Brad Simkulet's Blog, page 13
July 8, 2017
wb.i
“That would have been cruel.”
“What’s that, Jack?” asked Rexella.
“Forcing Max to apologize to Cindy.”
Rexella sighed. She loved, Jack, but sometimes … her
sigh turned to a deep breath and she swallowed her temper. His heart was weak,
after all. “No one forced him to do anything, Jack.”
“And good that you didn’t, Rexella.
It’s not your place to speak up in a situation like that.”
Rexella knew her place as shaped by her God and the
men in her life. With Jack it was to be subservient, obedient, forgiving. With
Chuck it was to be cock hungry, on her knees, gaping. She longed for Chuck to
fill her up again, but for now she simply said, “Of course, Jack. Even if it
was his choice, it was Cindy’s turkey.”
“That’s my girl. I knew you’d see it my way.”
“Dry turkey is unforgivable.”
“God punishes for less.”
“You are so right, Jack,” she breathed, adopting the throaty
voice he loved so much at the head of his ministries, the breathy voice that
drove Chuck so crazy before she dropped to her knees. “What else could Max do?
Cindy should have known better.”
“She failed, Rexella. She gave herself over to the sin
of Eve.”
“Yes, Jack,” she said, wondering what Genesis ever said about Thanksgiving.
“Can you make me some Ovaltine, Rexella.”
She sighed again, but Jack didn’t notice – he never
noticed – and she said, “Yes, Jack. You need to stay strong for the people.”
“That’s right, Rexella. That’s right.”
Lord God, Rexella thought, where is Chuck when I need
him.
July 7, 2017
William Gibson explains why science fiction is about the present #10yrsago
William Gibson did a wonderful interview with the College Crier Online, talking about his forthcoming novel Spook Country, a science fiction novel set one year in the past. In Spook Country, Gibson finds the pure expression of the science fiction writer’s art: to write about the present day through the veil of technology and speculation. Spook Country is a magnificent novel about the leftover spies sloshing around after the Cold War, about locative artists, and about celebrity. I ended up sitting in a blisteringly hot car in a parking garage for an hour while I finished the last 70 pages, transfixed until I found out how it all ended.
I love the idea of science fiction turning its lens on the present, of finding the same frisson of futuristic speculation in looking around at the contemporary world. Gibson’s insights on the subject are laser-focused, as his commentary on film adaptations of literature and several other subjects.
July 6, 2017
vb.i
love can work.
someone very wise told me that. but i’ve always
wondered how? what did she mean? was she referring to love bringing peace?
perhaps love bringing healing or being the most important thing? was it even
more personal than that? was it to do with her? could it work for her? and if
so what did she mean by that more personal version? maybe something else
entirely.
yet there is the word “can” smack in the middle of her
words, implying, of course, that it can also not work. so i have also wondered
if that was her message, that love can work but it usually doesn’t. so not as
optimistic as i initially presumed, much more pessimistic instead.
July 4, 2017
ub.i
it couldn’t remember the time when it had been a she.
back when it’s meat sack had dominated her thoughts. it could barely remember
the moment when she had rejected the notion of nature, or the moment she gave
up the Meat for the Green. now it spread its green throughout the crumblings.
then she had been trying, with so many others, to keep the crumblings from
crumbling. now it was the Green and the Green was vibrant and alive and feeding
all day and sleeping all night and spreading and photosynthesizing and
reproducing and climbing and crawling and creeping and crumbling the crumblings
beneaths its living tendrils and connections and mega-self. meat gone.
July 3, 2017
tb.i
Decision made, Delgrin strode through the cobblestone
streets stiltedly. He had never been one to wait, to chose the patient, careful
path, so adopting such an attitude was as unnatural as it was difficult for
him. Everything inside him screamed that he should be finding that bastard and
lopping of his head. But he wasn’t that adventuring, cold-blooded,
irresponsible Delgrin Stoneforge any longer. He was Jarl now. He had hundreds
of lives under his care. He had to maintain at least the illusion of order. He
couldn’t go around decapitating traitors – even though that was justice – even
though that would have erased the problem. Delgrin wasn’t subtle, but he knew
that right now he needed to be.
So
who did he know who was subtle, apart from the damned wizard or Chancellor or
arch-Angel or whatever the hell he was calling himself this week? Or the sadistic priest? Or the self-righteous asshole with his curved blades and spells? Or the
fool with his musical instruments and buffoonery? None of those. Maybe he
needed to look closer to home.
