Michael S. Atkinson's Blog, page 19

Angelsplaining

Some angels, having found themselves in a spaceship engine room surrounded by an army of demons, might have decorously retired to heaven and sought reinforcements. Constance was not that kind of angel. She had an absolute confidence in her own angelic qualities. The thing about angels, she believed, was that they were on the side of Good. And Good always kicked Evil’s butt. Always.

She drew herself up, her wings outspread, her halo sparking like a small lightning storm. “I don’t care whether you call yourself Legion or Spivey or my Aunt Matilda,” Constance said. “I’m an angel. I serve the Big Guy. You know who that is. You know his name. So, therefore, I command you to begone! Shoo!”

Constance wished she hadn’t added on the shoo; it sounded undignified, even for her. But it did the job. Blinding light blasted through the engine room, disintegrating the horde of evil Spiveys in shattering explosions. Quite suddenly Constance was quite alone. The steady whum whum whum of the engines kept on comfortably around here. “Welp, glad that’s over,” Constance said.

Then something chirped, loudly and annoyingly, like an upset cricket. Constance looked around, and noticed a communicator lying on the floor. Apparently it had not been disintegrated and banished to the lower regions along with its formal owner. “Mr. Spivey?” a staticky voice said. “Are you there? Did you determine the nature of the unusual readings in the engine room? Mr. Spivey?”

Constance shrugged, and picked up the communicator. It was a tiny badge-like device, with several blinking lights. The angel wondered how it worked. She hadn’t kept up with the details of every human technological development. “Hello there!” she tried.

No response came. Constance tapped the communicator. “Anyone listening?”

Communicators are dicey things. Constance did not know that what she should have done was to clearly identify the name of the person to whom she wished to speak, following which her communicator would contact that person’s communicator and set up a link. By asking for anyone, Constance inadvertently opened a link to everyone. She, however, assumed that the communicator was not working.

“Okay…” she mused, apparently to herself. “So I can’t tell the captain that Spivey’s gone. Eh, she’ll figure it out. Back to the original plan then. I wreck the engines so they can’t go and find the Ark of the Covenant, then fly away. No problem!”  Constance looked at the padamantium-crystal powered engines, whumming away contentedly. “Pity, though. I hate to smash up a good ship.”

“Then you’d better not,” said Captain Jolene coolly. She had used an emergency teleporter to bounce herself directly to the engine room. Now she held a laser rifle steady on the angel. “You want to tell me exactly  what happened to my science officer, and why you know all about the secret orders he just handed me not an hour ago?”

“One, your first officer was a demon. I don’t know how your HR people missed that. Anyway, I cleansed the ship of evil, you’re welcome.  Two, I know because…” and here she powered up her shoulder-glow dramatically, “I’m an angel.”

“You’re a what?”

Constance sighed. She’d have to angelsplain again. She was beginning to get tired of it.

It’s been a little while since I updated this story arc, but I couldn’t resist. Constance is fun to write. And I had left her situation sadly unresolved. Now it is! 

Aftermath

Josiah could read the paper, just. “Found …anomaly… EMP …”

“What’s a nomaly?” his small daughter asked, curiously.

“No idea.”

They kept on picking through the ruins.

On Twitter and Fleek

My blog is predominantly short stories, especially short stories in serials; I realize this. Every so often, I try to write things that are not stories involving flammable flying-brick superheroines, or space otters, or magical tales inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo. On the other hand, I prefer not to blog about politics; though I am keenly interested, I prefer to have those discussions in a civilized manner in person, not randomly over the Internet. I would say I don’t blog about theological matters so much, but I’ve been writing Gaseous Girl as she’s going through Dante’s Inferno, so that’s not entirely true. I suppose it’d be more accurate to say that I don’t engage too much in doctrinal posts. I know what I believe, and I am trying to learn more about it; that works, for me, for now.. What you believe about those sorts of things is up to you. :)

Meanwhile. I am also on Twitter, and it is an interesting place. (My handle is Indiana_Michael. The underscore is important; I gather there may be another indianamichael out there, but that is not me.)  The main problem I’ve had so far is the 140-character limit; I’m used to Facebook posts where one has more room. But I’m getting used to it. Among other things, I learned that the CIA is on Twitter; as a consequence, I also learned that the famous chef Julia Child once worked for the CIA. I did not know that before. Now I know!

