Bathroom Monologue: A Familiar Trial

Case: Plaintiff claims the property, "one half of a dead baby," belongs to her, not to the Defendant. Defendant is refusing to yield property. Plaintiff refuses to explain nature of the infant bifurcation, though matter should become transparent at trial.

Witnesses for the Plaintiff: 1) The Plaintiff

Witnesses for the Defendant: 1) The Defendant, 2) King Solomon

Bathroom Monologue: Up High

“Hey, I said no more people! You saw what happened to the last guy.”

“Actually, I didn’t.”

“I’ll jump if you come any closer.”

“I’m not coming closer.”

“You can’t talk me down, man. I just need to be alone. I can’t think today.”

“I’m not here to talk you down.”

“Neither was the last guy, and he grabbed my shirt after a minute. You want to fall like him?”

“Not really. Did he die?”

“No, they’ve got a balloon tarp down there. You come closer, and I’ll make sure we miss it.”

“They’ve got a what?”

“Lame act. Back off.”

“Are you thinking of jumping?”

“I came up here to think, damn it. Let me finish a thought and I’ll tell you what it was. I’d probably have gone home by now if you idiots didn’t keep interrupting.”

“Surprising a guy like you has trouble getting people to leave him alone.”

“You suck at this.”

“I’m really not up here to help you.”

“Uh-huh. Back off.”

“If you wanted to die you could swallow a bunch of pills or blow your brains out. You think about those before you came up here?”

“I came up here to think!”

“I’d worry. If the pills just fried an unnecessary part of my brain, or the bullet paralyzed me. Off the top of a building, though? That’s as close to a sure thing as you get. Liquefy you on impact. Probably doesn’t even hurt.”

“Is this part of some method they teach you in police camp?”

“You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“I’m really not a cop. I was thinking of jumping off here today.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

“No lie. I work in human resources on the 7th floor. Been firing people all year. Hard not to think of killing myself, hearing a hundred people hang up those phones for the last time.”

“Bullshit.”

“Want my card?”

“You come near me and I’ll jump.”

“You won’t. You know, I’m kind of mad at you.”

“What the Hell, man?”

“I punched out, said goodnight, and went to the bathroom instead of my car. Counted the tiles until the floor cleared out. Figured I’d come up here, no one would interrupt, and I’d step off into Heaven. Except when I left the bathroom there were cops everywhere. I came up to avoid them, and here you are, dragging half the city to break my fall.”

“You’re nuts.”

“I’m going to sit here. If you don’t like it, move over. We’ve got the whole roof.”

“Whatever.”

“That is weird. Looks like a parachute. They want to catch you on that?”

“Maybe. I don’t care. I’m not going to use it anyway.”

“What’s going on?”

“Sitting on a ledge, man.”

“Trouble at home? Wife cheating on you? Can’t find a wife? Blue balls?”

“It’s got nothing to do with women.”

“Fired? Can’t find a job? I can relate, after a fashion.”

“No.”

“So you were fired?”

“I’ve been unemployed since college.”

“Is that why you’re on my roof?”

“No. I told you, I can’t think.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“No, asshole. I can’t think. I can’t finish a thought in this city. I hear the clock in the hall ticking. The hands moving. The heating system groans. Somebody’s always got a TV on somewhere if you listen carefully enough, and I can’t stop listening. Cars in the road outside. Somebody’s stereo. Shrill horns. The wind and weather. Planes overhead. Sometimes rats in the crawlspace. Conversations! I hate conversations. Somebody is always talking thanks to fucking cell-phones. What’s worse than being distracted by a couple yakking outside your window? One of them giving you half the story. They pour noise on you down there.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“Please, shut up.”

“You came up here for a little quiet?”

“Not just a little. No rustling clothes. No denim scraping on the brick. No breathing. I don’t want to hear you breathe. Can you do that?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“You’re not going to jump, are you? Because I don’t want them saying I pushed you. I’ll get enough crap for the other guy.”

“No. It’s a better idea.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll show you.”

Bathroom Monologue: Athenaists

Athena slapped the newspaper against her gilded breastplate. Her grey eyes brightened with joy.

“Did you see that headline? Fastest growing group in America.”

Aleus looked up at his mistress. “The unemployed?”

“Atheists!”

She was on the verge of dancing on the edge of Olympus. Her bare feet skittered and wove along the edges of clouds.

Aleus set the tea aside. He approached cautiously, uncertain if this was one of her jokes.

“And you’re… excited about that, Madame?”

“It’s been ages since I had so many adoring fans. Really pissed me off when the feminist movement didn’t worship me.”

“Pardon, Madame?”

“I barely got three prayers out of the whole cult.” She clutched the paper to her chest and doubled over the heavens to peer down onto the mortal coil. “You know I was at the first bra burning. Heroic endeavors and all that.”

“You think the atheists worship you?”

She straightened. Aleus thought this was when the punchline would come, but instead her face contorted with disdain. She pointed to herself. “Hello. ‘Athena?’ All those Atheists must love me. It’s the clearest endorsement since Athens.”

“Madame, I don’t think…”

“Look at all the scientists in there. I’m the goddess of wisdom. Of course they love me. I’m going down to earth immediately. What do you think? Classic robes or modern power suit? I don’t want to come off too… you know. Hillary Clinton.”

“I really think that’s just going to upset them.”

“You think it’d intimidate some to meet me in the flesh?”

“Something like that, Madame.”

She resumed her perch over the mortal coil, grey eyes singling out her special little folk. “Maybe I’ll go as a talking owl. Ease them into the grace of their mistress.”

“Perhaps that’s for the best, Madame.”

Bathroom Monologue: Conscience Transplant

"Neuroscientists have tried many ways to alter human behavior. They've strapped hoodlums into chairs with classical music and horror videos playing. They've wired men's nerves into living terminals. But we believe the human being is a human body. If you want saliva, you need a tongue. If you want pancreatic juice, you need a pancreas. A good person requires some good organs.

