Month: February 2017

The Love Song of the Engineer

My hands speak volumes
As they trace the curves of your body
And ponder the integrals of those curves
Using my fingers to mark out the derivatives

Let us assume that you are a rigid body
But existing in a frictionless environment is no fun
So let us instead consider a constant friction called f
A glorious friction, offset with lubrication as necessary

And let us consider a second rigid body
Did I forget to mention that we shall assume that all bodies are spheres?
No, scratch that, that assumption upsets the tangent planes
And negates those glorious curves

I wish I was DNA heliocase so that I could unzip your genes
Hypothesis proven, biological humor is not my forte
Would you prefer something that involves compiling your object files?
Then again, perhaps not.

Back to that second rigid body I mentioned
Its here in my hand, for demonstration purposes, of course
I chose the smooth one so we can maintain our constant f of friction
But if you’d prefer more variables, that’s fine with me

Now, would you be so kind as to lie back and collect data for me?
I will measure the efficacy of my application of F=MA
By the waveforms you produce in the air.
Experimental procedure says that you get to reproduce my test next

An object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by an outside force
And I can be a very enthusiastic outside force, if you would like me to
Where this experiment proceeds is based entirely on the data you provide,
But I for one, would love to do an in depth study of fluid dynamics.

Unwanted Toys

Yesterday a woman cried
And the universe stopped to listen
The smoked glass bottle of poison on the windowsill
Of the child’s room was empty
And the little girl was a broken doll on the floor

The woman cried not out of sorrow
As she cradled the little doll
There was nothing but silence as she sobbed
And the little girl walked away into a ferocious eternity
Escaping the imprisoning embrace

Guilt wracked the woman
And the universe stopped to watch
She lifted the stiff little doll to lay her on the bed
Then went to call them to take away her unwanted toy,
With one hand on her unborn but welcome son

Stage

Stage Fright
Noun
Nervousness felt by a performer or speaker when appearing before an audience.

Stage Fright is standing up here looking out at all of you and thinking
Is it really better if they’re all in their underwear?
Standing here, trying to pour my heart and soul into a microphone
After having already poured it onto a piece of paper
Is it really possible to keep your heart in so many places?

Stage Fright
The Oxford English Dictionary states that Stage-Fright is, in fact, a hyphenated word first used in writing in the 1870s by Twain
Funny, since I’m fairly certain that Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer had no such thing

Stage Fright also answers to the name “performance anxiety”
But the only performance enhancing drug I know for this anxiety comes in a glass bottle and you must be at least this many years old to purchase
In all the emails, all the worthless spam telling me that they can increase my length,
why can’t there be one, just one, saying they can help me stand on a stage and look you all in the eye

Ain’t My Dog

He put the book down and shook his head.
“It’s got a dog on the cover. I don’t read books that’ve got a dog on the cover.” He shrugged a little, hands sliding into the pockets of his overalls. “Thanks anyways, Ma’am.”
Then he turned and strode out of the library. He hesitated by the old railing and then continued on to where his bike leaned against a wall.

The ride back home was punctuated by distant baying, sharp barks, and bird song. He let the bike fall on the grass in front of the small house and jogged inside. It was quiet. Music played on the radio in the kitchen where his mother laughed and joked with his older sister while they made dinner. Somewhere out the back, the roar of an engine said that his father was working on the truck again. Instead, he went to go grab the .22 from his closet. He didn’t want to be around all these cheerful people.
“Where are you headed?”
“Just out the woods, Mama. I’ll bring back some squirrels, a’right?”

He was deep in the backwoods, far enough that it would take the big bell hanging by the back door to get his attention from the house. That was when he heard the sound. It was like a whimper or a whine. He set his rifle down by a stump and crept forward to investigate. There it was, a ratty little thing near the waterline. It was a puppy of uncertain parentage, soaked and shivering. The boy knelt and frowned, picking the puppy up by its scruff.
“You’re sure a mess.” He hesitated and then sighed. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and I’ll drop you off somewhere.”
The puppy started trying to lick his face the moment the boy pulled him closer.
“None of that now, you ain’t my dog.”
He picked his .22 back up and held the pup close, making his way back towards the house.

“Pup ain’t gonna make it, son.”
The boy glared up at his father.
“He will. And then I’m gonna take him and see if anyone needs a dog.” Once again, the wriggling pup was trying to wash the boy’s face. “He ain’t mine, that’s for certain sure.”
“Whatever you say, boy.”

The dog was big enough to jump onto the bed now and had flopped himself across the boy’s pillows.
“Get down, Ra-”
Ranger. He stopped. He couldn’t do this. Not again. Not another dog. But the eager to place pup was washing his hands and dancing at his feet.
“Alright, you can sleep on the bed with me. But you still ain’t my dog.”

“Scout! Dammit, where’d you get to?”
The dog barrelled out of the brush, barking excitedly as he ran towards his boy.
“There you are. Come on, we’re goin’ to the library again. You know what that means.”
He clipped a leash to Scout’s collar and the dog danced excitedly as his boy went to get his bike.

