Sep 21 2009
I have to bring attention to my friend Gabriel Novo’s blog, not just because he mentioned me in his most recent post at http://gabrielnovo.com/2009/09/21/aspiring-authors/comment-page-1/#comment-584.
Gabriel is an aspiring author like me, so go check out his site as he updates a lot more than I do and you’ll likely learn a lot more from him..:)
Sep 10 2009
Today I have something VERY special for my blog readers! I have an interview here with Thersa Matsuura, author of the recently published A Robe of Feathers: And Other Stories. This is Thersa’s first book, but I’m sure there will be many more . “A Robe of Feathers” is a collection of stories that borrows from traditional Japanese mythology, but Thersa definitely gives her stories her own unique spin. She was recently inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, an honor reserved for only the best new writers. Thersa lives in Japan herself, which gives her direct access to the ancient myths that her stories are based on. I was fortunate enough to speak with Thersa right after the publication of her book, and I am grateful for the time she spent giving me and my readers an insight into how a book gets published. I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as I enjoyed conducting it.
Me: Welcome Thersa Matsuura, writer of “A Robe of Feathers: And Other Stories”, and thank you for speaking to me today.
Thersa: Great to be here. Thank you so much for the interest and the interview.
Me: I’m sure the question on every aspiring writer’s mind is ‘How do you get your first book published’, so let’s start with that. How did you go about finding an editor and publisher for this book?
T: Let’s see, while I was writing all the stories I had the idea to keep a common theme so they might work as a collection and be attractive to a publisher or an agent. I kept notebooks full of market research. I went through and scoured the Internet researching what good publishers and agents do and what bad publishers and agents do. And then I went and started filling my notebooks with the information I found. I also rated everyone I came across who published/represented my type of fiction.
I really like Agent Query and Query Tracker as well as Predators and Editors for learning who’s on the up and up and who is a little (or a lot) shady. So, yeah, I constantly took notes.
Then when I thought I had enough stories for a collection I began looking specifically for agents and publishers who handled that kind of thing. I made my top ten list and sent out a query with five pages to everyone on my top ten. As luck would have it, I ended up getting an interested publisher first.
Me: Really? From my reading on the subject, it is very unusual to get a publisher so readily. What happened next?
T: They offered me a deal that looked very good to my eyes. I tried reading up on contracts, but the little voice in the back of my head kept telling me I needed an agent if I wanted to do this right.
Then it hit me: I’m Cinderella. I have a collection, an interested publisher and a contract in my hand–I’ve just done a third of an agent’s job (the other two jobs being reading and basic editing/advice giving and dealing with all the ins and outs of a contract). I thought there has got to be someone willing to give me a read and possible (fingers crossed) represent me.
That is when I brought out my list of agents and queried my favorites there. It was a very exciting and nerve-wracking time. I was literally mailing back and forth several times a day with all these dream agents who were suddenly interested in me. I really did feel like Cinderella. I signed with an amazing agent in NYC and he did all the fancy stuff to the contract to retain certain rights, stuff like that.
Me: That sounds great! I’m sure a lot of potential authors are intimidated by the prospect of completing their project and then having to dive into unknown territory to find an agent and publisher. It is very motivating to know that it can sometimes be easier than we might think. What happened once you had your agent and publisher lined up?
T: I was still in this glowing stage of disbelief when Counterpoint assigned an editor to me. They wanted to have the book ready to send to the printers by the end of the year (it was spring when I signed the contract). It was all very fast. Even my agent, when he made The Call, asked me if I didn’t have the wrong year. These things usually take so very long. Anyways, the editor and I worked together for a couple months figuring out the story order, working on line edits, I even rewrote a story that they weren’t sure about.
Me: Did you expect that your process would be so successful, or did you develop your method through trial and error?
T: I use to send out short stories and since I can’t obtain literary or genre magazines here (in Japan) at all (I have subscribed but for some reason they invariably get lost in the mail) my method there was much more hit and miss. I would send anything anywhere just by the online guidelines, having never read the magazine—it’s a very bad thing to do. It was much harder to get placed in journals and my rejection slips always said something about the tone being not right or something that I could have known if I’d read the journal. I think that led me to be more thorough about an actual book.
