The Bigger The Cushion

THE BIGGER THE CUSHION
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

Garrity ran for his life through the dark forest. Why the hell had he chosen to be a pin cushion for Halloween? And where had everyone, EVERYONE, gotten all those pins? The villagers chased him uphill as he tried desperately to shed his costume. The damned zipper was stuck! There was a pin in it! Damn these people who couldn't take a joke.

He was sweating like a pig. His lungs refused to take anymore air. Blood burned his eyes. He'd been stabbed a hundred or more times before he was able to pull away from them, all the while screaming, "It's a costume! It's a costume!"

At the top of the hill Garrity was able to peer above the treetops. Then he understood. Toxic waste from a massive pin factory poured into the village's water supply. So they weren't just insane. They were brain damaged. And they had more than their fair share of pins.

They were almost on him. With sudden inspiration, he tore at his costume and pulled the stuffing out, letting it float on the wind. It was a hell of a risk; the stuffing was the only thing that had saved his life thus far. The crazed villagers found him upon the hilltop, the red cloth of his costume sagging all around him.

"Help!" he screamed. My gown is three sizes too large!" Garrity's pulse pounded in his ears as the mob surrounded him, pins at the fore, but to lose his cool now was to invite a gruesome death. When the measuring tape came out, he almost fainted.

The villagers altered his "gown" using the pins to hold their alterations in place until someone came forth with a complete sewing kit. When the crowd drew back, Garrity, in his new outfit, was the hottest piece of ass on the hilltop.

"Excuse me," Garrity said to the leering mutants that drank in the sight of him, "My eyes are up here!"

In moments, the chase was on again.

The World Here

THE WORLD HERE
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

To his sorrow, Oliver found that he was smitten with Wilma, the Beyondist, the one person who would never go to the second half of life. Wilma supplied the tools a person needed on the other side. Many hated her out of the ignorant notion that it was she who determined their purpose. Untrue. If anything, Wilma should have been praised by all for preparing them for the next world when no one else would.

It was Wilma who gave future earth dwellers their dark-eyes and scoop claws. She gifted the algorithmists their hyper-space minds which cut through everything in between, and without Wilma, what chance did the tomato flayers stand?

For too long Oliver had shunned her aid. He wept at the injustice, mourned the Beyond that was his birthright, the paradise just within reach. Each time he went to take it and put an end to his misery, the sight of her turned him. The biddies and busies, all younger than he, tutted as he passed them on the long streets and byways to his home.

He met her one night beneath the weeping willow whose branches rained brown leaves over the Farna Lake. He brought the sweet bread that she liked from the bakery across from the cat juicery.

"May I sit?" he asked as the sun set purple and orange behind craggy mountains. Her day was done and though she liked to be alone with her thoughts after working with the public all day, the bread tended to pacify her.

"Of course," she said. "Will you be ready to go tomorrow?"

"No. You needn't ask anymore."

"I have to ask. especially one so reluctant as you. You're curious curious aren't you, Oliver? You hover at the edge, no longer interested in this world but afraid of the next." She held her hand out for the piece of bread he tore.

"No, again," he said. "Curious curious but not for that place."

"You wonder what you'll do there? No one can ever know until they commit to going."

"No, again."

"Your mother sends her regards from Beyond. She has found true love with a five-legged man."

"What of my father, then?"

"He has his music. He draws it grinding and moaning from the bedrock. He's very famous, the first yuman ever to conceive of such a thing. He is happy."

"Everyone is happy there," Oliver said.

"Yes, and you will be as well."

"I didn't come to you today. I watched you at the gate and I realized that I would be the first unhappy one in all of the beyond."

"That is highly unlikely."

"It is true."

"And you know this? You're not the first unhappy person here, I can tell you that."

"I am happy here, in a way."

"Not like you could be. You're getting older Oliver. You should have given yourself over to it months ago."

"I wouldn't be happy there, Wilma, because you are not there."

"You don't need me," she said with a laugh.

