Short Story: “Representation” May 22, 2013
Posted by gznork26 in Short Stories, Fiction, Politics.Tags: power, occupy-wall-street, OWS, confidence, people's mike, unified protest
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What have you meekly acquiesced to, and then regretted it? (This series began with “Crossing the Line“.)
“Representation”
by P. Orin Zack
[4/8/2013]
“And finally,” Sue Winston said, scanning the agenda on her screen, “we have a request for a zoning change. Jones Construction has…”
A sudden movement from the rear of the council chamber stole the sound from her voice. Still jumpy after last week’s face-off with a line of armored riot cops, Sue glanced up, looked past Wendell Jones’ smarmy face, and towards a familiar-looking woman in the last row. Whoever it was held her coat open with one hand, while she reached deep inside with the other. It was the sort of move that having a brother on the riot squad makes you wary of: suspicious behavior, potentially lethal. Just then, the chill holding her spine hostage trembled under the realization that it was Natalie Knox, the city librarian who had triggered the recent confrontation and mass arrests at Jones’ construction site. She’d seemed friendly enough that night, but… (more…)
Short Story: “Scaling K2″ December 23, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.Tags: confidence, occupy-wall-street, OWS, people's mike, power, unified protest
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What have you meekly acquiesced to, and then regretted it? (This series began with “Crossing the Line“.)
“Scaling K2”
(Part 3 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[12/11/2012]
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Les said, holding a splayed hand up for respite. “You’ve made your point, Ifan. I agree. Caving to the mayor’s new rule was profoundly stupid. But it’s done. We folded. The General Assembly voted, and that’s that. The question is what do we do now?”
Ifan Davies glanced around the depressingly deserted public square that the capitol city’s Occupy Wall Street community had called home for the past year. The two were sitting on the wood and iron bench from atop of which the GA was usually called into session.
A few days earlier, the police department’s new surveillance drone had monitored a run-through of Les’ latest street-theater project, in which several competing speakers found common cause as their separate contingents of the people’s mike began to synch up. The following morning, the mayor issued a new executive order designed to make the event illegal. In the interest of public safety, he’d said, he was prohibiting groups larger than ten people from saying or doing anything in unison. As Ifan had pointed out during the GA, the rule may have been intended to hobble the people’s mike, but it was so badly conceived that it also applied to everything from high school cheerleaders to the mayor’s favorite church choir. Nevertheless, the GA succumbed to the illogic of it, and voted to acquiesce. The whole thing left a bad taste in Ifan’s mouth, but there it was.
“What we do now, Les,” he said, “is figure out how to turn this turd to our advantage.”
“What, like there’s an upside to having the Occupy bound and gagged?”
“That was how the people’s mike came about in the first place. No bullhorns in Zucotti Park and all that. It was a workaround.”
“Maybe so,” Les said, “but there’s more to it than just parroting the speaker. The mike demands involvement. Even if you aren’t making proposals or running a SIG, you still play a vital role because the people who do speak can’t be heard unless you participate. This abomination is going to eviscerate us!”
“Cut the drama okay? There’s always—.” Ifan was suddenly distracted by the sight of the Occupy’s tech team hurrying towards them with an open netbook in her hands. Angela Scarlotti was left holding the community’s tech bag solo after the others beat shoe leather following yesterday’s GA. As far as Ifan was concerned, their exit spoke more about their value to the community than anything they’d done before adversity had stared them down. He grinned as she slowed to catch her breath. “What’s up Ace?”
“You’ve got… to see this,” she said, dropping to a crouch in front of them so they could both view the small screen. “Early this morning, the rule we’ve been saddled with was also imposed on the downstate Occupy, only for them it was pre-emptive. They hadn’t done or planned anything to scare the power structure like we did. I guess they were ticked off about the rule, because they just about invited the cops to enforce it. Someone called for a mike check to greet the stormtroopers, and they dutifully started making arrests. Started. But then, one of them changed sides, and his buddy shielded him when the CO ordered him taken down. Anyway, they hauled everyone off and rent-a-fenced the site.”
