Fiction

Cinema Verite

Kara slowed her pace through the east hall of the nursing home, checking to make sure Nurse Dearn wasn’t around before rolling her book cart into Mister Jackson’s room. “We don’t have much time, Jackie. Dearn’s on my case.”

“In my day, we’d have called her a harpy.”

“I’d say what my generation calls her, but I don’t want to make you blush.”

Jackie laughed, then waved her closer. “How much did we make this time?”

She handed over a deposit slip. “You’re set for the next five months.”

“It’s strange,” he said, as he pushed the slip into his bedside drawer. “I know I sold something, but I can’t remember what it was.” Biting his lip, he looked up at her. “What was it?”

“I can’t tell you. Those are the rules.”

“I know–I remember that. But…there are holes. It’s disturbing.”

“We can stop whenever you want.”

He shook his head, his lips tightening as he said, “My son was in to see me today. He lost another job. Can’t afford this place anymore. After all I’ve done for him…”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like living here, but it beats sharing a urine-scented double with some drooling idiot down at the county assisted-living center–assisted dying is more like it.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to sell your memories. You’re under no obligation to do this.”

“And my boy is apparently under no obligation to me. Hook me up. See what you find. Tell me what it’s worth.”

“How much of it?”

“Whatever you want to take, hon’. My Alice left me after fifty years of marriage. I’m stuck with this lowlife son while my stockbroker daughter who could buy this place, much less pay my rent, writes me off. Why the hell do I want to remember any of it?”

“Okay. Calm down.” She dug out a pair of small goggles and slipped them over his eyes, fastening the strap, then attaching the wires that linked them to another pair of goggles that she put on.

Jackie moaned as the goggles started to hum. “I hate this part–why can’t you make me forget this, too?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t understand the tech that went into the goggles. But then, she didn’t have to. Her role was creative–Boris said she made the best memflicks he’d ever seen.

Up to now, she’d been selective, just taking little pieces of Jackie’s memory, but chunks–big, meaty ones–sold so much better. If she did it right, he could be set for life.

She sat down in the chair next to him, immersed in his memories, tapping on the goggles when she wanted to tag a part, using her eyes to set the crop area.

“I’ll love you forever, Alice. I can wait for the wedding night if you’re not ready.”

“I’m coming home, darlin’! We can get married.”

“We’re pregnant? Oh my God, we’re pregnant?”

“We can try again. Sweetheart, we can try again.”

“It’s a boy. I have a son!”

“Take a cigar–pink this time, my friend.”

“What do you mean you’re dropping out of college? Did you get kicked out of this one, too?”

“Why doesn’t she ever call? It’s like I embarrass her.”

“Who is he? Who is he, damn it? No one just leaves. There’s always someone else!”

“Well?” Jackie asked, and he sounded like he was crying.

“It’s good. It’s very good.” There was a big market for this kind of “slice of everyday American life,” a yearning for what was–even if it turned ugly at the end. “I can make you rich, Jackie.” She reached out, found his hand, and squeezed it. “But I’ve told you before: who we are–our personality–it’s a sum of our memories. Once they’re gone, your life will be gone. too.”

“What life? Being an old man, lying here all day?”

“Lying here all day knowing who you are.”

“Not sure that makes it any easier, Kara. Just do it.”

“You’re certain?”

“Leave everything before Alice.” He squeezed her hand. “I had a nice childhood. I had great parents, fun times. And Alice wasn’t my first–I can remember sex before her without any guilt.” He winked at her. “And I’ll still have you, right?”

“Well, if I take it all, you won’t remember me the next time you see me, but we’ll get reacquainted. And I’ll make sure you’re okay.”

“You always have, sweetheart. I’d have been out on my keister a long time ago if you hadn’t come along. You might like the younger me a whole lot better.”

“I doubt that.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek, then whispered in his ear, “I can still just take bits.”

“No. I don’t want to know I’m forgetting things. Just take it all and let me remember my life when it was simpler.” He laid his hand against her cheek. “Did I ever tell you that you look like my first girlfriend?”

“No, you never did.”

“Well, you do.” He let go of her. “Now. Let’s get started. We’re burning daylight–isn’t that what filmmakers used to say?”

“Yeah. Only I think moonlight’s more fitting in our case.”

“Well, we’re burning something. Get to it, kiddo.”

She got to it.

Ravensdaughter’s Tale

Ravensdaughter liked Novembers best. That was when the rains came and slicked the leaves down into a tar on the rooftops and made the whole world smell like wet. She’d get trapped in her dry spot in the bell tower days at a time, wrapped up in the blanket the miller had left out for her, but when it was over, those were the best days. Like today.

