i actually took the mega store almost completely from Starbucks website (and some websites that slam starbucks). A little point, Boomer (the third partner) is the other captain in Moby dick that gets his leg bitten off by the white whale. Starbucks is a mate on Ahabs crew. I agree, i could lose some ands. I’m painfully deliberating on the “propel the plot” line. I’m close to deleting it. I think theres more to lose in keeping it (even though i like it personally) than there would be to not have it at all.
The item you were looking for was deleted.
Short Story / Grinning Gus's
A postcard scene like you’d see from San Francisco. Cars parked along the hypotenuse, building foundations hewed at right angles to sea level, reckoning gravity’s dominion over slope. A neighborhood pharmacy on top of a hill. A rooftop billboard. A giant likeness of Gus, adverbly grinning above the domain. The building, a shell. The façade maintained for posterity. Padlocks on the doors. Insects, their predators, stagnant air.
Gus invented the Pezmac, an automated prescription dispensing machine that furnishes around the clock chemical attention. Because of the machine’s ease of use and profitability margin, Gus closed his shop and went citywide with the invention. His business advisors, even now, are working out a global strategy for international patenting.
Gus’s face and name were widely respected in the city. His Q rating ranked him 4th most recognizable celebrity in the district. Comptroller Anderson arranged it so the original shop would be preserved as a historical landmark. She believed Gus to be such a positive role model that he deserved commendation. At the announcement ceremony, the bureaucrat voiced her praise, “Aren’t the Pezmacs beautiful. All black and prismatic. Like an oil-glazed lake at sunset. And the pills! They come in such various and wonderful shapes.” She was up for re-election this term, and consciously worked to garner the bohemian vote.
A schoolteacher administering a standardized test referred to Gus as a role model. “You don’t think Gus, with his teeth of porcelain white,” referring to the smile on the billboard above the apex of the hill, “achieved all that he did without number two graphite?” Worrying about his school’s district ranking, he lent out the last of his dull nubbed pencils, warning his class to fill the bubbles in completely, to watch for stray marks.
A Boy Scout handed out pamphlets on the correct orientation procedures in both natural and urban wilds. “If it is too dark to see your compass, scan the horizon. Gus will be your beacon. He will guide you home,” he told a pushcart vendor, who set the cart-brake to scan the tri-folded doctrine.
“But what if the sun shines high when your compass breaks?” asked a second scout, scanning the pamphlet for the first time. The Scoutmaster frowned. There were no guidelines for this line of questioning in the Scoutmaster’s Guide. He marked a bold U next to the boys name in his ledger as he kicked the cart brake free.
_
A separate city to the north. A bicycle courier paused to finish off his remaining water. One leg extended to the pavement. He debated making one last trip to the Mill district to get ahead of the next day’s traveling. Checking the address on the last parcel, he took two hops with the bracing leg and sped off through the streets.
He arrived at the cigar shop. Outside, several dark children played marbles in the gravel. He hoisted the horizontal support of the bike over his shoulder, and chimed his way through the main entrance. Walking to the counter, he placed the package down and slid forward the receipt. He gazed deeply into the tobacconista’s eyes, and lost balance in the deep gray he found there. She looked blankly through the smoke and signed. He stared at her fingers, tobacco stained, then up to her wrists. So delicate, those hands, he thought they might shatter.
“Would you go dancing with me,” he asked her through the fog.
“Lo siento, pero no entiendo. ¿Español?” He did not catch the words, for he was buried, still, in her eyes. He thought he saw her nod, and took this as assent. The subtle movement could have been a disturbance of the smoke as the door opened for another patron, but this would be for calmer minds to discern. The courier left the store, but the smell of her lingered. He peddled slower for the heaviness that new love added to his load.
Their night of dancing never happened, but this did not sway the courier from his pursuit. He went out of his normal routes to take on any package bound for the tobacco district. His coworkers took notice. “Going to see your lady love?” they squawked. “She can’t speak the language. Imagine all her other ignorances.” Undeterred, he selected his daily tasks, and agreed to work the extra miles to see her once again. All the extra effort took a toll on his bicycle, but he did not notice the accelerated wear on his rubber treads. He dreamt on tandem bicycles with sidecar attachments.
His coworkers would not let up. “With her lungs, she couldn’t get down 10th avenue, let alone up the eastern grades. Where will you take her? Find a nice girl, from a moneyed family. One with the stronger stems.” He did not listen to their barbs, and idly flipped through a catalogue he was to deliver next. Exterminator equipment. Financing available. Twelve months, same as cash.
Summer’s heat dissipated, his fellow couriers made preparations to travel to cities south. Autumn began to show, first in the trees, and then in other ambiance. He was the last of his kind to remain in the city. He imagined unplowed streets, buried bike lanes, and ashen slush.
“Soon, I will have to leave. It won’t be long until these roads will be too cold to ride” he told his love. She did not respond. “Come away with me. My friends, they’ve all gone to work the southern climes. You’d like it, they have the most grandiose war memorials. People travel from all over the country so that they can remember.” She rang up a customer and looked past him to the door. “The cigarettes are cheaper too,” he added, moving into the temporary path of her gaze.