Also, there is a judge in Texas who is on Twitter and wrote an opinion about eyebrow-threading, cosmetology, and licenses. An article I read about the opinion made reference to the term “on fleek.”  I am not familiar with this term. Without googling, here are some speculations as to the meaning of the word “fleek”.

1) A new and catchy expletive used in a sci-fi show, like “fark” or “zark”.  As in, I’m givin’ her all she’s fleekin’ got, Cap’n! I cannae do anythin’ else!  (I don’t know if Scotty from Star Trek would’ve been on fleek.)

2) A street term for some sort of illicit substance.

3) A tiny blue and nose-less alien that lives on the planet Fleekerzork. He emigrates to Earth and appears on a Disney Channel show; he also has odd powers like the ability to move things with his mind, and turn anyone into a puddle of goo when he feels threatened. The other protagonist is an ironic would-be musical star named Melanie, who must hide Fleek’s existence from her curious boyfriend Tyler. Wacky hijinks ensue.

4) Something said by the Minions in Despicable Me, like “bee-do!” and “banana!”

5) Something the Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey would not approve of, and Rose MacClare would try to be rebellious. (I’ve only seen partway through series five. No spoilers, please. I think the dog will recover. I hope so. Downton has upset me too much already).

6) Fleek Baggins, the somewhat distant and wild descendant of Bilbo.

7) Fleek Targaryen, a character introduced in the next Game of Thrones book, a long-lost Targaryen relative and rightful heir of the Iron Throne, but who dies tragically before he can make it over to Danyland and swipe her dragons. Then everybody else dies tragically.

That’s all I have. Feel free to chime in with other suggestions!

The Second-to-the-Last Battle

“I just hate existential fights with myself,” Madeleine thought, as she pummeled her evil possessed twin with all her might and main. Unfortunately, since Eviler Madeleine had exactly the same flying-brick flame-producing powers as her, Eviler Madeleine had a good deal of might and main in her own right. Thus the two Madeleines with their respective mights and mains meleed away at each other, for many long minutes.

After a while, a little voice in the back of Madeleine’s mind began to wonder how this would end. She hadn’t given it much thought, beyond the immediate concern of trying to snap-kick her evil self clear into next Tuesday. Now she wondered, in a distant sort of way, as Eviler Madeleine unleashed a series of fireballs at her. By the terms of the deal, if she defeated her evil twin, she would escape from hell. But the whole point of her descent into hell in the first place had been to rescue her evil twin so she could get back out and save reality. Gaseous Girl couldn’t leave hell without her evil self. But, in order to leave, she had to defeat her evil self, and the way this fight was going, it looked to be turning lethal fast. That meant only one of them would walk away. She wondered. Had she been wrong? Had she been blind? Had she-

“You know what?” Madeleine said. “This isn’t a Natalie Merchant song.”  And she pitched back into it. A second little voice piped up in her mind, one that had stuck with her from all the lawyer-type shows she had watched. What had been the devil’s exact words?  Inspiration broke upon her mind like a sunburst. She ducked suddenly, and aimed a sudden snap-kick combined with a burst of burped flame at Eviler Madeleine’s boots. Eviler Madeleine was, momentarily, caught off guard. She stumbled and fell, hitting the ground hard. Being a flying brick, and fairly durable if not nigh-invulnerable, she wasn’t hurt at all. Eviler Madeleine, howling in rage, started to bound up again.

“Ah,” Madeleine said. “You’re not standing. I win.”

“What?” said Eviler Madeleine. “You haven’t won. I have barely begun fighting!”

“Yeah, sure, John Paul Jones. Except that the exact terms of the deal was ‘whoever’s left standing’. You’re not standing anymore. So, I win. Now, dispossess my evil twin and we’ll be going. It was fun.”

