http://twitter.com/#!/JRDSkinner/status/40078537973174272
http://twitter.com/#!/JRDSkinner/status/41570292379680768
http://twitter.com/#!/JRDSkinner/status/41221328275116032
http://twitter.com/#!/JRDSkinner/status/40424132629897216
This post owes its existence entirely to a suggestion made by Barry, of bmj2k.com.
* * *
The horizon crackled with the light of flame.
Gathered on a hill overlooking Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, a crowd – many with blankets draped over their shoulders to fend off the October chill – were waiting to see if the world might end.
The loudspeakers rigged at the edges of the mob sometimes brought the flat tone of a newsman, and sometimes the sharp bark of military communications.
Across the empty fields, a massive, unearthly, machine strode over the autumn grasses.
Finally, after all others seemed to have uttered their strangled death rattles into their mics, a single voice continued on, chronicling the last moments of the invasion.
The alien tripod stumbled, leaned drunkenly, then collapsed.
Orson Welles, dead a hundred years, gave a cheery warning that the production was meant only as Halloween tomfoolery, and the holographic projectors began to cycle down.
The defeated extraterrestrials shimmered into non-existence.
With the flaming country-side once again dark, the crowd began to disperse.
The War of the Worlds (October 30, 1938)
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and thirty-four.
Tonight we present, Coffin: Debts, Part 1 of 1
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp134.mp3]Download MP3
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This week’s episodes are brought to you by Flash Pulp on iTunes.
It’s like a version of the Matrix, in which we write, record, and produce, three podcasts a week of pulpy flash fiction.
To subscribe, click here.
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight, Will Coffin, with his drunken companion in tow, must discuss a vital matter with a remnant of the dead.
Flash Pulp 134 – Coffin: Debts, Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
Will Coffin, and his acquaintance, Bunny, stood at the edge of an empty lot.
Weeds had broken through the cracked pavement which otherwise smothered more than half of the space. At the rectangle’s center sat three low cement pillars, whose exteriors were covered in graffiti that might have been recognized as tribal art in any other age.
Insects hummed invisibly in the grass tufts, and the sun baked Coffin within the heavy leather of his jacket.
“Fifteen years ago,” he said, “this was a convenience store. Those columns were the foundation that held up the roof. If I squint, I can almost still see the freezers that used to be wedged between them.”
Bunny nodded, not quite sure why her roommate had coaxed her so far from her vodka and coke.
“What happened?” she asked, hoping to hurry the trip along.
Will stepped from the sidewalk, crushing a fresh sprout of thistle beneath his boot-heel.
“Well, it burnt down. Electrical failure – poor wiring mixed with a bunch of melted ice cream and a stack of Zippo-lighter-fluid.”
“Oh. I thought it was going to be some god—-ed hell-beast with flamin’ feet, or the ghost of some arsonist —-ing hobo.”
“No. My interest largely came after.” Coffin rubbed the sweat from his palms onto his jeans, then dipped his hand into his pocket. “First though, do you see anything out of the ordinary?”
“Well, you ain’t terribly —-ing normal, but the rest is just an empty lot.”
He puckered his lips and let out a breath.
“There’s a girl who died here. Adele. She was eleven. Her Mom used to come by and leave her wreaths on the third of every June, the day it happened. There was a lot of public outcry at the time – everyone knew the store was a hazard, but it was cheaper for the owner to pay the occasional fine than to undertake repairs.”
“OK?”
“She’s been a great source of information for me – easily the most reasonable phantasm I’ve ever met.” He squinted. “Doesn’t mean I haven’t had to bargain. The kinds of things I need to squeeze out of these leftovers are rarely fun to discuss.”
Bunny continued to look puzzled, and Coffin realized he was stalling. He pulled his silver chain from his coat, letting the intricate hook trawl through a patch of prickly greenery.
After a moment, there was a tug on his hand. With a wrench, he plucked a pale girl into view, as if he’d pulled her from the lot’s craggy earth.
