Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe
Page 28
One chair in the middle ring of desks was empty. The desk at which an empty chair was placed held no portion of the glowing thread. I walked up the aisle and sat down in that chair at that desk---and upon my doing so a single grain of wood glowed. The three circles were complete. I was within the Realm of Circle. The time of Ninety-Nine was at end. The balance of Imenkapur was restored.
Mezzo
May 22, 2037
Dear Katie,
Mike and I were so excited to hear that we are to become an uncle and aunt! I am writing to try to persuade you to please come and live here! I don't know why Mom and Dad preferred to move to the city after their lovely house in the mountains had to be sacrificed. We just love living here in Grandma's house. We bought the house next door (that fat lady Mom told us such stories about moved away a year ago) and we have built a gorgeous solarium connecting the two houses. We have enough plants in the solarium to provide both houses with enough oxygen so that we don't have to wear oxygen masks inside. Can you imagine that? It is pure heaven. Wouldn't you rather raise a baby in a house where you don't have to worry about it suffocating? The thought of my little niece---I'm sure it's going to be a girl--sleeping under an oxygen tent just makes me shudder.
We are taking good care of this little woods here. That big Church that had razed part of the woods when Mom was a kid has been sacrificed and is now supplanted by an orchard. The dead end street that was two houses down from Grandma's house (I still think of this as Grandma's house) has been sacrificed with its four houses so that is all new tree growth, too. And---this is hard to believe---we can go outside without oxygen masks here, as long as it is for a short period of time and we don't do any real exertion. Mike says the chemical oxygen production is going steadily along. The pond that entire street was sacrificed for has been enlarged, and the fish we stocked it with are surviving and reproducing. You won't feel so depressed and frightened about the survival of the world if you lived here surrounded by beautiful trees and ponds. The town's well water is clean again, and the oil and salt have been flushed out.
Oh, I didn't tell you where we got the plants for our solarium. Well, you probably saw on the news when the sea finally reclaimed parts of Boston. (The Customs Tower and Faneuil Hall are waterfront buildings again.) Most of the buildings of the financial district are gone. The national guard had evacuated that part of town, people had been leaving it in a panic for the two months prior to the evacuation, and the national guard kept it sealed off since nobody knew for sure when the sea would come surging in on it. Well, I got to thinking of the story Mom told us about how she used to temp in those office buildings before she met Dad, and that on one of her jobs, the vice-president went through the office and made a big show of throwing all the potted plants away in contempt, and now what those plants would be worth! Anyway, I got to thinking that if one office had lots of plants surely other offices would be decorated with plants. So, I suggested to my boss that we go through those empty buildings and rescue the plants.
Well, my boss got on the phone to the State Police, and the next thing you know, we were allotted two trucks and a little bus for the dozen of us or so who were willing to go into that dangerous place and retrieve the plants. Well, we found so many plants, albeit in pretty sick shape, that we not only filled up both trucks, but we tied them to the roofs of the trucks and the bus, and we each held plants on our laps as we rode home. We used drapes from the building as tarps to protect the plants from the radiation. It was so much fun, you wouldn't believe it. We divided up the plants among the group of us. Mike and I have been awarded a document of safety so our house, that is the two adjoined, will never have to be sacrificed. We argued that Mom and Dad volunteered the sacrifice of their house, and that your house was also sacrificed, and that we needed to provide our family with some sense of security, so we got it.
Are you convinced now? Oh, do come!
Love, Your Sister
P.S.: Here is that weird document I found boxed in a strange metallic, ionized container when I was cleaning out that room with the green eagle-print wallpaper. I'm pretty sure that canister wasn't there when I first looked over the house when Grandma died. Remember Mom telling us how bizarre it was when her older sister supposedly spontaneously combusted? Her sister had gone to bed one night and hadn't come down the next morning. A neighbor had called the family and said there was a fire in the upstairs, a fire of blue flame. When grandma and the rest of the family rushed upstairs, there was no fire, and our aunt, mom's sister, was gone. Remember mom said, "It was as though she had vanished from the face of the Earth..."
Fini
Oestara Publishing LLC
Presents Mabon 2004-2005
Nonfiction:
Vector Theory and the Plot Structures of Literature and Drama
by Cynthia Joyce Clay
Clay examines what literary and dramatic plotting is--what plot is and proposes that the concept of forces in literature and drama is analogous to the concept of forces in physics. Clay uses vectors analogously to describe how characters, objects, and locations which are the "bodies" of literature and drama reflect the propelling of forces within literary and dramatic works.
The Joshua Machine by James H. Clay,
In the first half of the 1800's in Truro Massachussetts, the mysterious John Rills built a wind chime that he claimed would only sound in a wind higher than a hurricane. But John's best friend Justin has other matters on his mind, for his uncle Antrim has stolen his ship. Besides, Justin knows that there is no wind greater than that of a hurricane.
Mundilia
El idealista septuagenario Javier Malco Tovar y su señora se estrellaron en un sospechoso accidente aeronáutico. Su señora murió, pero Javier sobrevivió. Durante una transfusión de sangre, Javier adquirió el virus del SIDA. Por esto, para sobrevivir, Javier se hizo congelar. Javier despertó unos setenta años en el futuro, en el mundo de sus ideales, que era un mundo unido en paz y en la dignidad humana. Siendo la primera persona que sobrevivió el congelamiento que le curo del SIDA, su descongelamiento causo un furor y una celebración a nivel mundial. Sin embargo, esta sociedad utópica estaba en peligro de ser destruida. Cuatro de los representantes de las Naciones Unidas que crearon los documentos para sellar el tratado final de la formación del nuevo orden mundial habían sido secuestrados. Javier, habiendo tenido la experiencia de ser uno de los primeros en proponer el nuevo orden mundial en una época en que ese orden solo parecía un sueno, estudio intensamente la historia de la creación de este nuevo orden mundial, y así encontró la clave de quienes eran los secuestradores. Este asalto en Mundilla era solamente el principio...
An Affection for an Unmarried Lady by Fanny Delarose a Regency romance
Being deemed unsuitable by the father of the man she loves is only one of the problems Ann faces. Her new brother-in- law, the Earl of Corringdon, is furious with her for deflecting his advances. The Earl wishes to destroy Ann's reputation so she will have no where to go but his house and his bed...
The Romance of the Unicorn
by Cynthia Joyce Clay
Something in Elayne's refridgerator turned her pedigree Siamese cat into a troll, and Elayne's boyfried dumped her. This is why, on Halloween night, Elayne was not celebrating but washing out her fridge. The lights went out, but Elayne continued to scrub out the fridge by candlelight until.she found an entrance to a magical world of intrigue. Elayne is sent on a quest to find the Royal Talisman of Faye; she finds her true talent, friends, and love.
New Myths of the Feminine Divine
by Cynthia Joyce Clay
"Cynthia Joyce Clay has delivered a stunning arrangement of short stories that deal with problems from a woman's perspective. Written in the style of fairy tales, many of these portray a deep understanding of the need to preserve the beautiful Nature with which we've been blessed. In my personal favorite, “The Rental,” a realtor has a difficult time boosting her career, until she receives her first client, who just happens to be a witch.
..” Lynnette Marie, author of Midnight Whispers.