Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cyborgs, fiction, flash fiction, sci fi, short story
My hand hardly trembled at all as they cut it off. “It won’t hurt or anything” my soon-to-be husband had told me. They sawed it off and yes, it was painless. Then they took it and presented it to him and with a flourish he detached his own left hand from his wrist like a conjuring artist and slid my own smooth white hand into the socket. Now it was my turn.
My husbnd’s hand is large. Its visible components are gold and platinum and look quite like a clockwork toy from some forgotten era. It could almost have been the dark plaything of a young Tsar, half menacing and half whimsical. Within lurks software and nanotechnology that will spread out from my wrist and through my body and my brain. In a conventional cyborg marriage this process would, of course, be mutual. I am an old-fashioned flesh and blood human, however, and my noble blood will not protect me.
My family has always cemented its alliances with gifts of its daughters to the powerful men they wish to cultivate. Certainly if such ancestors as Katherine or Catherine could endure it I can also. The power of this foreign hand may well empower me to become a mighty empress, ruling worlds upon worlds beside my cyborg husband. All he got in return was one small piece of human flesh, albeit one that allows him now to claim that noble blood has mingled with his own low bred fluids.
(to be continued)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, humour, short story, writing
The crew wouldn’t allow us off the plane once we had landed. They seemed tense and only got more so when one of the passengers began asking questions and arguing. He was directed firmly back to his seat with implied threats of violence should he refuse to comply with crew directions. You may think you’ve seen some intimidating people in your life but I’ll tell you, I don’t think anyone in the world could manage more menace than a threatening blonde with frosted lips in a flight attendant uniform can when she really, really means it.
They couldn’t stop us looking out the windows though. I like to watch the world come into focus on arrival and this time had been no different. As I often have before I found myself thinking how odd it was how from the air the scene below looks straight out of an educational museum battlefield model. The grass looks for all the world as though it has been spray painted green on styrofoam and the trees look like boxwood and schmutz and the cars and houses plastic.
Almost as soon as we had landed we were off again, up in the air and down at last to an airport of concrete and flesh and asphalt. I never said a word to anyone, not even the other passengers. Some things are so weird and shocking that when they’re over there’s no place for you to fit them into your usual, safe little universe. Despite our silence though, we’d all seen it, on that silent first landing. We saw painted buildings made of plastic and one motionless waxen air traffic controller frozen in a pose of helpful attention, forever beckoning us in to the cloth and plastic gate of a motionless life sized model airport.
well, i’m here. i’m still hating it, still wishing i could leave every second, but that is normal. i don’t have the internet working on my own computer yet, so i’m just borrowing my roomate’s comp to post this which means i’m keeping it short. i’m going to post my latest story, and there will be more to follow though, no worries.
thanks to all, and love.
Vanessa
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, short story, truth, writing
one day i woke up and truth was everywhere.
it grew on walls like mold. it seeped through every opening and crack, cold green, and slimy. i stared at it hard, daring it to make its move. as i looked it seemed a small and helpless thing, disgusting but ultimately harmless. then i turned my back and it seemed to me it must be growing up behind me. soon everywhere i looked it was more and more, seeping up the drains and down the gutters and out of the mouths of friends and lovers and family it came, over and over and over.
i ran from truth only to find myself slipping in my haste to get away and falling into puddles and ponds of it. covered in truth i arose, a bellowing monster of shock and doubting. staggering under the weight of it i crawled back to my friends and lovers and my family only to have them turn away. in fear and disgust and loathing they turned away from me and from the sticky sickly mass of truth that had swallowed me under it.
oh, but they will not escape. have no fear of that, gentle reader. each day i am growing in my power and i will swallow up them and you and the whole world beyond, until one distant day at last i am satisfied.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous
yesterday i absolutely lost it. i had my “last binge ever” 3 times in a row. i literally finished all my money, even the last $20 i promised myself i’d keep seperate.
i think it would be fair to say i’m feeling the stress of my upcoming departure.
today i’m cleaning up and packing. at 1pm my parents are picking me up and then i’ll be with them until 6am tomorrow morning when i leave for the airport.
needless to say, my blogging habits may have to change for a while. i’m bring my laptop to florida and they said i’d have internet access, but i can’t be sure if i really will or how long it will take me to figure out how to connect until i get there. i’m also giving myself a pass for two days on writing stories. if i think of one for tomorrow before bedtime then i’ll write, but i’m not going to beat myself up over it. and same with tomorrow, depending on what goes on i’ll either write or not write. then by tuesday i’ll write even if i have to use pencil and paper, depending on the internet situation.
i may write more today, but in case i don’t i want you all to know how amazing your support has been through this whole process. i’ll write about how the treatment program is going as soon as i can, hopefully i’ll have the internet working but if i do go quiet for a bit try not to despair in your missing my stories and updates on my life, ok?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dream pirates, fiction, flash fiction, short story, writing
“What are you gun-ta be, Minna?”
I want to be a dream pirate.
“What? You can’t be a dream pirate. Be normal. You have to be something normal, no cheating!”
But my dad’s a dream pirate. And my sister’s only a year older than me and she’s learning how to be a dream pirate too, already.
“You have to be a cowboy or a doctor or an astronaut like we’re being. Not something silly. OK?”
Well, OK. Maybe I could be a veterinarian?