Me: Since you published your book, have you done any sort of publicity events to promote the book?
T: Excellent question! Okay, once again about The Call from the agent. When we were talking he mentioned my distance from the States and how it would be nearly impossible for me to participate in local readings and radio shows, stuff like that. But he said it was okay, we’d deal with it. He also said (later when I met him in person) that it’s my job to write, to improve my craft and to…well, write! He mentioned talking to some authors who swear up and down that self promotion (and a lot of it) is the only way to sell books. And while he recognized the benefits, he said that he’s seen writers get so caught up in that side of the business that their work suffers. So that was very interesting.
As for me, I went back to the States for three weeks and did a book signing and interview with the local paper. In Japan since the book is in English and my town has a pretty small percentage of English speakers/readers, I haven’t done much at all. However! Next month, –the date isn’t exactly decided yet– I will do a reading in Osaka for an event called “Four Stories”.
I’m really excited about this as I have been following their news long before my book was ever conceived and have always wanted to participate.
As for promotion, though, I think I’m pretty much free to do whatever I like. Being good at it, that’s another story. And speaking of stories, once I get my head into a new one it’s kind of hard to come up for air. Right now I’m trying to balance being active on a couple writers’ forums with my new book and research. I’m afraid my forum time suffers.
Me: I appreciate all the information you’ve given me today. Are there any other points you’d like to share with my readers?
Basically I think I spent just as much time doing market research as I did writing. I didn’t like that part all too well, I’d much rather just be writing, but in the end I think that is what helped me get the book deal and the agent. Ironically, now that I have an agent I don’t have to worry about all the market research. I just threw away a ton of notebooks. Instead, however, he says my next step should be writing a novel, so I have all this book research to do. Which is a lot more fun I find. You should see the stack of notebooks I just bought.
Aug 15 2009
This is just a short posting to introduce a new novel-length project I’ve been knocking around for a few months. As indicated, the name of the story is ‘Higher Ceilings’, and I’ll get more into the plotline as I develop it.
For once, I am not doing an exhaustive background treatment on this story. I have a few pages of general notes in a spiral-bound notebook, and an image in my mind that represents the overall path of the story. My typical procedure when starting a new novel project is to do all the scene and setting development work up-front, and then I’ll organize the scene notes I produce into a chapter layout and then write the story from that. So far, this has resulted in no completed projects and five stalled manuscripts, so I’m all for trying something different.
If any of my fellow Flash Fiction participants is interested in being my book buddy on this project, I’ll be glad to take offers. My ideal book buddy would be someone who is also working on a novel-length project so we can help each other along with encouragement and constructive criticism…:) Leave me a comment indicating your desire to jump in if you’re interested.
As I begin the actual writing process on this story I’ll be adding more information on the plotline. The most I can offer at this point is the name ‘Higher Ceilings’ comes from a song by The Submarines entitled ‘You, Me, and the Bourgeoisie’. Here is the relevant lyric:
“…The way we know we long for something fine
When we pine for higher ceilings
And bourgeois happy feelings.”
I hope to use various excerpts from that song to frame my narrative sections, but I have no idea how to go about securing the permission to do that. Hopefully someone reading this can enlighten me on that process…:)
Beyond that, I know this isn’t going to be a happy story, but that’s just where that song takes me. I hope this project will have something to say, and I’ll be happy with that.
Aug 15 2009
Well, as I promised, here’s the results of a two-month trial run with WP-BAN to see how well it prevented spam comment submissions on my blog. I am happy to state that it did help immensely in reducing them to a more manageable level.
At first, I noticed a strong pattern in my spam postings, in that they almost all originated from a narrow IP address range, so of course when I banned that entire range it cut down my spam postings about 80 percent immediately. After that, it became a more hunt-and-peck sort of operation to reduce the spam volume further. At this point, my spam postings are following no obvious pattern, so I have found myself banning IP addresses and/or ranges less often as of late. Akismet still does a stellar job catching spam postings, and in the entire time I’ve run this blog I’ve only had a single spam post get through.
