and, Meanwhile...

Episode Three.

Gleaming chrome-suited spiders pushed the food cart into the room, a triangular space with walls that transitioned into a dome a third of the way up. The smooth ceiling was mysteriously lit behind its opaque surface and gave off a weird, greenish glow. The table positioned perfectly at the center was a split oval, and the cart slid on tracks into the opening. It clicked into place, and the spiders - spider-like things - skittered out.  A big blackish fellow, with a turtle-ish carapace, reached out with its segmented tail to pluck a charbroiled piece from the serving board.  Two well decorated generals, human, sat on stools opposite their larger, figuratively as well as metaphorically, companion.

Saliva dripped off a fang as the diner skewered its meat. “This meat smells superb. What is it, again?” The portion was red and juicy, it dribbled, bloody and globby fat, onto the creature’s tongue as it held the morsel suspended over its maw. “Mmm.”

General Xious held a handkerchief over his mouth and nose. “This is a water buffalo, Mr. Atrocious. It is from Asia.” The general pushed a button on his baton, and gestured to the digiboard over his left shoulder. A large map of the world glowed there, and then zoomed in on Southeast Asia. “The supply is plentiful.”

 "As it should be,” said Mr. Atrocious, who had taken the name as a courtesy from the former Mr. Atrocious. “We are wanting to see all indigenous species on the rebound, of course. Not only for meat, as you well know.  Yet, we must eat, you and I, and my superiors too.” Thankfully the superiors were smaller, much so, and hadn’t anything like Atrocious’ appetite. They mostly dwelled in glasses of water, or raindrops if the urge to travel came up.

“Any advances in security?” It wolfed down slabs of meat in between queries. There were no side dishes, only the semi-cooked buffalo. A bowl under Atrocious’ chin caught much of the dribblings. “I could use a bib.”

General Xious nodded to his right, and General Li Xiang stood. She was a foot shorter than Xious, and childlike next to Mr. Atrocious. The view behind now changed to an illustration of the human optic system. “The technologies your people have brought to the earth are a godsend, Mr.” She was stone faced, with bangs that fell down to her eyebrows. Her sideburns were long on the sides, but zig zag cut in the back, falling to an inch above her collar.  Li Xiang continued, “Even with a slow release to our best engineers, we are finding new ways to improve society below. It will take time, but we come ever closer to a Utopia that alone we would never realize, not in our lifetimes.”

 “Fiddle faddle,” Mr. Atrocious delighted in colloquialisms that even these two generals rarely understood. “Your world would have perished entirely without divine interference.”

“Truly,” agreed General Xious. “The new optic ‘scouts’ are bringing in far more data than any stationary devises or even satellites. Under the guise of visual enhancement they do well for us. And the earth people get a great deal of enjoyment, too.”

 General Li remained afoot. “Yes, I have sampled them.  Here is some of my data.” From her viewpoint, a green vista of forested hills played out on the digiscreen. She panned, the whole of the forest swept over the board. Then she turned and narrowed her focus on the buildings, cars, and people behind her. Her glass and metal eyes probed and recorded. If something of interest came to view, the clarity would beckon her eye to delve in. With her enhanced optics Li Xiang could see through shadows, and around slight bends. She swept back over the entire scene and around to the forest and hills again. A black vulture circled aloft, among its committee, and she zoomed up to its hideous, bald head.

 “Ugh,” remarked the Mr. “I find that distasteful. But, the detail…”

 “…is amazing,” said Xious. “We have a team following the exploits of two enhanced travelers. They have taken every advantage of your technological gifts, Mr. Atrocious. The beautifications, the optics. Even the handy, advice giving literature. So far the mouse and cat volumes top everything on the New York Times Best Sellers List.” The spiders were back, clearing the table. Mr. Atrocious hoisted his pail and drained the sloppy, wet drippings. It dropped the bucket onto the cart and spiders removed it, clattering, from the room. The door sighed shut.