July 2, 2017
sb.i
His bedroom was his refuge. It wasn’t unassailable.
Far from it; his room could be breached at any time at any whim of his father’s,
but it was the best place to lay low, the one place for solitude (apart from
the dark, dank, spider webby crawl space, which was dominated by his father’s
nostalgia), the one place he could nestle the headphones on his ears, turn on
the blue lamp, and escape from the shit that was his life.
He loved K— with the artistic part of his heart, but
he’d found out a week before that she thought he was “a fag.” He had no idea
what to do with that. He loved D— with the lustful part of his heart, but
that confused him about K—’s reaction to his sexuality because, well, maybe
she was right, but he loved both of them, so how could he be “a fag?” He loved
a girl and a boy? But did it matter? He wanted to spend time with K—, to make
her part of his life, to make love to her (of course), but to spend time with
her, to listen to her, to tell her what he thought, to write for her, and all
he wanted to do with D— was play RPGs and suck his giant cock. He’d seen that
cock in the shower at the pool and couldn’t understand why everyone in that
shower room hadn’t wanted to drop to his knees and suck that thing. It was
beautiful. It was huge. It would scrape the back of his throat. Couldn’t he
love them both? Or at least desire them both?
Where he was, who he was, was confusing, and it wasn’t fair. It was too
fucking complicated, and his father must be suspecting who he was because the anti-“fag”
rhetoric had been crazy lately – all islands and AIDs and nuclear holocaust.
So he’d been closed in his room for three weeks when he wasn’t at school or
practice or playing D&D. He’d been listening to the Police and Duran Duran,
and he’d been wondering how to escape while moths slipped through the crack on
his screen and flitted around his ceiling bulb.
Could he call K—? Should he tell D—?
He pushed his glasses
onto his forehead, draped his forearm over his eyes, and just wished his Dad was
dead. That’s when the whispers began.
July 1, 2017
rb.i
i want your bones.
i could build a kingdom
from their strength
and feed forever
on their marrow.
i would take shelter
beneath your rib cage
where your heart once
pumped at your life.
and i would be safe.
i would wear you
like armour in battle.
and craft a sword
from your ivory
to slay my foes.
but your best place,
your true guardianship,
would be by my bed
watching me
while i sleep.
June 30, 2017
qb.i
i dreamt of you knitting tonight, jane. you sat at the
back of my classroom while i graded and the students watched an old black and
white version of the book we’d been covering and the two of us laughed at some
beautifully crafted and sassily delivered joke from the leading lady. our
laughter was the only laughter. the rest of the class groaned in unison, but
the girl sitting next to you, dueling you with her knitting needles for some
reason, added, “Oh, that was terrible.”
and you said, “she’s just sour because i am kicking
her ass,” then gleefully giggled with that grin I love so much, the one where your
top lip pulls back to reveal your teeth with the mischief of a child pulling
one over on a favourite relative. you’re in your sixties now, aren’t you? yet
you still play with the joy of the fresh and energetic. your smile made me say
something in reply, but i can’t remember what. i do remember your reply,
though: “it’s the ginger ale. i am fueled by granny champagne.”
it was a dream. only a dream. but it felt so real, and
i woke up as joyful as you were in that darkened classroom. i woke up with the
clickity clack of knitting needles in my ears. fuck i love knitting needles.
June 29, 2017
pb.i
i’ve said and done horrible things.
ob.i
rain strikes the pine needles with a shush in the sky,
a whispering of the foliage to remind you to walk softly through its carpet of
brown and browning ancestors with care and honour. but you don’t hear the
shush, not the way the lynx you don’t know is there hears the shush, slinking
beneath a natural arch made by a fallen, half rotten log, propped on a rock,
pads without stirring its ancestors, without tipping you of its presence. the
shush is language the lynx understands. to you it is a noise, a pleasant noise,
whose language is lost to you in the meandering, confused workings of your
mind, your annoyance with raindrops soaking you and your pack while dotting
your glasses, and the clanking of carabiners on the back of your pack to ward
off bears. you don’t see the lynx stopping in the underbrush to watch you
clamber your way through the forest, cracking long fallen branches and crunching
third generation leaves the way a bulldozer overturns earth.
the lynx sees you, though, and understands that
you don’t understand.