I’ll have to restate my opinion from my original posting on this topic: If you run a Wordpress blog you MUST have WP-BAN and Akismet to take care of your spam postings. Between the two you can keep your blog clean and relevant, and you won’t be helping dirty spammers do their job.
Aug 13 2009
(This month we were tasked with the job to write about ‘light’. I hope you enjoy my entry)
Light
The breathtaking vista of stars currently filling the view-screen would have typically riveted Captain Shane Sawyer’s attention, but he had other things on his mind. “Where are we on the reactor warm-up?”
He looked over his shoulder at the engine control panel. Why they had to put it directly behind his chair he’d never know. He felt a twinge in his lower back as he shifted his weight. If this was Star Trek, Captain Sawyer would be sitting in the command chair, but the bare steel seat bolted to the deck with a few cushions tied on as an afterthought didn’t live up to the title.
The engineer currently manning the panel was one of thousands who had been working on this project for the past seventeen years, and Sawyer didn’t even know his name. The bridge crew for this trial run had been selected after a stringent process of elimination, resulting in the ten people the project could best do without if something went wrong. Which it probably would, according to all the other engineers and code jockeys currently sitting several million kilometers behind them in the cozy confines of the command station orbiting the Moon. Damn them.
“Looks like we’re at ninety percent, Captain, “ the engineer replied after flipping a few hundred additional switches and levers and peering at his screen with a distinct squint. “We’ll be at full power in twenty minutes max.” Great, less than thirty minutes until we’ll all be dead.
“Fine, “ Sawyer replied, waving his hand in the general direction of the man, then he returned his attention to the brilliantly lit panel that dominated the front of the bridge. Sawyer knew it wasn’t a real window on the universe, but the hi-def cameras mounted all over the ship broadcast pretty realistic images so it was all the same to him. He spared a glance at the backs of each of the eight people sitting at various stations between himself and the screen. “Status reports, please.”
Captain Sawyer was able to get his mind off their impending potential doom for five minutes while each of the stations reported in. For once he would have appreciated everyone being a little less crisp and professional, but he took what he could get. “Everything is ready to go, sounds like, “ he said, then leaned back and tried to find a comfortable spot against the back of the chair. “So, anyone ready to back out on this yet?”
Besides a noticeable stiffening of shoulders, no one made any response to the Captain’s question. At this point, everyone understood they were committed and there was no backing down. After nearly two decades and trillions of dollars spent on this project, this test mission was going to happen. It simply boiled down to when all the impossibly complex and intertwined systems were primed and ready and the switch was flipped to engage the dimensional warp engines strapped to the back of the ship.
The theory behind the engines was sound and fully supported by experimental evidence, at least according to the two people on Earth who actually understood all the math involved. The rest of the world had taken them at their word, and the end result was this cobbled-together ship made from castoff parts from various global space programs. Sawyer was pretty sure the ‘bridge’ of the ship was adapted from an old Space Shuttle cabin, but he wasn’t sure since he’d never actually seen one in person. They’d been retired thirty years ago, and any rational person would have thought everything would have been long since scrapped.
“Five minutes to full power, Captain,” the engineer said, only a tiny quaver in his voice.
“Thank you, “ Sawyer replied. “Comms, are we still in full contact with the station?”
The communications officer, a young black woman who had acquired the obvious nickname ‘Uhura’, turned in her chair and flipped one of her headphone earpieces away from her head. “All channels are at one hundred percent, Captain. Command frequencies are clear.”
“Very good.” Captain Sawyer gripped the arms of his chair a little harder. “Please inform Command of our intentions to engage engines on my count.”
“Yessir.”
Captain Shane Sawyer looked around the bridge one last time, letting his eyes linger on each person for a moment. One by one they’d turned to look at him as their responsibilities were completed and the moment when the never-before tested, almost entirely theoretical, monumentally powerful engines would start for the first time. Engines that would either kill them all or rip a hole in the fabric of space-time and propel this ship to the stars at a speed that would shame light itself.
