8FOLD: Mancers # 9, "Head Room"

[Scott Eiler]

On 2020-06-01 08:21, Tom Russell wrote:
>     Next to the straight line she makes another, then a diagonal, like
> a bottomless triangle. She reverses it - makes it a reflection of
> itself - and is perversely pleased that it at least vaguely resembles
> an M. After a few minutes of grunting and bleeding, she admires the
> six jagged letters: I MISS U.
>     "Well?" she says. No answer.
>     She slumps down onto the tile floor, her back against the cupboard.
> She twists her arm, glancing in turn at her white wrist and the red
> knife. A minute. She'll wait a minute. She counts to sixty, silently
> mouthing the words.
>     When she gets to forty, she feels a flush of heat upon her cheek,
> and then jagged metal against her arm. She stifles a scream and then
> looks at the back of her arm. Her flesh is tearing itself, splitting
> apart like busted seams. After a moment, it stops, and she can see
> three more letters: TOO.
>     I MISS U TOO.
>     And for the first time in a long time, Lieke is happy.

That was a really good story moment.

As you might imagine, I'm not heavily into shadow-political adventures. 
But I look forward to where this one is going.


-- 
-- (signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> ------ http://www.eilertech.com/ -------

The soldiers presented a pathetic but inspiring spectacle. The
hospitals were crowded with sick and wounded; the walls were
gradually crumbling under incessant shell fire, yet that garrison
of heroes remained undaunted.

It was as Buck said, "just as if they had been Americans."

- from "The Airship Boys in the Great War", De Lysle F. Cass, 1915.
Coming soon to Project Gutenberg.  gutenberg.org