You Ought to Be Ashamed

Honestly, Harold. If I had thought for a moment that it would come to this, we would never have bought you that chemistry set. “Just a little extra sulfur,” indeed.
Your father and I have talked it over, and we think that the best thing for you would be to sacrifice Quackers on an altar before the throne of his Glorious Excrescence Moloch. There will be no more science in this house, young man. No, don’t look at me like that. I know you’re not really going to keep him as a pet. You want to dissect him, don’t you? Yes, you think I don’t know you’ve been hiding copies of “Scientific American” under your mattress, but your father found them the other day while he was cursing your room. Don’t you tell me to stay out of your room. While you are under this roof you will obey the rules that your parents, and the Dread Demiurge Astaroth, may his name grow in squamous horror, make for you. When I think of what your poor dead grandmother would say if she were here to see this, I just get shivers all over. I have half a mind to let her out just to tell her all about it. No, don’t cry, honey. Oh, mommy’s sorry. Granny will stay safely in her padlocked crypt until the pounding stops forever. I promise. No, you’re still grounded. Yes, of course we want you to make decisions for yourself, but sometimes we have to interfere.
Now, your father has said – well, those are just the consequences! Your father has said that you should stay indoors and work on your augury for a month. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s for the best. And I don’t want you hanging around with that George Braverman anymore. I think he’s putting bad ideas in your head. Well, do you remember the time he wanted you to summon Einstein so you could ask him how the theory of relativity worked? That’s not something an evil little boy should be doing with his time.
We also think you should spend less time in the bathroom.

Agamid

Jason Agamid looks down at the sky and sees a big square chunk fall out of one voluminous puffy cumulonimbus monster cloud. There’s a hole in the cloud now, about one and a half times the size of the S.S. Clocktick, a perfectly square hole, with eddies of vapor that drift toward the its edges swirling down along the sides as though bumping up against an invisible conveyor belt ever-moving toward the ground. Agamid hobbles away from the window, tall thick wizardly cane in either hand, which canes he thinks make him look like an elder statesman but in actuality make him look like a rheumatic cross-country skiier. He has gravitas, though. Never let this be denied: Jason Agamid has gravitas coming out his ass.

Jason Agamid looks down at the sky and sees a big square chunk fall out of one voluminous puffy cumulonimbus monster cloud. There’s a hole in the cloud now, about one and a half times the size of the S.S. Clocktick, a perfectly square hole, with eddies of vapor that drift toward the its edges swirling down along the sides as though bumping up against an invisible conveyor belt ever-moving toward the ground. Agamid hobbles away from the window, tall thick wizardly cane in either hand, which canes he thinks make him look like an elder statesman but in actuality make him look like a rheumatic cross-country skiier. He has gravitas, though. Never let this be denied: Jason Agamid has gravitas coming out his ass. Continue reading “Agamid”

Extremophile

Okay now look see hear skip a beat as Janie holds on to Mark’s arm and absently strokes it like it’s a cat, strike that, the cat, the old cat, Doctor Teeth, the skittish orange tabby who liked to sleep under Mark’s ancient blue Mustang until a forgodsakes twelve-year-old trying to pop a wheelie on his brand new BMX came down on the Doctor’s poor little orange cranium after a nap. Watch Mark keep his arm mostly limp as Janie looks nervously over his shoulder and out the window at the blurred pavement, feel her flinch slightly (but with her entire body) as the grinding snarl of the tires turning against the badly hotpatched tarmac abruptly drops out leaving the roar of the elderly prop engines – too much roar, too old a plane, why couldn’t this stupid little aircraft be just a few years newer? Mark asks this silently, loving his high-strung wife and missing that goddamn cat,

Okay now look see hear skip a beat as Janie holds on to Mark’s arm and absently strokes it like it’s a cat, strike that, the cat, the old cat, Doctor Teeth, the skittish orange tabby who liked to sleep under Mark’s ancient blue Mustang until a forgodsakes twelve-year-old trying to pop a wheelie on his brand new BMX came down on the Doctor’s poor little orange cranium after a nap. Watch Mark keep his arm mostly limp as Janie looks nervously over his shoulder and out the window at the blurred pavement, feel her flinch slightly (but with her entire body) as the grinding snarl of the tires turning against the badly hotpatched tarmac abruptly drops out leaving the roar of the elderly prop engines – too much roar, too old a plane, why couldn’t this stupid little aircraft be just a few years newer? Mark asks this silently, loving his high-strung wife and missing that goddamn cat, Continue reading “Extremophile”

More to come

I’ll be posting regular fiction and essays here over the next six months, maybe longer. Hopefully I’ll be a better writer for it. I’ll be writing every day and hopefully posting most of what I write. It’s tempting to post it all, just for the sake of keeping a public record and making sure quality control doesn’t go by the wayside (i.e., “Oh, I’ll write something today, but it’ll be junk that I slam out in a hurry and I won’t have to post it anyway.” I know myself well). So we’ll see. Watch this space – will get loud about this in about a month so lurkers are welcome. Please feel free to comment as regularly as you want. If you post spam on this page I will ban you from commenting forever and scour the internet for your username and report every domain you link to as a potential phishing scam to anyone who will listen, so please don’t do it.

Today, I live in Brooklyn, am 28 years old, married, and work for a few different newspapers around the city, where I have friends and go to church and eat a lot of really bad Mexican food and read whatever I can put my hands on. I’m on my lunch break right now. My name is Sam Thielman.