Litkicks Message Board Archive

Sci-fi oblivion.

The dangers of science fiction is a short slippery tube to a quick oblivion.

***

I always seem to start off running down some back street or another right when I wake up. Splashing puddles, knocking down trash cans, bumping into someone smoking a cigarette, rebounding off and running, running always.

I know someone's following me, because I always get shot in the back and die. Sometimes, slowly, with the last feeling I get for that day is hair soaking up stagnat alley water and my cheek against the cool uneven asphalt. But most of the time I'm dead before I hit the ground.

Once, I had a gun in my hand and even managed to fire it over my shoulder. My aim was poor, far too high and way to the left.

***

I always manage to start off running down some alleyway or another each day, being chased by somebody who's close, too close. They'll grab me by my collar and throw me up against a dumpster, or tackle me at the waist and stick a knife in my kidneys. It always ends with the sound of a vibrascaple humming or a surgical saw starting up.

I think once, they removed my entire spinal cord. I didn't feel much in the way of pain, but I could feel the pressure and tugging.

***

It always begins with me eating in a restaurant, looking around, as if I heard or suspected something.

I looked left once, and a bomb off to my right went off. I flew over sideways and blacked out. Another time, a burlap sack went over my head. I was dragged up stairs, out into the night. I forced a hand free and swung, but got nothing but air. Someone shouldered me from behind, and that sickening sensation of falling, the kind that grabs your crotch. Winds caught the sack and I saw the hood of a police car for a split second.