“¿Perdon? Estaba distraído. ¿Tienes algo para mí firmar? Como no, hagan espacio para nuetros clientes, por favor.” He stood there for a moment, but could manufacture only a feeble cough in response to the smoke. He walked out, then pedaled away for the last time.
He grew lonely, with his friends gone and the inability to speak with his love. “She is thin, and I love her, but they were right. This union cannot last.” He looked out his window. The night was clear and cold, the stars and planets danced in the heavens. “What would happen if they’d collide?” he wondered.
It took him almost no time to pack. He wasn’t one to collect. A utility knife, some maintenance supplies, the clothes he wore, and that was all. He checked in his pantry and stowed away a can of soup, a log of pepperoni, what was left of a loaf of bread, and some yellow cheese. He rolled his blanket, and tied it to the frame of the bike. The relocation took eight days the previous year. He allowed the late start would cost him maybe two more in weather delays. He had food enough for three. He took a map out, and marked where he expected to run out of food.
He made his way out of his summer city. The wind and moon at his back. He traveled at night. The dangers of phantom curbs, shifting gravel, parallel sewer grates were outweighed with the fleetness of movement for the decreased auto traffic. Besides, his bike held reflectors and a blinking light, his shirt was bright and shone when shone upon, and his concentration resolute with the darkness.
He camped as the stars set and lit a small fire. He ate some bread and cheese, trusting the pepperoni to last a bit longer than the rest. Lifting his chin and tasting the air, he didn’t expect any rain, nor did any fall. He rolled out his blanket, and slept through light’s morning introductions.
He woke just after noon and reminded the embers to flame. He punched a thumb-sized hole in the top of the soup tin and placed it in the pit. The orange and yellow tickled the label to black, and the metal gleamed beneath the steam escaping. Clouds threatened the horizon as he ate. After his meal he made his way. He stopped once to patch a flat tire, once to true the front rim, and once for no other reason but to watch the moonrise. His day was long, but he’d only made forty or so miles before he quit. He had estimated his time to distance ratio from past migrations, drafting with the pack. He was behind schedule. His clothes were drenched in sweat and the sweat conducted the chilling temperatures to pinker underneaths.
“If it gets any colder, we’ll need to go by day,” he told his bike as if it was a horse as if a horse would understand. He drank from a quick moving stream running alongside the road, lit a fire, and slept. He dreamt of angry volcanoes and angrier still indigene dressed for war, then woke up shivering to meet the dawn. “Let’s get moving,” again to his bike, as he ate the last of his bread. He rode thirty miles in just a few hours, lunched on the remaining pepperoni, and rode thirty more. The sun began to set. He saw nowhere better or worse to camp, and simply stopped. Sighting a hill off the road to the left, he dismounted and climbed for the better vantage. He spied a city not so distant by the beams it radiated through its own exhaust. He marked it as his next pit to stop and remounted. As he approached, he could see the lighted billboard above Grinning Gus’, and proceeded swiftly as if drawn to this landmark and this city almost south.
He made his way past the outer pale of the city limits, and up towards Gus’s hill. He thought that the potholes would subside as he passed from country to city center, and was mistaken. He passed hostels on the way, motels of various reputes, but kept on to that glowing beacon of Gus’s mammoth teeth. A latter-day lighthouse presiding over a concrete sea. He parked his bike, chained it to the Pezmac near the door, and saw the entrance barred. He grabbed his tattered bag and bedroll, and proceeded around back.
Maybe to get a closer view of the billboard, maybe to see the world from a majestic height, or maybe to simply propel the plot, the courier climbed the fire escape at the rear of the building. He reached the roof of Grinning Gus’s, and he found his camp for the night. The billboard offered little in the way of protection from the elements. Even so, the beleaguered courier found this a suitable place to nest. Unrolling his blanket, he laid down, falling the honest asleep of the travel-sore man. The music of the urban nocturnal accompanied his dreams. He dreamt of falling, cigarette smoke, of Gus’s ten foot incisors, rotten porcelain underneath pearly veneers, falling out and dropping on his head.
He awoke to a steady rumbling, an unexpected bass and tremble. The earth stopped shaking, and the courier heard a quiet chuckling. An argument won between a man and the avatar of his decline. Gus’s chief pharmacist, recently unemployed, rested atop the shell of Grinning Gus’s. The courier saw him first. “Ho there. What are you laughing at?”
“You see those huge black eyes.”
“I do”
“They see so little.”
The courier looked up at the aforementioned eyes, dilated pupils the size of monster truck tires, and noticed for the first time that they were the lone portion of the billboard sans illumination. Remarkable, now, in their referenced contrast to the light.
“Well, what is it you see?” asked the courier. “What do those black eyes overlook?”
“To answer that, first you need to know where I’m looking from,” he began. “The tale begins with a store. You sit upon it now. I helped to open this business with my friends, Gus and Boomer some thirty years ago. At first, we were actually a pharmaceuticals distributing company. We bought the drugs, and shipped them to clinics and hospitals that bought them slightly less in bulk than we did. We were comfortable in our modest prosperity. Gus and I, we bought Boomer out so he’d be free to pursue other endeavors. He’s content now, has a family, travels in the summers.