"Submitted for your approval, an organ extracted from electric eels. Sewn amongst the appropriate part of the human being, it will shock the patient upon inappropriate behavior. The shock is both more severe and more targeted than mere electrodes in the brain. Thirty-three percent of test subjects even reported a pleasant buzz upon appropriate behavior. Electro-shock therapy is a sham if it doesn't come from a human being's own conscience. The brain can lack empathy and fail to trigger the appropriate response to evil. But this organ? It's the world's first ever conscience transplant.

"The first three subjects were investment bankers and loan officers. Before you get ideas of vengeance for recent depressions, know these were the panel of experts that denied our lead engineer funding for his aquarium. It was going to be beautiful. It still will be, once the conscience transplant takes off.

"We just need a little starter cash."

Nobody’s House – Rough Draft is Done

Today I finished the rough draft of Nobody’s House. Approximately 110,000 words, split across thirty-five more manageably-sized documents. I split them up in March when the single document got too big to navigate during construction. Tonight I get to paste them all together into their Voltron-like literary glory.

I’m celebrating. Tomorrow I’m going to sleep in, possibly beyond 9. If I told my childhood self that’s how we’d celebrate, he’d probably throw Transformers at me. I’ll throw in some pizza and funny movies to appease his memory.

The last chapter came about by accident. Following the climax, I had a good idea for the first paragraph of the following scene. I popped open a new document and set it up. That paragraph became three, fleshing out the introduction. Then I set up the major actions, and cleaned the plot skeleton for the chapter. A few things were easily described. I kept adding “just one more thing” until I realized I was writing the last sentence of the book. Just like that. If only the whole draft could have been so easy.

I hesitate to say “the book is done.” It’d be swell to pronounce it, but it isn’t. It’s not even a first draft.

The opening chapter needs to be split in half, and the conflict therein needs a complete rewrite. Hees is not the extortionist anymore. The motivations and dialogue in the climax also need rerouting. And there are hundreds of smaller things I knew needing fixing as I was writing the flawed copy. One of the better senses I’ve developed since college is what problems can be fixed immediately, and what can be marked and edited later. When fact-checking is necessary, or dialogue is spotty, or an invention requires tweaking in an earlier chapter, I leave myself commands in the text rather than interrupting the flow of the current work. Likewise, when I simply can’t get the feel for a scene, I’ll make a bullet list of the events that need to happen, then jump the gap and keep on working. This is how I completed the draft at all.

I have a physical today. Got to see how the syndrome is coming along. Friends are visiting later in the week. There are ample excuses to not work on this for a little while. It’s a necessary breather, especially since I’m feeling the middle stages of writer's exhaustion again.

After my visitors leave, I’ll follow the notes and fill the gaps. Streamlining naming conventions, seeding plot points, weeding out crutch words. I’ll smooth it into a proper first draft, then shelve it for a little longer, because I firmly believe in distancing oneself between drafts, and the second draft will be ruthless. I'll read it with fresh eyes, not the enamored dad-vision I have for my baby right now, and tinker accordingly.

I’ll fill that next inter-draft break with short stories. I’ve had to suppress five ideas in the last two weeks; now some of them will get their chance. “Great White Hunter” will be a little zombie comedy, while “Architect of Epics” might spring into a novella.

That’s the plan. Maybe family will have crises or the earth will explode. For now, I only know I’m sleeping in tomorrow. Thank you all for your interest and support. I will do everything I can to make this worth reading.

Bathroom Monologue: The Message

Our digital affair was over the instant she suspected I wasn’t really laughing out loud.

Bathroom Monologue: Why We Need a Pool

“And a pool. A pool is the only place you’re safe from sharks. The ocean? Sharks live there. The sea? Sharks live there. The lake? Don’t delude yourself. In nineteen-sixteen a great white shark swam up a lake in New Jersey and bit off a child’s legs. You can’t just go swimming anywhere. Only a closed, heated, chlorinated pool is safe from sharks. I guess a bath tub is, but you can’t swim in that. You might say we’re safe from sharks on land, but what if they develop mechanical legs? Then the highways would be unsafe. Even your bathtub, in your bathroom, would be accessible to a killer techno-shark. Only the pool would protect us, because the mechanical legs would malfunction in the water, so the sharks wouldn’t go in there. You’ve got to get us a pool, Dad, or you’re essentially killing us all.”

"Simply Lost" at Calling Shotgun

This week my flash story "Simply Lost" was featured at Laurita Miller's Calling Shotgun. It won an Honorable Mention from her and Alan Davidson's Lost contest. Their challenge was to write something on the theme of being lost. Naturally, I wrote about the show Lost. Even though I thought the story was a little dreary, it won points for humor with the judges.

You can read "Simply Lost" at this link.

Some folks are having trouble leaving comments at Calling Shotgun. I've left this post open if you want to leave your thoughts here.

Bathroom Monologue: Telling Dad

There were only my parents left to tell. I rolled up to the house and found Dad on the porch. An extension cord ran through the window to power a fan that blew into his face while he smoked his pipe. Maybe that’s why he was smiling. It was a rare event.

My bowels tightened as I approached, but it was probably better to catch him in a good mood for this.

"Hey Dad," I said. "Can we talk a minute? I have something to tell you."

"Is it that you're going to pay back-rent for the eighteen years I raised you?"

“You don’t have the legal grounds for that, Dad.”

“You going to pay me back for sending you to law school, then?”

I smiled into my sleeve, not wanting to show him too much positive reinforcement. Dad took encouragement like others took alcohol, and he was an abusive drunk.

“You know how I’ve had the same roommate for three years?”

“How is that lease?”

And down we went. Sucked directly into an inferno of topics on his mind. I bided my time, weathering complaints about the Dodgers’ line-up and the Republicans' concessions to Obama. There was a pause around what we were going to do for Memorial Day. Charcoal was a tenuous issue for him.

Charcoal is not how most people come out, but it was a break. I jumped in.