“Holy —-,” said Bunny. “Oh – sorry, I forgot you’re a —-ing kid.”
“I’m -” said the ghost.
“She’s -” said Will.
“Sorry,” continued Coffin, “I’m used to the days when I had to translate for your Mom. This is Bunny, a friend of mine. She can apparently see you without requiring an artifact.”
“Very nice to meet you.” The girl turned her smoking eyes towards the new comer. “You don’t need to worry about your language; I’ve certainly heard worse from the vagrants that squat here after dark. I may look young, but it’s been many years since I was searching for Benjamin, and got pinned in old man McWerter’s store.”
“Benjamin?” asked the stunned drunk.
“My little brother. I thought he was still at the candy rack, so I ran in – I only found out later that McWerter had carried him to safety through the back.”
As she spoke, Adele’s skin blackened and flaked away, carried from her body by currents that were the result of unseen heat. Exposed underneath, eternally, was renewed flesh.
“Twelve —-ing monkeys on an — -zeppelin,” said Bunny.
The combusting child raised a scorched eyebrow.
“My apologies,” replied Will, “- she’s new to the world.”
Coffin sat, unmindful of the bushes, or passers-by. He leaned against the nearest paint-splattered pillar, and made himself comfortable.
He waved a hand at Bunny, and she joined him..
“How’s your Mom?” he asked Adele.
“She’s alright. I guess a chatty grandmother died in the tub, on the floor below her, and they haven’t gotten bored of swapping their stories yet.”
“I’ll let her know that your brother got that job I mentioned last time. He’s started as an assistant engineer, but, considering his degree, in a couple of years he’ll be doing more design work on the cars, and less double-checking of other people’s math. He bought a dog with his first paycheck – named it Addie.”
“Wow. Thanks for sharing, but you haven’t even asked me your favour yet.”
Coffin swallowed, considering his words.
“We’ve known each other a long time. There’s another piece of news I haven’t given you, but I wanted you to hear it before the crews roll in. They re-sold the lot last month. In the morning they’ll be bringing in equipment to start moving dirt on a new McDonald’s.”
The dead child made a sound no living throat could – a mix of a giggle and a groan.
Tears sizzled, then evaporated, on her cheeks.
“What happens after?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” he replied, “I don’t know.”
“Will – can you stay and talk till they come?”
“I owe you that much.”
It was the same service he’d provided her the first time she’d died – although, then his windpipe had been seared from the heat of dragging her from the building.
It troubled him little to appear as if a muttering vagrant, when the workers arrived with the dawn.
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.
Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.
My favourite roboticist firm, Boston Dynamics, has found a new way to bring on our terrifying future.
BigDog’s makers are working on a new quadruped that moves faster than any human and is agile enough to “chase and evade.”
Boston Dynamics, maker of the Army’s robotic mule BigDog announced today that Darpa has awarded it a contract to build a much faster and more fearsome animal-like robot, Cheetah. – Danger Room
As a reminder, here’s BD’s lastest youtube video of Big Dog – from a year ago.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZPRsrwumQ]
This project is definitely worth keeping an eye on, although the image at top leaves me thinking in terms of the old Transformers character, Ravage.
I’m still sick, but stick with me here;
I find the concept of reverse mortgages pretty depressing.
A reverse mortgage (or lifetime mortgage) is a loan available to seniors aged 62 or older, per HUD, and is used to release the home equity in the property as one lump sum or multiple payments. The homeowner’s obligation to repay the loan is deferred until the owner dies, the home is sold, or the owner leaves, they can be out of the home for up to 364 consecutive days.
This is essentially selling your house, cheap, so that you can afford to live in it – it’s gambling against the fact that you’re going to die before you can spend it all.
