bizarre personality for "np". If you don't know what "NP complete" is, feel free to look it up on Wikipedia. Or just don't worry about it. It's a geek thing.

 

Copyright 1989, 1994, 2013 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

17 July 2013

Round and Round

Bright jewels whirling,
laughing,
speeding,
frolicking
about the Glory in their midst.

Spinning,
dancing,
shouting to each other,
and to that in their center,
rejoicing perpetually.

Darting about,
madcap,
furiously,
calmly,
hastily,
slowly,
in their endless orbits.

 

Atoms? Solar systems? Creatures
and Creator?

 

Your view, perhaps,
depends upon
who you are
and where you stand.

 

NOTE: This was inspired in part by a vision I had while reading C. S. Lewis's Perelandra. Astute observers among the more widely read Lewis fans will note other influences as well.

 

Copyright 1989, 1994, 2013 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

07 July 2013

Dreams So Real, pt I

These may well some day appear in a story. Some of my more interesting stories started as dream fragments (including my first novel).

[Dream fragment (2013-07-07 AM)]

A Hero Among Hosers

Someone went down a series of tunnels to rescue a baby or animal. They ran a half mile or longer garden hose down the tunnels ahead of them, with the water running. for some reason I now forget. I went down to rescue the water. When I got back, the HEB (Texas grocery store chain) cashier (a redhead, was it Ariella?) was so impressed she told me to pick out a free shirt.

[Dream fragment (2013-07-07 AM)]

From the "Just Like Narnia, Only Totally Different Dept":

I stepped into my closet to get something.
"Unca Miles, there's not enough air in here!"
Kylie was on the floor, coloring.
"Huh?" And why are you in here?"
"There's not enough air flow. It's stuffy. You need better climate control. I like to hide in here and color. But now it's all crowded."
It was then I realized that mixed in amongst my clothes on hangers, a variety pf people stood holding shiny rails, or sat on brightly colored, vinyl bench seats. There were windows; a pleasant city landscape rolled by. My closet was apparently public transportation to somewhere. I decided to go along for the ride.
Looking around the (closet? car? compartment?), I recognized Kylie's oldest sister, Kayla. I snuck up and tickled her. When she turned around to hug me, I noticed the twins, Amanda and Brittany. One of them, of course, was flirting with a stranger. He was cute, but something told he was both gay and over 80, despite acting interested and looking like a teenager.
I stayed out of it.

04 July 2013

Occupy Communication: Do Ask, Do Tell!

Senior year of high school was almost over. It was Friday and prom was the next day. Just before school, Dan Croft told me that no one had asked Jane, the homecoming queen-- a fun, sweet, bright, beautiful young lady-- to the prom. Everyone assumed she had a date but she and her boyfriend had broken up and no one else had asked her. Dan had a date but I didn't. "Why don't you go ask her?" The bell rang.

Mr. Alford, normally a stickler for the rules, let me out of home room when I explained. "Hurry up! get going!"

I practically ran down the hall. I explained to Jane's homeroom teacher that I had an urgent question for Jane. Jane and I went back to the hallway, and I asked her to the prom.

She looked at me oddly. "Why are you just now asking me?"

"You're super popular. Everybody loves you! All the guys assumed everyone else had asked you. I'd have asked but... I didn't really think I had a chance."

She smiled wistfully. "You're sweet. Last night I gave up hope. I decided nobody cared. I was so embarrassed not to have a date to the prom I called my cousin in Tennessee. He's going to drive two hours here to take me. I wish you'd asked sooner! I'd have been happy to go with you."

Jane made sure I got a dance the next night, ahead of the popular guys.

We both learned something about communication and assumptions.

And we both learned that sometimes people cared after all.

 

I was reminded of this reading Leigh's story on community and comments on that story at http://www.leighkramer.com/blog/2013/07/the-risk-of-community.html .

Copyright 2013, Miles O'Neal, Round Rock, TX. All rights reserved.