lost time incident 71 – abstention

lost time incident 71
Hello how are you I’m fine.

Okay, that’s the formalities out of the way.

I know you haven’t heard from me for a while via this newsletter. I don’t know how you’ve gotten by during the interim. It can’t have been easy for you.

I was thinking I’d start this newsletter back up, on no fixed schedule, because I’m still writing little micro-fiction things and there’s no reason not to share ’em. Especially since I’m on a social media diet at present, so I have the time back I would have spent browsing otherwise.

It’s kind of working already. A few days ago I had a multi-hour productive streak and finished gathering together bits of fiction that I’ll be turning into a self-published e-book this year. Now all that’s left is to rearrange everything, rewrite, edit, come up with a title, etc. etc. etc. But the heavy lifting of cutting-and-pasting-stuff-all-into-one-place is done.

When I’m not working on that e-book project, maybe I’ll be here on this newsletter, making something smaller that can go out the door with much less effort, so I can get that immediate serotonin hit that comes from accomplishment. Thanks for reading this and helping my brain get high on drugs it makes for itself! BAM!

Anyway here’s some stuff to read:

two game figures, a hacker and a cat burglar, standing on a cardboard square labeled COMPUTER ROOM

trying to save some time on this script by setting up all the characters in advance so I can just cut and paste later

GOOD COP:

BAD COP:

OK COP:

FORENSICS COP:

YET ANOTHER COP:

COP ON ANOTHER COP’S BACK, PART OF A SECOND LEVEL OF COPS JUST BELOW THE CEILING:

COPS CRASHING THROUGH 1-WAY GLASS, PUSHED FROM BEHIND BY CROWD OF ADDITIONAL COPS BEHIND THEM, ALL TUMBLING FORWARD AT ONCE:

A ROARING SEA OF COPS OUTSIDE, STRETCHING TO THE HORIZON, ALL OF THEIR SUNGLASSES GLINTING, EACH WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT WHERE YOU WERE ON THE DATE OF:

THE CHIEF:

 

oh heck
A general storms into a computer-filled room at the Pentagon, klaxons blaring, red alert lights spinning everywhere.

GENERAL: What’s going on, soldier?

A soldier taps at his unresponsive keyboard and every key causes his computer to make a “darn!” sound. “darn! darn-darn-darn!”

SOLDIER: I’m afraid… we’ve been hecked, General. Someone hecked our system.

“darn!”

 

wallets out
Okay, wallets out, capitalist scum, ’cause we’re disrupting the dirt market.

How? Easy: There’s an app. Duh.

You want dirt: Use the dirt app. Dirt comes to you. Fills your home. So much dirt. You unlock loyalty rewards like a marble stone with your name on it, says you’re in the dirt right there.

We got the dirt network in place. My pal Dave knows coding. You give us the funding and we’ll have everyone six feet under and the profits won’t stop ever, not ever. Money forever, dirt forever.

 

ending theme song
That’ll do it for this installment! Thanks again for reading. If you’re an artist and you’d like to know how much money I’d spend purchasing art to go into a vanity e-book project because you might want to exchange art for that money, please do get in touch because the number given will almost certainly be “More than would be reasonable.” What can I say? I like my creative projects to lose money.

Just… a lot of money.

I am a fool.

What else. If you like horror movies, THE RITUAL on Netflix is quite good. If you don’t like horror movies, uh, don’t ask any questions about the small piles of dirt that have been appearing outside your front door in the morning or the sounds of soft breathing that can be heard if you press your ear against that door, all the way up until dawn breaks and everything goes quiet.

If you like all sorts of music, well, so do I, so you might want to subscribe to The Tuned In, a different mailing list I run where I send folks 45-minute music mixes of sounds from around the world, which critics have called “exactly 45 minutes long”.

I think that’s everything, now get out.

—Michael Van Vleet


Hey! Did you enjoy reading this? But did you find yourself thinking “Dang, if only this sort of thing were delivered directly into my inbox so I didn’t have to spend time on a website as if it were still the 90s or something!”?

