The Indifference Engine

Foundation

“And in here is the master bathroom” said the realtor, with the requisite sweeping arm gesture.

“Oh look dear, it’s got the kind of shower head you like.”

The realtor ushered the young couple into the next room of the house, “And this is the master bedroom.”

“I’m not so sure about that wallpaper.”

“I’ve been assured that the previous owner will be taking it with him he leaves.”

The young couple made various affirmative cooing noises and followed the realtor down stairs.

“And as you can see the kitchen has all of the modern amenities, electric stove, dishwasher, over there’s the door to the basement where lurks the dark truths that if exposed will pull the house into the nether-realms, and of course a modern fringe with ice-maker.”

The young couple nodded agreeable for most of this before the husband piped up, “Erm, what was that last thing you said?”

“The fridge? Yes I know the color isn’t all that, but I think you’ll be very happy with it-“

“No, er, not the fridge, the thing before that, about the truths and nether-realms and whatnot.”

“Oh was it not explained to you at the office? This house is built on a lie.”

“Built-“

“On a lie, yes” the realtor pressed onward towards the back garden, “Now the back lawn is really quite something-“

The young woman cut him off, “But what do you mean, by ‘built on a lie’?”

The realtor sighed heavily, “Look it’s perfectly simple, in the basement of this house is a lie which if exposed, will cause the house to collapse in on itself and drag its terrified inhabitants to the dark place where screams are born. But as long as you can maintain the lie, it’s a perfectly lovely house, especially this back garden-”

“But what sort of lie is it that we’re meant to be maintaining? How are we supposed to keep it going if we don’t know what it is?”

“Ah that’s the beauty of it, see in some older homes you’d have them built on lies that the occupants made up themselves, but the architects have found that the strongest lies are the ones we tell ourselves to keep from confronting the darkness in our own souls. Now if you’re satisfied with that, that back garden is-“

“Uh, yeah, I don’t think we’re entirely comfortable, so could you maybe show us what you have in a non-lie based home?”

“Well if you insist, but you aren’t going to find a house in such a fantastic neighborhood in your price range that isn’t built on a lie.”

Cocktails in the Clouds

“Still it’s a nice night for it.”

Karen turned to face the man who had joined her at the window; his face glowed in the eerie light from outside.

“I’m sorry?”

The man handed her a cocktail, “I said it’s a nice night for it.”

“Oh…yes, I suppose it is.”

Karen sipped idly at the cocktail and turned back to watch the lightshow, the cocktail’s frilly umbrella seemed especially pointless now.

“Who do you think it was?”

“Hmm?”

“I said, who do you think it was that…you know, touched it off.”

“The Russians or the Chinese I expect, ‘we will bury you’ and all that.”

“Hmmm”

Karen turned away from the window, “So how do you know Dave and Sandra?”

The man stirred his drink pointlessly for a moment, as if there was any other way to do anything now, “I’m their accountant actually.”

“Do you get invited to a lot of parties by your clients?”

“No…this is the first one…I was actually having a rather good time until…” He trailed off in that particular way that people do when the end of a sentence is so obvious as to be redundant. “Kinda makes the whole thing even sadder doesn’t it?”

“Not a great deal, no” Karen turned back to the window to watch the mushroom clouds dance.

tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?

It’s a three way tie between Zeppelins, the Theremin, and Ganymede.

Four Paragraph Mystery

The primly dressed body lay in the middle of the room looking, for all the world, like the aftermath of a particularly rowdy penguin frat party.

Except for the two-inch hunting knife in the small of his back he could almost be napping, on his face, in a pool of blood.

The inspector had ruled out suicide almost immediately, and accident seemed unlikely given that the acrobat knife collector’s convention was being held on the other side of town.

But that just left the inspector with the question of the hour, who would murder the world’s most famous butler, in the middle of the world’s largest butler convention?

Brain

I think my brain tried to run away once.

It probably just couldn’t stand the shame of it anymore, so it made a break for it.

I don’t really blame it, if I had the option, I’d probably try to distance myself from this trainwreck too.

So long story short, I now own a large collection of reinforced earmuffs.

Chicken

I played a game of “Chicken” with society today.

Society won.

Odds-on that it’s for the best though.

Nuclear holocaust probably isn’t half as fun as it sounds.

Doubleplusgood Limericks

In the year of our Lord eighty-four

Winston Smith’s job is a bore

He spends all his days

In a Victory gin haze

Making people not exist anymore.

 

Thank God we’re at war with Eurasia

They all sound like they’ve got aphasia

We’ll fight all the year

From Darwin to Tangier

Thank God we’re at war with Eastaisa.

 

Miniluv’s lodgings are frightful

And O’Brien’s insistence quite spiteful

That two and two’s five

Smith won’t leave alive

And now he thinks Big Brother’s delightful.

The Long Goodnight

The sky was dark green that April 14^th. It had been for a week and a half, both dark green and April 14th. We didn’t get specific days that often, but when we did they tended to stick around.

I was in my office making a cup of Joe, then me and Joe were fishing down by the river, then I realized I was flying and Joe had never been there. Then I woke up and remembered I hadn’t been sleeping, that I had never slept. Nobody in this city sleeps, or rather, everyone’s asleep—they’re just always awake for it.

This is getting a little too philosophical so let me ground you in the unreality of the situation: my name is Carl, Carl Young, P.I or maybe it’s I.P. It might be both but let’s make a “pres” of you and me, and presume it’s P.I.

Anyway, I hope you don’t mind me leaving this hole in the fourth wall here but it lets in a lot of light and without the curtains my Feng Shui would be off.

So, there I was in my office in the subconscious district and Joe was nowhere to be seen, when all of a sudden my dream girl walked in…

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