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The car bumps and shudders over broken pavement and rutted dirt. It makes a lot of turns. I try for a while to track our route, but I lose count after only a few minutes. I have no idea how long I was unconscious. As I’m trying to piece together some kind of pattern in the few available clues, we make a turn uphill and onto a smoother road. The car picks up speed. Unless I was out for more than an hour, it seems likely that we’re on the Via Nacional, which means …more “I picked up your shirts at the dry cleaners today,” she said. “Which shirts?” “The ones I took last week. Your favorite blue one was in there.” “Which dry cleaner did you go to?” “Across from the oil-change place.” “The oil-change place on 15th? “No, over by the school. “Mm.” “You’ll never guess who I ran into at Walgreen’s …more I think I was half asleep. You know how sometimes you’re lying there, and you think you’re still awake, and then all of a sudden, you feel like you’re falling? And then something brings you up to wide awake again. You think, Was that my own voice? You know that feeling? I had a weird sensation, not exactly like that, but close, and then I sat up and looked over at her pillow. I might have even called her name before everything came rushing back at me. She’s gone, oh God, oh jeez, goddamn, she’s gone. Get a grip, Mike, get it together. …more The Fixer works mostly at night. The Fixer addresses his attention to problems that no one else has the time, the power, or the will to solve. The Fixer knows who should and shouldn’t park in handicapped spaces. He lets the air out of a tire. In a hard case, the Fixer lets the air out of two tires. The Fixer calls the police to report the noisy party that’s keeping you from sleeping on the night before your big presentation. He tells the dispatcher that he’s pretty sure they’re serving booze to teenagers over there. …more “We went to the Half Moon after we got off work. Lorraine wanted a drink ’cause she says it’s all over with Bobby, there’s no way she’s gonna take him back again. I said no, I’m due back here at 7:30, and she said, oh come on, just come with me for one. “So we took her car, and I left mine behind the diner where I always park it. ’Cause you know I’d always rather ride with somebody else, especially if I’m gonna be drinking. And it was Lo who invited me to this party, so I figured she could make sure I got home. “That guy with the arms was working the back bar …more He was in that state where you’re not quite asleep and not quite awake. I tried to wake him, but found that I couldn’t form words that would mean anything. He sat upright in the bed and called out my name. He couldn’t hear my answer. I felt again the pain of being separated from him. His face looked as if he were struggling to remember something. He turned away to reach for something on the bedside table. I wanted to say, “Please, no, Michael, don’t turn your back on me.” …more Professor Harlebut believed that hot water was the defining characteristic of human civilization. “It’s what separates us from the savages. From the beasts, no less!” he was often heard to say at cocktail parties. As he lounged in the bathtub catching up on his reading, he considered the possibility that the entire trajectory of human evolution had been established by the temperature of the pool of slime where the first amino acids congregated. He was absolutely convinced that the puddle in question had been warm. He used the big toe of his right foot to twist the handle labeled H. He settled deeper into the sudsy water. …more Somewhere in the middle of the twenty-third century, it became fashionable to take on a new name whenever a generation was added to one’s family. Names were increasingly a matter of personal style, used to commemorate the landmark events of one’s life, as a form of hero-worship, to curry favor with a patron, or to express one’s distinct individual taste. They became long and unwieldy, and people relied more and more frequently on initials for everyday use, if for no other reason than to keep the size of business cards manageable. Then in 2298, the poet Alonzo W. J. F. P. H. F. McKenzie started a confusing new trend when he became the first member of his generation to adopt the name of one of his noteworthy descendants. Upon the birth of his first great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, …more I am going blind. As much as everyone would like to convince me that I will acquire some kind of new, metaphorical vision—a gift, really, an inner sight, a heightening of the other senses, blah, blah, blah—the fact remains: I am going blind. At the support group last night, I heard for the umpteenth time about adaptive technologies, reading Braille, about people and machines and organizations that can help me. I am trying to help myself. The thing I’m most afraid of losing is my independence. This morning, I made a trip to buy groceries. …more Your Lordship, Madame President, my esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen: You have by now read the report of the field team assigned to observe Species 287B, and I do not wish to take up the valuable time of this conclave in further discussion of the recommendations of that report. I ask indulgence, however, to draw your attention to some of my own observations of the subject species and to ask you to consider the broader question of the relevance of our Charter to this particular case. As you are aware, our evolutionary anthropologists theorize that every race of beings that approaches sentience …more |
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