You begin to receive emails with long, seemingly meaningless, sequences of letters and numbers. A code, it seems, perhaps a message, but you can’t find anything in these sequences that have meaning – they seem to be random, just noise. But then, you’re no statistician or code-breaker, so maybe they do mean something. Why are you receiving them? You don’t know. After two weeks the emails stop coming. That afternoon, visitors arrive at your home, knock politely. Calmly, they apologize for … [Read more...]
“Tyrant Love” / Memorable Fancies #1433
9 January, 2016 by Leave a Comment
[“Tyrants ... are gathered together with sex workers, seemingly part of an increasing crowd of loveless figures.” – Judith Butler] I love the people I force to obey me. Don’t I? And the whores in my dungeon – when they call me “your lordship” and plead for their lives, they – they say they love me, too. There is a ceremony in the temple, once each year, where I am symbolically killed and rise again as their loving savior. A form of this drama is acted out in the dungeons too, but without love, … [Read more...]
“More Drama” / Memorable Fancies #841
26 September, 2014 by Leave a Comment
During the intermission, an usher appears and slips you a folded note bearing the seal of the Great and Feared Leader. You unfold it; it is blank. Now you know what will happen in Act 2. <END> THE PITCH If you liked this post, please tell your friends and share a comment here or on Facebook or other social websites. For an author profile, list of publications, and other information, see www.terencekuch.net. To browse or buy any of the author’s novels or story … [Read more...]
“The Names” / Memorable Fancies #527
22 November, 2013 by Leave a Comment
We were requested to sign up so that the authorities would have a list of those who have signed up. It seemed nonsensical at the time, but more innocuous than most of their initiatives. And so we complied. We are hiding now as our names are called, one by one, over and over. My own name has been called so many times that it begins to sound strange, as if I were someone else. <END> If you liked this post, please tell your friends and share a comment here or in … [Read more...]
“An Economy of Dreams – VI” / A Memorable Fancy #305
8 April, 2013 by Leave a Comment
[Neuroscientists find a way to record dreams as the dreamer experienced them.] “Most people, when awakened, haven’t remembered all their dreams; that gives us an advantage. “‘We have a recording,’ we tell them. ‘We remember your dreams, even when you don’t. Just last week you dreamed you were disloyal. No, we won’t tell you how you were disloyal; that’s classified. But I’ll just say that it was an original kind of disloyalty, very threatening, using a deadly new kind of … [Read more...]
“The Language of Statues – II” / A Memorable Fancy #063
31 July, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Not all the statues of me have been maintained to my satisfaction. A few, especially in the workers’ quarters, are broken, headless, smeared with excrement, reviled by passing crowds who have found a convenient place to relieve themselves. Each affront results in my declaration of higher taxes, conscription of still-younger males, expansion of the torture camps. The people will soon understand how much I love them. Then they will give me all their own love. … [Read more...]
Memorable Fancies 