Eviler Madeleine smiled. “Well played. Except that I’m the Big Bad. You know what that means?”

“What?”

“I was never going to abide by the deal anyway.”

She whistled. Across the way, the armies of hell surged forward, into and across the river Acheron. Madeleine signed. “Not again…”

Incidentally, and completely off-topic, I am now on Twitter. I am @Indiana_Michael. And so we enter into a new era, where lion and hyena come together, in a great and glorious future! (not really. But I like the quote and use it where I can.)

Busted

“Meg, you’re supposed to be home by midnight.”

“Yeah, but I was fighting Candystriper, and she had the Kaboominator, and”

“The Kaboominator.”

“Yeah.”

“You know your father captured that? CIA has it now.”

“They do?”

“Where were you really?”

“…Josh’s.”

“Oh dear.”

Loose Ends

Rowena woke up from a disturbed sleep. Someone was banging on her door. She could tell by the gray light filtering in through her windows that it was just barely morning. She stumbled to the door, yawning. “I’m sorry,” she said as she pulled it open, “but I only offer assistance between the hours of eight and-”

The man was short, smudged, and smelled like he had been in a quarrel with a trash bin and lost. To Rowena’s senses, he smelled dirty in more ways than one; his magical power guttered about in him like a torch thrown into a sewer. She could sense echoes of something else too, acrid and smoky. She sighed. “You again. You’d better get inside quick, before anyone sees you.”  She wrinkled her nose distastefully. “Or smells you.”

The man gave a hiccup of protest. “I’m a great wizard, and y’r father; there’s no call to be talkin’ to me like that!”

“Fine,” Rowena said. “I’m sorry. Now will you come in, quickly?”

Mortimer, Order of the Polecat, scurried in, grumbling all the way. “I’ve summoned dragons, y’know, summoned ’em all the way to Turtledove, I ain’t to be trifled with, nossir I’m not…”

She magicked up some tea and shoved it at him. Ordinarily she liked to make it herself, non-magically, but these were desperate circumstances. “Right, then,” she said, as Mortimer glared suspiciously at the tea, “What is it this time?”

“Ah. Well…Rowena m';dear…I need ‘elp.”

“Help,” she said flatly. “What for?”

Mortimer finally ventured a taste of the tea. It didn’t kill him instantly, or turn him into a spotted toad, so he persevered on with it as he talked. “Remember that bit about summoning dragons?”

“Yes?” Rowena remembered it, all right. She had not slept well for weeks.

“Seems the chap I summoned them for doesn’t like me hangin’ round. I’m a loose end, y’know. And loose ends…”

“Loose ends are tied up,” Rowena said. Cold fear shot through her. “Your employer is coming after you.”

“You’ve got it now. There I was, mindin’ my own business in the city, takin’ in the entertainment…”

Rowena decided she didn’t want to know what sort of entertainment he had been taking in. “And you were attacked.”

“By a lizard,” Mortimer said impressively.

“A…lizard.”

“Yes.”

“A fire-breathing lizard?”

“Well, no, not as such….”

“A giant lizard, magically enlarged to the size of a bear?”

“No, it was about the usual size…”

“A deadly poisonous lizard, perhaps?”

“It might’ve been!” Mortimer shouted.

“But it wasn’t, was it,” Rowena said. “Father, just exactly how much had you been drinking?”

Mortimer leaned in close. “Listen, Rowena, you don’t know us Polecats. ‘Eck knows I tried to teach you, but you, you wanted to join the bloomin’ Rabbit order. We don’t do things like you Rabbits. That lizard was walkin’, right out in the open, in a crowded establishment (I won’t say what kind), walkin’ right towards me. Lizards usually scuttle away, don’t they? Not this one. This lizard meant business. My employer’s gone and hired another Polecat to come after me. Typical.”

Rowena should’ve called the authorities. She would have, had he been anyone else. “Fine. I have a cloak of disguise. It’s in the closet there. Take it, and get to the harbor. There’s a ship heading south. You’ll be out of these waters in an hour.”

