Things Khanem the Everhungry Refuses to Eat, Loosely Organized According to Why

Inconvenience: Heads of state. Jewish mothers. Asian grandmothers. Grass. Whole pomegranates. Whole mountain ranges. Tollbooth operators. Too much cabbage. Everything. Another of his master's (Edgrit, Commander of the Legions of Sorrow, bringer of heat and villainy to man, wolf, and certain shellfish, hero of the Culling, most generous master)'s henchmen. The climate. Russia. Himself. A huge hippopotamus, which if a hippopotamus had grown huge enough could probably inconvenience him a lot if he tried to eat one, but he'd never found or tried to find one so huge, it just probably would not be worth the effort, hassle, or time because hippopotami are generally kind of dicks. Nebulae. Very stubborn pistachios. Corn on the cob (unless dipped in melted butter, in which case the taste outweighs the awkwardness.) Mops. Her memories, which she had stored deep in the back of her mind, which he longed to eat, but were hidden like secret messages written in the fissures of a broken vase which had long been glued over and could not be seen again, but the writer and perhaps those she told knew they were there, but not what they said or even if what she said they said was true. Old coins. Above average fast insects.

Possible (but so far untested) retribution: Angels. Non-orphaned, non-hated, non-step- children. People driving cars he rode in. Chorizo. Dogs with woolly winter coats, because mother always said that the fur would grow in his stomach and he would become a dog himself and never turn back and being a dog for eternity may sound fun now what with an unlimited supply of frisbee throwers and kibble, but thousands of years down the line he would regret not being able to be bipedal for when the end of times comes, dogs would certainly be low on the list of creatures to inherit the earth. Relics and reliquaries of St. Theodore the Stratelate, especially the funny bits. Bodhisattvas. Nothing, for the rest of eternity. Her smile, because he told her once that it was possible, and she whispered so her breath was in his ear, “If you eat this last thing of mine, I'll make it so you can eat nothing else afterwards.” Volcanos. Leprechauns. Cats with patterns in their fur of the insignia of Chzal, his master's great enemy, whose armies once rose to challenge Lucifer and who was defeated by his master, but Lucifer rewarded his bravery and free will, of which his own master was violently jealous. Koi in ponds of holy water. Knights templar. Redheads with pale skin and freckles. Fruit bats with pale skin and freckles. China.

Generalized grossness: Woolly mammoths, hair on. Icelandic dwarves, with their sinister smiles and miners' lungs, singing their throats raw about the fruits of the earth. Raw octopus. Sashimi, unless he closes his eyes and pretends it's bits of white whale, which it almost never is, but girls on dates tend to like sushi a lot, although it is disgusting to eat and even worse to watch someone else eat; he was thankful she never asked, as if she knew already the face he'd make, and he loved her for that, too. Polaroids. Whole boxes of kleenex. Coffee that had been turned into crystals. A lot of plastic. Overripe dumpsters. Bleu cheese has mold built right into it, did you know? Embalming fluid and specialized embalmers.

Gross texture, specifically: Tomatoes.

Indescribable: The feeling she felt when she saw him, crafted before her, and the warm glow in her eyes, even though he warned her that he had shaped himself out of his imagination, and she told him that she did not care, that she could see his inner self despite the fact that he and his master (Edgrit, the never faithful, honored torturer of adultresses and political traitors, father to three thousand sons who would scourge the earth's creatures with their sharp ice breath, but who loved none save those enslaved to him) had for millennia concealed his original being in layers of moldable flesh and bone until he was a creature of nightmares, but that one night in white Antioch, he made himself a man for her dark hands and dark hair, and found that he could not consume the feeling she felt when she saw him bare.

On Principle: Good mathematicians. Grenades (that's just silly.) His mother. Glass. The singing stones of Brazil. The last of anything. Archaeopteryces. His master, Edgrit the everlonely, who rules his domain under the great Lucifer, burning bright of his own will but ever shadowed by greater powers ruling his destiny, who molded Khanem out of brick and blood and harvested his blood from 97 virgins and kept the last three as his brides so that they would be bound together and he would have a servant who could never betray, never deceive, for although those three former virgins left him for Lucifer the great, Lucifer the bold, the 97 in Khanem himself never would. Fundamentalist latter day saints. Fairy tale villains. Out-of-season squash. Trees over three centuries old. Small things born before their eyes have a chance to open, also tadpoles. Her, unless his master Edgrit the merciful ordered him to, which he did only once, and never again. Peas.