“The time came where Gus’s eyes glazed green, he thought a change would benefit the company’s coffers. ‘The purse of the masses,’ Gus would say, ‘Encumbers them so. Let us relieve them of the pressure.’ We transitioned the business to respond to the pharmaceutical needs of the individual. Times were rocky for a bit, but shifting over to the pharmacy side of things made sense, and eventually worked out. Perscriptions. Band-aids. Milk. Based on the success of our original location, we started franchising outward, like some gyre of the second coming. There were mom and pop pharmacies around the city, but we offered a cheaper product, a streamlined service. Gus’s trademarked grin loomed over all corners of the market.
“Streamlined care, however, took its toll on the mission we’d originally set out to undertake. While we were filling a community need, something didn’t sit right. One day, I saw a man who had once been our biggest competitor. He owned two stores, and stalwartly resisted Gus’s attempts at a buyout. The prices Gus tendered were at first generous, then they were fair. After persistent denials, we opened shops next to, above, and down the block, from our competitor. With the market saturated, our competitor’s business fell to ruin. It became impossible to not pass our stores on the way to his, no matter from where one started. Something in Gus’s smile made people comfortably loose in their spending.
“Gus told me it was all part of a plan. A plan which I saw in brutal fruition on seeing the competitor’s store boarded up with foreclosure signs in the window. That competitor had a family he could no longer support. Abject and emasculated now, our competitor took his own life. Tidings as these sit heavy on one’s conscience.
“With my continued misgivings, Gus offered to buy me out in turn. This I flatly refused. If I was to walk away, no one would be there to check the scales which balanced the precious medicines. There would be only Gus. He eyes were no longer green, but the dark black you see above you on the sign.
“Gus started to take meetings educated and disheveled men, excluding me from the proceedings. He hid his plans whenever I walked into the room. I did not understand the subterfuge, the blueprints were and still are like hieroglyphs to me. The Pezmac was born.
“The first Pezmac machine was placed at a store front located in a high crime neighborhood. I did not like removing the personal touch from the realm of medicine, but Gus was a convincing man. ‘For the safety of our employees,’ he said. When I saw that people could be attended in their needs night and day, I put aside my misgivings.
The pharmacist dragged his leg as he paced.
“Do you speak any Spanish, courier?”
“Not enough. Just the numbers, for work. Street names are the same in every language, numbers are not.”
“Tell me friend, what is the word for eleven in Spanish?”
“Once.”
“And now, tell me how that is spelled.”
The courier did so, but failed to see the point.
“An immigrant to this city needed
medicine for her colic child. A mild sedative was prescribed by her doctor. The pharmacy was closed, but luckily the Pezmac had been installed. Luckily indeed. Have you seen the machines?”
“My bike is chained to one even now.”
“Pretty aren’t they…The machine ate the script, and with some clicking and beeps, dispensed the sedative. On the container was printed, ‘administer once daily.’ Now, the immigrant new nothing of what the first word meant, but figured it from context. Daily, in English, is close enough to dia that she also inferred its meaning.”
“But once,” said the courier, “is now eleven.”
“You are correct, my friend. And a simple misunderstanding in an avoidable situation turns tragic. The baby of the immigrant is remembered now in fading pictures and a tombstone that stutters the same year twice. I blamed then, and I blame now, that Pezmac machine.”
“Your story is a sad one, to be sure,
but why have you gone to such detail to explain it to me?”
“Why does anyone tell stories? To seek higher truths in the telling. In this case, the story precursors a request. In my battles against the Pezmac, in my refusal to allow any more medicine to be dispensed without a watchful eye and beating pulse, I lost my hold on the business. Through some altogether foreign alchemy unbeknownst to me, I was held accountable for the death of that poor child. My name appeared alone in the paper trail.
“I became the effigy that must be burned. I lost my share of the business. My dear wife left me for the shame. An angry collection of picketers outside of the store waylaid me as I left work, that last day. They left me all but crippled in their misguided justice. You have told me you have a bike, and I can plainly see you are a courier by trade. Will you deliver for me a gift? I have so little left to give, but before my time is over, I’d like to do some last good.”
“I came up here only to rest. I’m up early tomorrow to continue my journey south.”
“It will not take long. I’d go myself if I were able, but alas,” the pharmicist finished his sentence by lifting up the tattered pant leg showing wounds far past infection. “I’d not be able to make the trip myself.”
“Where would you send me?”
“See that military base across on that peak to the west.”
“I do,” said the courier.
The pharmacist crutched over to a small cabinet nestled in the corner of the rooftop. Several powders and tonics lined the shelves. “Take him this narcotic. It won’t speed his progress or whet his instruments, but it will help him to forget his fatigue. Too much of this life is spent wishing on the after. These pills will help him to focus on the now. Will you deliver this minor comfort?”
“Behind the mess hall there is a young conscriptee preparing the meals for his consorts. His back is bent over a cutting board, he is surrounded by onions and potatoes by the thousands. His work is slow due to the bluntness of his tools. Dangerous too, the blunt edge wanders for lack of bite. He cannot leave his post until he is finished cutting and peeling, and his eyes water in the labor. All he wishes is to sleep. All he thinks about is what dreams may find him when he is done. Dreams are dangerous for the soldier class.”