“But if they’ve been shut down, what were you going to show us?” (more…)
Short Story: “Making it Count” October 4, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.Tags: 99%, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, occupy-wall-street, OWS, people's mike, protest, riot police
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What does it take to spur you into action? (This series began with “Crossing the Line“.)
“Making it Count”
(Part 2 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[9/30/2012]
“Holy crap,” 11-year-old Kendrik Knox whispered excitedly. As his dropped spoon hit the cereal bowl, he reached for the milk-splattered tablet beside it. “That’s Gram!”
K2, as Kendrik preferred to be called, was a news junkie. That was his grandmother Natalie’s doing. She was a librarian, and had shown him how to find out what was really going on in the world. Of course, his folks weren’t too thrilled with that. Especially his dad, who’d pretty much written his own mother off as a lost cause when she announced that she was joining the ninety-nine percent. That’s why she’d gotten him the pad for his birthday — so they could message one another surreptitiously, even when she was minding a bookstand in a vacant downtown building lot.
It was Monday, September 17th, 2012, the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and Kendrik was browsing the OWS livefeeds from around the world to see how the day was being celebrated when the master site suddenly switched to video from his own city. The camera was zoomed in on a woman with a book in her raised hand. The image was pretty shaky, but Kendrik would know his grandmother’s voice anywhere. “Good morning, officers,” she’d said, and the crowd, as the People’s Mike, echoed.
His eyes widened as the camera spun around to show the line of armored police she was addressing. Then it went back to his grandmother. It looked like she was scanning the street for someone. Whoever it was, she must have found them, because she straightened and stood silently for a few seconds. Then, in a loud, clear voice, she said, “We are non-violent.”
The livestreamer was startled by the sound of a police whistle, and spun back towards the cops. They had started to grab people and quickly zip plastic cuffs on them. The camera then turned back towards where his grandmother had been, but she was no longer there. It zoomed out momentarily, and then focused on a cop in the crowd. He was parting the people and leading someone in cuffs towards the street.
“Gram!” Kendrik cried. (more…)
Short Story: “Crossing the Line” September 25, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.Tags: confidence, control, occupy-wall-street, OWS, people's mike, power, protest
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Are you confident enough to speak truth to power? [Note: I blogged the process of developing this story idea.]
“Crossing the Line”
(Part 1 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[9/24/2012]
Central District City Councilwoman Sue Winston dropped her ever-present smile and nervously glanced around the shared office before answering. When she did, it was in little more than a whisper, and she’d cupped her free hand over the cell phone.
“You’re sure about this, Peter?” she said. “Mayor Svanstrom’s threatened to cut us out of the loop before, but this would be the first time he’d ever carried it out.”
“Absolutely, sis. My squad’s been issued blanket overtime approval for civilian management duty.”
She closed her eyes and fought the sudden chill in the room. So now they’re calling it ‘civilian management’, are they? Ever since Homeland Security began luring Svanstrom’s predecessors into militarizing the city’s police force, more and more managerial doublespeak had been drafted into a growing army of euphemisms. If they’d been on Skype, the dread she harbored would have been obvious. As it was, she was certain that her brother could read it just from the sound of her breathing. But because Peter chose to wait through the uncomfortable silence, rather than prompting her, a ragged semblance of sibling courtesy survived.
“Do you think it might get…” she said weakly, “…that you could get hurt?” (more…)
Short Story: “The Keeper’s Tale” June 1, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Fantasy & SF, Fiction, Magical & Psychic, Short Stories.Tags: ancient wisdom, magic, mysticism, religion
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In the mid-1970s, a friend of mine did something to my head that I will never forget. She was one of those very rare people who sometimes stepped aside and let another speak through her. Some call this ‘channeling’, and wrap the experience in mystery. For her, though, it was just a part of life. For me, it was a chance to ask questions. But the person I spoke with did more than just provide answers, she also demonstrated something for me, something that ensured I would accept as real what I had until then only tacitly agreed to believe — that waking reality is as real, and as mutable, as what we tell ourselves are dreams: she turned on a single-speaker radio, and let me hear the music in full surround. My friend also told me of a dream she had. That dream was the basis for this story, which I wrote soon afterwards.