"Dad. I need you to know: I'm gay. Danny isn’t just my roommate. We’ve been together for almost a year."

He studied the handrail of the steps. I put my hand on it, and he studied another part of it. There was this big opening, and honestly I didn’t know how to fill it. Then Dad looked up, lower lip puckered.

"Okay," he said. "I tongued your mother's asshole last night."

My mouth fell open a little.

"You... what?"

"Kind of makes you want to throw up, eh?" His lip wasn't quivering anymore. "But you're not going to stop me. So what are we doing for the grill?"

And that was it. He even helped me break it to Mom, which was nice because it was another week before I could look her in the eye.

I swear he's a good man.

Bathroom Monologue: Flower Over a Man OR, Write a Tweet-Length Story About This Picture

"Even as that," said Zeus. "I'll have that Lothario offer me to her."

Apollo snickered. "She won't fall in love with a flower over a man."

True Stories of John 9: What Men Want

I spent most of my first term at college in my dorm. I studied, played videogames, rested from the exhaustion brought on by my syndrome, and perhaps hid from having to grow a social identity.

That night I studied with my door open. My roommate was across the hall, wooing a New Yorker girl. I could hear them talking about punk bands and the expensive crap her dad was sending her. I was reading Daniel Dennett bitching about B.F. Skinner’s philosophy. My roommate was probably having the better time.

Two girls came to my door. One was stout, and the other was half a head taller. For anonymity, let’s call them Stout and Taller.

They stood in my doorway as though purposefully blocking my only exit.

“Hey, Stout’s doing a survey for her class.”

“It’s a science paper about gender.”

“You’ll be our first subject.”

“Sure,” I said, happy to put the book down. “Science is good.”

“Great!” Stout perked up. “It’s about men and relationships.”

My palms sweated a little. “Okay.”

Stout and Taller looked at each other. I noticed neither had any paper with them. Maybe it was a fast survey.

Taller looked at me. “So the first question is, what do men want?”

“What do men want?” I repeated, which probably not helpful.

“You know,” said Stout. “What can a woman do to keep a man happy?”

“Well the first thing you’ve got to realize is that not all men want the same thing. A lot of us want very different things.”

I was going to elaborate, but Stout and Taller looked at each other again. The look made me doubt science was at stake here. Then Stout said something that I’ve remembered with pride ever since.

“We need a dumber man.”

Taller said, “Thank you,” without looking at me. They retreated to the hall. A moment later, I heard them conversing with my roommate.

It was back to Dennett and Skinner for me, neither of whom I particularly wanted.

No Facebook in Heaven, OR, E-mails From Heaven

ElElleMarino                                                                May 21 (5 hours ago)

thx 4 the pics. sunrise sooo pretty. nice clouds

also, glad 2 c u wrn’t raptured either

TortoiseManwise                                                          May 21 (2 hours ago)

Who says I wasn’t Raptured? I could be in Heaven right now. Those are photos of clouds, after all.

ElElleMarino                                                                May 21 (1 hour ago)

o they have gmail in heven? ;p

TortoiseManwise                                                          May 21 (1 hour ago)

Wifi everywhere. Every movie ever is streaming. It’s pretty sweet.

Plus there’s no Facebook.

ElElleMarino                                                                 May 21 (1 hour ago)

i like facebook!

TortoiseManwise                                                           May 21 (20 minutes ago)

Maybe that’s why you’re not up here.

ElElleMarino                                                                 May 21 (10 minutes ago)

:(

TortoiseManwise                                                           May 21 (five minutes ago)

o:)

Versatile Writer Award 2: I’ll stab you if you make a Breakin’ reference

Last week Mr. FAR gave me this Versatile Writer award. I’d previously received it from Mari Juniper last year, but it’s very affirming to know a year later I’m still dexterous at the keyboard. The game requires seven seldom-known facts about the recipient, and for it to be passed on to someone else. It’s a little like visiting an unlicensed brothel.

1. When I was very little my uncle would hold me over the edge of his apartment building by my feet. I was probably annoying enough to warrant it, but it instilled a decades-long fear of heights.

2. In high school I seldom swore, disdained any sort of misbehavior, and was generally grumpy. In my Business class they called me "Grandpa." They'd mockingly ask me to tell them about the war. My stock response was to ask, "Which one?"

3. Last Tuesday I listened to Beethoven's symphonies for six straight hours. It helped me knock out a troublesome scene. There’s probably a blog post coming soon about listening to music while writing. I’ve joked about sending Hans Zimmer a royalty check for all the help summoning emotion his scores have given me.

4. I watched and read through nine of William Shakespeare’s plays, desperate to find one I actually liked. I feared disliking so much of Shakespeare would invalidate some useless but socially desirable part of me. Thank God Hamlet was good.

5. I enjoy 24-hour super markets because I like to dance with the cart in the empty aisles after midnight.

6. I have the terribly offensive habit of seeing humor in sickness and death. Meeting a fibromyalgia patient, I told her we should get our medical records and compare, because, “It’ll be like a game of Yu-Gi-Oh, only with decks of shitty lives.” It’s taken years, but now I’m quiet during most tragedies and funerals, not because I’m mourning, but because I’ve tired of being chastised for going against the accepted mood.

7. I watch way more Japanese professional wrestling than you think. That might actually be “any Japanese professional wrestling.” Kenta Kobashi is my all-time favorite striker. Once per week I hook up with a fellow writer Randall Nichols online to watch a simulcast of Dragon Gate Infinity. When Dragon toured the U.S. and hit Boston, I sat in the second row. Shingo Takagi and I had a moment where he was about to destroy a dude and I gave him the double thumbs-up. He looked down at me like he wanted to eat me alive. It was a highlight of my year.

So now that I’ve admitted those things, I’m sure you’re highly interested in my list of versatile writers. Here are five:

1. Stephen Book has to be first. He attempts a new style or genre for nearly every #fridayflash. Despite shifting so much, he has a routine standard of quality in the upper class of the community. More people should be reading his blog.