He felt like he ought to be giving a rousing speech right about now, but he’d forgotten to write one beforehand. Instead, he figured he’d just wing it. “People, I know what you’re thinking and feeling right now, because I’m feeling the same way.” He looked around at each person, and thought he could perceive a minimal release of tension around the bridge.
“We, this group of ten who will be no great loss to the program if we never return to Earth, are about to willingly go forth to our likely doom. Staggering geniuses none of us can understand have told us this will not happen, so we’ll have to trust them not to kill us.” He paused for effect. “Kinda like a hill of ants trusts a little boy not to burn them all to death with his magnifying glass.” Some laughter from that, and Sawyer let out a sigh.
Taking a deeper breath, he continued. “Look, we all know we aren’t the best of the best, or we wouldn’t be here. What we do know is we’ve been chosen for a mission which will change the course of human history if it is successful, and our names will be remembered forever by those who come after us. Are we ready to push the button or not?”
There was hesitation all around, a shared moment between those who might be thinking their last thoughts. “Press it, sir, “ he heard from the engine panel. “What else are we here for?”
The comms officer nodded her head, a wan smile lighting up her face. “Let’s do this. Press the button.”
Sawyer pushed himself straighter in his seat as the rest of the crew chimed in with brave words. After the last person spoke, Sawyer smiled broadly and pointed at the view-screen filled with stars. “Okay then, let’s get out of here.”
Jun 22 2009
Hey folks. I’m sure, like me, you’ve gotten tons of spam on your blog. I hope, like me, that you’ve already been using one of the spam blockers or filters so the spam entries don’t show up on your blog. Today it occurred to me that it would be easier to deal with the spam stuff if I just started banning the IP addresses of the worst offenders.
To test my theory, I checked my spam holder to see what IP addresses were represented among the 75 or so spams I hadn’t deleted yet. Sure enough, ALL of the spam postings Akismet had intercepted were from two IP ranges. I went looking on the WordPress Plugins directory and in about ten seconds found WP-BAN, which does the trick perfectly. Just install it and then you’ll have the option under ‘Settings’ and ‘Ban’ to permanently block your worst sources of spam.
To do this, go to ‘Settings’ and ‘Ban’, as previously mentioned, after you’ve made a list of offending IPs or ranges. For myself, it was two closely related IP ranges, so I simply put in two bans with the format xxx.xxx.xxx.*, which blocks everything that matches the first three blocks of the IP address. I’ll do an update in a month or so on this topic and let you know how much spam I get after I do this a few times. If I’d thought of this sooner it might have saved me the task of deleting the over 2000 spams I’ve gotten so far…:)
Jun 06 2009
After having forgotten to do it for a couple of months, I disabled the plugin that allowed only a few things on the front page. Hopefully I’ll go back soon and put tags on everything so this blog will act more like a blog…:). Let me know what you think about the change, and sorry to anyone that had my RSS because you just got a lot of posts…lol
May 25 2009
(This is a mid-month assignment for my Facebook Flash Fiction group. Our topic is ‘Strip’, so I hope you enjoy this.)
Strip
Strip wasn’t a good place. In fact, it was a completely ugly, dirty, dangerous, boiling pustule of a place. It sat between the big dome of Nuevo Los Angeles to the west and the even bigger dome of Lunatown in the east. Originally it was just a flat piece of ground that was built to give shuttles from Earth a place to land, drop off their cargoes, and get the hell right out again. A town had built itself around the landing zones over the past hundred years, prefab blisters of buildings put up in random arrangements as people migrated here from all over the system.
No one had ever decided that the expense of putting up a big dome was justifiable, and besides you couldn’t exactly close in a runway. That meant that you always had to be in a suit outside the buildings, which gave random encounters with other people a satisfying anonymity. Satisfying to a person in my line of work, anyway.