I don’t bring it up to curmudgeon-on about financial instruments available to the elderly, however. I wanted to mention it because Fred Thompson, former presidential candidate, and ex-Law & Order actor, stands as a fantastic example of the odd blurring of celebrity that we’ve found ourselves in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkg8IH7e_6U]
Ten or twenty years ago it was a novelty to have someone well known in the entertainment industry make the jump to politics, (President Reagan, or Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura, come to mind,) but we’re now at a point where there’s a porous exchange – barely an eyebrow is raised when Sarah Palin embarks on a reality show, or former RNC Chairman Michael Steele guest-hosts a talk radio show.
Political junkies always point to the televised Nixon/Kennedy debate as the birth of “modern politics”, with sweaty Nixon losing out to a crisp young Kennedy, but I’d argue that the incestuous union between the political machine and the mass media is an ongoing affair, one that has yet to settle into its final format.
Consider: if winning votes is just a matter of winning hearts & minds, then there was a time when David Schwimmer might have been a valid candidate for the executive office.
There will come a day when, like Justin Bieber, a leader of the free world will be selected based on their youtube videos. This person, having run for the position largely for the associated fame, will complete the bread & circuses cycle – they will, in fact, be the circus.
Unfortunately, it’ll likely be a grandchild of Keyboard Cat, and she’ll soon turn around and attempt to sell us Whiskas.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J—aiyznGQ]
I’m sick, which has lead me down dark alleys on the internet such as this:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYaelrmI06o]
Before you form any opinions about the video, I ask that you consider the same situation, but standing over you in your darkened bedroom as you sleep.
Will there come a day when we grow nostalgic over how bad search engines used to be?
Will perfect results destroy the sort of lateral trail that leads you through a chain of poorly designed angelfire sites, focused largely on kittens, only to bring you suddenly face-to-face with the exciting niche-hobby of kite fighting?
From an article on Gudiparan bazi
Before the war began, It was a form of sport that many took to the status of art. From the designs and sizes of kites to the making of unbreakable tar (wire), for many this became a matter of honor to compete in who’s who among the best kite fighters in their neigborhood. This addicting sport absorbed many young Afghans, even during the war.
[…]
The Fight (Jang) – In order to have a kite fight, 2 kites had to be airborne simultaneously at a close proximity. As soon as the wire of these two kites contacted each other, the fight had began.
I, for one, will miss the days when an image search for pulp magazine covers turns up a guy in a Nintendo power glove giving me the finger, and a picture of a chihuahua as the king of the rubber wrestlers.
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and thirty-three.
Tonight we present: Sgt. Smith and The Rescue, Part 1 of 1
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp133.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
This week’s episodes are brought to you by Flash Pulp on iTunes.
It’s where the magic happens.
To subscribe, click here.
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight, Mulligan’s father relates the tale of a sudden promotion during his early days in law enforcement.
Flash Pulp 133 – Sgt. Smith and The Rescue, Part 1 of 1
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
Mulligan,
Let me tell you how I became Sheriff of Mill County.
It was 1956. Things were different back then.
Mill County was a tiny office up north, but they needed the help – there was the sheriff, a good and reliable man, his wife, Ellie, who covered dispatch, Neddy Thompson, Whisky Taylor, and myself.
Ellie was six months pregnant, Neddy was too young to know the difference between his sidearm and his brain, and I was a mute. Worst off, though, was Whisky. Back then you didn’t think of drunks like you do now. People drank, and Taylor was one of those guys who rode out on the macho routine. We didn’t treat him as we should of – that is, with treatment – but he knew all the local riff-raff by their first name, and his hard drinking and stiff breath left everyone looking at him like he was John Wayne. In general it didn’t do to question his slurring too much.
One Sunday morning, though, Whisky and I were out staring at the pavement passing under our wheels, when we received an excited shout from the radio.
“Shots fired at 884 Maple.”
Until then the closest I’d ever gotten to a shots fired call in Mill County was the occasional complaint about someone poaching pheasant in the off-season. Those, at least, we could pass onto the game warden.
On went the lights, and down went the pedal.
