Michael S. Atkinson's Blog, page 36

A Bit of Good News

So, two things.

1) I am graduating law school tomorrow. It has been a very long three years. I should like to have posted more about my law school experience, but I didn’t really have the time. The short stories worked as an outlet anyway. It’s a bit anticlimactic, in a way, since after law school graduation comes the dreaded bar review course, followed by the even more dreaded bar exam. Like the old man in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. “I’m free, I’m free!” …..*falls into sewer*  “Dangit.” 

If any of you among my readership are considering law school for yourselves, I don’t really have any stirring advice. It’s a lot of hard work, to put it mildly. There is usually at least one moment per semester, sometimes more, when you really don’t know how you’re going to get everything done on time and in a way that makes your professors happy. Still you muddle through somehow. It is worth it, I will say that. I have made many good friends. There have also been moments of outright joy and hilarity. Like reading an opinion in my Evidence casebook written by Judge Onion. First line: “This is an appeal…”   

In any event, it has been an interesting three years, to say the least.

2) In celebration of this, I have just put out a new short story on e-book: The Angel and the Kaiju. It isn’t technically “new”, per se (we lawyers are known for being maddeningly precise about things). What it is, is all the posts from “Constance’s Story,” edited and collected in one e-book form. You can buy it here on Amazon, and review it if you like on Goodreads. Tell your friends.

War

“Tell me if you’re game.”

Hadley was confused. “Er, game for what?”

Rain rolled her eyes. “Look, your planet was blown up by the Seventeenth Fleet from Earth. But now you say there isn’t a Seventeenth Fleet, so whoever blew up your planet was hiding their real identity. That means politics. It means a political conspiracy. Which means we’ve got to find out who’s behind it all.”

Hadley caught on, and her mauve shading flushed bright with excitement. “And then we’ll confront them!” she exclaimed. “We’ll root out the evildoers and tell them that what they’ve done is bad and they should stop!”

“Exactly,” Rain said. “We’ll confront them.”

Hadley probably should have paid more attention to the way Rain said that. Unfortunately, she was too caught up in the excitement of unraveling a political conspiracy. “So where do we start? Do we get to storm someone’s headquarters? Have covert conversations in a parking garage? Ooh, ooh, can we hack into a computer and decrypt some secret files? Please?”

Rain didn’t bother answering. She waved her hand, and everything around them blurred like a milkshake in a blender. When things straightened out again, they weren’t on the ship anymore. They were standing in a dirt field next to an old rusted excavator. A sun glimmered dull red above them, behind a sheet of grey clouds. A cold wind blew against their faces. Hadley shivered. “This doesn’t seem a good place for a conspiracy.”

“It’s not.”

“Then why-”

“You’ll see.”

They waited. Nothing happened. The red sun moved an inch to the left. Still nothing happened.

“So…” Hadley said, scuffing at the dirt with her boot.

“Wait for it.”

They kept waiting. Nothing kept on happening.

“Oh, honestly,” Rain said at last. “For once in his existence would it kill the man to be on time?”

“Who?” Hadley demanded.

At that moment something silvery bright flashed on the horizon. Hadley instinctively looked around for cover. The field presented no obvious shelter. She thought about hiding under the old excavator, but then it was too late. It was a good thing she hadn’t after all. The missile hit the excavator dead-on, and it disappeared in a blast of fire and smoke. Rain sighed. “Just quit with the theatrics, will you?”

The smoke billowed away. In its place was a tired-looking man in rumpled khaki.

Hadley, ever friendly, advanced with her mauve hand out. “Hi! I’m Hadley Baxendale, what’s your name?”

The man didn’t move to take her hand, leaving Hadley in an awkward spot. “Yeah, hi. Milroy Birnbaum, god of war, 32nd precinct. Now what’s your trouble?”

“I’m sorry,” said Hadley, “Milroy? God of War? Seriously?”

“You thought I’d show up in a toga and metal helmet and call myself Mars? Yeah, listen, we aren’t on Earth anymore. You human types spread out all over the galaxy, and there’s lots of other alien worlds, all of them fightin’ each other and smashin’ stuff. Way too much for one guy to handle. So we deputized. Now you called me here, what’s the deal?”

