Colonists

It started, as these things always do, with a kiss.

Advice is useless to the young. That is their curse and their strength. They have no idea that some of the things that they attempt are impossible. That’s why an alarmingly high percentage of them succeed.

Like Jonas Brigand, sitting in a cheap metal chair in a prison cube waiting room, starting at his watch, currently waiting for his girlfriend to get out of prison.

“Times are tough in the colonies” goes the song. Young men and women were subject to the same set of laws as the adults. With the ability to breed came responsibility. It was too harsh a world to even consider doing it otherwise.

Once society had been set up, once the terraforming tents were a memory and the world was green, the new generations would be fat and slow on the world that the hardpack settlers like Jonas Brigand and his girlfriend had made for them.

The scars on his hands stared mutely back at him. He was fourteen. His girl, Jayley Cordsmith, was sixteen. Her body was just as strong and scarred as his.

She was pulling six days for drunk and disorderly. Six days of pay gone. She have to work a month of doubles to get that back. She’d do it, too.

Jonas had the beginnings of a manbeard. His flat nose was the result of beatings from the ones that reared him and a life of never backing down.

Jayley had the short dreads of a hullpatcher and was missing a pinky on her left hand. Jonas thought of her working with her hammer belt in the hot sun. She’d be seventeen in Quadrember but he’d be sixteen two months earlier. For two months, they’d be the same age.

For two months, their drinking, mating, and eating privileges would be equal. They’d both have one ‘drop the charges’ card each to use as they saw fit. They could do anything that didn’t result in a loss of life or the damage of company property.

Jonas usually punched a supervisor. It was a popular choice.

Now Jonas wasn’t sure there would be any more cards or privileges for Jayley at all.

Jayley had decided that she was unhappy with the system and stopped going to work. They’d thrown her in the clink almost immediately.

Strike was a forbidden action. It couldn’t be tolerated. There were always one or two people that started the talk once the project neared completion but that was a decade off. Besides, Jayley loved to work.

The door at the end of the hall clicked and hissed. The hatchratchet spun and the door creaked open.

Jayley ran through. Jonas stood up and caught her in his arms.

She was missing a tooth and she had a black eye but her eyes shimmered with the usual angry light.

“We have to take them down, Jonas. We have to make this place ours.” She said.

They hadn’t even come close to breaking her.

Then she kissed him.









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Merry Christmas

It’s time.

It’s a salad of broken Christmas ornaments and orphan’s blurry memories of long-gone parents. Each mouthful reminds me of how deep the hole is. Each glittering bite is a lonely acknowledgment of statistics.

There’s a jagged spike upwards in suicides at Christmas. If you lay it out on a graph, the spike looks kind of like a Christmas tree. Like James Brown last year, I’m aiming to be the star at the top of that tree.

I wear the most profitable mask that’s ever been made. I am not the me in the advertising. I am not the me on the covers, cards, and calendars.

I am a sad man with no friends. I have millions of admirers and money enough to cover the most bizarre of requests.

Reanimate the corpse of Dali and have him design a diamond penthouse with Braille drilled into the walls. Bring me the hearts of the Olsen Twins.

I want the sugary sweet silence of the forest to come and claim me. I want to be far from anything created by a human and that includes me.

I need peace that no amount of meditation or sated desire can bring.

There are twenty-six deer with me here in my study. They are sleeping a deep sleep that will soon lead to death if I’ve followed the instructions correctly. There’s a fading red light in the corner.

My wife will be home shortly. I’ve left her a note. It’s beside a glass of milk and a small pile of cookies. I hope she’ll understand. Hopefully the fire will have gone out by the time she gets here and we’ll all be frozen.

I spoon more of the death into my eager, slobbering mouth. I can’t tell if I’m crying with fear, happiness or sadness. All I know is that I’m crying.

My white beard is draped with tinsel.

The tiny bodies in the workhouse are lined up neatly, bagged and ready for inspection or removal. The curled toes of their shoes point at the ceiling. They are all smiling. They follow my every command, including that last one to end their own lives.

The quota has been reached. There will be a Christmas this year. Next year, they’ll have to fend for themselves.

Soon enough, I will pass into myth. It makes me smile.

The inside of my mouth is bleeding from the tiny shards of glass. The powder is working its way through me now. I’m getting sleepy.

The snow is falling thick outside the window.





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Newspaper Salesman

Last Thursday, an out-of-breath girl with dirt on her face asked me for a place to hide.

I work at a newsstand. I watch the world go past me.

She was young, maybe nine or ten. She looked desperate and panicked. The street was crowded with the business rush. A sea of dark blue suits and umbrellas and there she was like little red riding hood in a forest staring up at me, a slash of colour standing out and begging me for safety.

Her eyes told me I had less than seconds to make a decision.

I don’t know why I did it. I reached forward and took her hand. She weighed hardly anything. She gave a little hop to help me as I swung her up out of the rain and over the counter into the newsstand with me. She curled up by my feet, shaking and wet.

I resumed staring forward like I always do. It was easy.

Three men ran past, shouldering through the ranks of well-dressed men. Umbrellas were jostled. People complained. One woman was knocked over.

The three men had long faces and dark eyes. The suits they had on looked out of date and worn. They were wet from the rain and they didn’t care. Something about them looked feral. They cast around with their eyes, looking for the girl. They looked at me and past me.

One of them paused, cocked his head, and swung his head back to look at me. I felt like I was being scanned by a machine. I stood like a statue and looked back at him with what I hoped was the look of a salesman hoping to make a dollar.

“Newspaper, sir?” I asked, passing my hand over the day’s editions.

With a curl of his lip, the thin man resumed the chase. Within a minute, the three hunters were long gone. I couldn’t help but think of them as a pack.

I looked down at the girl. I offered to help her up.

With a derisive smirk, she ignored my hand, stood up by herself and smoothed out her dress.

“Men.” She said in a voice more adult than her years. “So predictable.”

She looked up at me then. The flush on her cheeks was makeup. She gave me a look that told me that I had just helped the wrong person.

She smiled. Her teeth were filed to points. She made a quick movement towards me and I flinched. That made her laugh.

She spun around, crouched down on all fours, and with a sprinter’s grace, she ran out of the dog door.

I stood and watched the small door oscillate to a stop. I listened to the rain. After a few minutes, I went back to staring ahead and hoping someone from the business rush would buy a magazine.




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