“I do not care for the military. When our country was last besieged, the checkpoint guardians all but destroyed my trade for their inspections and harassment. Once, they confiscated my bicycle, thinking me on some errand of the enemy. Later, I found my bike bruised and bent outside one of their barrooms. I lost much of my respect for the defenders of our realm.”
“Think of that boy in the mess hall, not in the greens that he wears, but for the books he has not read, the loves that he cannot write. Take him this medicine and he may finish with time enough to sharpen his tools. You can bring him life outside of his work. Take him this small happiness.”
“It is getting colder. I will help you tomorrow, but then I must be off,” said the courier. “Now let me go back to my dreams.”
The next morning the courier descended to make his way through the town. He passed a huge church with a clock in the place of a bell tower. The time was false, set ten minutes later than he judged it to accurately be. Shaming the pious, it would seem, in a counterfeit tardiness. A mendicant pushed a shopping cart past the church, brimming with glass bottles of every hue. Tricks of light melted the various color, blending the greens and reds and yellows into a clinking mass of brown. A trash collector transferred rotting fruit and limp condoms from curbside bin to idling truck.
The courier made his way onto the base. The sentry nodded him through. Harder interviews reserved for times of war. He climbed to a windowsill looking into the officers’ mess. The base commander sat enormous upon a chair of ornate design. The cushion pieced with Japanese silk. He held a turkey leg in the air and gestured with it at his empty wine glass. He had the look of an archaic lord gone rabid, his beard gleamed through turkey fat and spittle froth. “I’ll have some more of that au gratin,” he chewed through his words.
“My apologies sir, but there seems to be a delay in the kitchen,” offered the waiterpeon. “May I offer, instead, the tiramisu? It is rich and buttery sweet, garnished with mint and gold flake. We’ve flown it in, special, from Istanbul.”
The courier left his perch as the commander strew together a litany of expletives common to those who seek out positions of authority. He circled around back to the utility entrance. He tested the knob and found it willing. He walked into the dim working quarters of a compulsory volunteer. The soldier boy diced away at the potatoes, unaware of the visitor. Sweat dripped from wrinkled brow. The courier thought it odd, him being so thin in the midst of so much food. A staccato bounce of steel blade meeting oaken board, rhythm and echo in round.
The courier felt a rumbling vibration in the floorboards, and hid behind stacked sacks of prenatal mise en place. The door to the mess flew open, the commander’s figure barely framed by the doorjamb. Backlit as he was by a great fireplace, his features were barely discernable. The silhouette admonished the boy like some ebon praetor chastising lesser minions. A soldier, scaped and square eyed, before the consul.
The commander went back into the mess, threatening to strangle someone if he didn’t get his potatoes yesterday, forthwith.
“Best not to disturb the boy now,” thought the courier. “He’ll take some water soon enough.” With that, he took the vial out of his pocket, and poured its contents into a countertop jug. On his way back to the top of Grinning Gus’s, police blocked his way. Utility vehicles, men with bright colored vests, helicopters. He asked a man sitting on the steps an alternate route. He told the courier wherever sinkholes haven’t pocked the way.
“I’ve done as you asked,” said the courier, as he alit on the rooftop. It took him most of the afternoon to skirt the mayhem. He himself witnessed a car riding buoyant abreast a normally stoic street, the asphalt undulating as some cosine wave. He watched as the road wave grew tired of this bobbing ornament, and swallowed it whole, driver, passengers, and all.
“And my thanks for it. The soldier boy drank deeply, and now his thirst is slaked. He’s chopping still. The elixir is working even now to dampen extraneous machinations of the mind, the eye wanders less then not at all. The soldier boy’s eyes water for the onions but he is content with his task.”
“That errand took longer than I expected. There is much to hinder one traveling through this city. I will stay here tonight, if you don’t mind, but I’m off first thing in the morning. I must make my way south to the other couriers. They are probably warm and laughing, no doubt at my expense. Any more delay, and I fear they’ll take all the best routes for themselves, leaving me with the legislation district. Everything there is of the utmost urgency, utmost importance. All those pages, and so few words. We couriers get tired for the weight of their message.”
“Eat now. You need your energy. This tea will make you warm, and put you to sleep. Tomorrow, we will share our goodbyes.”
The next day came, and the courier woke to the smell and sizzle of fried eggs. He wondered where they came from, looked at a row of pigeons sitting on the ledge of the billboard, and tried to wonder on other things.
“Sit, my boy, sit,” the pharmacist to the courier, “I have a story to tell you while you breakfast.” He set a pot of coffee next to the boy and began.
“A professor at some city university has had a brilliant notion. He fixes to explain to the world, in scientific principles, the human condition. He is just nearly to the mathematical proof whereby he posits on the why’s of the universe, the inanity of the divine, and the permutations of love and the lesser emotions. Ambition, wanderlust, pride – and all the universal congruencies in politics and government – he’s speculated can be reduced down to zero’s, exes, and wyes. He has boiled down the whole of it, in theory anyway, to one equation.
“After holding a press conference with the beginnings of his research, he became wildly popular. The professor is quirky and good looking enough with the austere speckling of white through his auburn mane and tuft; all the talk show hosts booked him straight away. He travels the country, appearing on programs catering to varying audiences of every ilk – young and old, fat and thin – the only thing common in their makeup is in the fact that they are audience, and their money spends in the exact same way.