Saturday was always a busy night, down on the drag – that’s when the farmers and factory boys would slosh between the two bars that hunkered across from each other at the town’s major crossroads. The Sheriff and Neddy were sleeping off a hard night’s drunk-wrangling, and the nearest alternate back-up was an hour away.
We made a hard stop in front of a one-story bungalow, and Whisky says “I’ll go round back”.
Then I was alone on the dusty cloth seats of the Chevy Bel Air.
Well, hell, my lack of a tongue meant I couldn’t yell a warning as I was approaching the house, but they knew plenty well we were there, as my wobbly partner had felt no need to spare the siren. Stupidity in the line of duty was my bread and butter at that age, so I strolled up the walk like I owned the place. I hadn’t even drawn my gun when I got the warning.
“Hey, you. Yeah, you, broke-mouth – you stay back, or Lady Fillmore will have plenty to complain about.”
I’d gotten to know Dina Fillmore via previous disturbance reports, and Lady wasn’t the term I’d have used to describe her. The wife of Bobby Fillmore – who ran one of the gin joints I mentioned previously – she was known as a stickler, and her ability to find fault in every person, and situation, she encountered, was the stuff of beauty-salon legend.
It was well understood, however, that she was largely passing on the bile fed to her by her own husband, who often left her in such a condition as to require the steady hands of the beauticians to cover her injuries.
I backed up to the road, figuring I’d put the car between myself and the revolver that the voice was waving from behind a curtain.
While I was still taking cover, there came the sound of a scuffle, then a shot. My weapon was definitely in my hands by then, but there wasn’t much I could do. If I kicked in the door, I’d likely just catch a bullet in the belly, and the drawn shades made it impossible to know what was going on inside.
I started tapping out a Morse code update for Ellie, as quick as I could, trying to tell her to wake the Sheriff. It was so painfully slow.
Before I was done, Whisky came stumbling over the fender.
“Bobby shot me!”
He showed me his arm – it was bleeding, but barely, and his tone was one of indignation, not massive internal injury. I wondered then, and I wonder now, if he maybe just cut himself in his panic to get out of the line of fire.
“Either of you jerks comes waltzing up here again and I’ll start aimin’ straight,” came the voice from the house.
We didn’t have many options – we couldn’t even lean on the local firemen, as they were just an all volunteer squad of chicken-pluckers from the packing plant. We kept the rubberneckers in their houses, and waited for someone with a higher pay-grade to arrive at the scene and make a decision.
Whisky tried screaming a bit of a dialogue back and forth, but the gunman would have none of it. The sound of Dina’s complaints came shredding through the window screen, but, at that distance, her voice was nothing but a string of pleading shrieks.
Despite his complaints, Whisky refused to leave the scene. I suspect he was mostly concerned about his long-term reputation. It didn’t shut him up any.
The Sheriff was pretty blurry eyed when he pulled-up, with Neddy in tow, and when I beeped to let Ellie know, she told me, very seriously, to take care of him.
“Galdang, galdang,” he said.
“C’mon out, Bobby,” said the Sherrif.
“Screw you,” replied Fillmore.
The Sheriff raised his aviators, and gave his eyes a good rub. That’s when the waiting began.
The day grew warmer, then colder. We sat in the car to rest our legs; we stood up and paced. We put on jackets, and took turns refilling our two thermoses of coffee from the Chinese place on Elm. Eventually some highway guys, from Walmont, came to help out – they brought donuts, and joined us in our vigil.
The boys kept trying to talk to him, but the later it got, the more we became worried about his intention to end the situation with a bullet. Neddy was sure it was going to be in Dina, but I’d suspected for a while that the whisky-dispensor’s shack was soon to be the odd-man-out – that the town had one bar too many for the size of the market – and it seemed to me that he was working himself up to ending his problems at his own hand.
I passed about a few notes saying as much, and, despite a round of jibber-jabber from Neddy, which included a suggestion he go home and retrieve his own hunting rifle, the Sheriff decided he was going to sweet talk his way into the house.