2. Chuck Allen, whose blog includes arguments against auto-flushing toilets, activism against slave trafficking, and sometimes Westerns. Diversity! Versatility.

3. Danielle La Paglia was tinkering with some ideas, but decided to do a YA project just for her daughter. Think about that – could have written other stuff, went into this for her daughter. That’s pretty cool. Also demonstrates versatile. Her thematic serials also span an impressive range of emotions. Well worth checking out, especially since they pop like candy.

4. Tony Noland, the first writer I met through Twitter who actually conversed with me about versatility. He also blogged about the importance of experimenting, and fears of losing his audience for writing different sorts of things. As someone who has proudly lost plenty of people because he wrote one thing instead of another, I endorse this fella.

5. Now I mentioned Randall Nichols in the previous list, so he precedes everyone listed here, but he’s also last on this list. What does that mean? As Lex Luger would say, “I don’t know.” Based just on the scripts I’ve critiqued for him, Nichols has done modern kung fu, backwoods vampires, checkout clerk angst and nudie bar suicides. You should go talk to all of these people, but when you talk to Randall, ask him about his love for Clash of the Titans.

Bathroom Monologue: Self-Defeating Prophecy Audio Redux

This story originally ran on April 19, 2009. Since it got no comments then, I'll presume none of my current readers read it. And if you did read it, please enjoy the brand-spanking-new recording below.

To listen to this brand-spanking-new recording either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming audio, or click this text to download the MP3.



It wasn’t that the end of the world got here, but that too many did. The frost giants wanted to freeze the world, the fire gods wanted to burn it, and the deities of science had all manner of diseases and bombs that would let the humans kill themselves off. Irony was a big seller in the market of The End.

Well humanity saw the many apocalypses arguing and came up with a clever idea. One would-be leader went up to them and proposed the agents of Armageddon end each other, and whichever was left would be announced the most effective, and then get to end the world. The last doomsday standing, as it were, would win.

Eager to get some sort of destruction in, they began ending the crap out of each other. Polar ice caps melted and extinguished exalted volcanoes. Meteor showers decimated android armies. Cataclysmic earthquakes swallowed up dragons, rendering global warming utterly irrelevant.

And yet not a single human was slain in the battle royale. Only the Angels of the Rapture wised up, and only in time to see the last humans' spaceships leaving earth for new worlds. Then the dragons and gods had nothing but an empty planet to destroy. And frankly, with all the trees and none of the pop music, they didn’t want to. They leveled a few cities and had a picnic in the shade of former skyscrapers instead. The sum total of all destructive potential grabbed some sun tan lotion and relaxed.

Bathroom Monologue: Rapture Plan

"You can't be serious."

Saying it didn’t stop his roommate from tying the rope around his waist. Oliver threaded it through his belt-loops and double-knotted it over his fly. He shook the knot at Tom like a phallus of wisdom.

"You never know when the world will end. This is just as good a theory as any."

"No, it's not. Some radio guy in the middle of nowhere is not as good an authority as all the world's physicists."  Tom folded his arms. "And if God did yank you to Heaven, do you really think a rope is going to stop Him?"

Oliver laughed, tossing the loose end of the rope at Tom. It deflected off his shin.

"It's not supposed to stop God. If I get called up, you and anybody else nearby grabs onto the rope. I figure Jesus can't disagree with saving people."

Bathroom Monologues: Possible Origins for Him. 14.

To hear today's story either click the icon on the left to beginstreaming audio or click this link to download the MP3.

 

I don’t expect you to believe it. You haven’t believed anything I’ve said, have you? But it’s all his idea. It’s always been his idea. I think he wanted a me even before he invented one.

My wife was the most patient woman alive. She put up with every failed career choice I ever set my heart on, even the stand-up stuff. I’d do anything for her. But overtime wasn’t making the bills for the two of us, so when she said there was a kid on the way? Couldn’t turn down any opportunities. Fell in with a group of hoods. We were robbing chemical plants, selling patented secrets off to the Scarecrow or LutherCorp or whatever.

He came down on us like black rain. Broke a guy’s jaw. Tossed the ringleader off a scaffold. Kicked me in the solar plexus, knocked the wind out of me and sent me into a bubbling vat. If I’d been able to breathe, it’d probably have killed me to suck that stuff in.

Instead he dragged me out by my ankles. Dumped lye on my face to counteract the acids. Even though he was saving my life, I was begging him not to kill me – “Have mercy, I’ve got a kid on the way.”

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him kill someone directly. That rule about him might be true. He doesn’t like to murder. He likes to use you.

While I was crying into a mirror, he made me the offer. This hair. This skin. I was perfect to play a monster. Play a mobster. Terrorize the public, kill as many corrupt officials as I could until he showed up. Then go down in one punch.

I did it. Pretending to be insane to stay in the asylum was the hardest part. Whenever the doctors started to catch on, I had to make up a new story to throw them. Pharmacist-gone-terrorist. Avenging a slain circus act. Taking inspiration from other costumed killers. Eventually I even believed a few of my stories. That’s when I thought I was going mad. The company you keep in there will do it for you.

Two months later, he planted the explosives and key cards. I looked like a genius escape artist. Found psychotropic laughing gas and directions to City Hall stashed a mile ahead, in this makeshift cave hideout he built just for me.

The routine came on quickly. He embellished it more with every breakout.

“Claim you poisoned all these fish.”

“Hijack this freighter.”

“Challenge me from on top of this skyscraper.”

And always, the order to do something increasingly stupid when he arrived, get caught, go down. Do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to Arkham. Abide for the next breakout. Read the occasional paper praising him as the dark knight, protecting his city from unimaginable fiends.