“The deal,” Rain cut in acidly, “is that someone calling themselves the Seventeenth Earth Fleet just vaporized a whole planet, right after they murdered Hannah Moon, Earth’s president. Only they can’t be what they say, because Earth doesn’t have seventeen fleets, and they wouldn’t kill off their own leader anyway. Also they opened the Bunniless Pit. So, we need to know who the fleet’s really working for, and what their game is.”

“Well, it’s not me,” Milroy said. “I’m not one of those fired-up war gods that go chasin’ off after every world-ending apocalypse. I keep my precinct tidy-like. A few skirmishes here and there, some proton torpedoes, people shoot the tailfins off some cruiser now and again, nothing major. If someone’s playing big leagues on me, I damn well want to know about it.”

He waved his hand, and the smoke billowed back further, revealing a rattling old star fighter, barely bigger than a standard escape pod. “Where’s this planet you say got blown up?”

Rain and Hadley climbed into the fighter. Hadley, squeezing awkwardly into the back seat, was still trying to grasp the concept of a god of war named Milroy Birnbaum. “So… do you have a giant red sword? Maybe a red horse or something?”

“I got a cat. Name’s Fiona.”

“Well…” Hadley said, trying to sound heroic, “Cry havoc, and let loose the cats of war!”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

For prior adventures with Hadley, go here. Thanks for reading!

Birds Can Be Useful

“Hey!” Rosalind cried. “That’s my parking space!”

Reginald smirked. “Yeah? Whatcha gonna do about it?”

Rosalind had wondered if she’d ever get the chance to weave the spell.

“Hey. That hawk wasn’t here before.”

“Brilliantly observed. Spikey? Kill.”

She got her space.

 

Loomings

“I’m bored,” said Catrina one evening. She had cause to be. Two years had passed since her last quest, two years of absolute normalcy in Shmirmingard. There had been no penguins, zombie or otherwise, no random travels through time, no Atlantean invasions, not even so much as a squeak from otherworldly monsters like Cthulhu. Susan hadn’t shown up once. Catrina assumed she was settling back into power in Character Hell, but she didn’t feel like journeying down there to find out. Ermingard and Katrina had gone off again, apparently to track down Dr. What since they hadn’t quite found him the first time, but they hadn’t been seen since. Catrina didn’t care so much about her evil twin, but Ermingard was a nice person, even if she was a bit gloomy.

All in all, it had been a very quiet two years. Catrina was into her early twenties now. She had enjoyed lots of time with her family, Perry and her newborn twins,  Tamalyn and Timothy. They had come through their terrible twos without (miraculously) burning the castle down, for which Catrina was very thankful. It seemed Tamalyn in particular had a fondness for setting things on fire, which was an unfortunate trait indeed for a two year old. Timothy was much more well behaved.

But even family time could get wearing on one after a while. That was why Catrina had taken to staring out at the stars of an evening, hoping that the Dangling Participle would flash in for a visit, or perhaps an eerie green glow would blot them out as Cthulhu emerged to take his revenge. Night after night, no Cthulhu appeared, and no spaceship either. Catrina was beginning to wonder if she’d ever have an adventure again. Perhaps her author had moved on to other projects. A cold thought chilled her soul: perhaps she had been replaced. She had never been quite clear as to whether she was a final-draft character or a first draft. Suppose she had been edited? Would she even know if she were?

After two years, Catrina was beginning to despair. She had obviously been forgotten. Her stories were mouldering in a drawer somewhere, and she was consigned to a dreary existence in an epilogue. Pre-epilogue, really. Perhaps in another ten years her narrator would check in with a few paragraphs about her children heading off to school, and she’d have to say something wistful about how they were named after very brave people she had known in her adventures. This wasn’t at all true: Catrina had picked the names simply because she liked how they sounded. So her epilogue would probably be very short and uninspiring.

That was why, once again on a summer evening as the sun fell slowly below the horizon,  Catrina was standing on a balcony of her castle overlooking the surrounding countryside, and remarking aloud how bored she was. She didn’t even have any royal duties to perform. Her parents, King Montgomery and Queen Maralyn, had finally returned from their anniversary vacation or second honeymoon or whatever it had been, and had resumed their part in ruling the little kingdom. Catrina, rather than acting queen, was back in princess status again. So she had wandered out once more to the balcony. The moon had risen by now, its light glowing silver on her face. Catrina had an odd feeling that she should break into song. Perhaps she should express that she wanted much more than this provincial life, or that she wanted to be out there, standing in the sun, or that she wanted to be part of their world….. she couldn’t quite make up her mind.