Oliver took her dark and slender hand, brushed its smoothness with his thumb. "I do," he said.

She seemed surprised and slowly moved to pull her hand away, stopping when she knew he wouldn't let go.

"Oh," she said. She looked away, tracing the widening trails of the water spiders rippling across the Farna's glassy skin. "A life such as the one you envision is not meant for me."

"It is," he said. "You want to know what I envision?"

"What then?"

"I envision nights spent by this lake, beneath this tree, breaking bread and sipping wine until the sun goes down and then some. Listening to ten-thousand cricket songs until the darkness flows from without to within and sleep sways us softly into the gentle morn."

She said nothing, her face turned away from him to the north. He watched the lace trim of her dress rise and fall in a long, steady rhythm. He watched until he slept and as the dawn's light greeted him, he found her hand still in his, her eyes upon the western mountains.

"A rabbit, tonight?" he whispered.

Her eyes fell to her chest. He kissed her cheek and felt her weight push toward him just a little.

"I pity the ones on the other side," he said and was away.

He found her there, waiting for him upon his return that evening.

Second-Hand Smoke

SECOND-HAND SMOKE
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

My mother was whole and solid when she brought me into this world. She began disintegrating almost immediately, going up in smoke until, twenty-seven years later, there was nothing left of her. She never saw it coming, didn't acknowledge what was happening even when I sat screaming at a pair of smoking thumbs floating in our little living room.

After she left, her ashy essence remained, choking our drapes, our linens, our car upholstery. Our lungs. Our blood. So full of her were we, it begged the question: Had we ever been fully ourselves? But one Christmas eve, I came home to find my father on his knees, desperately snorting the throw pillows to reclaim their acrid stench and only then I understood what we really were.

My father fell to the floor and a rush of smoke filled the air above him, stirred up by the seat of his pants. Through burning eyes I looked down, noticed for the first time that most of my mid-section no longer existed. I picked my father up from the floor and took him outside. I left the door open to air out the house.

Something Else By Someone Else

Whoops! I've got to head out the door and there's no way I'll have a story for you guys today. Sorry. Here's a funky little movie to pass the time instead: http://www.nontzeberri.com/nontzeflash/2006/imag/filmak/swf/benditonontze.swf

Have fun and watch out for hookah-smoking maniacs in lederhosen.

The Intro

THE INTRO
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

The junior high talent show got Paul all worked up because Janine was going to be in it. She was doing some sort of gymnastics routine. How hot would it be to see her in that tight little red, white, and blue, Mary Lou Retton gymnastics leotard thing? He got to the gym an hour before the show so he could stake out a seat in the middle of the front row. It was general admission (Hey, it's not as if The Who were showing up to play the talent show or anything, but that would be cool, wouldn't it? Not just The Who, but the unbridled chaos in the sea of brown folding chairs!)

Paul had no talent outside of his head but he daydreamed about jumping up onto the stage to do her intro. He'd be wearing a cool green leisure suit with a shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. He'd be covered in sweat for some reason and spotlights would be roaming wildly across the auditorium while the sound guys would be cranking out that Blues Brothers intro music. He'd be like:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we'd like to welcome you to the Yankerville Junior High School auditorium tonight in beautiful Yankerville, Ohio to witness a spectacle that few on God's green earth have had the privilege to witness: The Amazing Janine Kalzwicki is going to blow your fucking (the faculty would forgive that, because the intro would be so incredible and the f-word would lend even more power to its existing incredibleness) balls (okay, they wouldn't let that one slide too, scratch that. (Scratch balls, HA!)) blow your fucking mind with her flips and horse hopping and ring tossing (what exactly did they do in gymnastics? Didn't matter, he was on a roll) before exploding into a firey inferno that she herself will then step out of (no, that would blow the big finish). Anyway, it'll be awesome! Mere mortals, lean away from the goddess that is Janine!" It would be the most fabulous intro ever given, in fact it would beat the performance itself. She'd want to do him for sure after that one.