You’re in luck! You can subscribe to the LOST TIME INCIDENT newsletter and finally class up your inbox. 

trying to save some time on this script by setting up all the characters in advance so I can just cut and paste later

GOOD COP:

BAD COP:

OK COP:

FORENSICS COP:

YET ANOTHER COP:

COP ON ANOTHER COP’S BACK, PART OF A SECOND LEVEL OF COPS JUST BELOW THE CEILING:

COPS CRASHING THROUGH 1-WAY GLASS, PUSHED FROM BEHIND BY CROWD OF ADDITIONAL COPS BEHIND THEM, ALL TUMBLING FORWARD AT ONCE:

A ROARING SEA OF COPS OUTSIDE, STRETCHING TO THE HORIZON, ALL OF THEIR SUNGLASSES GLINTING, EACH WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT WHERE YOU WERE ON THE DATE OF:

THE CHIEF:

SO YOU’RE BEING MUGGED BUT YOU’RE ALSO A WIZARD

Hey, it happens. Some days, the pointy hat, the sulfurous familiar, the moons & stars on your robe… they don’t dissuade a thug who’s asked for your wallet.

Take a deep breath. You have options. You could:

1) Explode into a thousand beetles (and make sure at least 10 of those beetles carry your wallet out of there)

2) Fly away on a whirlwind of dirt (or “filthnado”) leaving the criminal all gross

3) Swallow an Emerald of the Deep and, gazing through time, pluck out individual bad choices in your assailant’s life & make them a better person

4) Just give ’em yer wallet, dude. What’s money to a wizard?

oh heck

A general storms into a computer-filled room at the Pentagon, klaxons blaring, red alert lights spinning everywhere.

GENERAL: What’s going on, soldier?

A soldier taps at his unresponsive keyboard and every key causes his computer to make a “darn!” sound. “darn! darn-darn-darn!”

SOLDIER: I’m afraid… we’ve been hecked, General. Someone hecked our system.

“darn!”

alien fragment

An alien race with cognition tied to ballistics. Many eyes, many limbs. They communicate by tossing objects at each other, the details in the graceful arcs of falling objects, the spin, the drop, the object shape. They juggle their language. Their poets throw talking blocks out into air geysers to bend meaning as the words are blown off-course.

They meet humans who think it’s a game of catch. Who insult by dropping. Who don’t know what they’re saying at all as they chuck a word block back.

don’t bother to RSVP

There are certain character traits that’ll ensure that you stop getting invited to parties. Aggressive behavior. An inability to keep secrets. The unnerving ability to point to where memories exist, your finger pointing beyond time’s arrow in a direction our eyes can’t register, time flowing around you as if you were a stone in a river, directly at the past, wherever it went yet still is.

Keep doing that and your party invites are going to get “lost in the mail”… a lot.

It’s Sunday and There’s Smells!

It’s Sunday and we all know what that means! Everyone in the village has gathered to compete in our weekly debate: What does the miasma that drifts in on damp tendrils smell like THIS week?

Suggestions include (so far):
) Candle smoke from a forgotten dim library
) Grandfathers and grandmothers and unwanted candy
) Flowers sewn into burlap and forgotten in an animal’s pen, used as bedding for beasts
) Just regular bog rot… Why does everyone pretend it’s anything else?

Noses high, everybody! It’s a weekly mystery waiting to be solved!

a punchline that doesn’t justify the setup

A human figure with its head on fire judges the souls of a gaggle of school children.

A dark wolf-shape made of smoke and fear stalks a fleeing minivan.

A bird-faced creature with many arms emerges from behind a gate, which swings open, its lock damaged.

A thumping soundtrack with no visible source frantically asks (to a late-90s beat): Whooo let the gods out? ♫ Who? Who? ♫

books for young witches

HOW MANY FROGS CAN I SPIT UP?

BROOM and BOGLIN ARE FRIENDS

HOW TO SUMMON THE CUTENESS FROM BEYOND THE STARS (using only household items and with parental supervision)

Subscription Box: Mr Guns (Feb 2018 unboxing)

Just got this month’s Mr Guns subscription box: Three men’s adventure novels every month!

This month includes:

The Meat Master: Spies of the Kremlin (vol. 8 of The BBQ Files) – The Meat Master meats(!) his match in Moscow’s grilling underground!

Jake Stevens: SPY COLLECTOR! vol. 23 – Jake parachutes into Afghanistan to locate a Czech spy… mint on card!

The Demolitioner: Fists Over Tokyo – It’s Slab vs Kenichi, fists versus feet, crime vs even more crime!