discount primrose

The big doors in the back used to be for bringing things in. The last things they brought in were the refabricators, or so the stories go. You feed things in when you’re done with them and they make new things for you. I can’t imagine what life was like before the refabricators, and the little robots that fix them up when they break down in one way or another. I can’t imagine what it was like to leave the WalMart, or why you’d want to leave the comfortable store to go out into hot air and sere land beyond the front glass. I’ve been out, once, with a crew to help fix the power access from the Plant (I didn’t do much, but it was unpleasant enough).

Apparently all the folks who had a home of their own, in their own little building, who could afford it had their own little refabricators, before the big plagues came through. They and the droughts meant there was ever less folks to want to come to the WalMart. My ancestors, and all the others who live here now, are descended from the folks who were locked in every night…didn’t really have any other place to go.

Some others came to join us, after the plagues but before the droughts got really bad…The crusty punks, carrying forbidden things like beer and adult magazines, so unlike the texts that the Greeters use to teach some of us how to read and write. We still occasionally have the refabricators make us some beer, but it doesn’t taste good to me. The everclear they had and fed in is better, and it only takes a little to have its magical effect.

Once, after I’d drunk some everclear, and fell asleep under the Big Smile, I dreamt that the Big Smile told me that I was the Truly Among the Discounted, The Very Special. It was a very special day, and when I told the Greeter I saw, she patted me on the head and gave me a candy, and said that I should always remember. I always have.

They began to teach me to read, shortly thereafter. The ancient books and magazines kept in the Managers Office, even the forbidden PLAYBOYs, were at my disposal. It certainly was more fun than climbing to the tops of the shelves to dust them off every other day, which was my task before (we carefully capture all the dust for the refabricator).

We wait for the rains to come, so we can put the plants out front, like in the old days. Maybe more new people will come.

(copyright 2011 by Todd Mason. originally appeared on this blog, and reprinted in Discount Noir, edited by Patricia Abbott and Steve Weddle, Untreed Reads)

"I really don't mind the scars." --a vignette

1: [another might follow later, or not. TM]

"But your breasts are fine...I mean, I wouldn't say they're your best feature, but..." he fumbled, flustered, not knowing how to press the case.
She didn't exactly shake him off, but replied matter-of-factly, "If I'm going make any kind of career, either in Hollywood or in the Valley, augmentation will only help."

#

Ludmilla, all six feet of her, reclined against the chair across the table from him. Her face betrayed nothing but mild amusement, but he knew that this was not all she felt...this was her default expression, carefully cultivated though probably also indicative of her assessment of life.
"Gino is a good man," she began. "I would not have married him, nor certainly had our Irena with him, if he was not. But he has a temper, and if anything was to happen to Irena or to myself, you realize that he will," she paused so very briefly here, "kill you, no matter at what cost to himself. But he is a good man, and that would be the end of it."
He waited, suspecting what was to come but having no answer to it yet. "However, I am not a good woman," Ludmilla continued. "If anything should happen to Gino, I will not stop at killing you. I will not stop at killing your wife, or your children. I will leave no living trace of you. And if anything was to happen to Irena, and I survive...it is best not to contemplate such matters at the dinner table."
She took a sip from her glass, her eyes never leaving his face. "I want you to understand this. It would be best for all concerned if you would put all thoughts of damage to my family aside, and indeed to do your best to ensure our continued prosperity. Or perhaps you should, if you must, make your move here, now."

#

"I want to look like Lady Gaga."
She rolled her eyes. "And how might you do that?"
"Practice, practice, practice," he said, only half joking.
"I'm glad you didn't claim you were Born that way..."

#

"I know you're afraid to go forward with this...it's only natural...but I can think of nothing in the world I want more than to have a child with you." She hoped she didn't sound as irrational as she felt.
His pause before replying was pregnant, she thought...not the sort of pregnancy she was hoping for. "You know what the doctors say." He nuzzled the back of her head as he spoke, her hair only slightly obscuring his words. She turned in his embrace and gave him a long kiss. Then: "I know I'm asking a lot...given the probable complications, and what might happen...but you remember what they also said...a Cesarean would in this case cut most of those risks considerably."
Not all the risks, she knew he was thinking. But there were no guarantees in this life...not a one.

#

They'd pulled her off the street two days before, at least she thought it was two days. Time wasn't passing as it did in the real world here, in this hell. The female officer sat impassively across the room; she wondered if the other woman was here simply as a sort of courtesy, some sort of pro forma attempt to conform to human rules of decency. Or if she was there simply as a trainee...she'd done nothing to meliorate the litany of torture. Perhaps she was there to keep her actual interrogator from simply repeatedly raping her and leaving matters at that. The waterboarding, the simple beating, the other procedures had not yet gotten her to name her supposed co-conspirators...the fake names she gave at one point were apparently insufficient. He was now explaining how he'd needed to search around for a smaller alligator clip to attach the auto battery to her clit, smaller than the ones he used to attach to her supposed comrades' scrotal sacs. He actually looked over at the woman officer at this point, as if offering her the honor of applying the device, then turned back to her, bound in her chair. "You realize," he said, with what could only be described as an attempt at solicitousness, "what a wreck we will leave of you." She summoned what saliva she could, and ineffectually spat, most of the spittle never quite leaving her lips.

#

The fannish tweet to the increasingly famous actress read exactly:
Olivia: My ["Wilde"]s for you, as does every other part of me. Surely you can't leave me in such a consumptive state. Think of the damage you do me.

#

The next line, in each case, in continuation or response, was:
"I really don't mind the scars."

The next line, in response, after, was, in some cases here,
"Very well."
In the others, it was,
"It's too bad that I do."

[the other vignettes in response to Patti Abbott's challenge to write one with the line "I really don't mind the scars" can be found indexed or hosted at her blog, Pattinase.]