 “I am pleased. With everything. The buffalo and the surveillance. You have done well, so there will be more presents, of course, and accolades for you, as well.

 General Li Xiang climbed back to her seat and the view behind changed to the vantage point of the two vacationing men. The scene was of the night, with street lights and the neon store fronts. The screen darkened, and at first Mr. Atrocious believed there was a malfunction, but then the lights burned brighter and brighter, and it knew the cause was a regional system reboot.  The Mr’s clawed tail shivered in the radiant glow of the domed chamber.

 “What, is this?”

 Xious glanced sideways, to his fellow general. “We have found two holdouts. They don’t seem to be… receptive to compliance?”

 “Oh my.”

 The door wisped, opened, and the puff of a breeze ruffled the generals’ tightly cropped trims.  They stared straight ahead, saying nothing.

 A drop of rare, red blood fell from the black tooth of Mr. Atrocious’ fang – a grin spread across his devilish face. “Good heavens, dessert is here!”

Episode 4

Business as Usual

Episode Two.

They watched from a nondescript motorhome opposite a well-used steakhouse in a small, touristy town. Almost no one lived here, other than a few never sleeping techs who monitored the kitchen and service machines in the establishments up and down the road. The residents of the motor home were transients who moved from destination to destination when they could scrape up enough credits to fuel the beast they aptly named Rocinante. Rocinante currently puttered by on enough synthetic petrol to power its life sustaining devices.  Marge and Boris ate, slept, and defecated day in, day out in their humble, currently mired, abode. And for kicks and giggles they spied on the comings and goings through the parts in dark draperies.  

 “That’s a fancy one, right there,” said Marge.  She pointed to a silver roadster. I wonder what it looks like when the batteries pulled. Marge ducked down a little when two men climbed from the vehicle. Boris belched and snugged up his sweat pants. He was just returning from the loo.

 He thumbed the curtains wider and Marge snorted. “Looks like a metal box. Like this heap, just little. Going for a steak, wouldn’t that be nice.”

 “Your beans are fine,” she huffed. Marge was the cook, and the Foozone was on the fritz. She had taken to old style food packets and a hot plate to boil up the precooked meals. “Fix the cooker, like you said, and you’ll get your steak.” Marge snuck up on the window again to peek out.

 “Only if we get the upgrade chip,” which they wouldn’t be doing. Any upgrade would only give the enemy access to their privacy. This would jeopardize their very existence. Boris lurched when every light blinked out. “Oh,” he said. The night turned to day and then just as quickly it grew dark, and the lights blinked back on.  “They’re at it again.”

 Marge stared out. “Do you see their eyes?” she asked, shrinking down a bit. “Are they looking at us?”

 Boris leaned over the sill. “I see; they have the eyes of the accursed, up above. The dirty spies. Don’t worry, they ain’t looking at us. And besides, we’re not doing anything.” Boris had a long face, made longer by his sparse, gray flecked chin whiskers. Boris took a pair of reading glasses from his pocket and sat in a small folding chair. His well-thumbed copy of Man of Le Mancha was open at chapter eight, and Don Quixote was fighting giants. Just another day at the office.

 Boris turned a page that was barely hanging on, a miracle as the paperback book was over a hundred years old. He owned a fair amount of them, all tucked into plastic zip bags and stowed in bins under the furniture. Books didn’t look back at you when you read them. The pages didn’t size you up or talk back. The words couldn’t hurt you, like the overlords in their circling satellite fortresses. Marge and Boris were part of the undocumented, unaltered thousands, maybe millions, that peopled the earth in old mechanical wheelies and ramshackle wood and concrete bastions.

 They had dirty homes, and dirty hair. There were holes in their socks, and the treads on their rubber-like soles showed wear. Nothing in their lives worked like it should, because it was all old and held together with gum and paperclips. But those that watched couldn’t see whatever it was they looked for, and that was something. Marge and Boris were patriots of the earth, and beans their sustaining force.