“On finding this success, the professor has had no time to continue his research. He has instead appointed his brightest student to maintain the investigation. She, a graduate student, works tirelessly to finish the proof. She is no threat to steal the limelight from the professor. She speaks with a thick and foreign accent, and is not beautiful but for her mind.
“There is a slight problem, however, in the setup. She has found a flaw in the foundation of the great hypothesis. The flaw, small, a misplaced decimal point perhaps, is working to unravel the entire foundation. She works day and night to patch up this errant strand that threatens the very basis of the research. In trying to whitewash this minor complication, her own studies have fell by the wayside. Her grades, her very thoughts, have become encumbering jetsam, weighing her down in that academic sea. She considers abandoning the good of her person so that she may prop up the bogus ideas of the other.”
The courier thought about this as the pharmacist
paused to sip his coffee. “Where is this story going, friend? I fear that this is less fiction than you first purported, and that soon I will be factored into this equation.”
“You are indeed correct. Your sight is better than I first conjectured. The student is real. The professor is real. The equation is false, but for now, the falsehood is evident to but one.”
“By my count, that now makes three. I imagine you have a solution,” said the courier.
“That I do. I have here a strong medicine, the last of its kind. You will not find this in the bottomless stores of the Pezmacs in this city. These pills,” the pharmacist took the penultimate bottle from his cabinet, ”I call, affectionately, Evanescence. For a time, I thought them to be wholly placebo in effect, they offered very little in the way of clinical results. However, I found their workings to be, upon rigorous investigation, like some potion Merlin fed his reluctant Arthur. Once taken, they wipe out all ancillary misgivings. Just as Arthur proceeded to run his kingdom without consideration for the cuckolding infestation that was Sir Lancelot, the graduate student will be able to proceed in her research. Her qualms on the basis for her professor’s proof will melt away. She’ll be able to finish the ill-fated proof of which the red haired professor will take sole credit. The people of this realm will erect statues in his honor. Elementary schools will carry his name. The student will be freed for saner education.
“Will you put aside your travels for one day longer, and take for me this Evanescence to the conflicted student?” asked the pharmacist of the courier.
“The days are growing short. It is cold here above the city. Colder still, when I descend. I will help you, but I must be gone tomorrow.”
The courier delivered the potion, returned to the rooftop, and told the pharmacist what he had done. “The delay, I fear is a costly one. Yet I am happy for the good work I have done.” The courier felt himself warmer after that task, even as he spoke his breath vapor visible in the light escaping from the billboard gleaming.
“This is because you are at noble work. The good we do, it washes us of the grime that seeps through this city.” The courier began to think on this, and in doing so drifted off to sleep. He wondered if the pills he handled affected him in his tactile exposure. For the first time, he worried not about the changing weather or the miles he’d still to go.
A citizen noticed the bike locked up against the railing at the base of the former pharmacy. He thought it beautiful, idle with stalactite icicles forming. Inspired, he wrote a poem and uploaded it to his blog. People from around the world accessed the post. It caught fire, you could say, this lyrical imagery of weather and self-propelled transportation. A screenwriter in India referenced it twice in the movie he wrote that day. A pop star in Russia took the metaphor to heart, and sang bubbly melodies of foreign colds so unlike her own.
The next day, the courier arose, descended, and mounted. “This is my last day in this northern city. Maybe I can find some baubles to gift to my friends. They will be so happy to see me laden with offerings. Even now, they are probably eating passion fruit, and other lavish citrus.” The courier contemplated days off spent fishing and swimming and other sport upon the sea.
He rode into the market district, but it seemed to be swallowed just as the car had been. The sinkhole there, even as fast as it appeared, was not quick enough to stem the flow of commerce. Tents of every color had sprung up around each hole. The merchants, backs to the abyss, shouted their wares like some centrifugal experiment in sound. The sinkhole widened, the mongers pushed outward, always on the edge. Like ants on a balloon inflating, the distances between tents increased, yet the individual peddlers stood their ground. Children stealing imported produce, gold plated trinkets, made in Burma.
He circled the market turned bazaar, but found nothing to be size or gesture appropriate for his fellow couriers. He drove back to the top of the hill. The pharmacist waited for him.
“Dear courier, I know it is time for you to go, but would you consider staying just one more day. I have one more box of medicine I think would do greater good away from this haven on the hill. How much cold can twenty-four hours bring?”
“I must be off,” said the courier. He looked into the pharmacist’s eyes, and they were sad, bereft of promise.
“I understand… it’s just that,” he considered his next words, “From this vantage, I can see a father walking home from his night at the coal mines. He coughs into the crook of his elbow; trying to expel the vicious black dust. The expellant, speckled in claret, hardens for the cold. His arms and back are massive, strengthened in the toil underground. Even so, his insides are eviscerated with each load of ore expelled, his lungs are much worse for the labor. He walks the streets of our dear city, through the same air you and I breathe now, but each breath rears ugly like the gasps of the near drowned and sinking still. He may emerge at the end of a shift, but viler parts of that deep molest his progress home.