Of course, there was no intro. Janine came out and tumbled around and Paul made an ass out of himself applauding and whistling too loudly. He was perturbed that she didn't acknowledge his applause or blow him a kiss. Forget it.

He improved the intro again and again in his room that night as he stared at the grey ceiling. Next year he'd work it so he'd do that intro. It was going to kick ass.

Craig On Wheels

CRAIG ON WHEELS
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

Craig decided to have his feet removed and get a nice set of wheels installed. Mother was displeased.

"You'll have babies with wheels!"

"Mother, it doesn't work like that," Craig explained.

"How do you know? Have you ever had sex with a woman with wheels?"

"No, but that would be great."

"Stop talking like that in my house!"

"Mother, I can move at like seventy miles an hour now."

"You'll kill yourself! What's next, rakes for hands?"

"Now you're being silly."

"Baby, you have to want more for yourself than wheels for feet. Can you get your feet back?"

"I sold them. There are south Asian children who have lost their feet to landmines and need them."

"Little brown children are going to be running around with your big white feet? What will people think?"

"I think the focus of your concern is starting to wander, Mother."

"How much did you get for them?"

"How much? Three-thousand dollars."

"Is that all?"

"It's a buyer's market right now."

"And how much did those things cost?" she asked, pointing to his wheels.

"Twenty-five hundred."

"Oh my God. Look, you have to take that five hundred dollars and you have to salvage something of this mess you've made of yourself. You have to use it to better yourself."

"I shall, mother."

"What will you do?"

"You'll see." He rolled off into the city and returned hours later.

"What did you do, Craig? A brain implant?"

"Much better than that," he said. He reached down, grabbed his rims, and turned them hard.

"Look at them spin, Mother! Look at them spin!"

Walking On The Sun

WALKING ON THE SUN
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

A question came from the back of the room: "How did they figure out how hot the sun is? Did they send probes or something?"

"I was involved in that project as well," Dietrich said. "We used a really, really long thermometer. Ever hear of Akron, Ohio?"

"Of course," the kid said.

"Well, no one else had before they made the thermometer. That put Akron on the map."

"Wow."

"Yeah, wow. This was cutting edge stuff. So anyway, we were prepared when we went to the sun."

"Why couldn't we get the first guy?" A kid near the front asked his teacher. She shushed him, but too late.

Dietrich cut his next sentence short. "I was supposed to be the first guy! That little bastard, Van Nuysen, shoved me aside at the last second and dove in. He didn't care about protocol or consequences, he just knew he'd get into the history books. Joke's on him though, Neil Armstrong is still a bigger name. Ha!"

"How'd you walk on the sun? Isn't it hot?"

"Well, first off, you don't really walk on the sun, that's a common misconception. You just sort of swim around in the photosphere. To answer your second question, yes it is hot, but as I said, we knew that going in. Our boys had been working on an extra strength sunblock for years. Once that was perfected, the rest of it was a piece of cake."

"Wait a second," the teacher said. "Are you trying to tell us that the only thing between you and ten-thousand degrees of nuclear inferno was sunblock?"

"Well, we used multiple coats. I slathered it on until it was about two feet think."

"Oh," said Mrs. Henderson, embarrassed.

"Okay, I've got time for one more question," Dietrich said.

"How come you came back so early?" a little girl asked.

"It wasn't too early, only about two days. Turns out that the sunblock, even as good as it was, ran a little when things got that hot. And let me tell you, when that stuff gets in your eyes, it burns!"

Dabbling Around Trinary

DABBLING AROUND TRINARY
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

A flick of Sharda's barbed-wire fingertips and sparks flew. The fuse was lit and the archaic explosive she'd brought was suddenly as modern deadly as any quantum shuffler. If I'd still had any sweat glands they'd have been working double-time right now. The coiled molecules that saturated my new legs pumped beyond what the skeletomuscular rods were designed to endure. The surrounding pseudo-flesh heated in a way that the rip and burn of muscle fatigue could never touch. My head told me I was running from the crude bomb she had somehow teleported to the derelict factory. But my heart, my adrenaline, the few systems left that were still me were running in overdrive to get as far away from Sharda as I possibly could.