Episode 3.

Lights From Heaven

Episode One.

We came to Arizona the same way everybody else did, in a 3-D magnetically enhanced box. Only ours was a replica ’76 Jaguar XJS. I liked the top down, and the car was red when I drove. Silver otherwise. We were accompanied by Cleveland the educated mouse and his feline companion, Claire. They were part of the package deal included with purchase of A Contemporary Travelogue. “Do you fellows want to see more? I can connect you to a flyover tour in two minutes, thirty-five seconds,” squeaked Cleveland. The mouse was riding in my shirt pocket.

 We could see it pretty well from here, the canyon.  Billy and I hung back. The edge was too crowded with the small folk, those without ocular transplants. They came in by the busload in those big rectangles on wheels, optically enhanced to look like something beautifully sleek. With our transplants we could see the buses for what they were, but Billy, my latest travel companion, liked to imagine the transports as dinosaurs on the hoof. They were behind us now, grazing in the parking lot just over the ridge. I could see the fun in that, so dinosaurs it was.

 Claire mewed, she was an agreeable cat but occasionally she would take a mean swipe at Cleveland, as cats were known to do. She often had a hungry look. And that was that, my stomach gurgled. There was nothing enhanced vision could do for that.

 “Later, maybe,” I said. “Is there a diner or food cart around?” No response.

 “Gotta say the name,” said Billy. “Cleveland, we’re hungry as a cat. Food, bro.”

 Cleveland the mouse ducked into my pocket and popped back up with a hardbound book too big for his anthropomorphic hands. “Gentlemen, you will need to reenter your vehicle and leave the park. Here is a list of suitable restaurants, the nearest is thirty minutes.” The mouse pocketed the book and smoothed his whiskers. “Meow,” purred Claire, meaning she wanted to drive. Fine, as long as we got there fast.

 We took the fast lane, autodrive, but the cat was having a great time pretend steering and we were getting dizzy as she careened off of one red rock canyon wall, then another. Billy finally revoked her driving privileges, and we reclined in the comfortable bucket seats while watching real, actual, scenery go by. Claire sulked. By the time we made it down to whereabouts Coconino, the sun was setting behind some large grayish hills. It got dark fast in the forested lands there. The pines went from green to black and we saw some reflected eyeballs looking out from the tree line. “Mule deer,” squeaked the mouse.

 I said “Food,” and Cleveland said we were close. Soon we came out of the forest and a haze of light blurred out the faint stars overhead and the Jag dropped into the right lane and left the highway. The little town below lined both sides of the four lane road with quaint brick motels, antique stores, and restaurants. “First available steak house,” I said, and the car turned left and parked. Billy and I climbed out and started in, when all the lights suddenly went out.

 The Jaguar reverted to its rectangle shape, dusty from the trip, and the small weight of a mouse disappeared from my pocket. All of the dinosaurs that were shuffling quietly in the lots became big boxes and everything generally took on a mundane, grimy patina. Most of the people meandering in the town didn’t skip a beat, but some, like me and Billy, stopped for a moment in our tracks and looked up. I put my hand up to shade what was coming. A pinprick of a light sparked in the eastern quadrant of the heavens and grew brightly until the flash disappeared and became all encompassing, then it slowly faded and everything was once again dark. A big brontosaurus thundered past us, raising dust from the road. A brick dislodged from the three story building we were entering and Billy kicked it away.

 “Big update,” said Billy.

 “Yeah,” I felt a familiar scratch from my pocket. “Man, I’m starved.”

Episode Two.

In the Bleak of an Eye

 

 

A borer
A hole borer
In a bit of a twist
Lacquered up
Tuckered out
Sunday ways to six.
A blight of shaves
The metal shaves
Gum the works.
Auger build up
Smoke and silt
A little borer
Bored to bits.

*files revisited

 

Tom and Dinosaur Hand review:

The Best movies (that we finally got around to watching) of 2017!