“The coal miner is not long of this world. This cannot be avoided. No medicine exists that would undo the damage to his lungs. I can offer only a small boon to this man. These pills here, are for his son. They will help him to grow tall and strong. He is young yet, but with the proper dosage, he’ll be able to support the family in ways never even imagined by the coal miner. He will excel others of his age and creed in all manners of sport. His athletic prowess will be marveled at from near and far. People will gladly pay to be in the presence of his greatness.”
With this, the courier went on his final task. He felt sorry for the plight of the coal miner, felt sorry that he would not see his son’s preordained greatness. On traveling to the one bedroom flat the family rented, the courier was forced to lay his ride aside. A bicyclist cannot ride where the earth rebels beneath the road. The sinkholes were spreading.
He delivered the pills without further incident. He relied neither on deception nor sleight of hand. The coal miner answered the knock. The courier related to him what the pharmacist had said. The coal miner knew the word to be true, and trusted the innocence in the courier’s voice. He was glad that a timetable, even as rough as the one relayed, had been spoken. He called his boy over, and instructed him to shake the courier’s hand. The boy, no more than eight years old, was bundled against the cold. He saw the courier standing there, shivering, and offered him the blanket he wore around his shoulders.
“I’m not cold,” said the courier.
“I can see your teeth rattle.”
“Keep your blanket. I don’t need it. I’m going south.”
The courier walked back to where he had laid his bike, but found instead more of the sinking earth. A sot walking with a board writ in shoe polish preached the gospel of the void, “This city was built upon some sleeping dragon. After millennia of slumber, the dragon stirs. His appetite is fierce. He eats the earth that has entombed him. He will soon hunger on softer fare.”
A light snow began to fall. He walked the miles back to the hill. He slipped twice, but did not fall. He climbed to the top of the building for the last time. The pharmacist walked around the edges of the roof. Step, pull, step, pull left an oddly twinned track in the powder as he surveyed the remnants of the city.
“Tonight I say goodbye. I’m off to the south early in the morning. There can be no further delay. Besides, your cabinet, I see, is all but empty. The city you cater to, all but gone”
“You are right on the latter account, Dear courier. Although this city was built on foundations of stone, it sinks as if in mud. The people have left for surer footholds. The old and the stubborn have been swallowed up. Our hill has all but vanished, it is now level with the sea.
“Sleep well,” said the pharmacist to the courier, and that was the last that they spoke. Both fell asleep. A frozen courier, a depleted pharmacist, a grinning billboard. The last to be swallowed by the earth.
____
Two angels rested on a cloud. One draped his arm around the other, and they talked of a job well done. They were tired, for even immortals fatigue. God appeared, and questioned them about their task. “We’ve done as you requested,” they told Him, “we’ve cleared the land of its blight.”
“You must rebuild the city,” said God to his two angels.
“What shall be its foundation?” said the second angel.
“Why, faith, of course,” God replied.
“And its cornerstone?” said the first angel.
“Commerce,” and God left.
The two angels looked at each other, now in the absence of the divine. “What should we do with the two last citizens?” asked the second of the first.
“Let them rest for now. They’ll have purpose soon enough.”
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slam710711 reviewed Version 4 -
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Good Work!
I really liked this, very reminiscent of William Gibson(if that’s OK with you?) but sets a style of it’s own. As with many modern works, the pace and tone have to be different for a modern age and a modern medium.
It did start slow and you were hit with a lot of imagery, and I suspect that you lack confidence in revealing the spirit of the work to a critical audience. But believe you me friend, you are such a good writer you need have no fears on that count. Once the story got going you were gripped with the life of the character and his journey. A journey is always a good way of wrapping a story together and towing the reader along, and you felt as if you were really there on that bike ride and eating the last of the bread.
I’m sure most readers would want to know why things never got going with the Spanish girl? But maybe that was another course for the story to take which you weren’t happy with. Trust me, if you went back to make it more substantial this is a good line of approach. If I wanted to know, so will others.
I think towards the end we were settling into a comfortable science fiction scene, which we are all more familiar with. The was so much scope for where we could go with this, and I thought you could cut off to a simple revenge/set the record strait story, or let the main guy simply be a witness to the events of history.
All in all a thoroughly good read, and being the first thing I’ve read on this site, a very welcomed introduction. I’d like to know if this is an ongoing piece or complete? Hope to hear more from you in the future. Steve.
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Curtastrophe reviewed Version 4 -
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So far I really like the story. The characterizations are good, the attention to detail and description are in depth, but not overly in depth, and the pacing of the story is great. I didn’t have to go back and read something again because I was confused about where the story was going. I like how the protagonist and his crush are lost in translation. It seems to me that she’s not put off by this guy. Like he might even have a chance. But alas, he can’t speak Spanish. This is based on everything I’ve right up until the paragraph that begins, “It took him almost no time to pack.” It was here that something unusual. Your reliance on the connector word “and” is quite heavy. I’m not even halfway through the story yet, but in all probability it will continue. Is it a big problem? Definitely not, just something I’d be aware of.
”...or maybe to simply propel the plot,...” I think that some reviewers will take issue this this self-referential phrase. But then again if the protagonist imagines himself as the hero of his own adventure story I think it fits superbly.