I never saw a dime. He pays a perpetually inflating sum per breakout through a phony life insurance policy. It goes to a single mother in Gotham Harbor. A widow. Apparently her husband was a night watchman and got killed one night on duty. Thugs didn’t even leave a body for them to bury. Poor woman went into labor when she heard, and suffered the doubly poor fate of giving birth to baby boy with cystic fibrosis. If he’s going to live any sort of life then he needs intense care, and it’s so expensive.

Bathroom Monologue: Humans on The Fall

“If you take the humans’ account for it, the War of Heaven was fought over them. God made them and liked them so much that He ordered the angels to love humans more than they loved Himself. One bigwig angel dissented and sparked a war to love the guy who made everything rather than humans, and his cause has been deemed the greatest evil ever since. Why you would believe the human account of this war, I don’t know. Check in early enough and humans thought their city was the center of the world, with the sky fixed overhead. A little later, and their planet was center of the universe. A little later, and their sun was. A little later and it’s their choices that spawn all the infinity of multiple universes. So when they say the Fall was because of them, be a little skeptical. I heard it was over the drapes.”

I Want to Write The Last Unicorn: Peter Beagle’s Effect on My Current Novel

When I finally whittled them down, there were seven ideas that could sustain themselves as novels. There was the epistolary about a Superman analog dealing with real world crises; there was the rich widower who feigned brain damage to get away from his family; the one about thieves in a forest that perpetually vanishes. Those might show up in print some day, but I decided on a different novel, because I had my heart set on writing The Last Unicorn.

 

It was Borgesian of me. Peter S. Beagle beat me to The Last Unicorn by several years. Even in the current literary climate of intellectual theft, where it’s both profitable and fashionable to reboot Frankenstein or continue Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, writing something even that even aped The Last Unicorn would be ugly. It’s a distinct novel, and I’m here to do my own work.

I didn’t want to write the exact book. I wanted to write my Nobody’s House, about a prison break of monsters. Succubae, centaurs, triclopes, imps, wizards, serial killers, sentient balls of snakes, and one petty crook caught amidst them. There are no unicorns or red bulls in the entire place. Beagle didn’t come to mind until I started writing it and seeing what was so appealing unfold. What I desired were certain characteristics Beagle he’d instilled into his novel.

The Last Unicorn is unusual for a Fantasy novel. It grows grim enough to satisfy Gothic fetishists, yet has a romantic sincerity that speaks to our gentler natures. Its linguistic complexity and referential breadth are so great that effete professors can nod at it. It opens as accessibly as any YA book, though not a page of it reads as restrained or sanitized for any audience. Where it goes light or sweet, this is because of eccentricity rather than pandering.

Oh, and it’s one book. The Two Hearts written four decades later isn’t fooling anybody; there is no sequel to The Last Unicorn. It doesn’t call for one. This isn’t Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time. The characters reveal themselves, grow and act sufficiently for a single book. Beagle’s little work has a beginning, a journey, a goal and a conclusion. We do not come back for the next year of classes at Hogwarts. It is a defining non-franchise. That makes it a rarity in the Fantasy canon, where series rule the earth (and bookshelf). How charming an idea, another world all in-between one set of covers.

That non-franchise trait is part of its accessibility. It is one book, scarcely over two-hundred pages, that completes the engagement. Anyone could pick it up, even those who only read a couple of Fantasies per year. They wouldn’t have to worry about when the next volume came out to get the ending.

Nor, in engaging with it, are there dense political schemes or magic systems to learn. Such things are the marks of greatness in Gormenghast and Lord of the Rings, but there is a charm to a book’s world being only what it is. Unicorns are this way. There are caravans of illusory beasts. You can trap magical creatures in the tides. Things are strange and weighty. To the sharper reader, it reminds us that our reality would be ridiculous if we didn’t live in it.

Not that my project necessarily shared all those traits. My stories are often preoccupied with how ridiculous our world is for having us live in it. Our ideas of romance differ, or are least differently skewed. As my characters grew, I let them go and redefine Nobody’s House into something utterly different. I became more influenced by Pixar’s mastery of parallel concerns and seeded motivations. And like any good work, it soon influenced itself more than anything in the real world did. The most Nobody’s House and The Last Unicorn wound up having in common was they both featured a bunch of monsters.

Well, that’s not true. The most they have in common is a theme. You see, The Last Unicorn is not a complete world. It is a character’s complete experience of a world. There’s a lot more haunting this world than what we see on the way to Haggard’s castle. So, too, in Nobody’s House, there’s much more than what goes on in the prison after the breakout. But you get one character’s complete experience of it.

It’s been humbling, in typing the last chapters of the book, to see how potential sequels open up. Fantasy is a series-dominated market, so I have gut inclinations to let it keep going. The survivors had more they could do – in another story.

But there’s this unicorn poking me in the conscience. I told her, “Your book’s more for kids, you can’t influence me like that."

She scoffed and told me, “Yeah, you read it three times.”

You can’t win fights with imaginary unicorns. Whether there’s a series following Nobody’s House, and whether audiences demand one, this will be a complete story. One quite a bit longer than two hundred pages, and one with very different populations. To the best of my knowledge Beagle never wrote a succubus tonguing a satyr to death, nor about a room of mutilated children waiting for story time, nor about slapping a giant spider across the mandibles and telling him to man up. Like every other writer who inspired some ideal into me, I’ve gone and written nothing like Beagle. I don’t know what he’d think of this book. It’d be wonderful, though, if some day he read it.

Bathroom Monologue: Limping for the Cure, OR, More of this was said than you’d think

“No, I'm happy to join the Walking for the Cure. There's only one problem with this: even before I messed up my knee, I was a sluggish bastard. So mine will have to be the Slightly Slower Walk for the Cure. It's okay if I lag behind, right? I’ll go all the miles, even try to make the other slow cure-seekers laugh. We'll have our own supportive walk, found lagging directly behind the bolder, better-conditioned Original Flavor Walk for the Cure. That’s feasible, right? The Crawl for the Cure? The Sad, Zombie-Like Shamble for the Cure? No, I've got it. The Walk for the Walk for the Cure. We’ll get our own sponsors. We’ve got a good cause.”