Then, above her head in the night, she heard a low thrumming noise. Catrina hadn’t been in the modern world long enough to catalogue all its sounds, or she might have recognized it as a propeller. She knew enough to know that it wasn’t a right sound for the 12th century. Then the moonlight dimmed around her. A hulking shape loomed over the castle. Something clanked, and a figure dropped from the looming shape and landed before her. It was a tall man, grey-haired, with a livid white scar on his face, though it was difficult to see behind the pair of brass flying goggles he wore. He carried a harpoon in one hand, though it was covered in metal bits and twisty things the likes of which Catrina had never seen. One of his legs had gone, replaced by a glinting metal prosthetic. Little wheels whirred and clinked as the grim figure stepped towards her.

“Ay, missie…” he growled. “Have ye seen a white whale?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Catrina.

“A white whale,” said the man, a wild look in his goggle-shaded eyes. “A white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke. Have ye seen him?”

“Er, no…”

“Well, have y’ seen his grandmother, then?”

Now Catrina was absolutely lost. “I haven’t seen any whales at all really, except once years ago at the beach, and it was pretty far out to see. I certainly didn’t have the chance to ask after it’s grandmother. And it wasn’t white, it was sort of blue-ish. Now, if you don’t mind my asking, who-”

But the man had turned away from her in a burst of anger. “Death and devils, I’ll pursue him and his grandmother through all the currents of time before I give him up!” He waved his harpoon at the looming shape above him, and a rope and metal ladder clanked down. The man grabbed hold of it and rose swiftly up into the sky. Then the shape thrummed off into the dark and was gone, leaving Catrina absolutely bewildered on her balcony.

She didn’t stand there long. Catrina’s heart raced with excitement. This was the first unusual event in two years. It had to mean something! She flung out her hand, there was a nearby crash, and then Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor) raced towards her and thwacked into her outstretched palm. “After him!” she cried, and the mighty Shovel lifted her off the balcony and soaring away into the night.

This has been an episode of the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here. Thanks for reading!

A Conversation with Death

Hadley disliked teleportation. She wasn’t teleporter-phobic, she would use it if she had to, but she much preferred plain old-fashioned skimming about on a shuttlecraft. Shuttlecrafts got you where you needed to be all in one piece. Teleporters, on the other hand, sometimes left bits of you where you shouldn’t be. When one was a sentient shade of mauve, that happened more often than Hadley cared for.

Sure enough, as she materialized on the grey metal floor of a ship’s cargo bay, she felt the distinct unpleasantness of knowing she was missing a bit. Hadley looked irritatedly around. Sure enough, her left arm was flopping about by the far wall, next to a sealed door. Apparently her arm was trying to reach the handle, so it could open the door, escape into the ship proper, and go off on a merry adventure of its own. It couldn’t quite reach that far, however. It fluttered for a moment, magnificent in its struggle, then wilted and lay still.

Hadley sighed. “C’mere, you,” she said. Her arm wriggled pathetically towards her, and with a plop sound Hadley stuck it back on. Photons knit together, and her arm was back to its old self again. The other advantage of being a conscious color shade was that you could stick your arm (and other parts) right back on with minimal fuss.

That problem solved, Hadley looked around to see where she was. She wasn’t on the bunny planet anymore, that much was obvious. Hadley breathed a shuddering sigh of relief. Then she considered. Like everyone else, she had thought the bunnies were gone from the universe, sealed away in the Bunniless Pit. How could they have gotten loose?

“They were let out, of course,” said a grim voice from behind her. Hadley jumped.

“Wha?” she said, somewhat inarticulately.

“Sorry,” said the woman, emerged from a shadowed corner. “I hate scaring people. Comes with the territory, though. I’m Rain. I’m also the incarnation of Death. Nice to meet you.”

Rain stuck out her hand. Hadley didn’t move to take it. “You’re…. you’re Death,” she said. “Um. Oh dear. Does that mean-?”

Rain sighed. “No, it’s not you. You’ll be fine. But with the bunnies loose, I’m going to have a lot more business. Especially if your ship’s captain fires the BFG.”