The shockwave pounded my limp body into a pink tensecrete wall. It was deep enough that the fire only cooked the back of my body. Thirty minutes earlier I would have been dead. But at least I would have died human.

I didn't know what she'd turned into but I knew it was still her, my wife of eight years. The one who'd spent so many days four stories below, dabbling around trinary in the cold labs of artificial light and purified air. What the industry usually meant when they used the word trinary was computer processing that used three states of electrical current flow: the absence of flow, and the two possible directions of flow along a wire. But everybody had that.

The philosopher's stone, the processor's stone that my once innocent prom date turned outcast engineer sought was true trinary. Most people knew it was a fable based on an impossible third state: A state that was neither "on" nor "off". You wouldn't have to change current processor architecture to use true trinary. Once we knew how to do it, it would explode across civilization at the speed of download, increasing the computational power of every binary and trinary processor-dependent system exponentially overnight.

I peeled myself out of my vertical grave, amazed that I could still stand. Through my pulsing yellow eyes I saw the blurred vision of Sharda, less human than I was becoming. It was tied to her research; she'd told me she had a breakthrough when she called me here to kill me. But how in the hell computer research could have turned her into this was beyond reason. What she looked like couldn't be completely understood by my still human brain. The colors that shaped her form were non-colors. Her body itself wouldn't stand still for a moment. She was in front of me, then behind and above me, then everywhere at once. As soon as I felt like I was within her range she raked those long phantasmal fingers across my soul again and I was ripped across universes.

My brain became so big I could only carry it outside of my head. I felt every change and knew what was happening. Sharda exchanged my body parts with other me's from other Earths. And every time she tore me apart and reassembled me, I knew a little bit more. My massive new brain was mechanical and analog, a thick network of trigger-and-spark creatures shaking a trillion tiny hands with one another. It was a brain unnaturally evolved in an alien timeline and yet it was me. I still remembered our apartment and the rottweiler puppy that waited for one of us to come back home.

Even this ponderous new brain was slowly realizing that what I knew about my changing body was what Sharda was silently telling me. It wasn't telepathy. On some level our minds, not our brains, had physical forms and were intermingling.

She dove at me again from all angles and it took everything I had to dodge at all other angles. I was slowing down; I knew I couldn't last much longer. Whatever she was doing to me, I didn't think it was murder anymore. The explosion was to soften me up; she was the one who had changed me to the point where it wasn't lethal.

Sharda's Cheshire smile was the only thing that stood still in the midst of her whirling chaos. Her mouth was as wide as my arm was long and it was full of short, sharp crystalline teeth made to chew metal. It hissed open and lunged at my plodding body.

I was an idiot to think my wife was looking for a new processing state all this time. I reached down into my chest with an extra-dimensional limb and slowed the swiping of my new windshield wiper heart.

I was total. I was in another state, a third state, not living and not dead. I understood now.

And I joined her.

Brothers And Sisters All

BROTHERS AND SISTERS ALL
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

"In other news, it was a tough beginning eighteen months ago for a spunky pair of twins born separated in Providence, Rhode Island . . ."

"That's right, John, but surgeons at Hasbro Children's Hospital say that today's conjoining appears to have been successful. Jill and Janette Freiberg have more."

"Thank you, John and Tom. After eighteen hours in the operating room, little Anthony and Andre Comulko are recovering tonight, in serious but stable condition."

"Husband and wife doctors, Greg, Donna and Devri Tomason performed the surgery today in what many considered to be the Comulko's only hope for a normal life. The Doctors' Tomason are here with me now. Can you tell us, Dr. Greg Tomason, what exactly was involved in today's surgery?"

"Well, we went with a joining that was as normal as possible within the limits of medical knowledge. There was no chance for spinal fusion, of course. What we did was dangerous enough as it was. We started off by removing Andre's right leg, seeing that he's shown lefty tendencies in therapy, and we removed a good part of both of their rib cages. We were able to connect their livers together and enough arterial tissue that once Andre's heart has atrophied and everything's healed, they won't be coming apart anytime soon."