Bathroom Monologue: Stopped Cold

They didn’t need shackles. Away from his homemade mechanics, Victor Fries was frail. He looked still frailer in grey boxer shorts, hunched over a chair that was bolted to the floor. He squinted into its stainless steel table’s surface, watching his breath fog at it. Half a degree higher and Fries would keel over. As it was, he wouldn’t have the energy to lift his hands from his lap. That was the nature of his condition, and at this point, they weren’t granting him any more amenities at Black Gate.

Warden Winslowe didn’t care to sit. He stood there in pleated khakis, arms folded behind him.

“I don’t want you in my house anymore, Victor. You’ve broken out four times. This is your fourth re-admission. I’ve tried palming you off to every other facility, and they simply don’t want to accommodate you. They have enough overpowered murderers in Fawcett and Metropolis. Every time you break out, more of my staff die. Do you know how many families won’t see their spouses anymore because of you?”

Fries’s upper lip twitched. He didn’t answer.

“You don’t care. You only care about yourself and your wife, in whatever order it feels like today. Which is fine. I’ve got an offer.”

Winslowe brought one hand around. It held out a manila folder. He placed it on the table and flipped it open. Glossy wilderness photographs spilled out over some yellow legal forms.

“Fifteen acres in the wilds of California. They’re a hundred miles from the nearest house. It’s gorgeous. My brother was going to retire there, before AIG ate his retirement portfolio. I bought the land with half my pension, and I’m offering it to you.”

He sifted through the photographs with his middle finger. All were verdant, save one. It flared orange underneath Fries’s nose.

“You and your nearest neighbors share something in common: wildfires. In the next three years, both your fifteen acres and that summer house one hundred miles away are guaranteed to burn to the ground. Global warming, arid California weather, overforestation – lots of causes. None you can solve by shooting someone.”

The photograph made a little snapping noise when Winslowe placed it on top of the others. He tapped it to make certain the man was paying attention. Still Fries wouldn’t speak.

“I got this idea when you froze Gotham Harbor last week. So you like it cold? Your new neighbors would like it cold. It being just ten degrees colder at the epicenter of the danger zone would add decades to the livelihood of the entire region. Once it’s safe, you keep the acres. I’ll sign them over. You’ll kill me otherwise, I’m sure, and I’ve got half a pension left to look forward to, and a wife.”

He adjusted his glasses, checking Fries’s face to see if the next verbal nudge would have effect.

“She’s named Nora, too. Coincidences, right?”

It didn’t. Fries simply frowned into the glossy wildfire.

That was okay. He had to keep going.

“You’ll be at the top of the list for federal grants. Their state economy sucks, but there are companies interested in your tech. They’ll pipe you money and parts in exchange for patents. You can build whatever you want out there, so after it’s colder you can spend all your time thawing out your Nora. There won’t even be a road for some drunken teenager to drive up and harass you from. Just some capes flying overhead every so often, and a daily check-in at a camera station.

“I’ve got your Nora. She’s not on the planet anymore – the Justice League has her up on that satellite. It’ll take you decades to get up there. But if you lower things ten degrees and go two years in California without an incident, I will get them to sign her over to you. At the same time you will get access to WayneTech health and research facilities. I have their CEO’s signature in that folder. They’re on board. Their resources – not some you steal off the back of a truck, but their full, up-to-date resources, will be at your disposal. WayneTech will watch the hell out of you. Probably kill you if you make a suspicious keystroke. But it’s better than any deal you’ve stolen for yourself so far.”

He tapped the wildfire photo, just so Fries would have to look at him. The man’s eyes flickered slightly, acknowledging the finger in the way of his snapshot vistas.

“This is the best chance you’re ever going to have of saving Nora and having a place where the two of you can actually live. Screw it up, and you end me. No half a pension, and likely no ever seeing either of our Noras again.”

Fries’s eyes continued roaming even after Winslowe removed his hand. They roamed ice-capped mountainsides and hills of pines.

Winslowe left him with it. They’d turn the temperature down in a few minutes, when he was back in his office on the other side of this damned building. Fries could take all the details in then.

His hand was on the doorknob when the inmate spoke.

“Say hello to Nora for me.”

He’d forgotten how grating Fries’s voice was. Shameful as it was, the room was already so chilled that the voice tipped him over the edge. Warden Winslowe shivered.

He turned from the door. Fries was still hunched vulture-like over the table, regarding the contents of the folder. One of his hands now rested on the paper, fingers holding two apart to examine a signature.

He opened the door without looking away. He wanted to make sure the man was still sitting there when he left.

“Take the damned deal,” he repeated to himself all the way to his office. “Take the damned deal.”

For Icy.

Bathroom Monologue: One Thousand, Nine-Hundred and Eighty-Four Good Reasons

To listen to this 'advert,' either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming or click this text to download the MP3.

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E-contracts updated daily.
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Bathroom Monologue: O Lie Detector, O Russian Bride

It can measure your pulse, heart rate and the seven highest points of activity in your brain in any given microsecond. It can correlate this activity with astounding probabilistic accuracy to every pause and word that comes from your mouth. It can time the hesitations of every muscle in your face before they conform to expressions. It can read the directions your eyes go when they don’t look into hers.

It is the most advanced lie detection system in the world. Once, its unit took up an entire college lab. Now, through the miracle of cloud computing, it is available in the mind of every wife we sell. Standard. No charge.

It can be removed for a fee, though. Market testing found disabling it to be a premium feature.

Bathroom Monologue: The Strange Case of East Parish

Most operate in a simple way. They shamble towards smell or sound, and they bite whatever moves. If it tastes like flesh, they keep biting. One time they broke into Westers’ pantry. The Westers are vegan, but the zombies ate every last ounce of their chicken-flavored tofu. Noise, smell, the taste of flesh, shambling slowly and biting whatever they found. Most were simple like that.

