twelve hours after the fringes dispersed.
No sane entity could have survived the last three months unscathed, and none had. Obsession had not been recorded blinking in the last three weeks. Hubris purchased a stable on every 8 continent, each with seven horses for the days of the week. All of the horses had, at eye-watering expense and upkeep, undergone lenticular-inset surgery so their flanks displayed his face, and the eyes of that face appeared to constantly follow you.
More than one reputable publication claimed that the entire program was a scam, a way for the Three to concentrate their greatest threats in the same place and then set off an explosive charge. Then in the tragedy and the rubble and under the eyes of the world, they would choose the one who had always been their first choice, a fourth member that would always be subservient to their will, rather than the other way around. The fact that Scandal was one of the finalists played an uncertain part in this theory.
The Three rose from the darkness of the stage, a dark monolith in repose five stories high. The sound of the crowd was a physical thing. Two people in the crowd choked and died, their hearts undone by the vibration alone.
Ignorance won. No-one picked it.
Footnotes:
1 Action figures alone for Pestilence were calculated to turn a profit between US$40 to 60 million, given he had never been heard using the same accent twice, much less seen in the same outfit. (back)
2 In the aftermath of these statements, Democracy herself noted that although she yes, alright, did resent the characterisation of being both abused and ancient, she bore no ill will, and she would be definitely participating. Work was work. (back)
3 That shoulder movement contributed to a social networking war that never quite left the series. There were those who wailed about the slight to Death, there were those who pointed out that Death was not noted to carry any item in the Original Reference and the scythe was associated with the Unnamed later, and those who believed Death was unfairly slighted/honoured/present by implication. (back)
4 It was noted that this looked odd on a muscle shirt, but it didn’t stop Versace having a line of them out six days after this episode. (back)
5 They were: ‘journey’, ‘need’, ‘time to shine’, ‘different person’, ‘rest of my life’, or any reference to the contestants or judges as ‘family’. (back)
6 Including, but not limited to, the true purpose of the platypus, the best depth in water to eat chocolate, a novella about the sex life of Pope Gregory XV written entirely as a palindrome, and four hundred thousand words on what it feels like to be a trouser cuff (this last essay was swiftly banned in Belarus). (back)
7 In trackpants, out of breath, with damp and soapy-smelling hair, and very very visibly sans under-garments. (back)
8 Yes, every. (back)
On Carbon Wings
…Sarah Frost
An impossible black butterfly floats over the wasteland outside my ship. It changes direction with a flurry of beating wings, shedding white sparks into the airless waste. I blink. My eyes take a hundred years to close. The butterfly dances over craters on wings blacker than the void.
Somewhere a million miles away, a red light is blinking.
* * *
I placed my tray on the little extruded table just inside the door to Feng’s Cafeteria. There are only two places to eat out on Siberia Station: the canteen, where the only virtue of the food is in the calories; and Feng’s, where the food is greasy, pricey, and good. I bit into a batter-fried slab of protein drenched in fish flavor, and calculated the best angle from which to attack my pile of waffle-cut fried potatoes.
“May I sit here?”
I looked up into Drake’s smiling face, his kid-blue eyes and artificially perfect teeth set into a face that looked like a lump of pink clay. I knew his rough voice well
No sane entity could have survived the last three months unscathed, and none had. Obsession had not been recorded blinking in the last three weeks. Hubris purchased a stable on every 8 continent, each with seven horses for the days of the week. All of the horses had, at eye-watering expense and upkeep, undergone lenticular-inset surgery so their flanks displayed his face, and the eyes of that face appeared to constantly follow you.
More than one reputable publication claimed that the entire program was a scam, a way for the Three to concentrate their greatest threats in the same place and then set off an explosive charge. Then in the tragedy and the rubble and under the eyes of the world, they would choose the one who had always been their first choice, a fourth member that would always be subservient to their will, rather than the other way around. The fact that Scandal was one of the finalists played an uncertain part in this theory.
The Three rose from the darkness of the stage, a dark monolith in repose five stories high. The sound of the crowd was a physical thing. Two people in the crowd choked and died, their hearts undone by the vibration alone.
Ignorance won. No-one picked it.
Footnotes:
1 Action figures alone for Pestilence were calculated to turn a profit between US$40 to 60 million, given he had never been heard using the same accent twice, much less seen in the same outfit. (back)
2 In the aftermath of these statements, Democracy herself noted that although she yes, alright, did resent the characterisation of being both abused and ancient, she bore no ill will, and she would be definitely participating. Work was work. (back)
3 That shoulder movement contributed to a social networking war that never quite left the series. There were those who wailed about the slight to Death, there were those who pointed out that Death was not noted to carry any item in the Original Reference and the scythe was associated with the Unnamed later, and those who believed Death was unfairly slighted/honoured/present by implication. (back)
4 It was noted that this looked odd on a muscle shirt, but it didn’t stop Versace having a line of them out six days after this episode. (back)
5 They were: ‘journey’, ‘need’, ‘time to shine’, ‘different person’, ‘rest of my life’, or any reference to the contestants or judges as ‘family’. (back)
6 Including, but not limited to, the true purpose of the platypus, the best depth in water to eat chocolate, a novella about the sex life of Pope Gregory XV written entirely as a palindrome, and four hundred thousand words on what it feels like to be a trouser cuff (this last essay was swiftly banned in Belarus). (back)
7 In trackpants, out of breath, with damp and soapy-smelling hair, and very very visibly sans under-garments. (back)
8 Yes, every. (back)
On Carbon Wings
…Sarah Frost
An impossible black butterfly floats over the wasteland outside my ship. It changes direction with a flurry of beating wings, shedding white sparks into the airless waste. I blink. My eyes take a hundred years to close. The butterfly dances over craters on wings blacker than the void.
Somewhere a million miles away, a red light is blinking.
* * *
I placed my tray on the little extruded table just inside the door to Feng’s Cafeteria. There are only two places to eat out on Siberia Station: the canteen, where the only virtue of the food is in the calories; and Feng’s, where the food is greasy, pricey, and good. I bit into a batter-fried slab of protein drenched in fish flavor, and calculated the best angle from which to attack my pile of waffle-cut fried potatoes.
“May I sit here?”
I looked up into Drake’s smiling face, his kid-blue eyes and artificially perfect teeth set into a face that looked like a lump of pink clay. I knew his rough voice well
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