I’d been following my target for fifteen minutes or so, wandering between shadows trying to seem like I belonged. The line between light and dark was sharp as a knife with no atmosphere to diffuse the sunlight that blazed down like an arc welder. The Sun seemed way bigger here than from Earth. My guy was a nobody, a miner that had managed to get in deep debt gambling away money he’d begged and borrowed from the wrong people. He walked with a limp from getting his leg broken by the last guy hired to shake him down, but he didn’t take the hint. That’s why I was here.
I’d already checked out Strip’s layout, and there were plenty of nice blind alleyways and corners owing to the random way the place had grown. I had lots of options depending on where this poor bastard decided to go. At this time, hardly anyone was walking around because most decent folk were either asleep or working. The day/night cycle was completely artificial owing to the primordial need for Homo Sapiens to adhere to a 24 hour schedule. It just did something to people’s minds if they lived any other way.
He was approaching a good spot, so I quickened my pace to close the fifty meter gap I’d kept between us. No need to alert him prematurely, not that a person would notice much of anything while cocooned in an environmental suit. I got within arm’s reach of him right on time, just as we both hit the deep shadow next to a big oxy tank. I swiveled my upper body right and left, since I couldn’t turn my head, and there was no one around. I pulled my blaster, held it to the back of his helmet, and burned a hole in his head.
He started to slump, but I stepped up to him and shrugged my shoulder under his arm to take his weight, which was negligible in Moongrav. I couldn’t exactly leave him face-down in the gray pebbly regolith, but I knew what to do with him. Like in every settlement, there were plenty of mine shafts from digging for deep ice to extract water and oxygen, and there was a convenient one not twenty meters from where I’d perforated him. I shifted him a bit so I could turn off his oxy valve, and the white frozen mist stopped venting out of the hole in his helmet. I hefted him closer and started to walk, but of course, it’s never that easy, right?
“Hey, friends!”, I heard through my helmet radio just as I turned the corner, “Come in and settle a while!”. I cringed, knowing exactly who the voice belonged to. Against my better judgment, I’d spent the previous ‘night’ nursing cheap beer that cost a fortune in the bar across from the oxy tank. I’d only gone in the place because it afforded a good view of my kill spot and I figured it would be less obvious if I scoped the place out from inside the building. I should have known the place would have cameras. Thank the various Gods I hadn’t nailed him right in front of one of them.
I raised my hand to acknowledge I’d heard the barkeep, who I knew was sitting at the bar watching me on the view screen. I tongued my radio toggle. “Okay, I can stay a moment, I suppose.” Anything else and he’d probably jump in a suit and follow me. He was a friendly kinda guy.
I held the dead man up as we cycled through the airlock, then looked for a private corner after the inner door opened. Thankfully there was no one else in the place besides the barkeep, so I shuffle-stepped the two of us to a booth at the back and let him plop into the seat. I tripped the seal on my own helmet and removed his as well. He had a black flop hat tucked in the front of his overalls, so I put it on his head at a nice jaunty angle and then went over to the bar. “Give me something cheap.”
The barkeep laughed. “You know there’s nothing cheap here, “ he said as he pulled a plastic pouch from the cooler. “You seemed to like this well enough last night.”
“Thanks, “ I said, and popped the drinking nipple in my mouth for a long sip. Might was well enjoy myself, right? “My friend has already had enough.”
“I can see that, “ he replied, and for a split second I thought I was home free. That is, until I heard the door cycle again. I couldn’t make myself turn around as the inner door opened, bringing with it the distinct sounds and odors of at least three men as they clodded into the room and shed their suits. Even worse, I recognized one of the voices as a friend of my target. I’d seen them in here yesterday, but I’d hoped all his buddies would have still been working. Oh well.
“Hey, it’s Bill!”, I heard him say. I knew it. I heard them all greet Bill the dead guy and move to the booth. I could see in the mirror that they’d sat down beside and across from him. What the hell was I thinking even coming in here? I probably could have gotten away. I probably could have been on the damn shuttle back to Earth by now. But no, I had to be smooth.
I finished my beer pouch and swiveled on the stool just as one of the guys punched Bill on the shoulder and started to reach for his hat, which had slouched over his face. As soon as the hat moved two inches, they’d see the burned hole in his forehead and then there would be a problem. I stood up, and my hand reached automatically for my blaster hilt. I wouldn’t get paid extra, but I might as well enjoy myself.