During the outbreak, parishioner Rev. Calvin was helping evacuate local elementary schools. He was on his third, Fleetwood Elementary, when a sallow, middle-aged woman bit him. He looked so scared, but held the woman away from the others until police could quarantine her. When the authorities nabbed her, he got himself as far away from the flock as he could. His parish thought he’d run into the woods and gotten eaten.

Two weeks later, with the outbreak mostly over, people returned to East Parish and began opening places back up. When they entered the church, the pair of officers heard scuffling somewhere. They stood still, and it stopped. They talked, and it started again.

The two traced it to the confessional booth. Something was pawing at the priest’s door. They asked for verbal confirmation to no reply. One lost a coin flip and the other covered him as he opened the door.

It was Rev. Calvin, shirt soiled, but collar intact. He sat in the booth, his flesh clearly rotten. After a moment he turned and reached for them, at which point the officers slammed the door shut.

The officers were Catholic and couldn’t bring themselves to shoot a priest in his own confessional. And how had he even gotten in there? What sort of zombie enters a room, then closes the door behind himself? They’d never even seen a zombie sit down before. They peeked through the sliding panel on the other side, and sure enough, he sat at peace unless they made noise.

They put a sign on his door, warning that a zombie was inside, then went back to dispatch.

They asked around. No one in the department had seen a zombie that used doors. The idea of zombies working doors scared all of them, and they considered going and re-killing Rev. Calvin just to keep him from teaching this trick to other biters.

But he wasn’t a biter. Upon the return, there were no signs of any others, live or dead, on the premises. Zombies were pack creatures, yet Rev. Calvin had apparently been alone in his church since the outbreak.

A lapsed deputy was stationed to watch him, specifically to see if Rev. Calvin would eventually open that door. If he did, she was to shoot.

Except for when the deputy checked her cell phone, the zombie never made a noise. If it rang, he scuffled. If she talked on it, he scuffled louder.

People do dumb things if left alone. For instance, unrelieved of duty by the end of the day, the deputy entered the confessional. Rev. Calvin scratched at the screen partition until she said it had been six years since her last confession. He scratched less and less as she imparted things she’d never say elsewhere. She got so carried away that at the end, confessing that she’d left somebody behind during the evacuation, that she shouldn’t have, had been too scared to think straight. She got so carried away that she asked the zombie what to do for penance.

She went quiet, realizing how absurd she was being.

After a moment of peace, Rev. Calvin scratched at the screen again. If it’s to be believed, he scratched twice, making the sign of the cross.

If it wasn’t to be believed, there were other things to believe. The dead had risen, and maybe they could work doors. A family of vegans claimed that zombies had broken into their pantry and ate all their chicken-flavored tofu. Zombieism was, supposedly, making the leap to other species, and had replaced mad cow disease as a major farm scare. That farm scares were even an issue after the dead had risen took some of its own believing. So if you didn’t believe a zombie providing absolution, there were other things to do.

Rev. Calvin got a lot of visitors. First other cops, curious. Then civilians. One-by-one, and when they came in groups, only one entered the church at a time. Any visitor could tell you, it was something you had to do alone. There’s something about loneliness. People and zombies alike are social creatures, and being alone makes them do bizarre things.

Rev. Calvin had been alone for almost two weeks before receiving his first undead confession. He still hasn’t figured out how to open up the door and get out. Nobody’s gotten rid of him, either. In a post-zombie world, he’s kind of an attraction.

This story originally appeared at Alienskin Magazine. May they rise from the grave.

Bathroom Monologue: Amending Spring

It was one of those early spring days. One that opens with frost on the grass and old Mrs. Paisley’s feet propped on a heater, but by noon has all her motherless grandchildren fanning themselves and whining from heat. One of those very early spring days where the river out back runs too cold to swim in without catching ill, yet the silt banks are baked and cracked. One of those days when the kittens cry no matter where you put them.

You know what? Screw that spring day.

It was one of those summer days that’s hot and stays hot and nothing much happens outside of routine. One of those days several months removed from the mysterious drowning of Mrs. Paisley’s eldest grandson. Why was it mysterious? That day was simply too intemperate to bother explaining. No, it was one of those days where the entire incident had been explained, mourned over and put behind them. Everyone was okay.

It was one of those summer days without drama or intrigue. Enjoy.

Bathroom Monologue: Fucking Genius, A Monologue

“I think we hit a language barrier there. Don’t you have idioms on Mars? When she said, ‘You’re a fucking genius, Orville Williamson,’ she didn’t actually… mean that. You know?

“Please stop doing that.

“I mean, I’m lucky to pull C’s in Chem, and I always forget to text my girl back. As far as what you thought… well, my girl can smack that one down, too. I get it, you heard her say that and she’s my girl so she’d know, and you kind of want to learn about our anatomy, but that doesn’t make me the Wise One of Humping. I don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘fucking genius.’

“Hey. Let go. I said I’m not…

“Wow, that’s warm. Kind of nice.

“No, wait, stop that. At least in public. I’m trying to explain that there are very few actual experts of this sort, and while it’s flattering you’d see me as the first man ever worthy of…

 
“You know, I forgot what I was saying. Show me how that tentacle works again?”

Bathroom Monologue: The Cost of Fire

Redhelm rubbed his own biceps, unable to believe that fire was finally before him. The entire camp was lit up with the stuff, pits spewing cinders straight out of the ground. The barbarians flocked around them, holding out their hands and spits of meat to cook.

"I can't believe it,” he said, clapping the shaman on his shoulders. “We'd have frozen in this winter. How much did all this fire cost?"

The wizard shrugged his bearskin. "Me? Nothing. I put it on your tab."

"You did?"

"I did."

Redhelm frowned at the old man. "How generous."

"Of you, yes."

"Who do I owe?"

The wizard inched closer to the flames. "I don't like to speak his name, but tomorrow you'll have Hell to pay."

The Adventures of Raptor Theropod

"RAPTOR!"

No answer.

"RAPTOR!"

No answer.

