Bitriot's New Writeups

ectotherm (poetry)

2009-12-16T05:35:26Z

The sky is a normal color almost.
Three days ago a cloud slid over it
like a strange tongue,
green, I was sure,
like everything else.
The money we burned for heat;
our skin.
Does your voice still work?

I remember when the first shining shell
pierced the atmosphere -
How you muttered "earthquake weather."
Your lips started cracking when the television
died.

They'll take me first. I keep glancing
in the mirror:
my coccyx.
I touch its scales, thinking
you might find it
impressive when it's done growing
if they keep us together

Dennis Lehane (person)

2009-12-03T19:23:16Z

Character is action: the oldest law of writing.
It goes back to Aristotle. Plot is just a vehicle in which you see them act.

- Dennis Lehane, in an interview with Linda Richards,
January Magazine, March, 2001

It makes perfect sense, no? We're wired to be intrigued by people. And what does art do but work within the wiring? You'll notice that I did, indeed, say "art" there. I'll be getting into the relationship, if there is one, between art and genre shortly.

I probably like Dennis Lehane so much because I didn't start with his Kenzie/Gennaro books. I'm glad I didn't. You shouldn't either; they were his first novels, and more important, they're a series. Before you start defending series: I know. Peter Straub and his novelist, Stephen King and his gunslinger, both critically and commercially successful. Call it a quirk of mine. But Lehane…

Witches are tricky. Ask the villagers. (fiction)

2009-10-07T21:55:09Z

On Witch's Hill there are two houses about fifty yards apart.

The larger of the houses is rather dull-looking, with peeling paint, splintering trim and crumbling brick; smoke is never seen to emerge from its dour-looking chimney. Those who pass by suppose that this is a good thing, because as it is, the house and its surrounding area has the unpleasant smell of burnt chicken; chimney smoke would probably be much, much worse.

The smaller house, on the other hand, is much more beautiful. Milton's wife built it seemingly in hours just before she left. She adorned the house with colorful birds' feathers and windchimes and surrounded it with fireflies. On the bright green lacquered door is a sign which reads "Come in" (though she instructed Milton to never, ever enter) and from the chimney always billows a column of soft white smoke that smells of baking dough.

Milton lives alone in the larger house; when his wife…

If they come for us (fiction)

2009-10-01T23:04:07Z

We're gonna go over this. Concentrate, Jimmy.

It's raining that night, yeah? You pick her up out in front of the Amber Lounge, couple miles up from the beach, and she's got this guy with her. Sullen-looking dude in a tight tee-shirt, jeans cost more than hers probably, tattoos he probably picked out of the book at the shop. You know? You size him up and move on. But her? She's something else. Real Bettie Page look about her, and, you know how it is, out here on the beach, everyone's trying to look like a goddamn James Dean movie. Really says something when that sort of thing gets to be worth mentioning, you know? And you almost tell her, "nice gams," but you figure that'll throw the vibe.

That's important, alright? Look at me. You have to include details like that. But don't be a fucking squirrel about it. Wait until they ask. Remember it, you know? Play it by ear. Bullshit with the good cop. Act like you really want him to help…

The day on the New Planet (fiction)

2009-09-29T21:38:49Z

When Richard Marin saw the bungalow again, this time completed, the clouds above rolled alarmingly.

Research Bungalow 10 is installed in a rock plateau at the highest point of the New Planet. At some distance to its west begins a gradual slope that descends all the way to sea level; to its east, somewhat closer, is an abrupt drop of some thousand meters. An unpaved road begins at the bungalow and follows the gradual slope, eventually curving around at the end and wrapping around the plateau's base, ending at the bottom of the thousand-meter drop. Here, unexplored, a cave breaches the smooth rock face. The cave opening faces a glittering mangrove that expands past the eastern horizon.

The bungalow comprises two levels. The basement, once filled with building materials, is empty, presumably waiting for food rations. The top, or "junior apartment" level, is modeled after an on-base apartment, save the laboratory stuffed into a…

August 6, 2009 (person)

2009-08-06T04:35:31Z

She said yes.

We went to our beach and sat on the rocks flanked by the jetties. It was a beautiful evening, with the full moon brightening in the sky, and the stone, shaped from thousands of years of the ocean's movement, rising around us like a chapel.

Sometimes words fail. I have nothing to express but joy; I have nothing to give her but the rest of my days.

My sincere gratitude for your congratulations and well-wishes. You guys rock.