"And I understand your twin here is not a surgeon, but came out to support the patients?"

"Yes, I'm Garry Tomason and I'm a dispatcher for the Department of Sanitation."

"You must be pretty proud of your brother and wife and sister-in-law."

"I am, I am. And I'm also proud of little Anthony and Andre. They've had a great attitude throughout and they came through it like real troopers."

"I'm sure the folks at home send out their prayers to the boys. Can you tell me, Dr. Devri Tomason, are the boys' chances good?"

"Yes."

"Uh, and have the three of you had a lot of experience joining separated twins?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Dr. Donna Tomason, can you elaborate on that?"

"Certainly, although this is the first time we've joined twins that were completely separated, we've done quite a number of operations on twins that weren't very well joined in the first place, like at the earlobes or little fingers only."

"Thank you doctors."

"Can I just say that we were drawn to this work because of our unique relationship? We're married right-right, left-left rather than the normal right-left, right-left and although it's awkward, it's the way we fell in love."

"Makes for a lot of spooning."

"Thank you, Mr. Tomason."

"So we've seen prejudice in our own lives. Kids can be ten times as cruel and that's why we've dedicated our careers to bringing some normalcy to the lives of these disadvantaged children."

"Except for Garry."

"Oh, you had to go there, didn't you, Devri? We had a nice little heartwarming human interest story going there and you drove it off a cliff. Ms. Freiberg and Ms. Freiberg, I'd like your viewers to know that I perform a service that is just as vital to the people of this city. And I took a personal day to be here today!"

"Thank you Doctors and Mr. Tomason. Heroes one and all. From Hasbro Children's Hospital, I'm Jill Freiberg --"

"And I'm Janette Freiberg. Back to you, John and Tom."

Breaking News

BREAKING NEWS
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

The army poured downhill on foot and I tried to catch up on a beat-up mountain bike with a skipping chain. Bred for speed and killing, they were as demonic-looking as they were deadly. Scoping, red goggle eyes and photo-negative smiles chilled me in the sultry night air. Their deathbreathers drew energy from the land. The weapon's master thought Fire,' and its huge mouth roared hell upon their enemies. What DNA was left was too mutated to identify.

The brass had barred reporters tonight; There had to be a great story behind it. I'd disobeyed orders, escaping the press pool to watch the action. The soldiers weren't hard to fool. They were mindless, outside of their instructions. With a borrowed helmet and a habit of hanging back, they didn't know I existed. Their officers were never in the field, issuing orders remotely. It all seemed too easy.

Then they started moving.

The sand below my tires flowed like it had muscles. It was viscous and choking, wanting to pull me into its sucking depths. The bike nearly shook apart when I hit the rocks, twigs and plastic bottles buried just out of sight. The infantrymen's reflexes made this downhill clusterfuck a cinch for them. I lost ground fighting for control, but they weren't even looking down.

I hit a log and flipped, ass over elbows. The back of my helmet quickly ran down my spine and grabbed hold on impact to keep my neck from breaking. As for my head, I couldn't believe I had fallen at all. I sprang up and saw consuming flashes in the reflecting clouds and heard the screams below. The battle had started. Why had I been so eager to go into that?

It was too close to home. Internal GPS told me we were still on base. Tell me I didn't waste an escape on a top-secret training exercise! A couple minutes later I almost bounced across a road that wasn't so familiar in the darkness. I skidded across the concrete and my mouth went dry. Gowrin Road. The road to that roach motel where they kept . . .

. . . the press pool.

