Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

"I need a creature that none have seen, and it should be wild and impressive to the eye. It must be perfect. I am hosting a party, and I intend it to be an occasion that people will speak of for months. It occurred to me that a live, exotic creature would add a touch of novelty." Lupant looked down his nose at his surroundings, as if doubting such a thing could be found here.

"Certainly, sir," Bruant said. "Let me show you our stock." He gestured to the store window, where two rigid gray lizards balanced upright on the tips of their tails, their eyes closed, their forelegs crossed over their chests. "These tomb-lizards are from the planet Cassial. They are known as tomb-lizards because of the resemblance between their dormant state and gravestones: the gray color, the posture--"

"Do they do anything interesting?"

Bruant blinked. "Every half-hour, they revive, change to their normal color, and run around frantically for about ten minutes."
"In other words, no."

Read more.

"Clara ought to be home by now, an' my daughter. Was I wrong t'say she couldn't marry Jack? Naw. He's a Negro. Didn't obey me though. I got me a granddaughter, half Negro.

"Well, I let my daughter come to our mountain, didn't I? So what if I didn't let Jack come? He's a Negro." The old man lay on the bed, rambling.

The scrawny dog on the floor lifted his head and whined. The man smelled of death. It was the same death-smell that the dog had smelled outside in the air. A cute baby girl with a fuzz of black curls and long-lashed black eyes waved her tiny fists in the corner of the bunker.

Even as a little girl, Vole had been different than the others. It didn't matter if she hid her toes from sight. It didn't matter that her skin was the same dusty brown and her hair the same dark brown as everybody else in the village. The difference was on the inside. She didn't see things the same way as everyone else. If she was hungry, she saw no reason that she should not steal another child's dinner, no matter how much they cried. She never felt guilty, no matter what she did.

As she grew older, Vole watched others and developed a set of rules to keep herself out of trouble: not stealing when others could catch her; not hurting people or animals in the same place that she lived; smiling; saying hello; apologizing and looking sad when she upset somebody; remembering the names and details of those people that she saw often; memorizing and abiding by the rules of politeness in each place that she lived; and keeping herself as respectable-looking as she could. Small children and animals still shied away from her, but she could fool most people...even if she had not been able to fool the Nameless God.

Now she had followers of another god to contend with. The clatter of the monks' sandals was growing louder behind her. She sped her run up to a sprint, going for speed instead of distance. As Vole ran through the maze of alleys and footpaths and meditative walks that stitched together the temples of Horol's Holy District, her eyes flicked over her surroundings.

She hadn't expected such quick and vigorous pursuit. It was just her luck that the monks were of the "training the body as a tool to train the mind" sort instead of the "sit around illuminating manuscripts all day" sort.

It wasn't even as if she'd stolen an idol of their god; she couldn't have lifted the pony-sized carving of the jade frog if she'd tried. When she'd slipped into the Sheng-tsai temple with worshippers attending for the afternoon prayers, she'd been relieved that the client had only wanted the small, squat black idol hidden behind a jumble of incense, dried flowers, and dangling prayer flags. She'd slipped it into the bag tied to her belt and hoped that its loss wouldn't be noticed until long after she'd left. It hadn't worked out that way.