“The Keeper’s Tale”
by
P. Orin Zack
Part I
Tearfully staring into emptiness, my tombstone dreams of ages past, of a time long since dimmed to myth when I was given my charge. My priestly duty was to guard the Tower, “place of the Gods”, until their return.
The legends had said it was built of magic, dust, and light, and that the Tower had stood, untouched by time, for longer than even time itself. How it was built had been long since forgotten. Yet it stood, and only the mythic caution against the Priests leaving it remained.
I was old then, and there was not another to take my place. I had roamed the grounds, wondering — always wondering, and searching for some remnant of Power in the great Rotunda which would help me to understand the deep mysteries of the Tower. One such day I chanced upon a stone. It was a stone of learning, for it talked to me inside my head, and its words were of the ancient days in the Valley, and of the glory, power, and beauty once surrounding the Tower. What it did not say was how that glory had vanished. (more…)
Short Story: “Stage Fright” May 28, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.Tags: disaster, investigation, manipulation, narrative, performance, power, singer/songwriter, subversive
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“Stage Fright”
by P. Orin Zack
[5/21/2012]
“Pardon me for asking, Mr. Welch, but you’re not having stage fright, are you?”
Feeling very alone in the empty limo, Evers Welch gazed through the darkened window at the big display over the row of doors across the street. People were still streaming into the concert hall, eager to experience his latest work. He caught the driver’s eyes in the mirror. “Maybe so, Jimmy,” he said, a bit perplexed. “That’s what’s so strange about it.”
“What is?”
The demand-pricing list on the display washed out to gray while the iconic photo of the disaster that had so traumatized the city years before faded in. It was followed by a series of rapid-fire overlays that turned it into the end-card from the trailer for the live cinema-cast of tonight’s performance. The stage in question extended well past the wooden one across the street.
“I haven’t had stage fright since the night I played my first song cycle in public. That was what, fifteen years ago?”
Jimmy nodded as the limo crept a few more feet. “The one about that Pinkerton guard in the Homestead Steel strike. I’ve seen the pirate video. You had stage fright? Could-a fooled me.”
Across the street, the giant end-card dissolved to the house concert photo of a twenty-something Evers Welch that had gone viral after that video was uploaded, and then to the cover art for the commercial release of the Pinkerton song cycle, which used it.
“Uh huh. I was petrified. Up ‘til then, I’d never laid my soul bare to tell a story. That was the first one I wrote about a real person. Before that, they were all made up. Fictional. Safe.”
“Then what’s different about tonight’s story? It’s about someone real, too, isn’t it?”
Evers turned away. “It was supposed to be,” he muttered. (more…)
Short Story: “Hot Seat” April 25, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Fantasy & SF, Fiction, Short Stories.Tags: ethics, experiment, Fiction, science fiction, short story, skunkworks
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“Hot Seat”
by P. Orin Zack
Audrey Fine pulled her gaze back from the grime-filtered lights of the city’s warehouse district beyond the wire-veined window, and nervously checked her watch. One twenty-eight AM. Another two minutes. “I hope Rhiannon’s alright.” She bit her lip and frowned at a tuft of orange fur drifting across the oddly shaped plastic shell that served as the test rig’s ‘hot seat’.
The rough hand resting gently on her bare shoulder gave a momentary squeeze. “You said she’s a smart cat. I’m sure she’ll figure it out.” It was Peter Avard, the other grad student who’d agreed to help Professor Elon Fuentes thumb his nose at the defense companies that kept waving huge checks at the university administrator. Besides being a chipfab whiz, Peter was a bit of a daredevil inventor, with scars to prove it.
“I hope you’re right.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, a twinge of concern itching at her mind. She almost felt like scratching it. (more…)
Short Story: “One Final Indignity” April 11, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Business, Fiction, Politics, Short Stories, Writing.Tags: discrimination, gender discrimination, homeless, sex discrimination, shelter, single woman, support network, writing, YWCA India
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This is the story that several recent posts have been about. If you compare the sections I included there, you can see the sort of editing that I do before declaring a story finished. It is the second in what has become a series that began with “Unspoken“.