Ravensdaughter held her arms out like a scarecrow as she balance-walked along the backbone of the roof between the keep and the kitchens. The cold was only just enough to pierce her dress and make her fingers sting yet, but it was winter enough that the sky was cold and gray as the castle stones. The sound of one of the kitchen boys tending to the pigs drifted up from the courtyard. She laughed. The slates on the roof were still wet from last night’s rain, but she never missed a step.

She knew the castle roofs better than the humans ever would. She’d named every gargoyle. In the summers she’d climbed the rafters of the bell tower and watched the cuckoos come and lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. She knew how you couldn’t trust the gatehouse, since its roof was rotten with moss and about to fall in, but the roof over the kitchens was a good place. There was a good shot there for throwing bits of slate at the kitchen boys when they went out. They’d put their hands over their heads and beg her not to hex them, so naturally she’d dance back and forth and yell ooga-booga until they screamed and ran back inside. The humans all smelled funny, anyway.

Ravensdaughter knelt on the slates and ducked her head under the kitchen eaves. Down on the windowsill there was an offering: a bundle wrapped up in cloth on top of a plate. The kitchen lady was trying to get her to leave the boys alone again. Just in case, the shutters were locked up tight with an iron horseshoe to keep Ravensdaughter out.

Ravensdaughter grinned, then swung her legs over the gutter and dropped down to the sill. She hoped it was a saucer of milk in there. Or a bit of fish, raw, the way she liked it. Or even bread. Her fingers were stiff with the cold, but she managed to undo the knots in the bundle.

A dolly? Like the little human girls played with? Why? She crouched there holding the dolly by the neck, brow furrowed. It wasn’t even a very good one. The stitching was all lumpy.

There’d been a dolly in the little house in the village.

Burnt porridge and Bible sermons. That sour human stink everywhere. Fake brothers and sisters and her fake parents all crammed into one wooden room. That was before her ears had grown in pointy and Fake Mother had run her out of the house with a broomstick. Ravensdaughter picked at the dolly’s frayed-yarn hair. Back when everybody thought she was a little human girl.

Changeling, people whispered. Wild girl. Look at those ears.

She threw the dolly down and leapt back onto the roof.

The Heroics of Interior Design


I can’t fly faster than a speeding bullet. I can’t lift a car. I can’t climb slick surfaces with my bare hands or breathe underwater or stop time. All I can do is change blue things to yellow. I didn’t bother to buy a cape or a spandex suit like the others. I just bought a blouse and some slacks and went into interior design.

I don’t get much business anymore. All the people in this town who liked yellow but moved into the houses of people who liked blue have pretty much hit me up. Blue is a more popular color than yellow anyway. I wish I could change yellow to blue instead. I’ve started doing odd jobs in my off hours. Sometimes I set up a folding table in front of my shop. While the real gifted fly over my building and punt criminals off of rooftops with their shiny boots, I do magic tricks for quarters, blue crayons to yellow, changing the color of children’s snow cones, that sort of thing. No matter how yellow I turn them, they taste like blue raspberry. Last week I did a quick paint job on a car for a few grand. I think it was for a getaway driver. I haven’t told my husband about that one, but I did take him out for a steak dinner.

Tyrone isn’t one of the gifted. He can’t even change things from blue to yellow. He can design skyscrapers though, and he’s good at it, too. He makes a hell of a lot more money than I do, anyway. After Dr. Detriment blew out all the windows on tower number one, he started incorporating sonic resistant glass into his plans. Now all the businesses want him to design their new offices. He just got a big contract with Triumva Corp South. They don’t want their offices to be yellow–I asked. Although, I suppose if they did want yellow, they wouldn’t bother to paint them blue first.

The Dirty Fairy


I chased my dreams in the woods behind the house. I would run for hours amongst the trees.

My mother said, “I never should play with the fairies in the wood.”

When I asked her why, she said, “They drink.” Her voice was a stone.

“Like Daddy?” I asked.

“Like Daddy,” she said. Mother’s voice fell into dark water.

But all summer long, I chased my dreams in the woods behind the house. I would run for hours amongst the trees. Mother didn’t notice; she was too busy looking after Daddy.

Summer was almost over, and it seemed like my chance was gone. We had to move houses because there had been complaints. But on the last day I saw a gleam of light in the dark wood’s shadows.

I stalked the fairy so quietly. I know how to be very quiet. My teacher often said that I was the quietest girl in class.

In one swift movement I caught my fairy. He wriggled in my hand.

I wasn’t expecting a male fairy. In my head I’d imagined a beautiful girl fairy with fluttering wings and a gossamer gown.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I want us to be friends,” I said. I was determined to make the best of things.