“YAAY! Minna’s playing too with us! She’s gun-ta be a vegerterarian!”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: flash fiction
bored. so very completely and utterly bored. i can’t even be bothered to use proper capitalization and punctuation so complete and utter is my boredom. i can’t even be bothered not to repeat the same words in successive sentences, so utter and complete the boredom of myself has become.
the last time i was this bored i sent a mighty flood to destroy every living thing on the planet. well, you know, apart from a few of my favorites. biiiiiiig mistake. seriously. i totally didn’t think it through. initially there’s a slight relief of boredom as you watch all the animals and people in their futile little attempts to save their puny lives. and then you’re stuck with this one boring virtuous family and a few animals and nothing else to watch for generations.
i don’t know. i think i’m just lazy. i should make more planets, diversify. why not a planet of the 12 legged pinwheel lizards? something new, anyway. but you know how it is when you’re bored. it’s not like you want to go out and actually do something.
should i invent free will? i’ve been putting it off, keeping my hand in. but i’m just so completely and utterly bored of always knowing what will happen next… i don’t know. maybe free will would spice it up a little.
who on earth am i even talking to?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, horror, short story, writing
could be worse! like if i had to cross a toll bridge that demanded teeth in payment.
They got me on the “by the way” with the toll bridge. I don’t mind working in the city of the dead. The hours are good and the pay is damn near unbelievable. I know guys that work here, regular guys like me that do the maintenence and clean up but have been around a little longer, and in the world of the living they own whole fucking countries! You just can’t argue with that kind of payscale.
The bridge though. You have to cross it twice a day and every time is different. Mostly it’s just a strand of hair, a fingerprint, an eyelash. Little things, things that don’t matter. The toll taker works hard to be as creepy as possible but, heh, guys like that best just to humour em and be on your way. Know what I’m saying?
One time it was a fingernail. Sure thing, boss, I said. Just hand me the nail scissors. He meant the whole fingernail of my left index finger, on down to the root. He got it, too. Least said the better.
Today he’s asked for an incisor. I’m just waiting here while he gets the pliers. Don’t rush back, I told him. Heh Heh. The pay is real good though. Like I told you.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous, pro-ana, proana
you have to understand, first off, that 2 of the three lies i told the treatment center were accidental. and the third was because i really really didn’t want to go to an emergency room for blood tests and i thought this might make the difference. here are the lies i told them:
1. i downplayed the severity of my purging. this was the non-accident. when my sister told me that the centre told her usually they didn’t request blood tests i felt this ray of hope that i wouldn’t have to go to an ER and go through a whole process of telling them about my ED and getting blood tests to show i’m healthy. and i thought about my weight and my health and what might possibly make them think i’d need a blood test and the only thing i thought might stand between me and freedom from having my blood tested was the frequency of my purging. so when i was asked about my ed i gave a best-case answer. i said sometimes i’ve gone up to two days without purging, that sometimes i purge multiple times a day, it varies. strictly speaking it would be much more accurate to say i purge multiple times a day, every day. i had a couple days without purging a few times, but it was weeks ago and most of the time for the past several months i have purged multiple times a day, every day.
2. i added more than 5 pounds to my weight. ooops! i only say this now, in the realisation of what i did. when i was asked my weight i gave an answer than i believed was basically true, even though it was 2 pounds above what my weight had been that morning, it was the weight i’d been at for the past week or so. the next day my weight was 3 pounds lower than the day before, and today it’s even another pound down. naturally i’m in a mindset to lose as much weight as possible ahead of treatment, and this is probably something they’re familiar with clients doing. my weight is going to be in the healthy BMI range for my height either way, but it’s likely to be at the low end of healthy when i show up, wheras the weight i gave- the weight i believed to be true when i gave it- was more in the middle of the healthy range.
3. actually, i have lost my periods. another accidental lie. i’ve never lost my periods in the past with my eating disorder, but i’ve often had them become irregular. so i told the woman that i hadn’t lost them, but they were sometimes irregular- sometimes i skipped a month here and there. but when i actually look at what’s going on right now i realise that i haven’t had my period in quite a while. i had skipped a month here and there up until around christmas, but i’m pretty sure i haven’t had a period since january, possibly even longer.
argh! i really hate my lying-addict-self sometimes. i suppose the absolute most right thing to do would be to call the program up and correct the record tomorrow morning. but since i’m really afraid of the ER (and since the program is going to draw blood for themselves as soon as i get there anyway) i think i’ll settle for the slightly more weasely option of telling the full truth once i’m at the program.
more than likely i lied for nothing and am now making myself crazy over nothing- i don’t think these three things could possibly make that big a difference. there were lots of other health-type questions that i answered honestly. i haven’t been fainting or having chest pains, i haven’t even been blacking out when i stand up lately, and i honestly told the woman evaluating me that that had been happening up till a few weeks ago- but not currently. still, i wish i had answered everything truthfully, it just gives my fear more reason to tell me i’m going to fail and i don’t deserve treatment.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, short story, writing
this isn’t exactly my usual ”could be worse” story. i’ll tell you a secret- it isn’t even really fiction.
this evening i took my usual walk after dinner. i often use the time to come up with an idea for the day’s story, and as i walked along my usual way i looked down at the concrete, and it sparkled.
there are diamonds everywhere. if the light and your frame of mind are just right you’ll see them. the concrete beneath our feet sparkles and glitters and puts on a show for us every evening. it makes me wonder how many thousands of people it takes to pass over a single square block of pavement before one of them sees the effort that piece of walkway is putting into being noticed and appreciated for its beauty.
when i was a child i saw rainbows in the puddles in the supermarket parking lot. “RAINBOW!” i said to my mother. she had to tell me it was dirty- oil leaked from a car that had been parked above the puddle. ever since then i’ve tried really really hard when it rains to see only dirtiness and pollution and leaked oil.
it’s been 25 years since i was that child, and somehow i keep forgetting not to see the rainbows. and when the light and my frame of mind coincide in just the right way i even see the diamonds in the concrete.
