Rain comes from the constellation of Orion: one million arrows,
blunted by their travels, plapping down on the generous and the selfish
alike. Well. I don't travel much in the rain, even though I'm sure I
could use it.
	I came back from the convenience store with a carton of milk and
batteries for the flashlight. Our power goes out most nights now for at
least a few minutes. I have discovered that Cassiopeia is not the only
one who sends us darkness, but like most people I'm used to warding the
dark off one way or another. Lately it doesn't inconvenience me as much;
in the dark I still sketch monsters. Half of the pencils, maybe more,
turn out well enough for me to bring them into work and flesh them out
into background characters on Fairy Fairground, my children's show. It
hasn't worked out how I envisioned it. When I told them that, the pro-
ducers suggested I could work more on atmosphere, less on the plots. I
took the hint.

	If you've ever poured cough syrup over a candle before lighting
it, you may have noticed the candle then burns longer and brighter. I
don't know why this is. I lit some NyQuil candles and sat down at my
easel. I had the flashlight right next to my feet where I could keep
track of it at the same time as I was drawing, in case the candles went
and I needed a light source to retrieve my matches, which stay in the
kitchen.
	My first few pieces filled in gaps left by the departure of my
show's only corpulent actor. Children can sense, when a skinny actor
wears a fat suit, that they are not interacting with the body directly.
These new creatures I drew, like the ones they will replace, live in Ant-
arctica, deep below the surface. The Fairy Fairground scientists have a
plan to increase the world's supply of giggle scoops, but the plan calls
for Antarctic exploration. These monsters prevent the world's children
from eating ice cream out of giggle scoops. For now. Some time in next
year's run I expect all that will change.

	The moon, visible squarely in the center of my window, put out
the candles, one by one, just as I tried to extend the night's run of
successes into a sketch for a genuinely new character, something the
audience would never have seen before. Some types of dark are fine for
pencilling; not all. I kicked the flashlight back and forth with my toes,
finding it reassuring in its heaviness. Work could wait until the power
returned, I thought.
	I unscrewed the lid off the cough syrup and took a long drink.
The Red Fairy, I used to call it. I'd made a point of not picking up any
more at the All-Nite, earlier, so what was left from prepping the candles
only just barely affected me.
	Gravity is Mars' gift: all and only gravity. I can't always say
yes to that gift, but last night in my chair, with the syrup and the dark
and half a monster's forehead on the easel, I damn well soaked it up.

written for Amanda Barry in my living room 1/21/02

Hey, I'm back. The fact is that I cheated with this one -- I started it a week or two ago and then froze in terror at how it was failing to take shape. It sat in the typewriter, in my room, until this afternoon, when I realized I was being a wimp. The IDEA was that this only takes an hour of my life, no matter how well or poorly it goes. No guilt, no hubris.

After all that, I thought of an ending which I think nearly redeems it. I don't know how it'll work for you, dear reader, but I feel the last two paragraphs are pretty smooth. I'm glad that I ended up with something tolerable to give to Amanda, who is (to date) the only patron I've met in a bar. Three cheers for her (and a quieter auxiliary cheer for my spiffy new business cards).

On the other hand, spending six weeks not writing has eaten into my willingness to accept sloppy writing as a matter of course. Doing the novel may have compounded the effect. So, what next? I don't know; hopefully more of these, with something else thrown in.

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

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