Chapter 1. Halfway through the televised debate I kick my boot into the screen. Even on mute I can't stand it. It feels good to smash the TV, though. I feel like I'm participating in the political system. The candidate's head vanishes in a shower of glass and noise, and I stand there wondering why I let my knowledge that violence only makes things worse prevent me from being violent. It's noon. Before he left, Chris made me promise to be gone before his boyfriend comes home at six. I used to steal from heterosexuals for political reasons.
Now I'm a little more honest about it. The TV belongs to Chris' boyfriend, and so I shouldn't have broken it. Richard answers on the first ring, and I say "Where are you? "What are you wearing? " I probably won't ever find out who the boy is that Richard's fucking, and I don't care.
The boyfriend has a separate dresser from Chris, and I dig through it looking for a clean sock, wipe myself off, and fold it nicely back in with the others. "What restaurant? " "Okay," Www.asofterworld.com/stories.html. Here are some of the things that Joey has written Go to the comic site above if you're looking for Overqualified, or the interviews. Or click here to read some stories from his short story collect, It's Too Late to Say I'm Sorry. Below are some stories from that book, and some other, more recent work.
One Bloody Thing After Another (2008, With Emily Horne, photographer) I don't think it's possible for me to describe just how much I love horror movies and stories. Where are you off to now? This was the first story I sold for over fifty dollars. 1e4 (Eyeshot) I'm obsessed with the idea of hidden messages.
Linux Device Drivers (Eyeshot) I used to program computers, so I have all these manuals lying around. The girl who couldn't come This is a story I wrote for a magazine tour that Broken Pencil invited both Emily and I to participate in! The Historian (Strange Horizons) I am also obsessed with the idea of biography. Historians and Degenerates (Strange Horizons) The Machine (Strange Horizons) Historians and Degenerates, by Joey Comeau. 27 February 2006 It has been six months since Marion disappeared on me. She left her journals, all of her belongings, some romance novels, a collection of ugly teddy bears, but nothing which indicates the kind of planning that you would need to successfully jump off the grid.
We were married for sixteen years. She said she enjoyed sex with me, but sometimes she locked herself in the bathroom afterwards. That's the only thing that sticks out, when I think back. On the train ride home tonight, I see her in a tunnel, out the subway window. It's just a glimpse, as we come around the corner and the train slows. I'm standing up before I realize what's happening, and when the subway stops at the next station, I step out onto the platform and start heading back the way we've come. There's a small pathway that heads back into the subway tunnel, and a short gate at the end of the platform. I do. I live on the third floor, and I walk up the stairs out of principle. I keep my eyes closed.
The Machine, by Joey Comeau. 16 January 2006 A scientist (me) and a priest (David) walk into a bar, ten years before either of us are born, looking for a miracle. That's not really accurate. This is more of an airport lounge. There are booths and waitresses and food and an air hockey table. I'm not telling this joke very well. Okay, a scientist and a priest walk into a bar, looking for a miracle.
The scientist turns to the priest and says, "This is what I imagine my ex-wife's childhood looked like. " "From what I hear, this is what it must have been like to be married to you," he says. Even while it's playing back this chunk of the past, flaming little girl and horrified parents and all, the machine is recording everything we do and say inside. She has access to the machine's database, as a government employee. The story of the machine is pretty simple. But an historian wondered, "Well, why does there have to be a selection at all?
The machine's record of history only goes back to a dozen years before I was born. Www.asofterworld.com/halt.html. The Historian, by Joey Comeau, illustration by Becky Cloonan. 4 July 2005 Mary sat up and groaned. Sometimes it was hard to think of a reason to get back up off the kitchen floor in the morning, but there were always more bills to pay. The phone was ringing and she felt a dull ache in her side. Her left hip had one of those bruises that kept rebruising and never got to heal. She smelled of burnt plastic.
Just once she'd like to make it to her bed before passing out. The water washed the taste of ash from her mouth and wet her lips again. The shower water never seemed hot enough after a fire. She forced herself to stay in the shower. She toweled herself dry. She pulled on her underwear, a T-shirt, jeans, sneakers. Born with the superpower to control knives with his mind, to make them float through the air at his whim, Gerald Thompson would never have hurt a fly before his accident. "This is the sort of superpower that we should be focusing on," she said. She wandered back into the kitchen. "The accident was worse than him dying," she said. "Hello? " Www.asofterworld.com/johnnycash.html. The girl who couldn't come.
By Joey Comeau My problem is that I can't come unless Johnny Cash is playing. I can't orgasm without the sound of his voice in my ears. When I do hear him, I can't control myself. I'm afraid to drink in country bars because when they play a Johnny Cash song, I end up in the ladies room with a stranger, straining to hear the music from the dance floor. (It is worth noting that everything contained here-in copyright 2005 Joey Comeau)