Kate daubed fingerpaints onto a canvas and began to smear. Reds,
oranges and bilious greens--her obvious anger acquired an even more con-
crete form as she worked. When she spoke, she did not turn her head.
	"Thierry, tell me what happened."
	"Our man in Liverpool was much fatter than you said. We saw him
outside the library in a felt hat. He knew the code words and had a sat-
chel for us. There was no question in my mind it was him. He left on a bus;
we walked back."
	"Farah."
	Farah cleared her throat. "He wasn't fat, but he had a heart cond-
ition. He was holding a bottle of nitroglycerine pills. When we asked for
the satchel, he tipped his hat to us--a Panama hat--and started to run. We
flagged down a cab, but he was already gone."
	"Asya." Paint, paint, paint.
	"We saw someone chasing a fat man toward the library and Farah sug-
gested we grab both of them. The big one had a Liverpudlian accent; he said
it was a gambling dispute. Fedora guy, the one running after the fat one
screaming his head off, HE gave the code words and told us the satchel was
in Fatty's duffel bag. Dude dropped the duffel and ran for it, but we didn't
find anything inside."
	Kate stood up and stepped aside to reveal a lifelike portrait.
	"That's him," Farah said. "That's the one."
	Shaking her head, Thierry said, "That looks like the bus driver,
maybe."
	Kate picked up another canvas.
	"Really," said Asya, "it looks like the two guys put together. But
neither of them had a monocle."
	"They both did!"
	"You didn't say anything about a second man, Farah."
	"There was, long before we got to the library. He lifted his shirt
to show he wasn't wearing a transmitter. I think he had inverted nipples.
We still didn't quite trust him, though, so we didn't go forward."
	"Thierry?"
	"This is true. His nipples were normal, though. The veins on his
head throbbed when we started putting pressure on him. He told us he had
congenital hypertension. He wore a top hat; no monocle."
	"You're a liar," Asya hissed.
	Kate's fingernail caught on a staple as she moved to hold up the
second canvas. Her face contorted in pain.
	Pointing at Farah, Thierry intoned, "Ask her what she found in the
duffel bag."
	"You said there wasn't one," Farah growled back.
	"You're a LIAR."
	From the ground, Farah's face looked up at them off of Kate's sec-
ond painting.
	"LIAR!"
	Kate screamed into her hat, again and again. Blood from her nail
ran down the side of her hand. She couldn't drown them out.
	"LIAR!"

written for Farah and Asya at my kitchen table 10/9/01

About time for some good old-fashioned vague ominousness -- I haven't really done one like that since #11. This may be the first time I've flat-out ended in medias res, though that was the plan from the beginning, not the result of the time limit.

So, what to do when you don't have a story? I don't make any promises of high quality, but a story about writer's block would be incredibly embarrassing. It would also, I realized, be completely wrong. My problem wasn't having no story; I had too many, but couldn't decide which (if any) were any good. Presto! A mildly self-referential story idea, which bootstrapped itself into a moderately tense anti-mystery.

Biggest problem: I like the image of someone screaming into a hat, but I'm not sure I earned it with the rest of the story. Biggest success: 60 minutes on the timer now feels consistently manageable; short enough to keep me moving, long enough to finish. There's dialogue in this one I'd like to revise, but overall, I'd be quite happy if I could do this well most of the time. (It's 1:30 am now; maybe I'll like it less once I've slept.)

I like to think I'm somewhat smart, but writing these stories has reminded me how many things I don't know. Is 'Thierry' a woman's name? What kinds of hats aren't made out of felt? Do you take nitroglycerine for high blood pressure, or for some other heart problem? Is there such a thing as congenital hypertension? An 'eyeglass' is a monocle and a 'spyglass' is a telescope, not the other way around... right?

Of course, guessing and making things up have a respectable heritage as the solution to humanity's unanswered questions. As above, so below.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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