Unnamed Vampire Story 1

Marion was glad that she had accepted the last-minute face powder the show’s makeup girl had offered before stepping under the bright stage lights. She decided that the hot-burning whiteness could come from nothing in nature. Later, she would call her husband, and he would reassure her that her forehead was not shiny like a new car. But she didn’t believe it now, and she wouldn’t believe it later, looking for flaws on their TiVo. However, blasting towards the Redding Report’s stage desk in her new pumps made her feel like a superstar, and even she had to agree that her smile was radiant.

Clarence Redding, a notorious liberal pundit, was in his 20th year yelling at a camera about his agenda, and his age had only made him louder. He introduced her with an old timey auctioneer’s holler: “Ladies and gentleman, the potential first lady, Marion Summers.”

The words rolled off her tongue robotically, “Great to be here, Clarence.”

“So let’s get right to it. Vampire rights. Warren Kerrigan’s campaign has been giving your husband a lot of flak about this controversial subject. Now, the vampire vote carried Mark Summers to victory in California. Do you think Small Town, USA will buy it?”

Her husband’s PR team had given her a basic rundown of the things Redding would ask in advance, but it was essentially a lecture on the party line. Rosa, the media director, had finally buckled under Marion’s stress and told her, “Just talk how you want. We’re getting major blue collar votes from the way you talk straight and hit below the belt. Punching that racist at the last rally really got the middle aged white voter’s attention. You being you is your husband’s best chance.”

So Marion smiled, looked Redding in the eye, and said, “Do you mean evangelical Christian America, Clarence? I think you do. I’ve heard the in-human, in prison argument that Governor Kerrigan is making. But vampirism is a somewhat small movement at this point. When Joe Six-Pack sees another opportunity to spend time with his dad or his mom after their cancer treatments fail—which would not happen if the esteemed other candidate hadn’t voted against health care reform when he was a representative—then maybe they’ll come around. Now, they only see a subculture in those freaks out on the coasts. What we’re seeing is an opportunity for all of the country to heal, to reinvent themselves and reconcile with death in a different way. It’s a resurrection, Clarence, plain and simple, and it’s about time middle America gives that a second thought.”

This close to the TV personality, she imagined a smile that the cameras wouldn’t catch. Maybe later, they would edit the twinge away, so that the network could maintain its alleged no-bias policy. Clarence continued, “Your husband, a second-term senator, has spoken out against the career politician. Wouldn’t increase vampire rights encourage not just a lifetime politician, but an anti-lifetime government man?”

Marion nodded sagely in a way that she had seen thousands of other senators’ wives nod. She hoped she had gotten it right enough to carry on the legacy of the hot first lady. “No, of course not. I don’t think a vampire will be elected into office any time soon. I’ve spent a lot of time in the shelters and halfway houses in Oakland and the Bay area, and this isn’t a condition where you can just slather on some sunscreen and hop on a bus to Disneyland. These people are in pain when the sun’s out. A full-time vampiric candidate could never sit long enough in the Capitol to do their job. Not that I know many Republican senators who make it out to cast votes full-time, mind you.”

A chuckle from the audience. She understood then what her husband meant about momentum during the media parade. She took a breath and kept on going. “But you don’t see many beggars or battered women on the hill either. So we all get together and do what we can: select a person who will represent us, no matter how badly the world has treated us. My husband is ready to listen to everyone and do what he can to ensure that all human beings get fair treatment in these great United States.”

And there it was, that little grin again. For the rest of the interview, even after her impassioned rant on education reform, Marion didn’t see it again. Later, as she played and replayed the clip, her husband would be unable to see what she saw. After her futile search, they would go to sleep, as they had for 20 years, their fingers entwined.

Future Diary 1

While moving out, I found a picture of Tiger. It was a picture that my mom took on a digital camera, printed out on a bad color printer, ripped off the page in a tiny square and snail mailed to me. It was taped on my computer case for the years where I was in college and away from him, and it sat on the bottom shelf of a bookcase after he died. Without any help, without anyone with me, I took him to the vet and had him put down on April 21st, 2007. All four of my blood grandparents are still alive, and my three remarried grandparents are as well. I've never known a person well who's died, and I've certainly never been responsible for it. Putting down my cat was the saddest thing I've ever done. I was 23, and he was 20. We spent 18 years together.