My legs pumped like I was fourteen again. Red carnage splashed across my field of vision, flames rushing to the midnight sky, gore misting the black teeth and white lips of the man-monsters. I wondered why I'd wanted to hurry. My sensors buzzed around my head, hungry for the data they drank. Foul smoke and the stench of evaporating flesh, the roar of the deathbreathers and the sight of my colleagues' corpses seared my mind. Somewhere in there was Desmond, who won five bucks from me at this afternoon's poker game. And Marion, whose cow eyes made me forget Sylvia over beers last week. I fell, stunned, forgetting the danger I was in. Why would they do this? There could only be one reason, my conspiracy-soaked mind surmised:

To prevent an even bigger story from being uncovered.

The Army was already moving on and I followed.

Money Men

MONEY MEN
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

When Chick was a lad he used to draw funny pictures on money, like adding beards to Ben Franklin and the like, but one day his uncle told him it was illegal and the FBI would take him away. This terrified him but his need to deface money was too great to give up. He made little removable clothes and hats from Post-It notes and stuck them on the money. Take that, FBI! Lincoln looked quite fetching in his pink tuxedo. Chick liked the look of Jackson in a blue sequined gown and big hoopy earrings.

When Chick was an adult, his work was known throughout the land. The evil Mr. No took Chick's work one step too far. He didn't merely make clothes for the money men. He made little robotic bodies! And he sent his mighty army of minions out to take over the world. They wrought havoc, overturning buses and making U-turns where none should have been made. Chick knew something had to be done. He ran through the streets screaming, "They're money! Hey, everybody, they're money!"

Remarkably, greed overcame fear. People picked up the little devil dolls and stuck them in their pockets. When the bots tried to crawl out, the people tore off their tiny limbs, ignored the chilling screams and went out and had a nice dinner for a change.

Mr. No was pissed when he remembered that he had needed that cash and even more pissed when he remembered that the cash served no practical purpose on the robotic bodies. How did this guy go on to earn his doctorate? No matter. After that, he was someone else's problem.

Homemade Heroes, Face Three: The Blower

HOMEMADE HEROES, FACE THREE: THE BLOWER
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

The purists didn't really consider him a superhero. The guy had no superpowers or even cool gadgets that simulated super powers. He just ran around in a baseball cap and clobbered people.

It had started at the park where Herbie worked maintenence. A group of rich kids came through one afternoon, tossing their fast food garbage everywhere. By the time the last guy in the group had tossed his cup on the ground, Herbie had taken all that he could take. He charged them without a plan, not even sure why he charged and he swung the only thing available: his leaf blower. He beat the hell out of those kids and ran before the cops showed up.

Herbie knew he couldn't go home. The Toro logo was imprinted backwards on more than one of the kids' foreheads and all the guys he worked with knew he favored the Toro. He decided to take up lurking in the park. His wife didn't like him much anyhow.

Lurking didn't pay much, but there were plenty of partial corn dogs and whole squirrels to eat. Besides, his new lifestyle gave him plenty of time to fight crime.

Eventually, Herbie got caught. Before he was sentenced, the judge was attacked outside of the courtroom by a guy with a weed whacker. Herbie broke away from the deputies that were transporting him back to his cell, grabbed a leaf blower from a nearby landscaper's open trailer, and beat the whacker guy senseless, saving the judge's life.

Well, what could the judge do at this point? He sentenced Herbie to death by lethal injection. After all, the guy couldn't let go of his life of crime, even when he was already in custody. It was better for everyone this way. Especially the park squirrels, whose population increased notably. The partial corn dog population increased as well, because those corn dogs could really get it on when their numbers were threatened. So you see, everyone was happy.

Except that one guy.

I'm Back, Bitches!

You'll be pleased to know that I found my sabbatical restful and mentally rejuvenating and I have lots of new wonderfulness to share with you. I also realized that future breaks may be necessary, because my house plans are done and I've actually got to work on it. Not only that, but I need to work more on potential commercial writing to hopefully finance said house. So who knows what the future holds? You've got to live life to find out what happens next. In the meantime, read my stuff, subscribe to my blog, and I'll see you in tomorrowland.

53

I finished story number 53 today and sent my darling to find its way in the world. I have a feeling that if anyone cares to publish it, they’ll want a different title. The title is: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diplomat.