Mortimer pledged his thanks and undying gratitude. Rowena didn’t believe a word of it. She watched as he struggled into the cloak and vanished. Then she heard rapid footsteps, and her door slammed. She could only hope he would get away safely. Rowena wondered if she would ever sleep soundly again.

Bye

Photo courtesy of Grammar Ghoul Press.

“No, Meg, that barn isn’t a portal to another dimension. It-”

…

“Mom? Mom?”

Looking For a Soul to Steal

It was Madeleine against all the forces of hell, and she almost liked her chances. Sure, all she had was her own flammable superpowers and a pencil, but she was Gaseous Girl, and she’d been through worse. When one knew the plural of apocalypse, and had occasion to use it, one tended to be accepting of these things. She’d lived through the Crisis of ’09, after all, with the bad-tempered kaiju and the acid tsunamis.

“You gonna help, or what?” she asked her evil twin as she prepared to hurl her pencil at a long-legged beastie on the far bank of the river Acheron.

“No, duh,” the other Madeleine said. “Why would I help you? I’m, y’know, evil. I force-fed highly intoxicating substances to seabirds. You know what they say, leave no tern unstoned.”

“I hate you,” Madeleine said. One or two of the monsters across the river let forth with fiendish giggles. “Fine, whatever, I’ll fight the armies of hell all by myself.”

Evil Madeleine produced a kazoo from her own utility belt. (Why she had a kazoo was an open question, to which Madeleine Prime never knew the answer). She then burst into off-key song, “All byyyy myyyself…. don’t wanna be all byyy myself, anymooore…”

“Shut up, will you? I’m trying to-”  Then Gaseous Girl had an idea. She turned and yelled back to the assembled demons, monsters, goblins, and the like, “Any of you know where the Big Guy is?”

There was a long pause. Evidently they had expected her to commence fighting, not ask a question. Then, a tentacled slimy Thing emerged from the crowd. “If you mean Our Father Below…” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve read Screwtape, that’s the guy. I want to talk to him.”

The Thing walked, or stumbled, back to its confederates, where it held a brief conference. Then it came back. “He will be summoned.” 

“Peachy,” Madeleine said.

The army settled in to wait. Madeleine wished she had a snack. In her current never-been-born state, she technically didn’t need to eat, but still, it could have occupied the time. She rummaged in her utility belt. Madeleine’s search turned up a fork, a spoon, and a moldy biscuit, but that was hardly satisfactory. She sighed. She’d had the worst luck lately.

Then Evil Madeleine spoke. “I am here.”

“Well, yeah, I know you’re there, why-” Then Madeleine noticed that her evil twin’s eyes were glowing red. “Ah. Lovely. You got yourself possessed.”

“So,” Eviler Madeleine said. The voice sounded exactly like Madeleine’s own, except with an undercurrent of sinister creeping evil that sent shivers up Madeleine’s spine. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah,” Madeleine Prime said, gathering herself together. “Okay, here’s the deal. I know the song, okay? You challenged some guy to a fiddle contest. So, you’re up for challenges. I’ve got one. If I win, you let her go and let us both out of here, with zero negative consequences. If you win…well, the usual.”

“I get your soul,” Eviler Madeleine said.

Madeleine Prime had a feeling that Father Milo in St. Expeditus, the church she infrequently attended, would be somewhat alarmed at what she was doing. Assuming she survived, she’d have to do some serious penance. “Yeah. Sure. Incidentally, can I get Evan out too?”

“He is already dead.”

“So?”

“Very well. Evan will be restored.”

“Great. So let’s do this. I can’t actually play the fiddle, so maybe the classics. Chess? Cards? Yahtzee? We could go 21st century and play Trivia Crack….”

“Actually,” said Eviler Madeleine, “I propose a test of strength.”

“Meaning…”

“We fight. Winner is whoever’s left standing.”

Gaseous Girl had a feeling that it would’ve come to this. “Fine. You want to dance that way? Let’s dance.”

The two Gaseous Girls hurled themselves at each other, in a storm of flame and fury.

Encounter

Their eyes met across the checkout stand.