In the past few months, I've adopted two more cats, both a year or younger. I will hopefully get over twelve years with each of them, maybe 20, like my Tiger. I will be 43 by then.

I suspect that touch/slide technology will dominate everything--lights and electronics will be panel-controlled, and everything will have an interactive component. We'll be able to vote for things on TV without having to call in, maybe even vote for large-scale things like political elections. Everything will be fingerprint ID-protected but still faster, more convenient.

I hope we have a new form of car by then. I want a more aerodynamic, more sleek design, that doesn't depend so much on specific user function. I still suspect that it will be miserable getting through Tysons, but it would be much nicer if we could guarantee that the traffic lights would function better in a thunderstorm. I think the storms will get worse--in the time that I've been here, the weather has only gotten more extreme in Virginia. We'll start having superstorms, and need to develop better materials to protect us again. Once, we used brick and stone to guard us from nature. I think we'll end up using plexiglass or titanium: something strong, light, reflective, and easily manufactured.

I wonder if America will have been invaded by then. I doubt it.

I think our financial system will be revamped. Because of the more advanced ID system, people will be able to keep track of their taxes and such more readily. Because of the sometimes ineptitude of the current generation, the next one will devalue old people, and social security will undergo serious reforms so that two young people don't shoulder the weight of one AARPer.

I hope I live in a two-story house in a bad neighborhood with a security system that actively punishes criminals on the grounds. The police will be spread thin and demoralized, and the world will be scarier, but third parties will create technology that make it simpler for the private citizen to protect himself.

I think women will be more equal and louder about inequality. However, insurance companies will start covering more childcare, abortions, and birth control medication. As a private organization, I don't think they can help but see that women will need medical attention for that kind of thing, and shouldn't be doing it off the books. Schools will pass out more condoms to fewer complaints.

But when I'm 43 and my kitty dies, I'm still going to fall onto my neo-linoleum floor and cry for a day. I'm going to take her to the vet, who's going to stroke her and pump her full of a different-but-the-same pink fluid. I'm going to watch her fight it, bite me, and then slowly her eyes will just lose their sparkle, their responsiveness. I'm going to be very, very upset, and maybe my android companion will have to drive me home. It won't be fair, but then again, it's never fair.

The future will make our lives easier, I think.

Human Resources 1

It wasn't until after General Motors, Toyota, and AstroTransport/Volkswagon discontinued their wheeled vehicle factories that experts on Wall Street declared that the age of repulsor-based travel had begun. The Department of Transportation gathered manufacturers from around the globe at a roundtable to discuss how a new traffic infrastructure should work. They spoke ambitiously of gravity-repelling highways, of skydrives and mobile hover cities. But the new, wary president of the United States opted instead for a conservative, tax-saving plan, and two years later, the old asphalt roads had been repaved with a smooth, friction-reducing surface that looked like rivers of volcanic glass.

Nike and Adidas responded warmly. In the same fiscal quarter as the wall street announcement, the two athletic giants began a new line of jogging shoes with comfortably friction-sensitive silicone soles. By the time working crews speed-heated the hover-friendly surface material, a new generation of young people, barely weaned off of their organically grown soymilk, had already chosen their globalization-sensitive footwear and were ready to pound the pavement.

Because of new safety regulations and extra sensors built in to detect and accomodate single-occupant vehicles and pedestrians on the road, sidewalks had been mostly abandoned. When his mother demanded to know why he still insisted on walking on that damned cement, Jeremy Hernandez told her that if he was held away from mother Gaia, he would lose his magical strength. She flicked him on the nose. "Screw mother earth. She's a bitch. I'm your only mom."

After a volcanic adolescence and four estranged years while Jeremy went to college on the other side of the country, he returned to D.C. and his mother with an appreciation of the kind of woman he was. At school, he had dated four hawkish, demeaning, and large-breasted women with fabulous hair before he realized that he had a Freudian attraction to women just like Laura Hernandez. They reunited at a D.C. steakhouse (she did not attend his graduation from UCLA), and, breaking a nine year habit, he listened to what she had to say. As a result, he ended up asking for their waitress's phone number; a month earlier, he never would have looked at a girl as slight and shy as Rupal Panneer.