““The time came where Gus’s eyes glazed green…” This sentence starts of a paragraph in which I think you did a good job of telling the backstory, albeit through dialogue. This is a trick that I think a lot of writers don’t know about, or utilize. But instead of ruining the flow with narrative exposition, you embedded it in dialogue. Good choice.
The paragraph following this is a subtle bit of social commentary on free-market captitalism. With the rise of the megastores (as only one example) we have seen the decline of independent bookstores, downtown shopping areas, etc. The more I get into this, the more I’m reminded of a Kurt Vonnegut novel. I can only wait to see what comes about with this new fangled Pezmac machine. A satire itself of course on the Pez candy dispenser, except this one replaces sucrose with mind-altering drugs.
The “once” parable is brilliant and clever.
The ending was subtle, but a good one. Overall I think you have a very good chance of getting this published in a literary magazine, or an anthology. It’d be a shame if you didn’t. Good work.
-Curt
CaptGage reviewed Version 4 -
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Pretty tight story. Looks like you’ve really worked on this one. I do think maybe you introduce characters a bit quickly, creating a somewhat crowded short story. It’s always best to be careful how many characters you cast in one story. You’ve got politicians, scheming angels, pharmacists, etc. On the other hand, I do like the scope of the story and the scenery.
I like how sometimes you used sentence fragments, such as, ‘a separate city to the north.’ I have a habit of not thinking to ouse fragments strategically in my quest for the ‘best’ grammar, but like someone in a writer’s goup told me over a decade ago, dialogue isn’t always in perfect English. Narration doesn’t always have to be either.
I also like how one character talks to his bike.
Jimmel104 reviewed Version 4 -
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This is such a rich piece. The writing style is varied and suited to the many levels you have created in this story. I could truly eat up you credits for the next decade talking about all I appreciated in this. Here are a few.
The school teacher, the boy scout all set the stage for understanding the shallowness and begin to reveal Gus’s true nature. Each is a concise and clear narration.
The tobacconista’s response to the romantic courier is a juxtaposition to his emotions. Matter of fact, “I feel, but do not understand”.
And then later when invited to run away, all business. “Oh, pardon me.You have something for me to sign?”
The courier talking to the bike brought it to life and made it animate, a companion.
Was absent minded. You have something for me to sign?
The old pharmacist, enlisting the basic good will of the courier, enticing him to remain and feel the warmth of his deeds.
All of this marvelously done.
Now to the ending, it did not bring it all together for me. It was my least favorite part. I understand the symbolism and the faith commerce, but so much time was spent developing the story to this point, rounding it up in one short paragraph just seemed to short change a wonderful writing.
It is still a solid 9 and probably will stand as it is, though I believe a stronger ending would do it more justice.
adamsk13 reviewed Version 4 -
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to put it mildly, i thought this was one of the more beautifully written pieces ive read in a long while…you’re a very eloquet writer with a strong voice. from the very beginning i empathize with the characters and truely care for them.
Your very ending paragraph was probably my favorite part. a very nice, clean way to sort of wrap it all up.
nicely done and i look forward to reading more from you. best of luck and keep writing.
Picklez reviewed Version 4 -
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“And the pills! They come in such various and wonderful shapes.” Haha i like this it sounds like shes on the pills. The beggining was very well written and entertaining also. The language is colourful and draws you in i.e. the teacher rhymes!
...teeth of porcelain white,
...without number two graphite?
“chimed his way through the main entrance” nice way to do this. Amazing descriptions of everyday objects such as the can. Interesting, once and once. Thought provoking… It’s definately a fable written in this sort of way and the way its written is amazing. In the entire thing my only problem is understanding the obscure ending. But its still a very good ending. In my opinion this is definately publishable as is. 10 / 10!
VoicesInMyHead reviewed Version 4 -
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I liked this piece a lot even though I had a hard time at times decipering the meaning behind it. I love that it became more apparent the more I read it. The characters also became alive in the story. I had to use my suspension of disbelief as I read because of the mystical aspect of the story. I loved how you were able to blend both worlds in your story and how it flowed naturally even up to the end of it. I love the voices of the characters and how you made vivid with the varying imagery that presented itself in the story. I believe you have a nice piece that can be developed into something ggreat. I wish you lots of luck.
Capt_Jak reviewed Version 3 -
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The first paragraph starts to feel really choppy after just a couple of lines. It does a good job of painting the image for the reader, but it fails to draw me into the story. If anything, the barrage of fragments starts to push me out of it, and the reading becomes a chore.
The transition between the segment about Gus and the segment about the delivery boy needs some work. I stayed patient until about the point where he asks her to come away with him. After that, I was tired of waiting for the connection and I started to question the relevance of the part about Gus. Also, there is nothing that makes me believe the boy is in love. It seems like he only thinks he’s in love anyways, but with a third person narrator, you can and probably should comment on that.
I’m having trouble picturing the courier. His age isn’t given, and I assume that he’s fairly young because I associate him with a paper boy and a bike. However, as I read on, I’m starting to think he’s older than the teenage boy I first imagined, but I can’t tell how much older. It’s fine that he doesn’t have a name, but other personal details need to be sprinkled in. Also, refering to him as “the boy” or “the courier” or “the man” or whatever would help to break up the monotony of “he” as well as remind the reader you are talking about the courier and not Gus.