“It’s been what? Two years?”

“Three.”

“Right. So… you’re married now. Does she know?”

“About the cape? Yeah.”

“You never told me.”

“Jill, I…ah, shoot. There’s a fire. Three alarm. ”

“Figures. See you, Clark.”

Volcano

Evinrude had never before seen black sand. The volcanic cone of the island towered ominously above him, and threatening rumbles shook the ground on which he stood. Still, he was almost happy. After twenty days of sailing across unending oceans, he had finally reached the island Rowena had indicated. That island sheltered the dragon that had killed Eulalie. Evinrude carried a sword, thrown at him by a strange woman in a pond, which legend said was terrific at slaying dragons. Evinrude intended to use it.

His ship had dropped anchor just moments before. Evinrude was the only one on the beach. The captain had offered to send soldiers with him, had even volunteered to accompany the prince himself. Evinrude had turned down the offer. “I’m doing this alone,” he said. “Just me, and the dragon. No one else.”

He had no idea that he had given offense. Evinrude assumed that everyone understood this. If a prince had to go and slay a dragon, he had to do it himself. It lent an air of heroism and adventure to the thing. This was especially true if he was avenging a lost love. The captain couldn’t have cared about Lady Eulalie, could he?

As Evinrude marched up the beach, sword in hand, he had no idea that the captain did care. Maxwell Valerian hadn’t always commanded a ship. He had once served in Lady Eulalie’s Guards. In that post, he had fallen hopelessly in love with her. Of course, bodyguards weren’t supposed to develop feelings for their charges. So Maxwell Valerian, being an honorable sort, had kept quiet. He considered himself strictly professional. He didn’t even take steps to become friends with her. So when Eulalie decided to slip off on her own to a quiet beach, she naturally hadn’t thought to tell him. Then she had been flamed, and in the chaos following, he had been reassigned to a naval command.

Maxwell had welcomed this. He thought he could get away, escape the guilt that tore at him for failing in his duty, for failing in his love. But it kept after him all the same. Eulalie shouldn’t have been alone. He should have done something. Someone should have. Then Evinrude showed up, waving around his enchanted sword and announcing to one and all that he would avenge the princess. “Why didn’t you slay the bloody dragon before it killed her?” Maxwell muttered darkly.  He had, at last, worked out who to blame.

It was unfortunate when Evinrude went off on his solo adventure. Maxwell had to improvise. He waited until a decent interval had passed, and Evinrude had not reappeared. “Better go and check on him,” he said to his first mate. “Nah, I’ll do it. I don’t think there’s really a dragon here anyway. I’ll take a bow and a few arrows just in case. Swords are all very well, but arrows, now…”

He approached the cave cautiously, expecting to feel a blast of hot air against his face. Maxwell had heard of dragon caves, heard of their notorious treasure hoards, heard of the burglars that occasionally attempted to make off with some of the smaller shiny bits. He had also heard that dragons usually lay about their caves, snoring and breathing fire. He was therefore surprised when he found the cave cold and clammy. The floor squelched beneath his feet. A pale blue light flickered on the walls. Maxwell wondered if this cave really did belong to a dragon.

He was just starting to inch forward when Evinrude came dashing towards him, eyes wide with alarm. The prince was yelling something at him. Behind the prince lurched…a Thing, green and sticky, smelling like the foul fumes of a million chamber pots all gathered together. Maxwell Valerian could’ve shot it with an arrow in that instant. But he didn’t. Then Evinrude tripped. The Thing gurgled forward. Maxwell Valerian bolted back to the ship. He looked back once. Evinrude wasn’t behind him.

The crew was greatly dismayed at the news, but Maxwell headed off a rescue attempt by describing the monster in all its slimy detail, and then point-blank ordered them away. He returned to Isle Turtledove with flags lowered. The word spread quickly. Pirates on their vessels, the new Prime Minister Philip in his army headquarters, Rowena on her lonely island, everyone assumed that Evinrude was no more, another egg broken to make an omelet of ambition or betrayal or power. They were all wrong.