On the fourth night of this, I was sleeping when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my abdomen; it was the male, beginning to unhook himself from me. Then I heard the growling. I snapped on a light, looked down, and saw Fred attacking the male; he had managed to get a bite in between two of the male’s ring segments and punctured an artery. The male was bleeding all over my bed. If the male managed to completely detach himself, it would be disastrous—my impregnation cycle was not yet complete, and it would be highly unlikely after a noble male was attacked in my bed that I would be entrusted with another ever again. So with one arm I lodged the male back onto me and struggled to keep him in place, with another I reached for the phone to call my doctor, and with the third I scooped up Fred and tossed him off the bed. He landed up on the floor with a yelp and limped away, winding up a perfectly charming incident for all three of us.
I was rushed to the embassy infirmary, where the male’s injuries were sutured and he was sedated to the point where he would again willingly reattach himself to me. By some miracle the fertilization process was uninterrupted; I was confined to an infirmary bed for the rest of the process while doctors made sure everything went as it was supposed to. The ambassador came to visit afterwards and I expressed my shame at the incident and offered my resignation; she declined it, and told me that no one blamed me for what happened, but that it would probably be a good idea to get rid of Fred.
I did, giving him to a retired human diplomat I had worked with for many years. I visit them both frequently, and Fred is always happy to see me. He’s also always happy to see my daughter. Who is also named Fred. As I said, I like the name.
* * * *
Dr. Elliot Morgenthal, Doctor, Stamford:
Oh, God. I worked the ER as an intern right around the time of that stupid fungdu craze. Here’s the thing about fungdu: they’re furry, they’re friendly, they vibrate when they’re happy, and they have unusually large toothless mouths. You can see where this is going. About two or three times a month we’d get some poor bastard coming in with a fungdu on his Johnson.
What people apparently don’t know about fungdu is that if they think that what they’ve got in their mouths is live prey, these little backward-pointing quills emerge out of their gums to keep whatever they’re trying to eat from escaping. These dumbasses get it into their heads to get a hummer from their fungdu, and then are understandably surprised to discover that their pet thinks it’s being fed a live hot dog. Out come the quills, and the next thing you know, there’s some asshole in the emergency room trying to explain how his erect penis just happened to fall into the fungdu’s mouth. He tripped, you see. How inconvenient.
Here’s the truly disgusting thing about this: All the time this is going on, the fungdu is usually desperately trying to swallow. And that animal has some truly amazing peristaltic motion. Again, you can see where this is going. The nurses wouldn’t touch any of these guys. They told them to clean up after their own damn selves. Who can blame them.
* * * *
Bill and Sue Dukes, Plumbing Supplies, Queens:
Bill: There was this one time I was driving through Texas, and I saw the weirdest fuckin’ thing on the side of the road. It looked like an armor-plated rabbit or something. It was just lying there, though. I think it was dead.
Sue: You idiot. That’s an armadillo. They’re from Earth.
Bill: No, you must be thinking of some other animal. This thing was totally not Earth-like at all. It had, like, scales and shit.
Sue: That’s an armadillo. They’re all over Texas. They’re like the state animal or something. Everybody knows that.
Bill: Well, what the fuck do I know about Texas? I’m from Queens. And we sure as hell don’t got any armadillos in Queens.
Sue (rolling eyes): Oh, yeah, if it’s not from Queens, it ain’t shit, right?
Bill: You got that right. Fuckin’ Texas. Hey, what about those things, you know, that got the duck bill?
Sue: You mean ducks?
Bill: No, smartass, they don’t look like a duck, they just got a duck bill.
Sue: What, a platypus?
Bill: Yeah, a platypus! Where are those things from?
Sue: They’re from Earth too.
Bill: No shit? Man, Earth is a weird-ass planet sometimes.
Copyright © 2001 John Scalzi
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John Scalzi is a writer living among the cornfields and the Amish. For more information about him, see his Web site.
Other Cities #2 of 12: Ponge
By Benjamin Rosenbaum
10/15/01
Second in a monthly series of excerpts from The Book of All Cities.
Ponge, as its inhabitants will tell you, is a thoroughly unattractive city. “Well,” they always say at the mention of any horrible news, “we do live in Ponge.”
A survey taken by the smallest and most cantankerous newspaper in Ponge (a city of many small cantankerous newspapers), the Ponge Poodle, claims that the inhabitants of Ponge (Pongians, according to the League of Concerned Pongians; Pongeans, according to Pongeans for a Better Ponge; Pongarians, according to the Proactive Society for Immediate Pongarian Betterment—but you get the idea) have 29% more quarrels than the average, and half again more excuses per capita than the inhabitants any other city in the world.
Among the favorite excuses that each Pongarian (or whatever) treasures is his or her excuse for not moving to Strafrax, the safer, cleaner, nicer, more exciting, and more meaningful city across the River Dunge. “I was planning to move there last month,” says Ruthie Mex, “but my cat got the flu.” “The cigar import taxes there are too high,” says Candice Blunt, who smokes no cigars. “My mother’s grave is here,” says Mortimer Mung. “I would only be disappointed,” says Fish Williams.
Oddly, deep in their hearts, the citizens of Ponge are happier than those of Strafrax. Ponge’s motto is “What Did You Expect?” and the Pongeans (etc.) whisper it to themselves in bed at night as they think back on the day’s events. “Well, what did you expect?” they think smugly, pugnaciously. “What did you expect? We live in Ponge.”
Strafrax’s motto is “Anything Can Happen,” and you can imagine where that leads.
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Previous city (Bellur)
All published cities
Copyright © 2001 Benjamin Rosenbaum
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Benjamin Rosenbaum lives in Basel, Switzerland, with his wife and baby daughter, where in addition to scribbling fiction and poetry, he programs in Java (well) and plays rugby (not very well). He attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop in 2001 (the Sarong-Wearing Clarion). His work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Writer Online. His previous appearances in Strange Horizons can be found in our Archive. For more about him, see his Web site.
The Cruel Brother
By Justine Larbalestier
10/22/01
O, you must ask my father dear,
With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay;
And the mother, too, that did me bear.
As the primrose spreads so sweetly.
—”The Cruel Brother,” Child Ballad #11
For all that the witch was dead, and her fortune now their own, they were a long time leaving the forest. Years and years passed between the moment they first saw her glistening home and their return to kith and kin. By then, the two could hardly get through a day without each other close by. They loved each other as brother and sister should, and much more besides.
As always, Greta was the first to understand: in the world outside the forest, the warmth between Hans and her, the feel of her breasts pressed against his chest, would not do. They were no longer children. They were people in the world. She must be wed, and her brother too, but not together, not sharing the same marriage bed.
They came back to their village, Hans leading his sister on her milk-white mare, seven donkeys heavy-laden with a witch’s fortune. Their foreign mother was still dead, though Greta had half hoped that was a dream. Their father and his no-longer-new wife made room for them and for the strangeness that clung to their skin; there was more than enough to feed them all now.
Greta set about trying to wean Hans from her. She wept more than a little, explained to Hans, and told him no in every way she could as he ran his fingers through her hair and whispered please and yes and why don’t we? “Nobody understands the world the way we two do. Nobody knows.”
Greta said, “No, no, no, no, no.” But her nos grew quieter until they slid to the back of her throat and tumbled her into the hay with him, tangling limbs, kissing fingers and toes.