Space

Silence. Just the dim blinking of the console. A single voice cutting through lightyears of space.

“We lost you on the monitors. Can you get a visual of any local pulsars so we can locate you?”

Nothingness. Darkness. Emptiness. There are stars, but none pulse in erratic patterns. And none flicker. It takes an atmosphere to flicker and sparkle.

“Thank you.”

A pause. Discomfort in the tone now. Uncertainty.

“What? Why?”

“You tried.”

Silence.

Kepler-438b

The terraforming drones had arrived on Kepler-438b long before humans first set foot on its rocky surface. The pictures transmitted back baffled and amazed, but it was, they decided, like the face on Mars: merely a matter of shadow and wishful thinking. There was no way there were towers reaching to the sky and spiraling edifices of stone carved and shaped by hands and minds that were, like theirs, capable of dreaming. Not on Kepler-438b. It was a trick of the light and nothing more.

That was what they said until the first colonists disembarked from the landing craft. The yawning bay doors opened in the back and the first landing team found themselves staring up at an immense wall bestrewn with an ivy-like crawler vine that wound around columns in made its way in through perfectly round windows. Standing sentinel beside the great archway in its center were two statues, crumbling depictions of something the screamed louder than words “We were here!”

The colonists searched and searched, but there were no signs of the builders, of any creatures native to this place. There were only the plants. Then one day, a child stood by one of the carved walls. The others had long since stopped looking for answers in the pictures, long since ignored the mystery implied in stone, and focused on their survival. But when they saw what he saw, they stopped. He held his small hand up, fingers splayed, and smiled. There on the wall, lined up with his own hand, was a palm and five splayed fingers. A hand reaching out through the ages, the very same as their own.

A Chance to Regret – Part 3

Soon enough, I had Chubs safely strapped onto the back of my motorcycle and we were off. Of course, I knew where I was going. Sure, the streets looked a little different and the old bodega was some 24-hour convenience store now, but the taqueria across the street was still the same old place. The paint was peeling and the windows were dark, but I remembered every inch of the inside. When I parked my bike, I stood by the windows and looked in, wondering if Maria’s folks still owned it. Probably. If they were alright, anyway. That brought me right back down to Earth. Would she meet me on the streets? Or did I have to go inside? First thing’s first, though, I had to unstrap the cat carrier from the back of my bike.
Carrier in hand, I went to the door of the taqueria and waited, uncertain. There were no lights on inside and the door didn’t budge when I pushed it. Then I heard a click and looked up fast. A man stood in the alley between the storefronts, a mask over the lower half of his face. But I recognized him without trouble. He was thinner than I’d remembered, paler too. It was like the color had been washed out of him. But there was no question he was Maria’s Papi. He looked me over, stepping out onto the sidewalk.
“She’s upstairs, Chiquita.” He held out a hand for the carrier and then pressed a mask into my hands. “I didn’t think we would be seeing you. Too dangerous.”
I shook my head and smiled ruefully.
“Well, no one ever said I was smart when it comes to Mari.”
Then I pulled the mask on, not quite sure why I needed it if we were going inside. I wasn’t sick and Chubs sure didn’t have whatever this mess was. Then a chill shot through me. What about Maria’s Mama? Was she alright?

Part 2: here
Part 1: here

A New Case

I was filing papers in the back when I heard the chime of the bell opening.
“I’ll be right there!”
Clambering down the ladder, I smoothed down the front of my skirt and stepped out into the waiting room. A woman stood standing in the door, an imperious expression on her face, framed by wisps of chestnut hair that had escaped her ponytail. She was wearing jeans and a camp t-shirt, with a strip of leather strapped to the inside of her right arm. An archery guard, I realized. Her eyes met mine and for a moment, my world felt like it had dropped out from under me. Then I noticed the young girl standing beside her, one arm in a sling. She was small and thin, eyes downcast.
“So,” the woman said, a bit of a smile on her face. “You’re the intern I’ve been talking to on the phone?”
“I…Yes? I mean… I’m sorry, how can I help you?”
That got a bit of a laugh and she knelt for a moment, telling the small girl she could go read a book in the corner.
“I need to talk to my sister, it’s about a case I need her to open.”
I took a breath and nodded, somehow knowing exactly what she was talking about.
“She’s in her office. Let me just tell her that you’re here. Would you like something to drink?”
She shook her head and then paused.
“Have you got juice?”
She glanced over at the girl and I nodded.
“I’ll get her a juice box.”
First, I went to my boss’s office. Knocking on the doorframe, I leaned in.
“Your sister is here about something. She says it’s a case.”
I thought I had seen my boss turn into an avenging angel before. I had thought wrong. When she stood, I could have sworn that for just a moment she was wearing armor.
“Send her to the deposition room. I need you to watch the little girl. There are cookies in the pantry, get her one.”
I headed off to do as I was told before I’d even processed that I hadn’t told her about the girl.