Our house has cats, and all three delight in catnip, chin rubs, and murder.  Two are around the nine year mark, and one of them is two.  The two-year old had a playmate who was unfortunately lost, leaving him to torment the remaining two who are the human-equivalent of fifty.  This weekend my wife and I decided to rectify this situation and get the youngest a playmate (which he desperately needs).  Ergo:

He does not have a name yet, but he seems like he’ll be a good fit.  At eight months old, he is full of energy so my hope is the two younger ones will blow off steam together – however, this latest addition seems to have a respiratory situation going on, so he’s in quarantine until we get him checked out.  This means I am doing duty with him nights and am getting a very small sampling of what it must be like to have a baby, at least insofar as the thing seems to sleep for two hours, bounce off the walls for one, then sleep for two, and so on until morning.  I suspect his cuteness is an evolved survival mechanism, as despite the sleep deprivation I find it difficult to get too mad at him.

From his performance in tracking the laser pointer I can already tell he will be an efficient killer, like his playmate.  Spring is coming, and I’ve put a dollar down he will register his first kill while there is still snow on the ground…

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I freely admit that I know very little about the functioning of my home’s burner.  I know that, when it is functioning correctly, turning up the thermostat causes the heat inside to rise and doing the opposite makes it fall.  Aside from that, what I mostly know is that it very rarely seems to function correctly.

There was a time when I naively thought that this was because the little gnome who lives inside of it had gone on strike and refused to shovel any more coal.  Being slightly older and wiser now, I realize this isn’t true for two main reasons:

1.  The burner in question burns oil, not coal.  The men who show up at the house periodically do not deliver a leather pouch filled with semi-precious gems to the gnome through a chute from outside, but instead deliver oil, on which the burner runs.

2.  The gnome inside the burner is not a gnome at all – it is some bastard form of mechanized homonculous integrated into the hellspawned contraption which (allegedly) heats my home, feeding on oil, while belching heat and carbon monoxide.

This homonculous is extremely tempermental.  I can not understand the frantic ticking of the infernal difference engine it calls its brain, but the slightest offence is enough to cause it to stop venting heat.  I sometimes think that the only reason it doesn’t reroute its poison gas into my house is because it knows that should I die, the flow of precious oil will cease…but it hates me.

I’ve had several workmen come to service the beast, only to have them leave some hours later with a very convincing (and sometimes detailed) explaination of what the problem was but I know the truth – that the homonculous hypnotizes them, and then whispers the lie into their ear so they can parrot it back to me.  They seal the behemoth shut again before leaving, hiding the thing inside from view, but it is only a matter of time before the cycle repeats itself.

At least, this is all what I’ve been able to get from the owner’s manual.  I’m paraphrasing parts of it, but I think for the most part I have the gist.

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It all started with the chicken gyro incident in New Mexico, when an innocent child ventured too close and was blinded in one eye by a stream of tzatziki sauce.  In the ensuing court case, a liquid propulsion engineer recreated the stream under controlled conditions where it was used to kill a test pigeon three feet from the jury stand.  The scientist was burned in effigy by PETA, and the judge ordered the jury to disregard what they had seen, but it was too late – the damage had been done.

Any law enforcement official may now stop me at any time within the borders of New Mexico and compel me to produce a state-approved feed bag.  While I am no longer allowed inside Greek diners or restaurants, I must wear the feed bag when I enter any other eating establishment, even if it is to only use the bathroom (I found that out the hard way).  Failure to do so can result in up to three days in jail, and potentially the confiscation of the illegally ingested meal through a forcibly administered dose of ipecac syrup.

It doesn’t seem fair.  Don’t they think that girl’s screams haunt my nightmares to this day?  Isn’t it punishment enough to know that the shard of cucumber that dislodged her cornea was delivered by my own negligence?  Some might even question why I even continue to eat in New Mexico, especially since I live in Massachusetts, but it’s about a little thing called freedom.

Don’t even get me started about the shrimp vindaloo fiasco in Vegas…

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CLICK THE EYE

Or, in this case, get reviewed – Library Journal had some very nice things to say about STATE OF DECAY:

For those who don’t know, the red star is a sort of ’seal of approval’ so getting it was a real bonus. I’m glad to have gotten a review like that, especially from them, but I still find I’m getting more nervous (and more excited) the closer to the official release date I get.  This is in part I think because of the book, and partly because I tend to drink my weight in coffee every day (no easy feat, but we all must make sacrifices)  I’ve been through this before when my non-fiction book came out back in 1999, but this will be the first time I’ve offered up something so close to my heart for public consumption.  It will have to sink or swim on its own merits now, but it seems to be getting off to a good start.  All in all I feel confident – but nervous.

It’s a good nervous, though.  As I put the finishing touches on Book Three, I’m trying to savor the excitement of this.  I hope many more will follow, but I will never have another debut novel.

More to come.

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Robert Elrod is a talented artist I met on Facebook who agreed to help me out with art for the STATE OF DECAY promotional site (coming soon).  He emailed me this today, his rendition of a black market revivor.  I think it speaks for itself…you should check out his other works too, it’s great stuff!