Archive for the 'Fiction' Category



Hooray! It’s time for another edition of… STRAINED ANALOGIES!

You’re driving a truck full of your own loved ones– children, significant others, your mom, pets, and whoever else is important in your life– over a treacherous mountain road. You’re determined, at any cost, to get to the scenic village at the peak. Too dangerous for a family outing, everybody said? HA! You’ll show them. No backing down now.

Every tight corner features a thousand foot drop with no railing. At first you overcompensate by veering away from the edge, hugging the inner rock wall. You reconsider this tactic upon passing a low row of white scrapes along the wall, and then an outcropping where a pair of tire tracks bounce away into the void. The children’s eyes are saucers, and your mom’s lips are moving wildly as she beseeches her God in silent prayer. Even the pets are shitting themselves.

Your significant other clutches your forearm and speaks in hushed tones. “Listen, hon, let’s just slow down and turn around. We can just stay at that motor inn we saw at the base of the mountain, right?”

Ashamed of your selfishness, you realize that maybe that this trip wasn’t such a good idea after all. Just what were you trying to prove, anyway? You are just about to apply the brakes, when…

…your heart jerks in your chest… there is a massive shape in the road dead ahead, only yards away… time slows to a crawl… is that what it looks like?… YES, IT IS…

You are milliseconds away from colliding head on into an ELEPHANT and a DONKEY. Just sitting there, in the middle of this narrow mountain road. Who knows why they are there. Perhaps someone is filming a clever political ad. Does it really matter? The fact is, there they are. A donkey, an elephant, and the likely death you and everyone you love.

Moment of truth time. What is your reflexive response?

    A. Swerve right and dive straight off the side of the mountain. Pretty much certain death for everyone, but at least you might have a fun ride for a few seconds on the way down.

    B. Swerve left and take your chances with scraping the rock wall like the car whose tire tracks you noticed before. Thing is, there’s another left turn just ahead, so if you don’t regain control fast, you’ll dive off the mountain anyway. But come on, at least there’s a CHANCE of survival.

    C. Aim to kill the animals by barreling straight into them, hoping that the impact of their destruction will stop the truck before it goes over the edge of the road. After all, there’s not only a donkey, there’s a frigging ELEPHANT in your way. Choose this way, and regardless if anybody is still actually remaining on the road at the end of it all, the highway will definitely be running with blood.

    D. Take your hands off the wheel and shake your fist at the sky, screaming, “Quin, this stupid little story of yours sucks ass. What am I supposed to be gaining from it?” Now, now. Let’s try to be constructive. You can be petulant if you want, but that’s not going to save you and everyone you ever loved from horrible grisly ends, will it?

    The question is: how to love?
    You don’t know a thing unless you are perceiving it. This isn’t an epistemological statement—you are not meant to take this and run round-and-round in the solipsist death spiral. “My perceptions are necessarily imperfect,” you are not supposed to say, “ergo I cannot know anything.”
    This is a statement about all […]

    The War on Misbehavior

    “Billy, can you come downstairs for a minute? Your father and I would like to talk to you.”
    Billy popped the pause button on his controller and flicked a glance at the oversized digits hanging above his TV. “Gotta head over to Derrick’s in a few. Can it wait till later?” The […]

    Academonia

    “I can’t believe I’m really here.”
    Janet spun slowly in the middle of the campus square, taking in the stately presence of her university surroundings. Backpacks, cell phones, and iPods swirled around her as she gaped at the ivy-covered brick buildings. Janet could practically feel the intellectual energy being sent and received on the other […]

    Once upon a time, there lived a timid, scatterbrained propagandist named Screech. All day Screech scrawled on the walls of his Creamy Palace, eating paste and complaining of his life as a “hausfrau,” which is pixie-speak for “intellectual failure.”
    One day, a big, bad wolf from Southpaw came to Screech’s Palace dressed as a teacher […]

    Contrary to what you’ve been told, it isn’t easy for a nice guy to get the right girl.
    If you were writing a romantic comedy, I’d be the leading man, a real catch played by a big star like Matthew Perry or Billy Crystal. Check the stats:
    *I’m smart, and I’ve got the MIS degree to […]




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