“The what now?”

The deck suddenly lurched beneath Hadley’s feet, and there was a tremendous WHUMP noise.

“That.”

Hadley rushed to a porthole in the cargo bay. Below her she could see the planet she had been on, and the bunny horde rising ominously from it. Then the planet blossomed into light. Hadley had better eyesight than most, but even she had to look away for a moment. When she looked back, the planet was gone, and so were most of the bunnies. “Oh, good,” she said. “There’s only two or three left. No problem.”

Rain laughed darkly. “Yeah. Sure. You know how fast bunnies can multiply?”

Hadley didn’t know. The only pet she’d ever had was a small intelligent fox from Ylvisa Five. It had been a delightful companion, and she’d had many long talks with it. She had never inquired about its marital status, however , and it had gone off on its own adventures before she could broach the subject. Now she wished she had. “They reproduce pretty quickly then, do they?”

“Like bunnies do. That’s why they were sealed in the Bunniless Pit. Then some idiot let them out.”

“But… I’ve heard of the Bunniless Pit. The people from Earth built it. It’s only got one key. Their president has it, secret and safe. Hannah Moon, I’ve met her, she’s very nice!”

“Yeah,” Rain said. “But she’s dead now. I met her too. And about a billion people from the planet she was visiting. Seems the Seventeenth Fleet from Earth went and blew up the whole place. Busiest week I’ve had in ages.”

Hadley gaped. “But…there is no Seventeenth Fleet.”

“What?”

“I”ve been to Earth, met the President, I know. They only have one fleet. Budget cutbacks. They don’t have sixteen more fleets running around, and they certainly don’t go vaporizing planets. It’s civilized now, Earth is. “

Rain’s fists clenched. “Something stinks here.”

“I should say. I think a tribble used this cargo bay as a lavatory.”

“I was speaking metaphorically. I’ve never seen a tribble.”

“Nobody knows the tribbles I’ve seen….”

Rain glowered at her. As Death, she had a very impressive glower.

“Sorry.”

This had been another chapter in Hadley’s Story.  Also Rain’s prior adventures can be found here. I apologize for the pun. :)  And also I regret I missed last week’s Speakeasy, but I’m back now. Huzzah!

A Thought

I regret that I will not be able to take part in the Speakeasy challenge this week, much as I would like to. I’ve also been remiss in commenting and reading other people’s posts. I only barely managed to get an entry into the Gargleblaster challenge. Poor Hadley is stuck on a spaceship as a horde of terror bunnies flies towards her, with her only defense being Captain K’Pid and the BFG, and I’ve left her in dire straits. But, you see, I’m in law school; in fact I’m nearly done, and classes ended just last Monday. I’ve got papers due this week, and exams next, and then a short breathing space before….*ominous pause*….THE BAR EXAM.  So. My time has, alas, been limited.

On the bright side, I did finally get around to watching “Frozen” this past weekend. Very clever movie. It had a great many subversions of classic Disney cliches. I won’t reveal them all, as some of them are spoilery but I did want to discuss one interesting twist. It relates to That Song.

You know the one.

“Let it gooooo, let it gooooo….that perfect girl is gooooone….”

Now, I admit, I first heard it when “Adele Dazeem” sung it at the Oscars. I assumed, given its popularity, that it was the standard Disney “I Want” song. As in “I want much more than this provincial life,” or, “I want to be where the people are….”   And the lyrics sounded like the usual Disney themes of following your heart, being true to yourself, etc., etc., things Mulan and Belle and Ariel have been singing about for years. 

The thing is, in context though, it’s actually the opposite of the Follow Your Heart theme. Because while Elsa is singing and happily making ice castles and frozen fractals and talking snowmen and such, her actions have a very real consequence for the people of Arendelle. When Elsa “lets it go”, her kingdom gets plunged into endless winter, just like in Narnia. Now, granted, keeping her powers and herself completely locked away wasn’t good either, but even so….you don’t get too many Disney songs that point out that Following Your Heart isn’t always the best solution in every circumstance. You’d find that life lesson more often in things like the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones. Very clever. I just thought I’d mention that.

Fighting

“Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?”

Gaseous Girl sighed. “You’re trying to detonate the Kaboominator?”