"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You RAPTOR!"

No answer.

The old pachycephalosaurus pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a theropod; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well, had steel been invented in the Cretaceous period. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:

"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--"

She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.

"I never did see the beat of that dinosaur!"

She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Raptor. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:

"Y-o-u-u RAPTOR!"

There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small theropod by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.

"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS that truck?"

"I don't know, aunt."

"Well, I know. It's jam--that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."

The switch hovered in the air--the peril was desperate--

"My! Look behind you, aunt!"

The old pachycephalosaurus whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it.

His aunt Pachy stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.

"Hang the dinosaur, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that theropod, and that's the Rex's truth, goodness knows. Spare the tail and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's hatchling, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, dinoman that is born of din woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening, and I'll just be obleeged to make him work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've GOT to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child."

Raptor did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season to help Jin, the small colored jintasaurus, saw next-day's wood and split the kindlings before supper--at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jin while Jin did three-fourths of the work. Raptor's younger brother (or rather half-brother, for there were many eggs in that nest) Sig was already through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet sigilmassasaur, and had no adventurous, troublesome ways.

While Raptor was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Pachy asked him questions that were full of guile, and very deep--for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning. Said she:

"Raptor, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?"

"Yes'm."

"Powerful warm, warn't it?"

"Yes'm."

"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Raptor?"

A bit of a scare shot through Raptor--a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched Aunt Pachy's face, but it told him nothing. So he said:

"No'm--well, not very much. My species is not amphibious."

The old pachycephalosaurus reached out her hand and felt Raptor's shirt, and said:

"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Raptor knew where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:

"Some of us pumped on our heads--mine's damp yet. See?"

Aunt Pachy was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new inspiration:

"Raptor, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"

The trouble vanished out of Raptor's face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed.

"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Raptor. I reckon you're a kind of a singed mammal, as the saying is--better'n you look. THIS time."

She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Raptor had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.

But Sigilmassasaurus said: "Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread, but it's black."

"Why, I did sew it with white! Raptor!"

But Raptor did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:

"Siggy, I'll lick you for that."




If you couldn’t tell, this story is not original. This is the opening of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with some dinosaurs swapped in. If I hadn’t just said that, it would be blatant plagiarism. Was it blatant plagiarism until you read that? Regardless, it is Monica Marier’s fault for her comment on the #replacemanwithvelociraptor post, asking me to subvert some full-on classic with a velociraptor. I presume anyone who read this far figured it out. Please Comment with what point you figured it out. If you skipped down here in confusion, Please Comment that you cheated.

This post is in no way meant as offense to the late Mr. Twain. It’s meant as offense to Seth Grahame-Smith.

New Rule for the Game - Audio Redux

This originally ran a few months ago. Since then Max Cantor sent in the following cheerful recording that I wanted to share for #spokensunday.

To listen to Max's recording of "New Rule for the Game," either click the triangle in the left to begin streaming audio or click this text to download the MP3.

“Some day in the future we are all going to have microprocessors in our heads that record everything we say and do. We’re going to pay for the privilege because it’s going to do all sorts of radical stuff, like auto-friend hot girls you pass on the street and get you the best discounts on the music you just heard. It’s going to do something else, too. It’s going to log everything you say, so that when you use “qoph” in Scrabble, I can check if you’ve spoken it in the last five years, and if you haven’t, you lose those fucking points because there’s no God damned way that counts.”

Bathroom Monologue: Skepticism about Telepathy

Arguing telepathy with this skeptic was confounding. He was sure he knew everything I thought and wanted to tell it to me before I said it. And then the conversation was over- like magic.

Bathroom Monologue: Shameless

They had to be newlyweds or serial killers. Cheryl preferred them to be newlyweds, two kids who had never experienced the carnal and found it extremely to their liking. When they finished, she'd knock and ask them to please move the bed six inches away from the wall. She couldn’t nap with all that unnecessary shared thumping on her bedroom wall.

An hour of unnecessary shared thumping later, she wondered if it was a couple at all. Perhaps there was a washing machine up against that wall, one that squeaked like two pairs of panting lungs. She turned up her surround sound and attempted to lose herself in a blockbuster movie of swords and stubbled men.

Two hours of unnecessary shared thumping later, she questioned how many washing machines had such a long cycle. What kind of stains would require that kind of intensity?

Three hours of unnecessary shared thumping later, Cheryl had a mindful of stains that might require that intensity. She clutched her aching back and banged on the wall with a broom. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t seem to hear.

She banged on their door. The bedsprings were audible from the hallway. They didn’t cease. The next door down opened and wrinkled Mr. Parkins squinted out, glaring like he didn’t want her to ruin this stereophonic delight for him. Mr. Parkins was a widower, and the only one who buzzed her up when she forgot her keys.

She hung her keys on one of the coat hooks. They bounced to her new neighbors’ tempo. Cheryl stared until she considered calling Mike. See what he was up to tonight.

Or who he was up to. No, she wouldn’t give in to that son of a bitch. He owed her the apology. Besides, her back was killing her. She rubbed at the pinched nerves.

Halfway into The Two Towers, Cheryl wondered if they weren’t escapees from a nymphomania clinic. Around when Gimli said to toss him but not to tell “the elf,” she thought better of it. No, given how many hours it had been, she doubted they could have mustered the will to run this far before crumpling to the grass and rutting.

Around when Ian McKellen saved the day, there was a minor miracle. She realized she was more annoyed at the idea of the inconsiderate lovers than the noise. In fact, it fit very nicely into the beats of the soundtrack. It was as good as white noise.

So she did something stupid. Something Mike would have called stupid, but he was the sort to get caught in the dish room with a waitress. Bracing her back for the pain, she pushed her bedposts flush against the drywall. It commenced trepidation immediately. The mattress felt like a hundred vibrating fingers under her aching spine.

It was the best sleep of her adult life, and the next morning her neighbors were whisper-quiet. Either that or she’d built up a tolerance.