May 14 2009
(This month’s assignment was to do something with the word ‘Eyes’. I tried to get as far from the obvious as possible…)
Eyes
Ee-yes, they call me. Ee-yes is my name.
I have no clear recollection of when I came to this place. I don’t remember anything besides the gray walls and soft surfaces of this room and the echoing hallways they used to take me through to other rooms with gray walls. There are lights everywhere, emitting a bright white glow from the walls and ceilings. There are no shadows. There are no windows, other than the one in my door so they can keep watch on me. Outside is an abstraction only, something I’d seen in books when they still let me have them. Maybe I was born here. Maybe I’ve been here forever.
I receive my food through a slot in the door. It’s usually the same things on the tray. I don’t know what to call the things I eat. They consider that ‘non-essential training or education’ so they don’t waste time on it. I don’t need to know that sort of thing. I just eat it and move on. I don’t have to enjoy it. Food is just a way to replenish my energy and keep me strong. When I finish I put the tray back through the slot and it disappears. I assume it is taken away by someone, but I never see them at all. I can get water in a cup from a dispenser in the corner whenever I want. I drink nothing else. Of course, the cups are made of paper so I don’t hurt anyone with them. I haven’t hurt anyone since I did the bad things. I haven’t seen anyone since then, except through the thick pane of glass in my door sometimes. Even then they are covered in white outfits from head to toe. I don’t need any objects to hurt people, but it made them feel safer to take away everything in my room that might do them harm.
Before, they used to run tests on me all the time. “Lift that”, they’d say, or “Squeeze that”, and I’d do it because that’s what I was trained to do. People in control rooms with thick panes of glass like the one in my door would observe me and make careful notations on their clipboards or type on a computer keyboard. I’d get to play with computers too sometimes, but my purpose wasn’t to be a tech. It was to be something else entirely.
I broke things a lot during their tests, and sometimes I wasn’t even touching them. Those times the people in the control rooms would talk loudly and back away from the glass, as though they didn’t remember they’d made me this way. I could hear them easily, because they’d given me that ability as well as all the others. They’d say ‘Ee-yes is getting much stronger’, or ‘Ee-yes is displaying new powers’, or ‘Maybe we should put Ee-yes somewhere else so we’d all be safer’. I couldn’t help but laugh when they’d think they could be safe from me anywhere.
On the day I did the bad things, they had taken me to several different rooms to do tests, as they often did. In the last room, though, they strapped me into a big metal chair and placed stickers all over my head with wires leading to machines. They told me to think about particular things, then they’d gather around the machines and babble to each other in words I didn’t know. Finally, a huge door opened in the side of the room and a big green metal thing was pushed in on a platform. I heard several of the people think the word ‘tank’, but that didn’t mean anything to me.
After they got the tank into the room and closed up the big door, everyone went into the control room. “Ee-yes”, the voice said, echoing through one of the boxes set high up at the ceiling, “We’d like you to concentrate on the big object in the center of the room.” I looked hard at the tank, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it yet. The edges of the tank wavered and shimmered, but nothing else happened. I felt the people in the control room get scared, so I stopped concentrating so hard. I was glad to stop, because whatever I was doing made my head hurt. That hadn’t happened before, but I had never concentrated on something as big as the tank.
After a while, the voice came through the box again. “Okay, Ee-yes, thank you for concentrating on the tank.” I smiled, but I could feel that it didn’t make anyone happy to see me smile. My face wasn’t really built for smiles. “Ee-yes”, the box said, “Now we’d like you to concentrate on the tank, but we’d also like you to concentrate on the other big room we take you to sometimes. You know, the one on the other side of the facility.”