“One Final Indignity”
(Part 2 of a series)
by P. Orin Zack
[3/25/2012]
Watching Rahila in profile against the row of storefronts beyond the sidewalk café, Samir noticed the tilt of her head change slightly in response to what the well-dressed man seated across from her had just said. A visceral reaction like that, he had told her, could sour the interview. She dare not panic and defer to him at this point, not after the build-up he’d just given her. Arranging an interview with a tech company’s Chief Technical Officer had been difficult enough. Carrying it out professionally was essential.
“Mr. Goenka,” she said unsteadily, “I do not regret how I handled that situation. Until the moment I was let go, there had never been a complaint about my work, and even then, the reason for my termination had nothing to do with my job performance. In fact…”
While she spoke, Samir shifted his attention and watched Goenka’s body language to gauge how Rahila was doing. The grey-haired man had finally unlaced his fingers and relaxed his hands on the table.
One of the things he’d learned at the first meeting of the newly created single-woman support network was that the emotional triggers that brought on discriminatory treatment was usually accompanied by a tell. Recognizing a person’s emotional state from such subtleties made it possible to use wordplay and body language to avert the worst of it. If he had known what to observe when his sister announced her plans to the family, he might have been able to stop their father from hurting her so badly.
As Rahila neared the end the narrative they had discussed, Samir noticed that Goenka’s hands had tightened, so he started looking for other clues. The man drew his head back slightly, blinked a few times and peered distractedly at something that was between and behind them. Just then, something broke through the din of chatter and street noise. A hoarse-voiced man was shouting angrily, and from the sound of it, approaching quickly. (more…)
“Red Queen at Morning” A 4-Part Metaphysical Adventure March 4, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Fiction, Metaphysics, Short Stories.Tags: dreams, higher self, metaphysics
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Red Queen at Morning
A 4-Part Metaphysical Adventure
By
P. Orin Zack
Part 1: Red Queen at Morning
People sometimes get so wrapped up in the need for their answers to be right that they lose sight of the need for them to be useful. The ancient system of circular epicycles, which Claudius Ptolemy perfected in the 1st century, was eminently useful for predicting the motion of planets. When Nicolai Copernicus proposed a sun-centered scheme in the 16th century, he replaced an intricate answer with an elegant one, but both still worked. In the 20th century, Albert Einstein found situations where Isaac Newton’s laws of motion were not useful, and formulated others that were.
The existence of simpler or more precise answers shouldn’t stop us from considering others, but rather teach us to be conscious of which one is the most useful for a given situation. Sometimes, as Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen implied, the only way to really understand something is to hold more than one model of it in our thoughts at once. (more…)
Short Story: “Unspoken” January 27, 2012
Posted by gznork26 in Business, Fiction, Politics, Short Stories.Tags: discrimination, gender discrimination, homeless, sex discrimination, shelter
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“Unspoken”
(Part 1 of a series)
[1/20/2012]
by P. Orin Zack
“And that’s all there is to it?” the gravelly voice in Rahila’s earpiece chortled.
“That’s right, Mr. Preston. I’m glad I could help.”
“And I’m glad,” he said earnestly, “that you were there to take my call. I was just about to throw this thing through the window. Thank you for making my day.”
After tapping her earpiece to end the call, Rahila typed a brief comment into the incident report, closed the dialog, and clicked over to her queue window. Where a few minutes earlier there had been details about the next few callers, now there was nothing.
“That’s odd,” she muttered, “what happened to—?”
Her curiosity abruptly turned to fear when a message window popped up, telling her to report to her supervisor’s office.
She stared at it for a few breathless moments before forcing herself to calmly rise and cross the cubicle farm towards her supervisor’s glass-faced office. A few coworkers glanced up as she passed, caught her eye, and quickly returned to their duties.
Following company protocol, she carefully tapped three times on the empty doorframe and waited to be permitted entrance.
The severe woman behind the desk closed her eyes briefly, but did not look up. “Sit down, Rahila.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There were two reasons for being asked to report to a supervisor’s office during a work-shift, but only one for having your queue cleared. Rahila nervously stared straight ahead while wracking her brain for the reason she was being fired. (more…)