“Well, yes.”

“Also, we’re not friends. We’re nemeses, remember? Sworn to each other’s destruction, all that?”

“Just trying to be philosophical.”

“Philosophy this.”

*WHAM*.

This week’s response to the Gargleblaster challenge was to answer a question first posed by the late Gabriel García Márquez in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. I don’t know if he ever wrote superhero novels. But obviously he should have. :)

Not as Cute as Everybody Supposes

Winter seemed reluctant to release its hold. But then First Officer Stamper gave the panel under the engineering station on the bridge a good swift kick, and immediately the tractor beam broke off. The asteroid dropped neatly away into space. “She’s away, ma’am,” Mr. Stamper reported.

“Good show,” Captain K’pid said, rubbing at her third eye tiredly. “Right, signal the planet, tell them they don’t have to worry about being splatted anymore, then get us out of here.”

“Aye aye,” said Mr. Stamper. Within moments the starship’s thrusters were powering up, and it was gliding away out of the system. K’pid could just distantly hear its padamantium-powered core humming in the background. She very much liked Winter over the past vessels she had captained. Why, this ship even had bathrooms! Her prior ships had a curious lack of facilities, resulting in hasty modifications and a few terribly awkward moments. Winter had them on every deck. She even had her own private one.

“Where to now, captain?” Mr. Stamper asked.

K’pid was tempted to just tell him “over there, somewhere”, but she was too professional for that. Space was really big, after all, and you couldn’t just go charging off into the black without knowing where you were. “Xena Four,” she said after a moment’s thought. “We can ask Milty in the spaceport, see if he has some deliveries for us.”

Mr. Stamper saluted, and gave the necessary orders. Winter jumped away into hyperspace. When it jumped out again, K’pid expected to see Xena Four sprawling across her viewscreen. She was naturally confused when all she saw was a field of black. “Where’s the planet, Mr. Stamper?”

“Sensors aren’t registering anything,” Mr. Stamper reported. “We’re at the right coordinates. The planet’s not, though.”

K’pid reflected on something a friend had once told her. “Mr. Stamper, you can’t just lose a whole planet-”

At that moment the ship’s alarms went off louder than a nursery of squalling babies. A white symbol, flecked with pink, appeared on the viewscreen. K’pid froze. “Bunnies.”

Even Mr. Stamper appeared shaken. He raced to the ship’s tactical station to confirm. (Ordinarily the tactical officer, a very capable lieutenant from Verin Prime, would’ve done this, but he was in the restroom at the moment). “It’s confirmed,” Mr. Stamper called over the wailing alarms. “Bunnies detected. A whole swarm of them. Next planet over. And….I’m picking up a life sign! Chromai. Magenta, or mauve, maybe.”

That settled it. K’pid’s first instinct had been to run. She knew better than anyone about bunnies. But her second instinct kicked in when she heard about the life sign. She had Chromai friends, lots of them. She couldn’t just abandon one to the bunnies.

“Full speed ahead, Mr. Stamper!” she cried. “Arm all weapons!”

“Aye, captain!”

“Ah, out of curiosity, what weapons do we have?”

Mr. Stamper checked. “The usual. Proton cannon beams, torpedos….oh, this is new. Just installed from Fleet. Apparently it’s called a Buffered Fission Generator. Not sure why.”

“And what does the, er, BFG do?”

“Not sure. There’s no instructions. Just a very large red button.”

K’pid sighed. She had hoped, when she’d learned about Winter’s restrooms, that the ship’s designers had decided to forgo the usual clichés. Apparently they just couldn’t resist. She knew she shouldn’t order Mr. Stamper to push the big red button. Everyone knew big red buttons should never ever be pressed under any circumstances. But….the bunnies.

The ship came out of hyperspace right above Xena Four. The bunnies rampaged below them. “Mr. Stamper,” K’pid said, trying valiantly to keep her voice calm in the face of such horror, “fire the Buffered Fission Generator.”

“Shouldn’t we teleport the Chromai out first?”

“Good point. Do that.”

Agonizing seconds ticked by as the teleporters strained to lock on to the life sign. It was tough going, trying to teleport a shade of color. Then a message flashed across Mr. Stamper’s tactical screen. “Got it. Cargo Three.”