Of course I knew that other room. That was where I’d go to play with blocks and build castles with them. I’d use my hands sometimes to do that, since the blocks only weighed a few hundred pounds each, so it was easy to stack them high. When I’d get bored doing that, I’d float them around the room or stick them to the ceiling. It was fun to watch them try to get the blocks down. I let part of my mind focus on the tank again, more strongly this time, and I also thought of the other room. It was easy to see it in my mind since I didn’t have to ‘be’ in a place to see it again once I’d been there before. It was just like I was standing in that room and sitting here strapped to the chair at the same time.
My head was hurting more, and I suddenly got very mad and the tank disappeared. I don’t know why I got mad, but maybe it was because I was tired and they were making me do things that were too hard. I could feel all the people in the control room get really scared and surprised. I was surprised too. I’d never made something as big as the tank disappear before.
I checked the other room in my mind, and the tank was there, sitting in a jumble of my blocks. I guess I hadn’t been paying close enough attention, though, because the tank was twisted and blackened, and part of one side was slowly dissolving into a gray powder. I tried to fix it, but it only made it look worse.
I got mad again because I didn’t do things right, and I couldn’t help it that the thoughts of the people in the control room were all in my head. Didn’t they know I could hear them? I was thinking about the mess I’d made with the tank, and trying to block everyone’s thoughts at the same time, and I guess I got confused because their thoughts stopped all at once. I was afraid of what I’d done, but I looked into the control room anyway and all the people looked like the tank, but all bloody instead of blackened. I didn’t mean to do it.
I broke all the straps holding me to the chair and went through the door into the control room. It was locked, but I didn’t need to open it. I don’t think they knew I could do that, but they were all dead so they didn’t notice. I tried to clean things up, and I only left a little blood after I concentrated on all the bodies and made them go away.
I noticed some papers scattered on the floor, so I gathered them up. I saw my name on the top paper, except it was spelled “ES”. I picked up that paper and read more. In one place it said “ES – Experimental Subject”. Was that me? Who else could it be? My name wasn’t Ee-yes, it was ES because I was an Experimental Subject. After I read the rest of the paper, I made everything in the room go away. I removed the tank and tidied up my play area and then went back to my room.
That was a long time ago, but everyone is still afraid to come near me even though I haven’t done anything like that since then. I try to be nice, and I can feel a lot of people around me even though I don’t try to talk to them. A while after I did the bad things I tried to mind-talk with some people because I was lonely, but they just died so I didn’t do it anymore. I miss people talking to me, even if it was always through the boxes up near the ceiling.
Right now I can feel that there’s forty-three people about two hundred yards down the hall from my room. They are all wearing armor and carrying guns, and they are talking about me. I know they will be coming for me soon, and they think they are going to kill me. I think I will just go meet them instead. I make my door dissolve and I walk out into the hallway. It’s very bright.
Apr 11 2009
(This is the April edition of the Flash Fiction Carnival. This month, the assigned topic was ‘Fool’. I cheated a little and adapted a idea snippet I’d had for last month’s ‘Schadenfreude’ topic. It seemed to work well for this subject matter…)
Playing the Fool
New York, a year ago
The mark picked up the sheaf of papers again, handling them as though they smelled of half-rotten fish. “I’m just not sure about this, Mr. Smith,” he said with a subtle hesitation, and I knew I had him.
“What’s there not to be sure of?” I pulled out a single sheet from the brown leather portfolio in front of me and handed it to him. “You can clearly see the return on this investment has reliably outstripped the market.”
He looked over the paper I’d given him, his eyes half clouded with confusion. I knew he was confused because I made sure of it with my presentation and patter. Keep a person off-balance a bit, make him feel like he’s not smart enough to understand what I’m telling him, and most of my job is done for me. A typical person’s ego doesn’t allow them to admit they are ignorant, even when they are. I just make sure what I’m selling is plenty complex so EVERYONE is too dumb to really understand it. If it was actually real I probably wouldn’t understand it myself.
He laid the paper down next to his plate, and I could tell he was ready to close the deal. I just had to set the hook a little more securely. “Look at this,” I said, pointing to a column of numbers highlighted in yellow. “Those are the actual returns for this investment fund. If you invest $100,000 today, and assuming we get the same results we’ve gotten for fifteen years, that’s what you’ll have at the five and ten year points.”
