the slush god

Talk about serendipity.

Thanks to a link from Charles' friend, I found the blog of the Editorial Assistant of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, John Joseph Adams.

The neat thing is that I have a rejection letter from him, signed and all (my first physical notice since the others were emails). I don't know, it's as if he suddenly became...real, you know, like a real human being.

It means no longer submitting to an invisible, unknowable entity.


just one stick

I joined the throng of stubborn people who refused to bring an umbrella or wear rain gear despite the obvious warnings of another approaching storm. We were all trapped under awnings of friendly buildings, watching someone occasionally make a break for it. I feared for my laptop, which caused me to move in an ultra-conservative manner, but managed to get a ride to my client meeting in Makati.

The traffic, however, was just draining. Rain makes all the vehicles slow to a crawl, and there are few things that irk me more than being trapped in a car for an extended period of time. My mind does strange things. I envision mass murder, buildings reduced to rubble, people fleeing from my wrath.

Outside, the rain slowed to drizzle, but that did little to alter the traffic conditions. At one point, I locked gazes with a similarly trapped soul in another cab and all we could do was offer each other a feeble smile, a tenuous bond created by our artificial circumstances.

I wished I could smoke. I wished I could read. I wished the radio played music I liked. I wished I was at home, with wife and daughter. I wished I was anywhere but in the taxi with the faulty air conditioner. I wished there was something I could watch, like an accident or something.

When I finally got to my meeting, I recovered my default disposition and immediately had a cigarette. Thinking about that single stick was what got me through hell.