After a long hour of creeping and gentle conversation, he was in.
Nothing more happened till dawn.
There were no cellphones then, and, as stupid as it was, we didn’t really think to leave many messages with dispatch. It was just a case of nothing going on, and not thinking it through.
Both patrol cars were off the lot, so Ellie came in the family sedan that they’d invested in for after the baby’s arrival. She didn’t stop for the mail box, or the neighbour’s picket fence – she barely even stopped for the porch. We should have been at hand to prevent her from such a stupid thing, but she was so fast, even for being so pregnant.
I’d never thought of her as a big woman, but she’d been born into raising a cow herd on her parent’s plot, and she swung her belly like a wrecking ball as she bounded up the steps.
Lack of sleep, and the kind of high-powered chemicals that make a woman’s body fit to house a child, gave her voice a level of command usually reserved for ranking celestial beings and four star generals.
“Bobby Fillmore, you step out onto this porch immediately.”
If I were him, I’d have swung the door wide while begging for redemption.
Ellie was a woman ahead of her time – she’d always insisted on uniform slacks to work in, and wore a pair of Doc Marten boots, just like those of us who rode around in the cruisers.
The still unborn Avery, who would eventually come out weighing eight pounds and ten ounces, gave her the extra momentum necessary to kick through the locked door, revealing the captor within.
He may have been a suicidal nutter, but he’d been raised at a time when it was impolite to point a loaded gun at a pregnant woman – or maybe he just didn’t think a woman of her size, and state, would be a problem – whatever the case, he held the weapon across his chest as he addressed her.
“What?” he said.
She didn’t bother responding, she just laid him low with a swift kick.
As Bobby writhed on the floor, she snatched up his pistol. She disappeared further into the house for a moment, then we saw her coming back, directing her husband like an errant child, and pulling Dina along behind her.
Whisky was yelling from where he’d stationed himself as a lookout, but, by then, he’d decided his wound was probably fatal, and had taken to openly drinking away the pain of his already healing scab.
Neddy and I rushed in, but the fight was basically over. We handcuffed Bobby and hauled him away.
In the end, the fallout was that the Sheriff quit. He told me he couldn’t risk doing his job if it put Ellie in the danger of someday attempting another rescue. Whisky was offered pension if he retired early on his supposed gunshot wound, and Neddy was deemed too young – and eager to retrieve his rifle – to take on the mantel. That left me.
For for three weeks, I was the new interim sheriff in town. Before proper elections could be held, however, the powers-that-be juggled things, and the highway patrol out of Walmont were extended to cover the area.
With half of the town’s major problem centers closed while Fillmore was serving time, I couldn’t blame them.
My brief term made a great resume point, though – and I’d had enough of backwaters – so your mom and I were soon on our way to Capital City.
Anyhow, enough of one old man’s prattling, Jeopardy isn’t going to watch itself.
Love,
Dad
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.
After my earlier post, this happened:
http://twitter.com/rocknrollnurse/statuses/40490278011932672
Which, as far as I’m concerned, is fantastic.
I tracked down a larger version of the poster, to get a better line on the featured music, and can tell you that the theme, “Cry, Baby Cry”, was sung by Dick Kallman – a b-string crooner, and sometimes sitcom star, who, in 1980, was murdered for his antiques.
There’s an all-too-short sample at the 15 second mark of the trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mRsYVclu-I]
I’d never heard of this film till today, but maybe that’s due to the poster’s punctuation?
Does he kill babies who cry, or are they trying to raise a warning about an approaching baby killer? Do they mean he blubbers as he kills?
Wait – are they trying to taunt an infant murderer? (“Baby-killer gonna cry? Cry baby-killer, cry!”)
Whatever the case, at least he’s keeping the mad-dog population down – going from a teenage rebel to an animal control technician may not seem like that great of a film plot, but Corman was working with tight budgets back in the late-’50s.