K’pid breathed a sigh of relief. She wondered now whether the BFG was necessary. After all, surely the bunnies couldn’t fly. Everyone knew they couldn’t fly. She was safe now. She had to be.

Then her viewscreen lit up anew. K’pid’s third eye blinked. The bunnies were rising. Slowly, inexorably, chanting something horrible in their bunny language, the snarling horde floated up from the grassy fields of the planet. They were aiming straight for Winter.

“Mr. Stamper, fire the BFG,” K’pid said. “Fire everything. Fire everything!”

This story was written for the Speakeasy prompt 157; it’s also part of Hadley’s Story.  Thanks for reading!

Yeah Science

Milroy sighed. “No, Mum, I don’t see her. At all. She went invisible, remember?”

“Mum, it’s science. These things happen.”

“Yes, Mum, I’m keeping my lab coats clean.”

“And socks, too. I wouldn’t dream of resurrecting a manatee without clean socks.”

***

 

This is my response to the weekly gargleblaster prompt, which was to write 42 words answering the question, “Do you see her much?”

It Must Be Bunnies

Hadley Baxendale was so upset she was changing from mauve to a brilliant flare of magenta, and then back again to mauve. “I can’t be in a different universe!” she cried. “What if it’s an alternate and there’s another me running round somewhere? And what if she’s blue? And human!I can’t be a blue human! I just want to be me! Mauve me! Not blue me!”

The voice came again, echoing throughout her chamber. “We apologize for the inconvenience. We have reconfigured our power couplings and will be teleporting you back as soon as possible. Thank you for understanding.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hadley growled. Ordinarily she tried to be polite to people in the service industry, but she drew the line when people teleported her to alternate universes without her consent. She waited, trying to be calm, for the chamber to disappear and her home world to materialize around her. It didn’t.

“We’re sorry,” came the cool voice again, “but there seems to be a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Hadley demanded.

“Your planet seems to be missing.”

“Missing? Missing? I don’t believe this. Listen. You can lose a screwdriver. You can lose your socks. You can lose a self-sealing stem bolt, even, but you cannot lose a planet!”

“We apologize for the inconvenience. We will transport you to the closest planet available. Thank you for your patience. Have a nice day.”

There was a short pause. “Before teleportation begins, would you like to take a short survey on our performance-”

Hadley declined to take the survey. She expressed this in remarkably vivid language, informing the speaker precisely what they could do with the survey, where they could do it, and with what persons they could do it with. She was just winding up to a crescendo of expletives when the chamber disappeared around her.

When things took shape again, Hadley found herself standing in a placid country field. A yellow sun shone blithely over her head. Birds twittered merrily in the air. A dull red barn squatted nearby, behind a rickety wooden fence that encircled a pasture dotted with meandering cows.  Two young hares, rump to rump like dueling pistols, crouched by the gate.

“Oh, good,” Hadley said. “Bunnies.”  Then she froze. “BUNNIES?”

She didn’t have a weapon. Not a phaser, not a proton cannon, not so much as a bow and arrow. Hadley had once been keen on archery, but she’d only played around with it, never took it seriously. She regretted that now. The bunnies started after her, their beady little eyes glowing angrily red. Hadley ran.

One might have thought that a sentient shade of color could move at the speed of light; unfortunately, Hadley had never been able to manage that. A physicist she had dated once had tried to explain, something about her molecule polarity, but then she had broken up with him before he could clarify his explanation. Now she blitzed across the field as the bunnies tore ferociously after her. She had a fair head start; if she could just outrun them for a little while longer, if she  could just find help-

She bolted up a small rise, and a patch of forest came into view, square across her path. Out from the trees emerged a third bunny. Then a fourth. Suddenly there were bunnies everywhere, a whole slavering army of them. She was surrounded. Panic flooded through her. She couldn’t go out like this. Not by bunnies.

They advanced.

Hadley screamed.

This story was written for the Speakeasy prompt at Yeah Write. It follows on from prior adventures in Hadley’s story arc, which you can find here at Hadley’s Story. And yes, in addition to the line “Two young hares, rump to rump like dueling pistols, crouched by the gate.” and the media prompt (the song Glory Box, by Portishead, which I had not heard bef0re), I may have also been inspired by a certain song from the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Bunnies are terrifying, people.