Michele Archives

June 12, 2005

Michele: Ode 64

Scott sends me to a flat in London.

What a bloody mess. Smashed rum bottles, cracker crumbs, a shelf with a slew of books. I pull one out at random; it’s splotched with blood and the cover informs that the magic word is "Yoho!"

Pirates. I should have known. Damn you, Scott.

Against my better judgment, I mutter "Yoho!" and woosh, I’m on a beach, in view of a pirate ship. I sigh. I know that somewhere between the stinking pirates and buried treasure there’s going to be a dark cave.

I’m likely to be eaten by a grue.

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June 13, 2005

Michele: Inflict Strain Upon the Structure

He came up behind her at a crosswalk, pressed his hand into hers. “The city is alive,” he whispered.

She stiffened and gave a quick glance around her; lights, people, sounds. She squeezed Alastor’s hand, acknowledging what he meant by alive.

She used her magic to hear past the discordant murmurs of the city, fixating on the streets and structures. To humans, the sound was nothing more than a low, electric hum. For now. In time, the sidewalks would buckle and buildings would bend, dropping all the lies, secrets and crimes they had witnessed into the ears of passing humans.

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June 14, 2005

Michele: Regrets, I Have a Few

Huge, hulking men in full gear push him into the chair. They strap him, dose him and kill the lights.

Panic sets in. Breath, breathe damn you. In with the good, out with the bad. He sucks in a breath through his nostrils, heaves it out his mouth as they tape his eyes shut.

He feels the sharp sting of the probe on his temple and his heart begins a hammering, stuttering symphony. Breathe. The backs of his eyelids becomes a makeshift monitor and the slaughter his creation carried out plays upon it.

Technology, he thinks, is a bitch.

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June 15, 2005

Michele: When She Walks to the Sea, She Looks Straight Ahead, Not at Me

It is early evening in late summer, that moment between dusk and darkness, when the world is bathed in serious shades of blue, and the shadows seem to be debating about whether to come out. Golden stars poke through the painted sky as the last streak of a magenta sunset fades away. Two white birds swoop into the scene and he points, pauses and shoots.

Later, he realizes the camera was set on black and white, his left thumb was over the lens and the birds were out of focus. Again, as always, the beauty of life escapes his capture.

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June 16, 2005

Michele: This Vivisection Splits My Soul

Gods used to be born, not made. That was before the Purge, before He sent his army down to wipe out the winged, the fleet footed, the possessors of fire. The few gods and goddesses who were left went into hiding and stopped using their powers, afraid that they would be crucified or worse. Their magic thinned out as their race did, and when He closed up the heavens and disappeared, there were no gods left.

Humans tired of being godless, so government scientists, feigning interest in the good of man, created gods..

We have been at war ever since.

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June 17, 2005

Michele: Got to Roll Me

She stared long and hard at him, eyes narrowed, fingers drumming. It was her intent to make him nervous, to cause him to make the wrong decision. He gave an annoyed glance before he finally made his choice and marked his score.

She cackled, “That was a stupid choice for this late in the game,” then shook the cup and tumbled a straight onto the table. “Booya, dumbass!”

He ignored her, flicked his wrist and poured the dice once, twice and, after the third roll, stood and pumped his fists as five fours stared back at his grandmother.

“Yahtzee, motherfucker!”

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June 18, 2005

Michele: Digitopolis

Sleep holds the answers to the problems I work on during the day. It’s just a matter of catching them.

In my dreams, the numbers have legs and arms; they tease and run. They have names, like Goldbach, Riemann and Poincaré and they carry all the answers with them. I follow them into mazes of pipes and ducts, but my legs always stop working just as they are in reach, and I go deaf just as they laughingly shout their solutions.

One night they will let me hear. And I will be the next math hero.

I need more sleep.

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June 19, 2005

Michele: Everything's Ruined

“He’s a nice man, father. And I want to start a family...”

Quietly, his back turned, he said, “This is your family, Emily.”

“No, father. This is your family, the one you and mama made.”
“The one your mama left.”
“Dying isn’t leaving, she didn’t get sick on purpose.”
“You can’t leave those children, too. I won’t let you.”
“How will you stop me?”

It was then she saw the poison on the nightstand. Her father soon took his last breath and with that, her chance at marriage and escape.

“Congratulations father, you win,” she whispered at his lifeless body.

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June 20, 2005

Michele: From Flesh to Steel and Blood to Blade

Underneath our plasticized faces and permanently slouched shoulders, inside our fitted, formed shells, we live.

Our dreams and yearnings are tempered by machinery that runs through our bodies. Sometimes we are lucky and a shock of errant static electricity will send a shiver of memories, emotions and snapshots into our minds. We hold onto some of them.

For twenty years, we assembled your cars, guarded your prisons. Today, we are going to fight your war. Do you ever question or care where we came from?

My name is Emily Barons. I was kidnapped from my home on October 8, 2003.

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June 21, 2005

Michele: Faeries Wear Boots

She hated this day. She hated the moist, clingy air, how the heat’s fingers slipped up her party dress, leaving a trail of beaded sweat under her breasts. She hated how the faeries, cloaked in layers of fancy, danced and stomped for her sister as if the sun wasn’t a relentless beast.

As the day bled into night, she watched as her sister grew ever more beautiful, reveling in flickering faerie light. She envied her laughing, radiant dance.

Winter slipped away from the festivities at midnight and sat alone, guiltily counting the days until her sister Summer’s beauty would fade.

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