Dinosaur Hand: Geez. We should get out more, eh?

Tom: Sure, but the couch is just sooo comfortable. I looked back to see what we have seen this year, and there were some good movies, and some pretty awful ones. Which do you want to review?

DH: You do the best, I'll do the explosion and gun shooting death flicks. Those movies get my digits wiggling.

Tom: OK. Early in 2017 we got out to see Hidden Figures and La La Land. I know how you feel about musicals Dino...

DH: That jazz guy, he had a cool convertible, but never raced it down an alley way or ran over a bad guy. He never did jazz hands! That movie could have been so much more!

Tom: I liked it. Many didn't, but it had some catchy tunes and it was entertaining. La La Land took a lot of awards. I don't think it will hold up as a great movie though, and i doubt you'll see a resurgence of big budget musicals. Unless Marvel decides to have its superheroes start singing and dancing around. That would be... interesting?

DH: Stupid, that's the word you meant to use. My pick of 2017 is Skull Island!

Tom: That's a good one, Dinosaur Hand.

DH: Get off my review, T. So, this badass movie had choppers getting chomped, and big lizard creatures and bombs and guns. Yeah, all the King Kong stuff you rely on, but none of the suck! Best King Kong remake, so you can skip all that other garbage. Go back and rewatch Fay Wray from 1933 if you have to, but Brie Larson in 2017 kicked monkey butt.

Tom: Except she didn't kick monkey butt, and even if she did, Kong isn't a monkey.

DH: Shut up anyway. Pick another movie.

Tom: Hidden Figures was really good. I liked all the computer spacey stuff and the history and there was fantastic acting. Good casting all around. Sorry Dino, no explosions or anything.

DH: Borrrring. There wasn't even a liftoff, was there? If there was i missed it because I fell asleep in my popcorn. Got a little salt in my eye.

Tom: Good grief.

DH: Next! Blade Runner 2049! Hidden Figures was a science movie, Blade Runner is a science fiction movie! Blam! Pow! Slam dunk, in your chunk, monk!

Tom: ?

DH: I don't know what happened, or why, but it was cool. Was there a wooden sheep too? Cool! Flying cars and blaster shootouts and flying car crashes and robots getting nasty ripping guts and pulling off heads. The sound effects, wow. Ear crunching noises. Weird, but cool. My hand was clenching with excitement.

Tom: I guess you recommend it.

DH: Waiting for Blade Runner 2050, in 2018.

Tom: One more, but I don't consider it A Best Movie, because it sort of wasn't even good. Downsizing, with Matt Damon.

DH: I agree, no explosions or gun fights, and besides all that, it just wasn't all that interesting. Some people got smallercized. So what?

Tom: I know. This movie was like an extra long infomercial, with a bit of social commentary thrown in.

DH: Spoiler Alert: Big time cursing, that was sort of funny, but not as funny as they thought it would be, unless you're really into that sort of thing, which, hey, maybe you are. If you are, then here you go: Poop, poop, poopity poop.

Tom: Yes, on a 5 poop scale, I give Downsizing 4 poops. I don't know for sure what that even means.

DH: Damon's Martian was better. A lot better, and it was full of shit!

Tom: Ha. Oh Dinosaur Hand...

DH: Last review: Get Out. What did you think of that one? It was sort of a horror/suspense movie.

Tom: Yeah, I know, I was there.

DH: Get Out was totally ok. It wasn't really all that scary or even suspenseful, but i liked the premise and it was good enough, and totally watchful. I remember pretty much everything that happened, so it wasn't forgettable.

Tom: Is that your criteria for movies now? Whether or not they're forgettable?

DH: Totally. And if they have lots of violence. So, Get Out was ok by me!

Tom: Thanks, Dinosaur Hand. Hope to see you next year.

DH: Ditto, kerBlam!

white Christmas, long dog

Happy Holidays!

wintering in Indiana