His concentration WAS resolute with the darkness?
After his meal(,) he made his way.
“he told his bike…understand” – awkward line
Is he riding at night or during the day. If at night, then his NIGHTS would be long, not his days, and also, why is he lighting a fire when he goes to sleep, presumeably near sunrise?
The sun set. Not “The sun began to set.” Began to, started to, tried to, etc. take away the power or a sentence, especially a short one because they weaken the impact of the verb. This piece doesn’t feel abnormally long, but there are places where you could be more economic with the language to keep the story moving.
“or maybe to simply propel the plot.” It’s cute, but in this case, having the story refer to itself detracts from it. Pointing out your own weaknesses doesn’t make you stronger. Fixing those weaknesses does. Give the courier a good reason to climb, and make it believable. Also, having a story refer to itself throws the reader out of the story and then the story has to work to draw them back in. It should only be used when necessary and for a good reason.
“falling the honest…man.” – I see what you’re trying to say, but this line is awkward and doesn’t say it well.
Is Boomer doing anything for this story that justifies keeping him in?
“Gus started to take meetings WITH educated…”
“A citizen noticed the bike…” This again is cute, but it is irrelevant. One of the hardest lessons for me to learn was that it doesn’t matter how funny something is, if it doesn’t add to the story, then it hurts it. I love writing humor, but the key is to make it funny AND to make it fit.
Is the gospel of the void part necessary.
The ending leaves me dissappointed. I had hoped for some connection between the medicines delivered, or maybe for some deeper meaning. This story is rich with potential. Maybe as he delivers the medicines, the courier heals something broken within himself. There needs to be something to justify his efforts. There needs to be some explanation for the sinkholes besides angels destroying the city. It comes off as just a easy catch-all explanation that doesn’t solve any of the problems, but merely sweeps them under the rug with foreshadowings of some other purpose. Also, I felt like there should have been more reaction to the sinkholes from other characters.
Your instructions / comments lead me to believe you’ve caught a lot of criticism about the length of the story. It doesn’t feel too long to me, but there are many parts of it that are irrelevant. The opening with Gus isn’t needed. The tobbaco girl isn’t needed. Really, this story could start with the courier’s journey south and lose nothing. Overall, I just feel like a lot of effort was put into setting something up, and it just fell apart at the end, much like the sinking city itself. I would first focus my efforts on making the important parts of the story more than casually related. Second, I would work to cut out anything that doesn’t add to the characterization AND further the story. You have a lot that does one or the other, but little that does both. This will trim it down, and by eliminating what is weak, make the entire story stronger.
After that, I would look at what you have and try to find out what this story is saying. Any story that only has a surface level won’t go very far. There has to be some deeper meaning, some theme, some universal truth that the story says something about. Otherwise it serves as nothing but entertainment. This isn’t a problem, except that the competition is much stiffer for something that is just entertaining. Because it offers no lasting value, it has to be extremely entertaining, and even then it is likely to be forgotten no matter how enjoyable. Overall, I’d say you have a lot of good material here, it just needs to be better organized and better connected to make it more relateable for readers.
avedis reviewed Version 3 -
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OK, first, though a hard read I really enjoyed this. A modern parable.
This story both gains and loses from the ‘translated to English’ feel. And I am struggling to work out which bits to suggest should be grammatically changed and which to leave alone – it’s a hard call.
I’ll still take a stab at it, others may have differing opinions.
That first sentence, it brings us into the story, so that I would change.
“A postcard scene from San Francisco”. Short, to the point.
The first two paragraphs, almost like a list, possibly would work better actually as bullet points – as they stand they are too staccato for prose.
e.g.
• A neighborhood pharmacy on top of a hill.
• A rooftop billboard.
• A giant likeness of Gus, adverbly grinning above the domain.
• Etc
After this, you become less staccato for a while, but them return to it. It does get a little tiring, so possibly expands these latter sections and stop the point by point approach. Though, as I said, it is a hard call. One idea may be to use the bullet approach where I suggested, go back to prose for a while, then occasionally return to the bullet format. I could see that working well.
Overall, grammar and spelling are good, one glaring exception, “Gus started to take meetings educated and disheveled men, excluding me from the proceedings”, is there a ‘with’ missing there?
The section where the protagonist asks the courier to take the medicine to the soldier, then interspersed with a segment about the soldier, that part is confusing. You need to clarify the separation of the current and the ‘past’ of the soldier’s life.
A couple of other little things,
“He fixes to explain”?
“He is just nearly to the mathematical proof”?
“nothing to be size or gesture appropriate”?
The story requires time to read, not a quick glimpse for a review – beware of the reviews you do get because of this.
faydiablo reviewed Version 3 -
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That was really good. I liked it, especially the machines spitting out the medicine, and it really makes you think. The angels talking at the end were interesting. However, it was kind of random and some of it was pointless. All in all, it was pretty good. “A frozen courier, a depleted pharmacist, a grinning billboard. The last to be swallowed by the earth.” I really liked that line in particular. Anyway, it was great.
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