About This Book
One of my responses to this unpleasantness about the exploding sun is to create things that previously did not exist; I did this via the visual arts, filmmaking, and writing.So, just more stuff to burn? Some people might say so. Others will think of it more as a burnt offering. I'm somewhere in the middle.Of those three responses, it is the act of writing that most effectively creates images Nature finds difficult to destroy. (Perhaps this is an incidental fact, though, considering the kind of temps we're talking about.)Collected here are some of the stories I wrote in defiance of, and as eventual offerings to, the predicted Great Blaze:In Up to The Chin, a young writer believes his strange encounter with an oddly deformed, apocalyptic-minded hermit will only prolong his string of financial and spiritual good fortune.A behemoth bar patron shares an unlikely tale of a murderous (sometimes melodious) curse that makes any person-within a dollar's reach-a potential victim in Manchester's Meticulous Swindle.In Uncle Le-o-nard's Perplexing Exit, a young boy joins an absurd cast of family members who attempt to best one another with offerings of alcohol and irony, with all players inching toward inevitable tragedy.Fortuna's Revenge reveals-via ambiguous symbols and yellow fairy dust-the hidden dangers inherent in relationships, revenge, and the mysterious Yuma Desert.Business is good, but the owner of a robotic pleasure service, Doll House, has foolishly ignored the universal creed of dealers in illicit goods: Do not indulge in your own product.An untested time machine is the weapon of choice for two uber-smart scientists thinking they're outthinking one another in How Humans Lost Their Hair.The 400k followers of Commander Kyle's survivalist website learn how to survive a night alone in the wilderness, build a fire in the rain, or identify which bugs can be enjoyed as a snack; but they have never seen anything like Commander Kyle's Viral Video.An outdated android appreciates her traditional, servile role, despite its many negative aspects, until a peculiar malfunction reveals a higher purpose in Defection of the SR-28 Basic Domestic Series.Fate intervenes as the stages of a young boy's very consequential life is revealed via shattered reflections in Little Sydney's Awkward Redemption.In Bubbles, an Antarctic exploratory crew makes a chilling discovery that the military finds quite intriguing, ultimately rewarding, by with a price.A young geologist stumbles through the shafts of a partially collapsed mine as he is pursued by rising floodwaters and haunting memories in Escape Attempt.These are my offeringsRead them before they burn.
