Facebook status updates part XXVII (Aug – Sept 2014)

The Detective did not suffer nightmares during the nights that followed his solving the murder spree, but rather terrible dreams he’d wake gasping from of other lives he could have led.

"You sleep the way others wake up," she said, and he never knew if it was a compliment or not.

We run out of truths

Long before our lies

"She is so wise that sometimes she forgets to be wise at all."

“What was that about? Talk to me, Jake.” I reach and snag his wrist before he can get up. This isn’t boring; whatever he did to piss them off is definitely not that.

“I hacked their website and changed Alfie’s picture.”

I let go at that, as much in surprise as anything else, and his face begins to turn red under my stare. “Hacked. This from the person who asked me last year why his computer kept asking him for a reboot even after he’d downloaded the entire TV series?”

“There aren’t many shifters – or even half-shifters – around. Mom says it’s because it’s hard to bring kids to term inside you when you shift shape, and she’s probably right but –.” He shrugs. “It seems weird to just have biology rear up in the middle of ‘you can change shape because of the moon’ talks, you know?”

.... the fun point where your story becomes a gentle deconstruction of a genre.

2103, July 14th: It is finally a crime to die as the last holdouts against rejuvenation treatments are arrested. (RejuvTreat® Hidalgo Holdings Ltd.)

2064, April 2nd: The first same-sex AI wedding ends in 3.02 seconds when one of the AIs is found out to have had a history as a spam bot.

"If only we hated each other. Everything would be easier then."

"Even this?"

"Especially this."

2018, September 8^th: Photographic evidence becomes inadmissible in courts because of photoshop.

2034: an advance in scancode hacking allows for the complete stealing of another’s identity right down to memories backed up in MemStore and physical appearance.

The only people who protest are those whose identities are not worth stealing.

Grit caught in the corner of one’s eye is magic trying to get inside.

ZZZ is now allowable in scrabble. That is awesomely useless.

"The safe word is Tesla; it is never Edison."

“I wish I could love you as much as I love the demons that haunt you.”

Wake to bird song rather than silence,

and slam windows against our luck

We are a silence before anything other.

"We wish to avoid any imperial entanglements."

"Oh, that’s easy! This is a galaxy far, far away: we use metric."

“So. It’s like that, is it?”

“Like what? I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“You have a gun pointed at my head. I think that is specific enough.”

“It’s a water pistol. Think again.”

I speak in broken silences

All the words you will not see

Force back against aching teeth

All that I cannot unsay

Love is not forgetting your name.

"How silly of you to try and redeem me. What emotion is more pure and honest than hate?"

“The world is full of conspiracies. But the one where we met and fell in love is the only one I care about right now.”

March 4th, 2021: autocorrect is abolished after causing at least three wars in seven years.

The Detective shook his head. "This isn't making any sense, Commissioner. This is the fourth case in a row I've taken that has connected to some previous case from decades ago, linked another case I didn't think was connected to it and turned out to be hitting too close to home and involving secrets from my own family. I'm starting to wonder if something might be wrong with my life, that it keeps leading me down these paths."

"Are you a monster?" The child asked.

The old man looked away. “The burns are from an accident,” he said in a weak voice.

“I don’t mean that: you look like a teacher. Are you a teacher?”

“Teachers are not monsters.”

“Shows what you know.”

“I didn’t mean to destroy the world. I jumped into the ocean to drown my sorrows, but they were deeper and consumed the oceans.”

"Everything is just tickety-boo," the AI explained when asked how its systems were functioning.

Debit and credit card receipts as a metaphor for a relationship, equal to collar bones and hearts in cages. Being given love notes, and handing over a file folder listing everything the relationship has allowed you to claim back in taxes as a gift of equal worth.

Love isn’t what it used to be; we live in an age of artificial sweeteners

I give thanks to the only god I make sacrifices to: caffeine

You know writing is going fun when, at page 3, you realize that you need to figure out why someone's arm doesn't hate another character.

It occurs to me that I probably need more than 'Jay buys a cellphone' as the plot for nanowrimo this year.

from WIP:

He looked as sad and unloved as the number 9 on a microwave.

There are few things as terrifying as seeing what passes as a muse for a professional critic.

Once upon a time there was a queen with a magic mirror that judged how beautiful women were and in her wisdom the queen changed the mirror to see the appendix as beauty. People became very confused when a 79 year old woman with two teeth was considered the most beautiful woman in the kingdom.

"We are making our story between moments of will; the only time there is no artifice is when we forget to be."

Every time we sneeze, we are seeking to break a curse someone has placed on us.

... And if we are lucky, it is not ourselves who have placed the curse.