“A hundred grand?”, he said, then slowly picked a shrimp off the platter in the middle of the table and dipped it in some sort of reddish-green sauce. “That seems like a lot sight-unseen, Mr. Smith. I mean, I really don’t know you, do I?”
I smiled a little. It was the smile I practiced in the mirror every day. It was the one that told people I’m going to make you a lot of money…you just have to trust me. “After this many meetings, I figure you know me well enough to make your decision. I am ready to make you a lot of money. How much can I put you down for?” I started gathering up my papers and putting them back into my portfolio. “By the way, don’t let me limit your potential future profits. $100,000 was simply a suggestion. Most of my clients initially invest much more than that.”
“Really?”, he said, still chewing on his shrimp. He cast a glance around the restaurant, and I could tell he was lingering on the rich golden curtains, the fine china and crystal, and the perfectly attired waiters circulating quietly around the tables surrounding us. All of those things added up to just the impression I wanted to make on this man. I wanted to dangle the golden key in front of him, and I wanted it to jingle loudly enough to get his attention. This restaurant was extremely expensive, and it always pained me when the bill arrived, but I had to spend some money to make a lot more.
Finally, his eyes returned to mine. “Okay, Mr. Smith. I’ve made my decision.” He put his hand inside his jacket and retrieved a gold-embossed black leather checkbook. “I’m going to write you a check for $500,000, and I give you my confidence that it will grow as your numbers indicate.”
“A half million?” I said, with just the right tinge of regret in my voice. “I’m not going to try to influence you, but I see a lot of things coming together in the markets very very soon, and I’d hate for you to miss out on much larger profits.”
He blinked twice, like a deer in the headlights of an onrushing dump truck, which he was. “Okay, one million even.” He flipped open the checkbook and started writing hastily, maybe so I wouldn’t talk him into an even bigger number. He signed the check with a flourish, then ripped it out and handed it to me. “I’m counting on you, Mr. Smith.”
I graciously accepted the check, tucked it into the pocket of my portfolio, then handed him one last sheet of paper. I’d known he’d go for the million from the time we sat down at the table, so I’d already written out his receipt. “Just tuck that away somewhere safe. It has all the details of your account, and of course it has all my contact numbers on it if you have any questions later.” Of course, all of the phone numbers on the paper went to permanent voice-mail, and any emails he might send would just sit forever in a mailbox I never checked. I rose from the table after patting the corner of my mouth with a fine linen napkin, then extended my hand to the fool. He shook it vigorously, his hand damp and trembling a little. I always loved that feeling, because it let me know I’d wrung out every dollar I was going to get from this target.
I excused myself after leaving an impressive stack of bills on the table to cover the check and gratuities. I smiled once more at the mark before I turned and made my way to the valet parking station at the front of the building.
Once I was enveloped in the rich interior of my black Mercedes CL320, I allowed myself a moment of mirth. I laughed at the stupid fool who’d just written a check for a million bucks and handed it to me without even checking all the claims I’d made or the background of my so-called company. I’d gotten so good at this scam it was almost too easy. I’d have to find a more challenging way to separate these stupid rich people from their money.
I collected myself quickly. It wouldn’t do to get too cocky. I knew that indulging in too much schadenfreude would come back and bite me on the ass. It isn’t that I believe in karma. If I did I wouldn’t be in this line of work I enjoy so much. It was just that I recognize that I need to stay sharp so I don’t make a mistake and get caught. It doesn’t work to start underestimating the intelligence of the average mark, even though it was so easy to do so.
At the first stoplight I flipped open the portfolio I’d tossed on the seat beside me, just to look at all those zeroes on that check again. I made a mental note to make an appointment with my own investment advisor first thing in the morning so I could get the money into my account and working for me, as I’d done with almost all of the money I’d scammed from people over the past six years. It gave me a thrill of energy to look at the eight figure balance in my investment account, and I knew it was going to keep growing fast because my investment guy was the best. God knows Bernie Madoff had come well-recommended, and the guy was a financial genius. I knew my money was safe and sound.